I think in all practicality, the U.S. military’s opinion is that as long as we’re not as desperate at Israel for healthy bodies, then putting women into many positions only increases the amount of pairing up / wasted time and effort (hitting on people) / preferential treatment / sexual favors / on duty pregnancy that will happen.
You can say that’s ridiculous, but it does happen at least some, and if you have the men to cover the jobs, then the military is happy to not have the problems.
Damn pdf’s. Links don’t work.
Here they are again:
womens health: http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/whusa04/pages/ch2.htm#live_births
iraq military deaths: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties_notes.htm
no-war military deaths: http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/castop.htm
It doesn’t matter how many women die during childbirth. Even if 90% of women died during childbirth, it is something they choose to do. A woman can always say “I’m not having any children”.
Maastricht, I believe your statistics are something less than honest; your figures for perinatal mortality sound suspiciously like you are including undeveloped countries in the mix, which is not exactly fair when you’re kvetching about the rights of women in the States and Europe. There I believe the figures are something like three deaths per ten thousand, from earlier discussions in this forum.
It’s unsurprising that military deaths should be low when there’s no war on, but when there is one… my grandfather’s contemporaries on the Somme, or my uncle’s in Bomber Command, would have bitten your hand off for the promise of a 97% chance of surviving a tour of duty, let alone a 99.97% chance.
Who are these unpaid mothers, by the way? Mrs M. enjoys free board and lodging, a fully-expensed credit card, a nominal 50% share of the marital assets, and the flexibility to pursue a choice of occupations without any particular need to justify them in terms of economic viability. I do not believe she is untypical. And again, speaking of motherhood as though it were an imposition from some outside authority, or a forcible interruption of a woman’s life, is patently absurd. For the overwhelming majority of women in the First World, motherhood is a freely-made choice, and comparison with any kind of draft is misplaced.
By the way, your cite says this:
“A total of 399 women died of maternal causes in 2001, for an overall rate of 9.9 per 100,000 live births”
That’s not 3%, that’s 0.0099%.
Yes. As I say, I think that 3% includes women in undeveloped countries. Got to make the stats look horrifying, yanno. :rolleyes:
I believe that all able bodied citizens should be required to perform a minimum of one
year in public service.
That would include all economic levels. The only deferment should be for those who
are severely handicapped and were clearly unable to participate. I think the benefits,
to the country, as well as the individuals, would far outweigh any down side.
Volunteering for the military, or such programs as the Peace Corps., would satisfy the obligation.
I should have specified an age range, perhaps between 18 and 22.
Please explain how compelling volunteerism provides a greater benefit to individuals and the country than, say, hiring them at fair wages in the private sector would.
I am a veteran, and I do agree that my service was important in my life, and important for the country. However, I don’t think for one second that this is a path everyone is suited for, or should be forced into absent an emergency.
Correct. My cite is American stats from 2002, but my 3 % is a miscalculation. like Polerius pointed out.
Still, those 399 American women die every year. In a no-war-year, less then 10 soldiers die war-related deaths. How often do American men (civilian guys called up for military service) go to war?
Your argument that mrs Malacandra is paid in free room and board ? That only holds up for SAHM’s. Soldiers get training, equipment, room, board and transport, and they get a salary.
I’ve been trying to go to work in the public sector, but they won’t take me because I lack experience. (Seriously. The only reason the Voice of America won’t hire me is because I don’t have a year’s worth of newswriting experience.)
In all seriousness, how do you tell someone who’s spent four years in college to learn a particular skill set that they have to postpone their career goals for a year to serve the government? Or tell them they have to interrupt their studies for a year?
What kinds of work would they do? Would a business major do accounting for a government agency? Would a biology major do field research? Or would they just do whatever job they’re assigned on the theory that picking up garbage in national parks “builds character”? And in the case of the former two hypotheticals, would these people be paid a fair wage relative to people working in the private sector? And, for that matter, do you really want that many people with little to no experience working in government?
Robin
You still have not addressed the fact that women choose to have babies, they are not forced by the government.
For individuals: work ethic, social interaction, patriotism, job experience to help in choosing a vocation or career path, supervised atmosphere as opposed to college where many waste the first year due to lack of personal responsibility.
For the country: labor for public improvements to nat./state parks, pool of youth counselors, interrupt drug abuse by requiring drug screening, social interaction would lessen ethnic tensions, better trained labor pool after service.
Just off the top of my head. Anyone else think of pro or con aspects.
You misspelled “big fat lie”. Missing the position of the decimal point by that much looks hard to attribute to mere “error”.
