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.
Regulars may know that this is one of my hot topics, so if you want any more examples of women (whether military or civvies) throughout history proving they can fight as well as men and the invaluable contributions they have made to the fence of their respective populations or individuals give me a shout.
@ Katz
That sign is from Bovington in Dorset, where the British Army’s tank training area is. It’s one of my favourite places. You can do all the tank stuff and then run across the road to see the monkeys (and their ape friends) get ready for bed. (They actually make their own beds; it’s amazing!)
We’ve got something coming up next year where we’re hoping to do a tank/monkey combo (although vetoed on letting them actually drive; boo)
@Alan Robertshaw
I’m off to bed, so I won’t see it for a while, but tell us more about these heroes!
Thanks.
I’ve never understood how it’s supposed to be believable that the military is allowing women into combat just because they’re scared of the PC police. I mean, even if you assume the worst–that this is only a move by top brass to cover their backsides and have people say nice things about them–it doesn’t even begin to make sense.
So let’s pretend that the military was allowing women into combat solely because they are giant crybabies who can’t deal with feminists calling them out. Let’s pretend all of the top brass think that allowing women in is a bad idea (reality: they don’t), women recruits are underperforming every vital physical and mental requirement for combat (reality: they aren’t), but they’re going ahead with it anyway, because political correctness has RUN AMOK OMG.
How would this hypothetical military NOT be afraid of the uproar that would surely follow sending women into situations where they are ill-equipped to serve and survive?
If the military were to swing around from “No women will ever get combat pay” to “Women in combat have a staggeringly higher mortality rate than their male counterparts”, their public image would be just as much in the toilet, if not worse, than when they just say, “Nope, no girls allowed.”
There is no conceivable universe in which even the most selfish, thoughtless , vain military honchos gain anything by letting women into combat who do not deserve to be there.
@ kat
God, where to start, there are so many.
In classical times you have the various women warriors who gave birth the the Amazon legend. My favourite candidate for that is the Scythian women.
Regular viewers will know of my adoration for Boudicca.
A new analysis of Norse burials has established that women were as happy to go ‘Viking’ (technically it’s a verb not a proper noun) as the men. Norse archeology is a wonderful subject for people interested in gender roles. Turns out a lot of those people buried with weapons were women but the combs and personal grooming kit belonged to the men (Male Celts were also obsessed with looking nice, so it’s not a unique situation by any means).
I would encourage anyone interested in the Suffragists to read up on Edith Garrud (another of my heroines).
The women of the Special Operations Executive deserve a special mention. Violette Szabo is perhaps the most famous but you may like to investigate Noor Inayat Khan. I won’t give any ‘spoilers’ but lets just say that if we’d applied Donald Trump’s proposed policy on muslims during WW2 we’d have been well fucked.
People have already mentioned Dr Ruth, but she was hardly unique in the early days of the Haganah and IDF.
Until very recently women in Britain couldn’t officially serve in Special Forces but there were many anonymous heroines in 14th Intelligence Company and their legacy continues in the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and anyone interested in this area will know that the unit badge is just a label; SRR women work alongside the SAS and similar units doing exactly the same work.
Anyone who follows the news will know about the Kurdish women kicking ISIS’s arse.
That’s just a taster of some of my particular favourites, hence perhaps the Euro-centric bias, a Sikh friend of mine can tell you all about the various warrior women of the sub continent and the rest of the globe can provide myriad examples.
Women have fought for as long as humans have been around in just about every society on the planet. Where they haven’t been allowed to make an equal contribution alongside the men, that’s not been their choice, they’ve just been excluded.
It is weird that we don’t hear as much about women fighters though; it’s almost like history only concentrates on blokes’ achievements.
So, just to be clear, your average MRA doesn’t want women in the military because they’re too physically/mentally inferior, but at the same time doesn’t want women to have the privilege of being able to vote without signing up for selective service? In other words, they don’t think women should have the vote.
Here in Britain we don’t have any kind of selective service tied in with the right to vote, and we haven’t had conscription for many decades, and I’m glad about that. American MRAs should be campaigning to do away with selective service altogether, not whinging about women in the military.
