Few subjects cause Men’s Rights Activists to become as irrationally angry as the requirement that young American men register for selective service.
MRAs regularly declare this obligation to be a form of “slavery,” a sign that society views men not as human beings but as “mere beasts of burden designed for the expendable whims of a gynocentric system.” If you’re a man in the United States, A Voice for Men’s “Janet Bloomfield” indignantly announces, “you must agree to die.”
Well, not so much. There is no draft, and there is approximately zero chance it will be resurrected any time in the forseeable future. But that doesn’t stop MRAs from complaining endlessly that women are allowed to vote, and own property, and do all sorts of other citizeny things without having to undergo the meaningless exercise of signing their names on a selective service registration card.
But it looks like that’s going to change. Now that women are being allowed into combat positions in the armed forces, it seems all but inevitable that women will be required to register alongside men.
You might expect MRAs to be jumping for joy at the very prospect. Nope. Because, it turns out, many MRAs don’t think women belong in combat positions — or even in the armed forces at all. Women, they say, just aren’t up to the job.
In a post on AVFM yesterday, for example, Michael Conzachi derides the notion of women in combat as a “monstrously stupid social engineering” experiment, claiming that anyone who knows anything about combat knows
that women simply do not have the physical strength nor the warrior, “Sheep Dog” mind set to do this dangerous arduous job, and to voluntarily and willingly place themselves in harm’s way; to protect the Sheep from the Wolf.
Adjusting his metaphors slightly, he goes on to declare that
You don’t hook up a covered wagon to a sheep, not even if you put a Rambo mask on it, you hook it up to a horse. Is that not clear? …
This is not an issue of equality, it’s an issue of ability.
Weirdly, Conzachi also waxes indignant at what he thinks will be the reaction of feminists to the possibility that women will have to register for the (still nonexistent) draft:
The shrill lobby who jumped up and down like circus monkeys screaming and demanding that all military combat jobs are open to women, will now start jumping up and down like circus monkeys complaining that they didn’t really mean that women will now have to actually register for the draft, and if they don’t, they will be subject to the same penalties and possible prosecution as men if they fail to do so.
The typical delusional uber-feminist speak, “we demand, we demand, we demand, combat jobs.” “Oops; well, we didn’t really mean that we would have to register for the draft, and be subject to the same penalties as men if we fail to do so, we just want equality, equality, equality.”
It’s a revealing complaint. I’ve seen precisely zero feminist opposition to the idea that women should be required to register for the (nonexistent) draft alongside men. Sure, I know plenty of feminists who would prefer that neither men nor women have to register; indeed, I’m one of them.
But the feminists who have been pushing to open the armed forces fully to women have done so knowing that equality would almost certainly result in women being required to register.
Indeed, when selective service registration was restarted back in 1980, the National Organization for Women and the League of Women Voters were two of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that would have made women as well as men subject to the registration requirement.
Yes, that’s right: they wanted women to be subject to the same requirements as men — even though at the time women didn’t have the same opportunities as men in the armed forces. As the New York Times summarized their views, NOW and the other plaintiffs felt that “women [would be] relegated to second-class citizenship by exclusion from a fundamental obligation of citizenship.”
The Supreme Court ruled against them, and male-only registration continues to this day.
Feminists don’t have a problem with equality in the armed forces; MRAs do. It will be interesting to see their reaction as they lose this favorite talking point of theirs.
Because, let’s be honest, that’s pretty much all it is. Registration is essentially meaningless. Not only has no one been drafted since selective service registration was reinstituted in 1980, but no one has been prosecuted for failure to register since 1986. (There were only a tiny handful of cases from 1980-86, mostly brought on by plaintiffs challenging the law.)
MRAs complain that — as they see it — women have been given the right to vote without taking on the obligation to serve (or at least the obligation to sign a meaningless piece of paper that in some alternate world might lead to them being required to serve). But MRAs, or certainly a good portion of them, also think that women are psychologically and physically incapable of taking on this obligation.
