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.
antimanboobz is back:
http://antimanboobz.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/boobz-vs-the-real-world/
Ye gods. Can people please not humor him by responding?
katz, as long as he doesn’t show up here again, i find it kind of hilarious when we’re the only people who comment on his posts
hey david, as long as your around: do i have to get cleared from the filter again if i switch the spelling of my name to ‘sharkules’ i’ve decided i like that better
you can prevent first world deaths that way yes, but reducing the cost of war TO US, only seems to make us more eager to engage in war, so in the long run, no, if anything it’s only going to increase the number of war dead, just fewer of them will be us citizens
Yes, in reality. Like the predator drones. The Robot Wars I’m talking about would be strictly robot vs robot, preferably in space.
Turns out that being in combat wasn’t nearly as cool as I thought it would be. I was either really scared, really tired or really bored.
Who cares about a hypothetical even you recognize isn’t going to happen, exactly? I mean it’s an interesting premise for a story and it’d be great if it was true, but other than that… so?
And he has, as usual, no actual argument. He says, “women can’t hack it, and everyone knows it” and then proceeds as if it were proven.
It’s not so much that he’s wrong (which he is) which makes his blog so bad, as how ineptly he presents his stuff. It’s all smoke and mirrors, with no substance. If you agree with him, of course he’s right. If you disagree with him… there is nothing he is presenting to convince you of his rightness.
He can’t do what he claims to want, because he’s not even phoning it in. He’s just having a wank in public and expecting applause.
@Katz: but, but, but “lip wobble” I haz proof that “male disposability” is not widely supported (only two hits in Soc Index, and only one really about the topic as far as I can tell).
But I shall be noble and refrain.
Though it also really bugs me that the go to image for these trollholes is the Eloi.
That, and Dworkin! Solanis!
Titanic!!
I mean, sheesh, what a limited play list. Can’t they come up with anything else?
@Pecunium: Plus a post complaining about David taking quotes and complaining about them that is taking quotes from David’s post and complaining about it is…….making me dizzy.
no, that’s the fun part. he clearly thinks his shit is unbelievably profound, but each paragraph is a masterwork of nested logic failures.
dudes like him are what make me type the way i do. i can clown on them all day and the best they can come back with is ‘well, but you dont use caps or punctuation.’ fucking really. i hadnt noticed.
There are only two hits because feminist sociologists have suppressed the truth about male disposability.
@Katz: see one could argue ” OMG suppression” on that evidence, but they
don’t. They try to argue the concept is well documented!!
Sharculese: no, that’s the fun part. he clearly thinks his shit is unbelievably profound, but each paragraph is a masterwork of nested logic failures.
I think it’s more that each paragraph is a repetition of the same nested logic failures, and yes, it’s amusing.
It also makes it easier to ignore his blog, because it’s not as if there was any actual content to his writing. It’s sure as hell obvious he has no personal experience on this subject.
monsieur sans nom — Egads wtf is this mess?
First, you’re wrong, for many reasons that have been explained already. Second, 2 changes but 3 points? Think you meant “2 critical changes, and one thing that can’t change,…” (except you’re still wrong).
Argh, what part of Navy SEALS makes it hard to understand that they’re Navy members? It’s in the title! No one here is disagreeing that if there’s a draft it should be genderless, or that selective service should remain men only. So you have one (badly worded) point against a strawman.
Ever heard the words “medical discharge” before? Pretty sure the military has “medical leave” even — in other words pregnant women could be removed from active combat and maintain their military careers. Somehow I doubt you’re simply worried about fitting body armor over a heavily pregnant stomach though.
Also, “should be required to use birth control pills” — you know some women can’t right? And ick, medication induced morning sickness aboard a sub? Sounds like fun times to me! /sarcasm
Seriously though, are you a female service member? Given your “monsieur” nym, odds say you aren’t, so wtf gives you a say in how pregnancy should be handled in their case(s)? What’s next, arguing how PTSD should be treated in service members?
Argh, should I be pleased that DragonsBeHere didn’t take that lack of logic that far?
Why? Yeah the training is hard enough most men can’t do it, but if a woman can, why explicitly ban her?
Kyrie — “in third though, I vote to replace all war by go/chess/etc games” — I had that thought years ago, it would require people like Hitler to be satisfied with the outcome of a board game though. (And even if it could work, how would the USA v Japan part of WWII be solved? Chess and Go aren’t the same game after all) — I’d love if the idea could work, but I don’t think it could.
Nanasha:
Yes, because the Japanese like ANIMES N ROBOTS AMIRITE. I hear those exotic people also sell panties in vending machines.
Christ, this is pretty fucking racist right here. They have 2000 years of history, for God’s sake.
Yeah, I have to say, I’m not digging the “X and Y is what Japanese culture is all about, because anime” stuff. There’s this weird tendency among Western anime fans to assume that otaku stuff = Japanese culture, and it irks in all kinds of ways.
I may be particularly touchy about this because there was a link to Kotaku dropped, and Kotaku is rather notorious for its fetishistic racism.
I don’t think you’re going too far. Positive stereotypes are still damaging, because they still deny the full humanity of the people you’re stereotyping.
I don’t think it’s even remotely going too far to draw that conclusion, I’m just attempting to give the commenter in question the benefit of the doubt. Kotaku, on the other hand, does not deserve any benefit of the doubt at all, because it’s creepy as hell.
Well, maybe 600 years of written history. We have some apocryphal stuff from 1000 years ago, but we can certainly assume that they did things, rather than sit around and wait for white people to find them and be interested in them.
And yeah, Cassandra, nerds are friggin’ racist as hell in this. I mean, pop culture can be interesting, and say something about the culture at large in a number of ways, but it’s only the pop culture…
True talk, America’s THIS close to bioengineered soldiers. I think it’s becuase of their fascination with superheroes.
The Manyoshu is from the 750s AD and it contains poems that date from the 300s; I was including “literature” when I said “history,” and I’m sorry about that. Japan has 1,700 years of literary output, then.
To be perfectly honest a lot of American anime geeks* make me deeply uncomfortable, and this is why. Perfect example – there’s a Japanese metal band that I’ve covered who, the first time I went to cover one of their shows, I found an audience full of anime geek kids in assorted anime merchandise. Most of those kids had clearly never been to a metal show before (they were rather alarmed by the concept of a moshpit), and were not into any other metal bands, only other Japanese bands. Why would a bunch of random American kids who don’t like metal turn up to see a metal band, decked out in anime merchandise? Fetishistic racism, and the idea that anime = Japan.
(The band in question has never done anything to do with anime – no theme songs, nothing anime related at all. There is no anime connection there at all, other than the fact that they’re Japanese and American anime geeks associate everything Japanese with anime.)
*A lot, not all. Some people just happen to like anime and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s when it crosses over into racism that we have a problem.
I’ve noticed similar outpourings of reverent bullshit among martial-arts practitioners.