Guy sounds like a Mall Ninja
I’d like to read a book about women in military command–Alan’s mentioned some of the women throughout history who have fought, and Kameron Hurley won a Hugo for spreading the word:
http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/
but there have also been women in command of armies throughout history, including Deborah in the bible. The book I want to read brings to light the history of women in command, describes their relationships with their colleagues, their commanders, and their troops, and analyses whether any differences from their male counterparts in tactics and strategy can be ascribed to anything relating to their gender. (I’d give more details about the book, and the women who’d be in it, if I had my stick with me, but I broke it last week and it’s still at the repair shop–fingers crossed that they can get the unbackedup data off it!). I’ve asked a lot of people, and the general consensus is that this book doesn’t exist, so I may have to write it myself even though it’s way outside my historical area of expertise.
Is this a good time to tell my draft story? I hope it is! Because I will! 🙂
In Sweden, we do officially have a mandatory draft. However, since 2010 the draft is no longer in effect during peacetime. It was only ever mandatory for men, but I would be willing to bet if it ever did come into effect again it would be mandatory regardless of gender.
When I was called for the draft, in 2003, this procedure had already long been considered a joke by almost everyone. Only a handful of guys out of the hundreds I met there seemed to take it remotely seriously. There were a few women present, who obviously worked harder than the average men since they were there voluntarily and really wanted to do well.
Short recap of my experiences:
I come from a small town of about 8,000 people. At this time I went to high school in a city of approximately 90,000, but other than that I hadn’t spent much time outside of my small town. For the draft, I was called to Gothenburg (half a million inhabitants).
Day 1
I arrive at the Department for Selection Tests (yes, I believe that’s what it’s actually called) well before noon. The first thing to happen is I’m lumped in with a bunch of other guys (and one gal) and led into some sort of dorm area. In the hall, we’re introduced to some dude with a military rank of one kind or another, I’m not paying attention. He speaks like a military dude does. He stands up very straight and clearly expects us to do the same. At this point I’m having a very hard time keeping a straight face. (Bear in mind I’m 18, extremely disobedient, and have no connection to the military whatsoever. I basically consider these people LARPers.) The dude explains a few things about the Department and what we should expect. It turns out some of us will get to go home the same afternoon, and some will have to stay overnight. My objective is clear: I’m not spending the night in this hellhole.
We get sorted into rooms with bunk beds. I get a bottom bunk, and we’re all handed sheets and pillow cases. We’re told we have 15 minutes to make our beds, then they will be inspected. “The sheets should be tight“, the dude explains. “I should be able to bounce a coin off the bed if you’ve done it right.”
I’ve never made a bed in my life. Not because I’m particularly lazy, but because it’s just not a thing I do. I like my bed to be messy. I know approximately how it’s supposed to be done, but I also know I don’t care enough to do it that way. What will happen if I don’t make the bed, I think to myself. Sure, I’m obligated to be here. But am I legally obligated to make my bed? Are they going to throw me in jail for sloppy bed-making? Probably not.
I deliberately do a poor job with my bed. One of my roommates, who is a lot more invested in this draft thing than I am, says I should probably work a little harder at this before the dude comes back for inspection. I shrug. It’s good enough. The dude comes back, checks my bed, and hands me the verdict: Not good enough. “You’ll get another 10 minutes to fix this”, he says. I say okay. Then I sit on my bed and read for 10 minutes until the dude comes back. “It doesn’t look any different from before”, he says. I reply: “It was already good enough.” He looks pissed, but he gives up and moves on.
Then the tests start. My group gets to begin with the “intelligence test”, which as I recall is mostly about spatial visualization. On a computer screen, you get to see an object from one angle, then through multiple choice you decide what it would look like from a different angle. There might also be a few classic IQ test questions, in the style of “what’s the next number/pattern in the sequence…”. At this time in life, I can’t bring myself to deliberately do poorly on a test of the mind. I have to do my best, and I do reasonably well.