It seems abundantly clear that MRAs don’t really want gender equality, in the military or anywhere else; they want women to be relegated forever to second-class status.
@WWTH
Bjork had been harassed for four days by that reporter before she finally did anything, and then despite it looking badass, she wasn’t able to hurt the female reporter and basically just knocked her down. So your gif is not exactly supporting the idea that women can be tough and protective enough to immediately protect the defenseless against men .
This is not to say that women don’t have it in them, because they do. A video like this (TW- violence, foul language) may be better because it dispels the male illusion that women are so weak that they are unable to hurt men. True, she may have sucker punched (kicked) the guy, but she also knocked him clean out.
Why do I get the feeling that the real reason MRAs don’t want women in the army is because they can’t stand the idea that a woman might just end up besting any number of men in combat? And taking them prisoner? And marching them at gunpoint to the brig? And…?
I know they’re damned if they’ll admit to being physically afraid of women, but deep down, I think they really are. Because let’s face it, some of us could clobber quite a few of them. I know I could, and I know I’m not alone in that.
Bina:
My husband and I just had this conversation, about how stupid it is to think that no man, ever, anywhere, can be physically bested by no woman, ever, anywhere.
MRAS are undoubtedly terrified of women. And not just physically.
No doubt about it. They can’t argue their way out of a wet paper bag, even if a woman soaks it for them out of charity. Of course they’re scared shitless of us, and on so many levels. Imagine what would happen if we quit playing weak/dumb/scared so as not to hurt their egos anymore. They’re afraid that we’ll take over the world, and start doing to them what they’ve done to us all along.
(The far more likely possibility, that we would remake it into a world where that shit no longer happens, of course, never occurs to them.)
David et al:
The sheepdog reference is to a famous (famous in military circles, at any rate) essay by LtCol Dave Grossman called “On Wolves, Sheep, And Sheepdogs.”
It discusses the roles of civilians (sheep), enemies (wolves) and the military (sheepdogs).
http://www.mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
It’s quite popular with chickenhawks and Rambo-wannabes, as well, who fondly imagine that they are to be considered sheepdogs.
When women actually do this, MRAs scramble to shut them up and/or shut them down, and I think it’s out of a fear that it’ll spread to other women, and show them they don’t have to take this garbage. If one woman sees other women standing up and saying “Fuck you shitlord, I don’t have to take this from you”, then they’ll feel empowered to do it themselves to the shitlords in their lives.
They talk about this all the time with feminism, and how feminism has spread, making women “worthless”, but the fact is, so many women have discovered that being “worthless” to a sack-of-shit misogynist is most definitely a good thing.
Somewhat OT…
If you climb up a tree in hopes of escaping a bear on the ground, you’d better check to make sure there aren’t any baby bears up in your chosen tree, which should be super tall, very sturdy and yourself an excellent climber. Oh and that the bear gets bored after climbing up to chew off your feet. Even here in SoCal there are regular reports from the foothills of bears in trees out in someone’s backyard or residential neighborhoods. We also have coyotes that use our riverbeds/concrete-covered flood control channels as highways to roam from the local mountains, foothills, urban areas to suburban communities all the way to the coast. They have become so bold in many local cities that they go beyond snatching pets who happen to be outside, with reports of pets *inside* their homes being grabbed. Mountain lions show up in the more wealthy parts of Orange County, as do rattlesnakes.
Now for the topic at hand…
It’s kind of irritating that despite all the overwhelming evidence – the women serving their country’s armed forces throughout the world, for example – these jerks don’t think that women have an interest in taking on combat roles from which they’ve previously been barred, in some cases they don’t even want them in armed forces at all, UNTIL it’s a conversation about the draft. The argument that women are too physically weak and whatever..Nonsense, poppycock, and bullshit. There is evidence of many women who fought to their very last breath against those who intended to harm/kill/etc throughout history, just like there are such women today. Once it gets to the part where idiots start to talk about women being too dumb and useless to vote is just…irony. From a bunch of man-babies and their sad collaborators.
