Men’s Rights Activists regularly complain that it is mostly men who serve in the armed forces, and that it is mostly male soldiers who are killed and injured in service to their country in wartime. MRAs also complain that, in the United States, only men have to sign up for the draft – though this is more of a formality than anything else, as the draft has been dead for decades and there is virtually no chance of it being resurrected any time soon.
MRAs love to cite the dominance of men in the armed forces as a prime example of what they call “male disposability,” and somehow manage to blame feminists for it all.
But it’s not feminists who are trying to keep women from becoming soldiers, or serving in combat. While some MRAs support the idea of women serving in the army, and having to register for the draft the same as men do, many others scoff at the very notion of women as soldiers, mocking their alleged female “weakness” and in some cases denigrating the service of women now in the armed forces as being equivalent to attending “day care camp.” (Not exactly.) These MRAs may complain that men bear the brunt of the costs of war. But they don’t actually want women to serve.
Not that it makes much of a difference, because the MRAs who do supposedly want women to share the same responsibilities as men aren’t doing shit about it. You know who is? Feminists. The National Organization for Women, while opposing the draft, has long argued that if registration is required of men, it should also be required of women. NOW has also opposed the ban on female soliders serving in combat. (Not that it’s easy to draw a clear line between combat and non-combat positions on the contemporary battlefields.)
Meanwhile, a group called the Molly Pitcher Project, made up of University of Virginia law students and headed by feminist law professor Anne Coughlin, is assisting two female soldiers who are now suing the Pentagon in an attempt to lift the combat ban.
Do you want to know who is opposing them – aside from the Pentagon’s lawyers? Take a look at some of the comments posted in response to a Los Angeles Times article on the lawsuit. Note: The quotes below are pretty egregious; some deal with military rape in a really offensive way. (Thanks to Pecunium for pointing me to them.)
These aren’t “cherry-picked” from hundreds of comments; these are the bulk of the comments that were left on the article.
Are any of these commenters MRAs? Maybe, maybe not, but certainly their misogynistic “logic” is virtually identical to that I’ve seen from misogynist MRAs opposed to women serving in combat. One thing they are clearly not is feminist.
If MRAs, or at least some of them, truly want a world in which men and women share equally in the responsibilities of military service (and both have equal opportunties for military leadership), they need to challenge the misogynists — within their movement and without — who argue that women simply aren’t fit for the battlefield. And they need to support the feminists who are actually trying to make a difference — instead of standing on the sidelines crying foul.
I don’t hold out much hope that this will ever happen. MRAs are much too enamored with their fantasies of male martyrhood.
There are 2 critical changes that need to be made to the Military now that women can serve in all branches and do any job except be a Navy SEAL(AFAIK).
1. Since AFAIK women are allowed to serve in all branches of the military(except the Navy SEALS), time to modify the selective service system to compel women to register for the draft.
2. The Military shall reserve the right to dishonorably discharge women who get pregnant while in active service. I daresay that women serving on submarines and in ground forces combat units should be required to use birth control pills while on active duty.
3. Keep the Navy SEALS and other special forces regiments 100% male.
DBH: I do mean that. Care to read my other posts, or just reaching as is typical? If what you say you’ve done is indeed true, you prove my point that there has to be reintegration.
Really? How so? What, Mr. Freud, is my integrational difficulty? Are you taking my hostility to your hypocrisy as a result of my being in the Army?
Get real.
Like I said, if you really think that only people who have served are in a position to talk about it, you should stop talking about it.
Otherwise it’s you using cheap rhetoric to make those whom you dislike/disagree with stop talking; which would, conveniently give you the last word.
“Please, tell me about the vast difference in mindset, the one that makes it so difficult to fit into civilian society again.”
Ill let google do the work on that one 😉
google.com/search?q=ptsd
I see, so being in the Army, at all, gives one PTSD. Because you haven’t been talking about combat, but about simple service in the “army”.
So we can add goalpost shifter to the list of problems with your argument.
Wait… Ancient Aliens… You think that not entertainint the idea that humans weren’t capable of building the pyramids, or had the patience to make closefitting drystone buildings proves that extraterrestrials must have done it is, “only reasonable”, or something (the things I seem to have missed by attending a wake).
So this farrago of an insult to the intelligence isn’t really new for you. Have we interacted elsewhere?
DBH: I am in no way trivializing PTSD, that certainly isnt my intention, I have only respect for our soldiers
No you don’t. You mouth platitudes (such as, “I have only repsect for our soldiers” and then do things like say they all have PTSD, can’t hold a “normal” job and are so alien in mindset† that they need to be reprogrammed after they leave.