Now for the physical tests. At this moment I happen to be recovering from a bad ear infection and I’ve been on penicillin for a while. I no longer have a fever, but I’m not fully recovered. I inform the staff and they say I should take it a bit easy. They monitor my heart rate as I get on an exercise bike. The idea of this test is to keep pedaling at or above a certain speed, while the resistance of the pedals is slowly increased. The longer you last, the better you do. Now, I’m no fitness monster and I had to cancel this exercise midway through since my heart rate was too high. The second physical test consists of lifting a metal bar as fast as you can. I don’t try very hard. I probably don’t do very well.
After these tests, I take a shower. There’s a tiny separate shower room for the ladies, but they still have to go through the boys’ showers to get there. Then we have a bland lunch. After lunch, I am sent to the doctors. There’s one doctor for your brain and one doctor for your body. This is my final stop, except for hearing and vision tests. I sit down in the waiting room, and then I wait. And wait. And wait. People are called, one by one. Eventually, two hours later, my name is called. I get to see the brain doctor, who quickly concludes my brain is fine. I’m sent back to the waiting room for another two hours, waiting to be called again to see the body doctor. They never call me. Eventually it’s 4pm (or 5pm? can’t recall), and the doctor comes out into the waiting room. His work day is over, and he’s going home. I have failed, and will now have to spend the night.
I get out of the depressing building ASAP and ride the tram into town. Can’t figure out how to pay, but nobody’s checking tickets. I walk around the city for a few hours, and I find a giant record store. This was when people still bought CDs. I get this one:
http://oonuyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/05-PunannyRiddimCDFrontCover2000.jpg
Didn’t notice until way later that it has a giant penis on the cover.
I take the tram back to the Department and have to hand over my CD and soda bottle to the security guard at the gate for careful inspection before I’m allowed to enter. I listen to my new CD in bed, with headphones, and then I fall asleep.
Day 2
The next morning I get to see the body doctor. He calls me fat and orders me to crouch with my heels touching the floor. I stare at him in silence until he repeats himself. I stare at him again until he apologizes. He asks me to crouch again. I say no. Then he lets me go.
I have my hearing tested. No problem there.
I have my vision tested. I have been instructed to bring my glasses or contact lenses if I have any, which I do. Years earlier it was discovered I needed glasses, but then I never used them. I’ve squinted my way through high school, telling myself it’s probably not that bad. Turns out I can’t read the one giant letter at the top of the board. It’s immediately decided I will never be put in a combat situation, under any circumstances.
Finally, I’m sent to the “recruiting office” (is that what it’s called? I have no idea). It’s a tiny office with one guy behind a desk, and I’m supposed to tell him what sort of military service I would be interested in. This conversation happens:
Guy: So, do you have any suggestions for what position you might be interested in?
Me: None.
Guy: You have to pick one.
Me: I really don’t.
Guy: It’s the law.
Me: Okay. None.
Guy: Should I just put “reserves”?
Me: If that’s what you want to put.
Guy: What do YOU want to put?
Me: None.
Guy: *sigh*
Me: I’m leaving now.
Guy: Reserves, then?
Me: Bye.
I get on the bus and I never hear from them again.
—
So glad this shit isn’t a thing (here) anymore. It’s the biggest waste of time I’ve ever been through.
@ Guest
I never let not knowing what I’m on about get in the way of proffering an opinion 😉
Women in combat is a fascinating, and under represented, subject though.
As to whether more women makes a difference, well various militaries have done a little bit of research into the issue in the modern era.
You may be interested in the work of a chap called Jim Channon. He was tasked by the US military into looking at various unorthodox solutions for the armed forces. There’s probably something to be written about how ‘increase the number of women’ was put on a par with things like ‘develop psychic powers’. He was very much in favour though of more women generally and especially in top positions. (There’s a fictionalised account of his work in the film “The Men Who Stare at Goats”, doesn’t cover the women thing though)
One interesting issue about high ranking women is the belief that certain enemies won’t surrender to them. Some people have suggested that that in itself could be quite useful where you want an enemy to stay in combat until annihilated rather than surrender and then re-group later.
I would love to see a book like the one you suggest though; there’s definitely a gap in the market for one. I own most of the major texts on combat psychology and very few of them really address the issue of women. In fact the ur-example that laid the foundations of the subject is the famous “Men Under Fire”. Says it all really.