@P.I.
Like the hundredth monkey! 🙂
The really funny thing is that the actual military people who still think there’s use for the draft think it’s nuts that it’s men only for a very simple reason. The main reason they see a use for conscription is to get the military access to people with very lucrative skill sets like computer security, and using it to provide bulk bodies is the height of folly. Yet another instance of reactionaries who claim to support the military getting in its way because they spend more time using what they think it is to justify their views and make them feel tough by proxy than actually caring about it.
And I seriously doubt there’s a single MRA who would’ve been fit to load shells for someone like Mariya Oktyabrskaya. She earned the heck out of a Hero of the Soviet Union for exactly the sort of bravery and willingness to take a risk that that MRA is claiming is somehow linked to a gimpy chromosome. I bet he’d do sooo much better.
Also, there’s a really good essay I saw called “we have always fought” if I remember right. Women have always fought. There were women in the bloodbaths of the 1600s surprising men very badly when they ask for the body of one of their well regarded officers back and getting told she was a woman. There were plenty of women in the trenches of WWI. I don’t see entitled MRAs signing up for that any time soon.
I’m calling shenanigans on this. A piece of paper with my signature on it that gives the government legal standing to send me to die in an oil war if they so choose is *NOT* meaningless. It is absolutely the kind of heavy handed nonsense that is the hallmark of bygone centuries.
You are correct in suggestion the likelihood of a draft is remote, but to say it’s meaningless when racist maniacs like Ted Cruz and Donald Duck-I-mean-Trump are whipping the country into a xenophobic, nationalistic frenzy is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, sir.
I normally love reading you’re articles, but sometimes it feels like you’re going out of your way to be inflammatory, sort of like you’re climbing a tree just to call an MRA a dumb-head. It’s asinine. It is enough simply to quote these fascists and skinheads, underscore the garbage that they peddle, have a laugh or two (or ten) at how quaint they are, and move on. You don’t have to let your journalism get yellow like this by injecting unfounded assertions.
You’re a bright guy, Dave. I believe you can and should be above this. Thanks for doing what you do, putting up with the hate from these jerks, and pressing forward.
David Stratton
So, if I’ve understood correctly, we shouldn’t let wolf/sheep/dog/horse/monkey hybrids serve in combat positions. I can agree to that.
@Scildfreja
::Albertan hi-five::
Selective service just needs to be done away with. Failure (or refusal) to register has serious consequences, and it is unfair to men that they are subject to such penalties, and unfair to anyone who doesn’t believe in the draft and encourages a young man they care about to not register:
“Women are only valuable to us as long as we can feel superior to them!” — every MRA/MGTOW/PUA/RedPillock EVER.
David, I think you’d like this article!
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3x6whe/21_ways_to_take_pussy_off_the_pedestal/
Ick. Sheep are stupid animals that exist to be fleeced.
I mean, yes, lambs are adorable. But still.
Yeah, it’s really a nice little glimpse at what the military industrial complex thinks of us.
Personally, I’m fond of the theory that MRAs don’t actually physically live in an alternate dimension, but they do see the word as a world of extremely unlikely potential outcomes. Meaning, they imagine the world at its worst (for them, mind you, screw other people), then discuss that world as if it was real. Yes, I am saying that what is a reality for many women and minorities is just a thought experiment to these entitled douchehats.
Combine that with the common conservative belief that social dynamics don’t matter and that society is a collection of individuals making individual decisions that have no effect on the big picture, and you have a bunch of screeching conspiracy theorists who can’t tell apart an unlikely, unprecendented scenario (misandry) from a scenario that is not only very likely, but has been constantly happening in the history of the world (misogyny). Some of them go a step further and completely make up a world where the probable is the improbable and vice versa, but I’m talking about the less honest strain of MRAs here.
