As the war in Iraq continues, abatement of the violence does not seem on the horizon. Oddly enough, while the US struggles to enlist soldiers to replenish the ranks, Capitol Hill Republicans are yet again making moves to reverse the direction of women’s rights as they reopen the debate of women in combat. In the recent defense authorization bill the house slid an amendment in that would ban women from both combat and combat support units.
While the left has outspokenly opposed many of the decisions that led up to and accumulated with regards to our actions in the middle east, especially Iraq, this new angle by conservatives to diminish the roles women have in in the military is an attack that can’t be overlooked.
Some interesting quotes have surfaced with regards to this issue from the would-be saviors of the delicate female soldiers. Representative Duncan Hunter of California (R), tells us that “It’s time for Congress to step in, provide some stability to the situation and draw a line of demarcation and ensure that women do not go into direct ground combat.”
Interestingly enough, this attempt is being met with a rather cold reception from the upper officials in the military itself, according to the Washington Post:
Army leaders strongly criticized the legislation in letters to Congress yesterday, saying women are performing “magnificently” in a wide range of units, working where battlefields have no clear front lines.
“The proposed amendment will cause confusion in the ranks, and will send the wrong signal to the brave young men and women fighting the Global War on Terrorism,” Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, wrote in a letter delivered to the House yesterday. “This is not the time to create such confusion.”
He said that the Army is in “strict and full compliance with Department of Defense policies regarding women in combat,” but that it continues to “study” the role of women in light of an ongoing reorganization of Army units and the complex, changing nature of warfare. Cody wrote that Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, concurred with the letter, an identical version of which was sent to the House by Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey.
While the attempt in and of itself is an affront to the courageous women whom have served through out the Iraq War, all hope may not be lost according to MSNBC:
There are about 9,000 U.S. Army women in Iraq. Banning them from combat support units could further stress the Army, already stretched thin in Iraq.
“27 percent of the Army’s people are women right now, and it would devastate the Army,” says Capt. Lori Manning, retired from the Navy and now director of the Women in the Military Project.
Despite the debate, Pentagon officials are confident Congress will leave the current policy as is … and U.S. military women on the front lines.
More on the subject:
BBC: US Mulls Ban on Women In Combat
The bill is a solid start. The only thing it is missing are the words “and men” after “women”.
Amazing that this story took literally days to catch on. It was buried on page 8 of the Washington Post when first reported some days back, when I first wrote about it. Glad to see it is getting the attention it deserves.
My blog
I think conservatives have bought into some kind of myth that the U.S. military is invincible, and banning a large chunk of its soldiers from combat is perfectly rational in a time when it’s already over-extended, because in their view, the insurgency isn’t really a problem anyway. The only way we can lose is from the losing the will to fight (with the help of “liberal media betrayal”). So long as we maintain our will, in their view, we can win, no matter how many hurdles we throw in front of ourselves (such as banning women from combat positions).
What possible reasons could they have for wanting to ban women from combat?
Father knows best and all.
A soldier from Iraq ( I don’t know anything about military rank, but he was some sort of young leader of a small group) called Talk of the Nation today and criticized the “fatherly” legislators in Washington for trying to hinder female soldiers that he leads. His attitude, like that of the upper offcials of the military, seemed to be: mind your own business.
At best, mixed feelings on this. Paying people to murder other human beings is wrong in my moral universe, as is the murder, and calling it “war” or “holy war” or “morally justified” or handing out snappy uniforms doesn’t mitigate the immorality. So do I believe women’s rights should extend to this realm? Should I celebrate if the Mafia is hiring more hit women? Or is it good news that at least half of some population is barred–albeit for screwy reasons–from committing these mortal sins?
Which I think is what Richard Bellamy said but more cleverly.
I’d rather just focus on the hypocrisy of the Washington “daddies” (and their apologists on the supposed other team), for letting their concern over the delicacy of females stop where the U.S. border ends.