Yay for women warrior stories!
Note to Alan: I think I speak for most of us here, when I say you can post all the unrequested women-warrior stories that you like without being considered spam or off-topic 😉
(If you could also add good web sources, I’d be beholden to you… and probably save some googling time for pressing matters like kitty gifs)
Also, warrior kitty gif!
http://i.imgur.com/GcZTNtJ.gif
We used to have a draft in Argentina until well into de 1990s. After several military dictatorships, it was “common knowledge” that it helped “shape up” the young who would be otherwise doing drugs or listening to the Rolling Stones or -God forbid- doing political activism*!
It happened after the “Carrasco Case”, in which a young soldier was reported “missing” and ruled as “deserter”, but after pressure from the family (who mistrusted the official story from the beginning) and the protests of thousands of people, they found Carrasco’s body in the very barracks he was supposed to be missing from.
It was widely known, the mistreatment, harassment and even torture drafted soldiers had to endure, and many others before Carrasco did not make it alive, but only after this case it was visible enough to shut the whole thing down.
*in practice, it usually meant “becoming Peronists”, and the military would translate it as “becoming far left Stalinist terrorists and shit”
I was talking to a female acquaintance not long ago, we were discussing her service (she was a Marine as was her husband, in fact that’s how they met). I was surprised because I thought that women weren’t allowed into the Marines. Talk eventually turned to the change in allowing women into combat positions, both my friend and her husband remarked that this change was really just an administrative one. The two stated that women have always been in combat, the policy change merely allows them to receive combat pay. By disallowing women into combat positions the military could avoid paying the extra combat pay, even though women were typically placed where they would see combat. This information was somewhat anecdotal, but I thought was a really interesting take on the issue.
Guest: Based on an admittedly small sample size, I haven’t seen any meaningful trend in how women commanded; some had a very gentle leadership style, some were total hardasses, and some were in the middle. Some were extremely successful, while others (well, at least one) were failures.
The only important commonality is one that all marginalized groups share: The awareness of and interaction with perceptions of their gender. Which is to say, they all knew the stereotypes of what a female commander would be like and they each deliberately chose to either embrace or reject that role.
So, uh, if they’re so upset about women still not being made to sign up for the pretend draft, why not launch a lawsuit to have the law changed? They’d almost certainly win now that women can fill combat roles. MRA’s managed to raise over $100,000 for a vanity project this year and $30,000 for a fake lawyer to to sue someone for something that couldn’t have happened in this time-space continuum. I no longer accept that they are incapable of doing (or at least hiring someone competent to do) actual activism.
And while we’re talking female warriors and military combatants, allow me to present my all time personal favorite: Artemisia of Cariah. It’s not every woman who told Xerxes (yes, THAT Xerxes) that his naval campaign against the Greeks was a profoundly stupid idea. And when, as predicted, she found herself trapped in the roiling shit fest that was the Battle of Salamis, she opted to fight her way out (crushing anything that got in her way in the process, even if that included Persian vessels), evaded Athenian pursuit vessels by raising an Athenian flag, (oh man, the Athenians had some severely rustled jimmies over a female military commander, let alone a woman daring to declare war on them), and continued to remain in Xerxes’ good graces and received many honors from him. She then vanishes from the historical record for the most part, suggesting to me that she died of old age or disease, because you can bet that if anything truly bad had happened to her (assassinated, her people rebeled, etcetera) the Athenians would have been crowing about it. Instead they made do with the story that she fell in love and killed herself, which sounds eerily like some of the revenge fantasies promulgated by our modern MRA dickweeds who are all so convinced that uppity females always get what’s coming to them.
Alright, I’ll shut up with the historian rambling now.