You do all this while blathering about how civilians don’t have the depths of understanding needed to actually discuss the subject. Yet here you are, “respecting” the soldiers you say you can’t understand, by telling us all about their mental problems.
Well, no, you aren’t even honest enough to do that; rather pretending that a google search for the generic term, “PTSD” will explain it all to us.
This is your idea of respect? I’d rather have the insults be overt, rather than this passive aggressive folderol.
† which I’d love to have explained to me; what is the mindset I have which makes it impossible for me to fit in without, “reintegrating”.
I’m completely pro robot wars on the moon. 🙂
(in second thought they might destroy it. Maybe after we all agree not to use nuclear weapon? in third though, I vote to replace all war by go/chess/etc games. Robots allowed)
Noname dude, you’re an asshole. Do I even need to explain why? I don’t think so.
MertvayaRuka wrote: “VoIP, wait for it, I’m sure one of them will start blabbering about Russian women in combat being a product of the evils of SOSHULISM.”
If you want a similar story about American women, see ‘Women Airforce Service Pilots.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Airforce_Service_Pilots
“Thirty-eight WASP fliers lost their lives while serving during the war –- all in accidents—eleven in training and twenty-seven on active duty. Because they were not considered military under the existing guidelines, a fallen WASP was sent home at family expense without traditional military honors or note of heroism. The army would not even allow the U.S. flag to be placed on the coffin of the fallen WASP.”
@monsieur sans nom
1. As has been stated over and over on this log, as well as on this very same post, feminists are already against a male-only draft. It should either be open to all genders or (in my opinion preferably) not exist at all.
2. Why dishonorable discharge? I mean, my knowledge of the term is not that great, but a simple search gives me “Dishonorable discharges are handed down for what the military considers the most reprehensible conduct.”. What is this “most reprehensible” conduct here, having sex? If that’s the case then I assume you’d want the person that got her pregnant to be dishonorably discharged as well, right? Or is this “most reprehensible” conduct simply getting pregnant? In which case, why should it be treated differently from any other soldier becoming incapacitated from duty? Not to mention that there is always the option of terminating the pregnancy.
3.Why? What makes the Navy SEALS and other special forces regiments so different that women shouldn’t be allowed in them?
“Well, not out of existence actually. More to the point of self-immolation. They aren’t actually erased from existence, not even the Social Justice Arsenal can do that yet.”
So now Thomas Ball’s suicide is the result of the mockery of feminist bloggers?
Fuck you, factfinder. He was an abusive asshole whose last move when he could no longer control others was to make it as emotionally damaging as possible to resist his abuse, and he even published a manifesto actually calling for violence.
You think you’re not like those OTHER, BAD MRAs while you’re going around using the punitive suicide of an abuser who called for violence as a rhetorical bludgeon? Go fuck yourself, factfinder, you might actually find a fucking clue. I have no compunction about mocking your sorry ass, and if you think this is “bullying” to say so, just turn your browser somewhere where they will not challenge your comfortable misogynistic delusion.
*over and over on this blog I mean
Monsieur Sans Clue has probably seen too many action movies with SEALS, so he thinks there’s no way women could ever be elite fighting forces.
Nameless: 1. Since AFAIK women are allowed to serve in all branches of the military(except the Navy SEALS), time to modify the selective service system to compel women to register for the draft.
You are wrong. The SEALs aren’t a branch of service. (what, btw, makes SEALs so special? SF ATeams not manly enough for you? Marine Recon too soft-hearted? AF ParaRescue lacking in courage? What?)
Women are, in all services, denied slots in “combat” units. They are, however, allowed to be, “attached”. That means they have to do exactly the same things, in exactly the same conditions and get none of the automatic respect (and corrolary career advancement) that comes of being in a combat position.
The rest of your idiocy is just that. A Dishonorable Discharge can only be given after a General Court Martial. It’s a form of judicial punishment. It’s almost impossible to have one awarded without a concomitant conviction of a felony offense.
So you are equating getting pregnant with murder, or desertion; in the face of the enemy, or some other heinous offense.
The evidence, collected over time, shows you would be better yclept, Monsieur sans clue
Hellkell ninja’d me.
Myoo: He doesn’t think he’s “not like the other MRAs”. He thinks we are purely evil, and our own words will hoist us up to ridicule, and thence to obloquy, before the dustbin of history is emptied and we cast into the outer darkness.
