Most feminists favored the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have codified that idea into the constitution.
I have actually met one or two feminists who thought that drafting women would be unfair, because women have not been prepared for that role all their lives, as men have. Boys are taught martial skills far more than girls are.
So, I could see an argument that the draft for women should be phased in, over time, to allow young girls to understand the implications as they grow up, rather than to just spring it, unsuspecting, on women today.
However, we could, and should, immediately open the military to women in combat units who want to be there. There are no few women who would love to command a tank, fly a fighter, or stand duty upon the decks of a warship.
Meanwhile, I’m with the others who say we don’t need a draft at all. If there is a real national emergency, people will volunteer to serve. That’s the heart and soul of liberty.
it is my contention that their is more to physicality and combat than how much you can bench press or how fast you can jog five miles. my problem is not that some women may be able to have a combat role, i doubt they could but i could be wrong, the problem is the assumption people make who want to put political correctness above real life situations.
[QUOTE=Robert163]
i dont think women have the natural level of aggressiveness needed to be in combat. and men are conditioned to the extent to protect women that its going to be difficult to fight alongside them.
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Again, that’s your opinion and you are entitled to it. As I said, in the past, people seriously believed (in their opinions) that blacks were not intelligent enough to be in combat roles, and couldn’t operate complex machinery. They really believed this and they based it on exactly what you are basing your assertion here on…their own opinions.
You tell me, as you are the one making the assertion. If you are asking me if women have been in combat in human history then the obvious answer is ‘yes’. In the US, they have not been ALLOWED into some combat related roles in some of the services because…well, because we didn’t in the past, in similar ways that we didn’t used to allow black males into some services or some roles in the military. It’s pretty much exactly the same thing, IMHO. And, as with blacks, things are slowly changing for women as well wrt some roles in the military (hell, it wasn’t too long ago that women weren’t allowed into MOST of the various billets in the military, combat or otherwise). Attitudes change over time, and ignorance and prejudice slowly fade as those attitudes change. I guess in the next two years we’ll see, won’t we, since your own cites show that both the Army and Marine Corps is planning to begin opening up combat billets to qualified women.
because combat is fighting. if there is no difference between men and women then why can’t women fight men in pro boxing? i work out in a pro boxing gym and i can assure you a woman needs a good 40 pounds on a man to even come close to being able to fight him fairly. thats not me being sexist that like what medical doctors and boxing experts have concluded.
and combat is 100 times more complex and dangerous than boxing.
a black man and a white man who weigh the same can box each other. skin color is a superficial trait. the physicality and bone structure and muscle to fat percentage of men and women are not superficial. natural aggressiveness and testosterone are at play as well.
Agreed. Someone better let those countries that have been fully integrated know that the women that have served in combat roles weren’t suited. Oh. Wait.
Your argument has already been proven wrong outside the US.
no, actually my bitch is that people are generally very stubborn about anything they perceive to be even slightly anti feminist and that they want to place idealism over real world practicalities.
I think that most feminists would suggest that each individual man or woman be judged and treated according to his or her own merits, rather than by arbitrary gender-based guidelines.
See, the irony here is that you are doing exactly the same things those ignorant fucks did in the past. They used all sorts of made up bullshit to demonstrate that blacks couldn’t be in the military in the past. Or, to put it another way, do you have any cites to back up your assertions here that women lack natural aggressiveness (gods, that’s hilarious) and that testosterone is necessary to a modern combat soldier?
If not, then as I already pointed out, it’s your OPINION, and it’s based on nothing more than your own world view and prejudice…just like those folks who used the same sorts of bullshit to keep black males out of the military or limit them to non-combat roles in the past. See the irony?
I’m willing to grant that you are right. Maybe others have tried to point out the same thing but what you said is pretty clear in language and hard to deny.
you think its hilarious that men are more aggressive than women? you make good points. if my opinions are incorrect than i am being bigoted. but when you say something like it is hilarious that men are more aggressive than women I have to wonder about whether you are biased as well, to be quite fair in my response.
And I know plenty of men who don’t either…and who would be hopelessly over matched against a trained fighter. So, you admit that women do box and box professionally, but your quibble is that they don’t box against males? And to you this proves that women can’t be in combat?
Well, Robert, as with many things in this thread, you really need to keep up with current events. They have these things called ‘guns’ now, so they no longer really do a lot of hand to hand boxing these days. Most of the things that the military uses to kill folks today are done at very long ranges, and take the physical ability to pull a trigger, toggle a switch or push a button.
This is sad. I’ll try once more Robert163 - women already serve in combat arms trades in Canada (and other countries). True, not every woman is suited, but neither is every man.
But, speaking as a woman (and one in uniform, although not in combat arms) we sure appreciate your concern.
Fighting? Both involve firing weapons. How much “fighting” does a tank crew do? A bomber pilot? Even a marine. We require men to posses a certain level of physical strength to serve in combat. If a woman posses that strength, what is the problem? Not every man in the military can beat the best the enemy has to offer in hand-to-hand combat.
Because the best men pro-boxers are better than the best women pro boxers. What does that have to do with the average military person? Again, you seem to have trouble understanding what average and standard deviation mean.
How long would your “average” soldier or marine last in a pro boxing ring? Why not disqualify them, too?
Since when are the military comparable to pro boxers?
I don’t know if that’s true, but the complexity comes more from handling firearms than from hand-to-hand combat. How much fighting is war is hand-to-hand anyway? Can women be pilots? What about drone pilots?
Something that’s only slightly more likely in the US military (outside of maybe special forces) than the draft? What about it? Again, some (hell, I’d go with most) men wouldn’t be all that great at hand to hand or a knife fight either, while some women can and do very well at it. Since you are giving anecdotes as if it’s meaningful with your boxing assertion, I was in martial arts for years, and have seen my share of VERY capable women martial artists, some of who specialized in knives (not my favorite weapon, personally…I prefer sword or staff myself).
So, again, it’s going to depend on the women, and, again, it’s mostly a moot point since it’s unlikely to crop up in the modern US military that you’d need to go hand to hand, even if you’d demonstrated that women can’t do that…which you haven’t, merely asserted that it’s so.