You’d kinda have to believe all that in order to believe that misandry is an equal problem to misogyny, yet still be able to function in real life. Misogyny is an existing, systemic problem that affects the lives and careers of women all around the world. But dammit, misandry could happen in an alternate dimension with a history and social system completely different from our own, therefore it’s just as bad! MRAs justify their own “activism” in the same manner: If only the world was completely different, then we would be necessary! But wait, there is a slight possibility that something remotely like what we imagine might potentially come true in an alternate dimension somewhere perhaps, therefore we are needed!
As we know, human beings have a very poor understanding of how probabilities work, which is why gambling is a booming business. Social conservatives just like to pretend we live in a world where probabilities bend to their will in order to justify their fear and persecution complex. Case in point: A person who believes that the draft is a very important issue. He is terrified of a potential draft, not of an actual, existing draft. Which doesn’t exist. And is therefore not as pressing a matter as, say, the actual reality of women in the military.
Not to put a too fine point on it, this is true for most social conservatives. Since they operate mainly out of a constant state of fear, they seem to believe that any slightly unsettling scenario, however unlikely, must be prevented at all costs, even if it means sacrificing others to protect yourself.
@DS
I actually prefer it that David comments on the snippets of dumbfuckery he quotes. His humorous and insightful commentary make it all much more bearable, and means we here in the comments don’t need to bring up the obvious time and again. Any new reader with a modicum of common sense but no actual knowledge of MRAs will indeed need an explanation of what it all means in the context of the real world. WHTM is not just for people who have an intricate understanding of the mindset and language of the manosphere, there are casual readers here as well, and they will need someone to unpack the bullshit. If I just wanted to read comments from a bunch of circlejerking, reality-ignoring asshats, I would go directly to AVFM or some other MRA website, thank you very much. This is a mockery website, and I expect it to deliver.
Also, don’t associate people with mental illness with a spiteful, racist, islamophobic asshole like Trump. Read the comments policy.
Judgy Bitch? Isn’t she Canadian? What’s her beef in this?
Ugh, I’m against the selective service in general, but not against women having to register for it in the exact same way that men do. This is a nasty bit of useless paperwork with serious consequences if not filled in – that I’m going to have to drag my son down to the Embassy to complete in a number of years time. Hopefully, he will no longer have aspirations to warrior status by then (but he’s not interested in the US army).
It’s interesting that they think women are unfit. Turns out an awful lot of Americans are unfit in general according to this Economist article. http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21676778-failures-iraq-and-afghanistan-have-widened-gulf-between-most-americans-and-armed
And sheepdogs are used by the person in charge to herd the sheep so they can be fleeced or slaughtered. I’ve always found that whole metaphor to be somewhat troubling.
Monzach:
*Käpykaarti luokka 1982 high five*
Ok, I opted for civilian service and actually managed to get a relatively easy/interesting job as a lab/office assistant at what was then Kansanterveyslaitos. Didn’t work too hard but they didn’t pay for my housing either (I lived at my parents).
At the sivari “training” centre we had some lectures on pacifism by random volunteer non-scholars. Some of that information I later found to be factually inaccurate, like that the US has “always” had a volunteer military, or that in medieval Europe wars were only fought by the nobility.
Actually, I recall the sentence was “only” six months back then and possibly only four now.
@Tracy
Made me cry.
If I ever have to, I hope I can be strong enough to say that.
@Bina
Yep, they’re scared.
And I do believe that feminists — female and male — are going to have to take over the world, to ensure that planet Earth continues to exist.
@xthetenth
Unbelievable! Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya would defy orders and jump out of her tank, named “The Fighting Girlfriend,” to repair the damaged tank in the midst of battle!
I don’t know how many of you have watched 24, but she’s the real (heroic, order-defying, world-saving) Jack Bauer!