And while we’re talking female warriors and military combatants, allow me to present my all time personal favorite: Artemisia of Cariah. It’s not every woman who told Xerxes (yes, THAT Xerxes) that his naval campaign against the Greeks was a profoundly stupid idea. And when, as predicted, she found herself trapped in the roiling shit fest that was the Battle of Salamis, she opted to fight her way out (crushing anything that got in her way in the process, even if that included Persian vessels), evaded Athenian pursuit vessels by raising an Athenian flag, (oh man, the Athenians had some severely rustled jimmies over a female military commander, let alone a woman daring to declare war on them), and continued to remain in Xerxes’ good graces and received many honors from him. She then vanishes from the historical record for the most part, suggesting to me that she died of old age or disease, because you can bet that if anything truly bad had happened to her (assassinated, her people rebeled, etcetera) the Athenians would have been crowing about it. Instead they made do with tge story that she fell in love and killed herself, which sounds eerily like some of the revenge fantasies promulgated by our modern MRA dickweeds who are all so convinced that uppity females always get what’s coming to them.
Alright, I’ll shut up with the historian rambling now.
I wonder if they got any better at it? The registration process, I mean.
I was in the USAF from 79-87. In 1983, a co-worker (male and active duty) was being harassed for not registering (!)
@ Ghostbird
I, for one, can’t get enough of this stuff; please carry on!
So long as she didn’t engage in combat that’s OK, but if she did then that’s the war crime of perfidy!
[BTW, did you see the “300” sequel/prequel/sidequel version of Artemisia?]
Ah, the draft. Take people who aren’t willingly signing up then punishing those who aren’t up for the job. A drafted soldier should never be charged with cowardice.
Should someone point out to the MRAs that there have always been some women drafted? They just refuse to recognize those women as such. And as such, there have always been some men safe from the draft.
I also think that the registration is silly if you’re not going to have a draft. I wonder how many taxpayer dollars could have gone to other things like infrastructure?
This kind of sticks in my craw because I was discharged for being “overweight.” I was 5’7 1/2″ and wore a size 12, but because I weighed 145-ish, I was over the limit according to the 1947 height/weight chart they were still using. I ran afoul of it my whole eight years. A lot of women did. I have to wonder if they’re still using it.
In what world is obesity a problem for a military in which most people fill logistical, coordination and support roles? I’ve met obese truck drivers, obese clerks and obese paramedics, and (to my admittedly non-professional eye) they’re not notably incompetent at their jobs. If an obese person can drive a truck with civilian clothes on, they can do it with a uniform on too.
I appreciate that there’s a theoretical objection that such people could, in a moment of dire necessity, be pressed into service as infantry; but is this actually a real concern in a modern-day conflict? How often in the past fifteen years have such scratch units needed to be deployed by American and British forces?
To me this sounds more like Frederick the Great’s Potsdam Guards: the desire for soldiers who look good on parade and make onlookers feel potent has become a fetish and has become divorced from the practical desire to win wars. Just like the desire to exclude women from it, in fact.
@ EJ
The British Army have a “Soldier First, (actual job) Second” ethos, so theoretically everybody has to reach the same minimum standard.
In reality though there’s a 7:1 ratio of non combat to combat roles over here.
Some non combat personal have of course ended up fighting but I suspect you’re pretty safe in something like the Pay Corps and it’s no secret that they’ll turn a blind eye to physical ability if you have skills they’re after.
@Alan
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by this. Perhaps I’m just a flaming coward, though, as I’m fairly certain that if Boudicca turned her gaze even vaguely in my direction I’d surrender like a gibbering maniac, possibly even if I were on her sie.
@Alan
Nope, she didn’t engage in combat. They saw the flag, assumed she was one of their ships, and turned around to head back to the primary battle, while Artemisia booked it out of there.
And yes I’ve seen the 300 version of her, which gives me rage fits. On the one hand, she’s played be Eva Green, one of my favorite actresses, who does a really good job with what she’s given, and the character has an interesting backstory that adds some shades of grey into the West = Good, East = Decadent/corrupt/EEEEEVIL dichotomy of 300. All this, however, runs aground on the fact that her actions as a character are those of a bargain basement Darth Vader wannabe who let’s her feeeemale emotions overtake her and is finally killed by the righteous Greek man. No thank you.
Also, oops, foul and uncouth double post. Please remove as you see fit, David.
@WWTH: haven’t seen that, will have to check it out!!