Hum. Control the definition of the terms, and you control the argument. It’s unsurprising that there are few “war-related deaths” in “a no-war-year”. How about the overall mortality figures in a peacetime army? More?
The choice of whether to become a mother without the support network available to SAHMs is generally the woman’s. Soldiers get trained and equipped by the army to do what the army wants them to do, they get housed where the army wants them and they get shipped there at the army’s expense, also in order that they will do what the army wants them to do. You needn’t present it as though it were some kind of perquisite, unless you’re about to complain that prisoners also room, board and transport.
In place of salary, the SAHM gets, in my case and in many, an equal command of the family purse for furniture, fittings, holidays, vehicles, and personal possessions: I don’t believe I’ve ever queried a credit card bill. In short, a large share in the benefit of a salary without the inconvenience of having to earn it. Also she retains a share in the family’s capital assets, which she can realize to a much greater extent than the soldier can the government property with which he’s entrusted. A wife who’s tired of the marriage has a darn sight better shot at a half share of all the family owns than the soldier has of, say, selling a tank on Ebay and pocketing the proceeds. 
I’m sorry to pick so many holes in your feminist teacher’s assertion, apparently endorsed by you, that motherhood is a form of national service at least on a par with military conscription, but there are so many points of difference that the comparison doesn’t hold up.
Actually I think the ideal would be right out of H.S., or age 18 for drop outs. It’s a
year, you think it’s too much to give a year for the benefits of being a citizen. We, as
a country, take our freedoms and opportunities much too lightly, if everyone
participates it would equal out. No one would gain an advantage by deferment.
What about the fact that it is an imposition on a person’s liberty, and that isn’t undertaken lightly?
Even the WPA and CCC were voluntary.
The idea that women do their dangerous duty for their country by being the ones that get pregnant, is not about it being equally inconvenient as being drafted. I really can’t understand whines about drafts interrupting school and career. The draft is not about the government getting together and saying “Hmm, how can I make a significant portion of the population’s lives less convenient and more dangerous?” It is about filling a need. This is about our long term survival as a nation. We need to have some way to defend ourselves in the event of an attack. We need to have a way to fulfill our treaty obligations to defend allies. We need a force that will deter anyone from attacking our country and our allies. We can do that in a number of ways, but nothing changes that this duty may kill those who serve. We can reward those who do this duty well enough that there are volunteers who will serve or we can compel people to serve.
Our nation can fall to defenders, or it can fall to merely falling population. Childbirth is still not without risks, even risk of death. If we add compulsory military service to women’s set of risks, we may impact the population more negatively than anticipated.
This is not about being fair. Nor is it about getting out of inconvenient or dangerous duty. This is merely one of the rational arguments why you might not want to draft women and certainly one that was thought of when making national policy.
Personally, I don’t support selective service as we have now. I don’t support this harrassment of 18 year old men, and I certainly did not like having to sign forms every year in college swearing I was female. I also have grave misgivings about an all volunteer military. The economically disadvantaged will make up the majority of the all volunteer military. In our country this means that more minorities will make up the services, an will suffer disproportionate losses. That stinks to me.
I also know that anytime we have a draft, those who have resources and wish to will get out of service. That still leave us with the poor and disfavored minorities suffering the greatest losses. That too stinks to me. At least with an all volunteer force, those who serve are rewarded somewhat. The bait and switch done all too often to attract military recruits stinks too.
You know some things that just aren’t so.
In Vietnam, for example, blacks made up 10.6% of the force and 12.5% of the combat deaths, at a time when the total percentage of blacks in the male military age population was 13.5%.
Draftees in general made up 25% of the total Vietnam force and 30.4% of combat deaths. The rest were volunteers.
Also, since Vietnam reforms have been made to the draft, should a draft occur. Student deferments now will only last one term, for instance, removing a means to allow someone to avoid service by continuing to pay tuition.
First of all, you initially said 18-22, which is college age.
Second, those who choose to join the military want that kind of life, at least for a little while. They also get training in any number of career fields, many of which are directly transferrable to the civilian sector after discharge. The military also offers a decent compensation package; you won’t get rich being in, but aside from the occasional war, military life generally isn’t that bad.
What sort of compensation would you offer these kids because mandatory service sounds dangerously close to involuntary servitude, which was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865?
Even the New Deal programs of the Depression offered some kind of compensation; typically it was room, board and a stipend.
Robin
How is filling out a postcard once harassment? As Mr. Moto pointed out, the Selective Service has changed since Vietnam. I have never once had to certify my gender to anyone, let alone yearly. I just didn’t register for the SSS, and nothing happened.
Robin