That, and that catfights between greedy pregnant women are great entertainment.
@Pecunium
I don’t think it’s me you meant to reply to.
Myoo, you’re right, that was to Tulgey.
@Molly Moon: AWESOMESAUCE! Thanks for the link.
@Jodi – If they did cool drone combat on the moon, they could probably sell tickets on iMax and make back enough money to pay for the conflict.
@Pecunium- I was specifically saying the Japanese because they are actually closest to creating an actual workable mech- this is probably due to their culture’s fascination with them in animation and film (Transformers, Evangalion, and Gundum anyone?). Of course, I’d be happy if other countries would be into it, but seeing as Canada has practically no military budget to speak of and the US focuses more on missiles and bombs, if anyone else is going to do mechs, it’s going to be the Japanese (or maybe they’ll be built in China for cost saving reasons, and the Japanese will design them, but still).
See more here: http://kotaku.com/5834287/why-big-badass-robots-and-mecha-rule-japan
And no, the deaths from war are different than the deaths from accidents. When you go into a war zone, you generally know it’s dangerous and people have guns and other weapons specifically to kill your side (ie: active intent to kill). Bullets don’t magically fire from guns and shoot other people to death. Slipping off a ladder and breaking your neck is an accident. But having your legs blown off by a grenade is 100% preventable from not having wars in the first place.
@Pecunium- Oh and additionally, they don’t have to be REAL mechs- we could create a hyper realistic video game simulation in which conflict is virtually created and deaths/resources mirror actual resources- whoever goes to zero first loses.
There are 2 critical changes that need to be made to the Military now that women can serve in all branches and do any job except be a Navy SEAL(AFAIK).
1. Since AFAIK women are allowed to serve in all branches of the military(except the Navy SEALS), time to modify the selective service system to compel women to register for the draft.
2. The Military shall reserve the right to dishonorably discharge women who get pregnant while in active service. I daresay that women serving on submarines and in ground forces combat units should be required to use birth control pills while on active duty.
3. Keep the Navy SEALS and other special forces regiments 100% male.
“There are two changes that need to be made…Three! There are three changes that need to be made…”
PS bet you my life savings that MSN thinks there are two types of military discharge: honorable and dishonorable.
Blackbloc-
Omg thank you! I was trying to figure out some way to say exactly that before but I couldn’t figure out how for some reason.
Pecunium said-
As to the dying in combat… yes, combat deaths are shitty. So are industrial accidents, car crashes, random shootings, falling off a hiking trail, etc..
But you can prevent combat deaths pretty easily by not sending people to war, right? Which is the goal of Robot Wars. Those other causes of death are far less preventable.
How about we have world leaders sit down together like adults and use their words?
Katz-
Come on, be realistic.
Nanansha: @Pecunium- I was specifically saying the Japanese because they are actually closest to creating an actual workable mech
Based on? The rest, “cultural fascination” is too turbid a set of waters for me to wade into.
And no, the deaths from war are different than the deaths from accidents. When you go into a war zone, you generally know it’s dangerous and people have guns and other weapons specifically to kill your side (ie: active intent to kill). Bullets don’t magically fire from guns and shoot other people to death. Slipping off a ladder and breaking your neck is an accident. But having your legs blown off by a grenade is 100% preventable from not having wars in the first place.
Right, so the accidents ought to be more problematic; in the US, at least, because we have no draft, so getting killed by a mortar, bullet, grenade, landmine, chem-attack, etc. is an understood risk. Having a building contractor fail to maintain an elevator and being cut in half isn’t.
Molly Moon: But you can prevent combat deaths pretty easily by not sending people to war, right? Which is the goal of Robot Wars. Those other causes of death are far less preventable.
Robot Wars won’t happen, at least not in the ways being discussed here. Color me pessimistic, but until people are being killed, it won’t be seen as something one nation has to submit to. Look at WW1, where the Germans weren’t mauled badly enough on the battlefield for the civilians (living on erstatz) to think the war was “lost”.
Look at Vietnam, where the US won the battles, but lost the fight.
Look at the War of 1812, were we lost the battles, but won the peace.
Look at what the “Cold War” cost, in terms of lives and strain.
Look at Iraq, where all the goals of the sanctions had been obtained, and the Army (at least) knew it, but we had a war anyway.
Robots aren’t going to stop that.
Oh yeah, Robot Wars are totally unrealistic. But they’re fun to talk about, if you can forget that the world is complicated.
Re: Japan and robotics;
Robotic technology plays a larger role in Japan than anywhere else in the world.