Unsurprisingly, our old friend “The Thinking Housewife” is aghast at the notion of women serving in combat. What is a little surprising is why. In one of her many recent posts on the subject she offers this unique take on the subject:
There are so many unexamined consequences of the full integration of women into the military that one barely knows where to start, but one of the obvious places is with the fact that the Armed Forces will be increasingly in the business of population control.
Yes, that’s right: women in combat means women using birth control. The horror!
You see, women who are nine momths pregnant can’t exactly serve on the front lines. So that means the military is going to have to get in the business of helping its women soldiers avoid becoming pregnant.
In addition to providing rations and equipment, troops in combat will need ample supplies of contraceptives — and under this mentality, it will be the military’s responsibility to prevent pregnancy. Given that pregnancies can be, even in the best of circumstances, “unintended,” a woman who becomes pregnant on tour after her unit runs out of birth control pills or condoms will now have cause to blame the military for her offspring’s existence. We will almost certainly see women suing the Army for damages after “unintended” pregnancy. And as a consequence, the military will need to become more and more involved in the effective sterilization of their female troops.
Um, what? Sterilization? When women stop using birth control, they can become pregnant. Heck, they can become pregnant while still using birth control. Calling female birth control “sterilization” is a bit like calling a condom a vasectomy.
She ends her piece with this doozy:
As I said before, women don’t join the military as equals of men in order to defend their country. They join it to destroy their country. An egalitarian military must embrace socially destructive ideals. What can be more emblematic of our times than a military unit equipped with guns to destroy the enemy and contraceptives to destroy future soldiers? We have lost both the will to fight and the will to live.
Time to pull out the Don Draper “what?” gif again.
Actually, I don’t think that will be adequate to convey the sheer WTFery of that conclusion. I’m pulling out the big guns this time.
I’m so sorry your friend’s going through that, eli! I was thinking of you saying “never ask me to do that again” in a half jocular way, I should have made it clearer. I wasn’t thinking of him having knowingly dumped you in it. He must have to listen to some heapings of shite from the new gakkkk minister too. If he’s that frothing about this sort of thing, I hate to think what it’ll be like for anyone who might have to turn to him for advice. He sounds like a tinfoil-hat wearer. 🙁
@eli: combat positions are anything other than missionary. 😉
@eli: combat positions are anything other than missionary. 😉
LOL
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
Kiwi girl, you have an evil mind … I am now thinking of a certain former soldier and getting all hot’n’bothered. 😉
@Joanna, I once had a (non-ginger) guy tell me that he wished there was a breeding programme for gingers so we wouldn’t go extinct because oooh how sad his boner would be if there were no redheads. It is up there as one of the ickiest attempted pickups I have been subjected to so far D: Implying I should be on some kind of sex farm? Or…? Just argh.
As for the Thinking Housewife…she should stop, she isn’t very good at it.
@Monster: There’s definitely a disturbing dystopian fiction in that… I had thought about writing a science fiction set in the future where evil scientist were trying to breed certain human traits because racial diversity was minimal…but the idea was just too creepy for me >.<
I’m sure you’ve never heard anyone say that, say, left-handed people are going extinct, even though that’s also a recessive trait. The key would seem to be race-mixing paranoia: Keep those blonds in Scandinavia and those blacks in Africa or all our recessive genes will disappear.
Not the recessive genes! They’re my favorite! =O
Yes, that is creepy. The fixation some people have on breeding humans gives me goosebumps. I’m going to bed soon. Hope I don’t have weird dystopian army/breeding/breeding army nightmares now. Urgh.
Katz,
I’d never heard that left-handedness was recessive. I read lots about it a long time ago and remember a lot of hand-waving about birth trauma and we don’t know and prisons and geniuses. I’d love to be brought up to date.
I write lefty, but throw righty. I’ve been teaching a young cousin the utility of learning how to use the righty scissors. If you’re going to learn one thing as a lefty, that’s the one you need.
But what about ambidextrousness??? Is that recessive too? I’d consider it a kind of super power to be honest =D
Mind bleach, hopefully this can be seen by non-NZ ISPs:
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/funny-business-excerpts-1988
I can’t work out how to fix it to clip 2, but that’s the one I’m pointing to – it won’t change in the URL. Also, apparently this is via Flash, so not sure how it will work on iPhones or similar.
eli – do you know one can get left-handed scissors? I tried them years ago but was so used to using right-handed ones they felt all wrong. I write, draw and sew left-handed, but that’s about it. I think it could be as much mixed-use or cross-dominance for me (terms I only heard of recently).
Throwing a ball successfully doesn’t happen with either hand. 😛
The Mormon one, Kiwi girl? I love when they smash their bikes all together like a Scotty Pinwheel.
It’s so weird, because I’ve had Mormon’s knocking at my door and I like to toy with them.
But I’ve known Mormon’s past the age of knocking on doors and I’ve actually liked some of them.
@eli, yep the mormon one. I figure that if kiwi’s can find US comedy like Arrested Development funny, then our humour probably translates overseas back the other way. NZ has had a lot of Aussie and UK comedy shows on tv here, so equivalence there is likewise assumed.
Sorry Kitteh, I only use righty scissors and they feel right. I learned really early. I was the kid in elementary school the teacher would single out and I said, “But, I don’t want the lefty scissors, I don’t know how to use them.”
I also draw and sew lefty. And pool, but I can switch to hustle you if money’s on the line.
Apostrophe fail in the mormon response *hangs head in shame*
left handedness is complicated, hence how me an my left handed ex have all right handed children. One set of my grandparents had the same thing happpen.
Hah! You should hear my kids carry on about the trauma of having a lefty mum and accidentally trying to use her lefty scissors! Take that right handed person! Cut a straight line in my shoes, or wev. It is the challenge of functioning in a right handed world that makes our brainz get more exercise and be brilliant!
LOL ambidextrous pool hustling!
We didn’t have left scissors in my day (assumes voice of ancient). I only encountered ’em in the 80s or so.Right-handed ones have always felt normal to me, too; I don’t think I’m exclusively left-handed by any means. It’s nice to know they’re available, though.
Kiwi girl – we owe NZ a debt of gratitude forever for John Clarke.:)
Not literally, I hope! 😀
Hey, isn’t your President left-handed?
@Kitteh, it’s fine, I figure Russell Crowe + Joh Bjelke-Peterson go some ways towards cancelling out the Aussie cultural appropriation. 🙂
I doubt we’ll ever live Joh down, not least since he seems to be reincarnated in the person of Bob Katter (cringe … what IS it about Queensland politicians?)
Your email arrived! 🙂
Ha. I’ve been gone for a bit and it seems like discussions have become a bit quieter. Have the usual tools all been banned then? This is like the laidback discussions I used to have with my (now) ex-gf. Everyone is basically on the same side, pushing the conversation back and forth. It’s very nice. 🙂
To get back to the article at hand, I’m a bit confused by the jump in this sentence “We have lost both the will to fight and the will to live.” I get the first half, it’s a standard right wing way to frame discussions of the armed forces etc. But how do we get from there to instantly losing the will to live too? I find this very confusing.
@Joanna
But what about ambidextrousness??? Is that recessive too? I’d consider it a kind of super power to be honest =D
I’ve always thought it was sort of specialized. I spent six months with a cast on my left arm and learned how to write rather legibly with my right. Some consider me to be ambidextrous with my “I write with my left and throw with my right.” I don’t know what the parameters for pure ambidextrousness is. Can anyone here do everything with both hands equally well and with ease. I know I play keyboards, which is definitely using both hands equally. Typing too.