Maybe no one’s broken it to them yet that some of the dead, wounded, and traumatized people in Iraq are women. Idiots.
lorna said:
Which I think is what Richard Bellamy said but more cleverly.
No, what Richard seemed to be saying was that no one, male or female, should be put in harms way.
What you said basically equated soldiers with “immoral, paid murderers” who are out there committing “mortal sins”. Big assed difference, lorna.
What possible reasons could they have for wanting to ban women from combat?
Ask an Israeli.
I honestly think there is some point in the amendment. The demoralizing, gut-wrenching propaganda value of a captured, abused woman soldier is immense (maybe because the public might have grown accustomed to male soldiers and “enemy” men and women suffering) and this may lead to overeager retribution and even a backlash about “women doing mens work”. Those seeking to escalate the war/insurgency/resistance would benefit greatly from such a scandal.
BTW, I believe women can be excellent, capable soldiers in any role (not all women of course, but neither can all men), even if soldiering isnt something I consider worthy of the nearly religious praise it seems to be afforded at these times.
So we should hold women in the military back because if a woman were harmed it would be bad for morale? Have you not notice that women have been harmed?
Have you not notice that women have been harmed?
And it was very bad for morale.
Mythago:
Robert:
Well, I guess this all depends on what you want.
If all you want to do is to win the war with as little fuss and bother from those pesky civilians as possible, then I suppose it does make sense to worry about morale issues. Winning wars is what it is the military’s job to concern itself with, after all.
If what you actually want, on the other hand, is to be able to defend your society as one that was worth all of those men and women dying to defend it, then holding women back doesn’t seem like the right option to me.
Then, what the hell do I know? First off, I’m a pacifist, so I’m really not too keen on wars to start out with; second, I’m particularly not keen on this war; and third, I don’t actually believe for a second that those men and women are dying to “defend our society.”
But I accept that many of the people who approve of this war do believe in that ideal.
So maybe they should think about whether the potential morale issues here are really worth the establishment of a two-tier system in which women are considered second-class members of our armed forces.
Besides, it doesn’t sound to me as if the people whose job it is to win wars even want this. They seem rather offended by the idea.
“Army leaders strongly criticized the legislation in letters to Congress yesterday…”
Doesn’t a disgruntled military count as a rather serious potential morale issue in and of itself?
Yeah, I keep hearing that my fellow soldiers want to protect me. That’s bull. I’ve met lots of good, decent soldiers who had a much better grasp on the concept of fairness than many civilians have, but I’ve also met guys whose heads were so far up their own asses that their vision was blocked by their tonsils.
Myth number one: must protect the poor delicate females. Hey, pal, I can protect myself, and likely as not it’ll be other Americans I need protection against. Also, what about women back home? Where’s the legislation protecting them—again, not from strangers, but from men they know?
Myth number two: women serve as a distraction. Then get the men out. If a guy can’t control his dick or his brain—do you want him to have a .249?
Myth number three: women can’t handle combat. I did. I saw two men who could not. And that’s the big thing, isn’t it? Combat doesn’t require muscle, really—-it requires brains and heart and courage. None of those things are dependant on gender.
When a woman soldiers gets home from war and finds out that her rights are being chipped away by men who’ve never been in combat, those men have some serious explaining to do. Best keep the women out of combat so those rights can be taken away at will.
Did you know that if a man’s been in combat, you can tell–if he’s infantry—just by looking at his uniform? Women are prohibited by gender from the same thing. The other differences in uniform are pretty minor.
A woman who’s been in combat can automatically shut up everybody out there who dares to try and take her rights away. It calls to mind every male who’s never been in combat but claims some sort of collective Droit Du Seigneur just because he’s male. Well, how come that never works for women? If men who’ve never so much as walked by a recruiting office can whine that men have to be in combat, how come other women can’t point to me and say that women don’t have to be but many volunteer?
This is guys once again trying to protect women from our rights.
And it was very bad for morale.
Robert, I just served a year in Iraq. Any soldier getting hurt is bad for morale.
Elkins:
Well, all three points apply to me too.
If there is a war, it would be unjust and inhumane to prolong it. More fuss and bother (in war fuss equals suffering and bother equals death) so that women get to be in frontline? I dont get it! Being in the frontline in wars isnt some “inalienable right” for all people, it is a very unfortunate necessity in times of war (and the morality of that is dependent on the war)…
They dont decide these things, as they very well know. The military is a tool of a (preferably) democratic government.
Ginmar:
No woman (or man) gets more rights on basis of being a soldier and seeing action. Maybe in a Heinleinian dystopia, but not on democratic societies. And as I said, being in combat isnt “a right” (But men get to be in combat too! – thing is bizarre).
The three myths thing, ive never claimed otherwise.
Ho hum…Generalize much? And btw, I dont whine that, and I dont consider being in military “manly” or anything. It is an occupation, ok? If an occupation is creating more harm than good then it should be banned at least temporarily.
Dude, would you relax? I’ve dealt with more than enough guys who whine that serving in combat is one thing that women don’t have to face so could women just SFTU, plxkthnx?
No woman (or man) gets more rights on basis of being a soldier and seeing action
Oh, yeah? So how come the conservatives are so determined to deny us our rights based on that? Sure looks like chivalry to me. “If we don’t make you serve in combat, you can’t make us answer unpleasant questions about where your rights went.” Conservative men have been justifying mens’ priveleges on the basis of combat.
Illorna, —what mousehounde said. And did you ever consider that fora lot of women in poverty, the military is their only way out? That never seems to get brought up in discussions like this—there’s always some high-minded hand wringing but not too many people have any idea what makes young women join the military. The judgement gets passed on both sides.
I am relaxed (in fact i am tired), thank you.
I refute these guys every time I get a chance too.
I would answer that straight from my heart, but any conservative reading it would get deeply insulted and I could get banned. But a toned-down version would be that some conservatives dont really believe in inalienable rights, only in maintaining their own privilege. (Oh well, that could piss someone off too).
My original point wasnt really “Yes, lets ban women from combat right away” but
and exploring those some points… It wasnt meant as an insult to women. If I managed to insult anyway I apologize.
The bold font is unintentional… A sloppy post.
I’m just unable to get on board with that, Tuomas. Like so many other issues, while I don’t agree with the war, or understand someone wanting to join the service as a duty to a country that seems to lack feeling the same duty to it’s people, I still hold very dear the ideal of equality. I need not approve, but I don’t need to approve to support the people who are -clearly- being treated as lesser than in their chosen ‘profession’. In other professions in the US, we’d call that sex discrimination and sexism.
You want to explore ‘points’ based on stereotypes of women but if that somehow insulted anybody, hey, you’re sorry?
When they examine men for their capacity for sexism and rape and then toss them out of the military for being unfit, then I’ll agree that the time has gone.
Well, it ain’t here yet.
Slightly off-topic but actually I may have suffered from slight cultural myopism on this issue, because I live in Finland, where we use conscription as means of maintaining a military force (actual military professions are generally limited to training conscripts and high-ranking officers. Both arent usually only choice out of poverty – type of professions). Indeed, in professional army the ability or right to do all kinds of duties including combat is a benefit for the “employee”, and limiting women in this is sexism. I couldnt see the conflict of interest in this case because of the said myopism. And I think the sad reality of american soldiers really having chosen their profession as an only choice is a bit worrying (but of course conscription sucks in many ways too)…
I was originally worried about the “backlash” about having women killed in combat prolonging the war by creating a political need to get revenge and thus causing suffering on both sides… And radical islamists will see this as a further proof of the evilness of their opponents. (But of course they dont get to dictate politics in USA, or in Finland for that matter).
Now I have to say that I am conflicted by the whole issue.
I dont believe in those stereotypes (I try to not believe in any stereotypes) myself and the points were about cultural reactions to women in combat. But I apologize again, because I see now that my first apology was kind of half-assed.
Tuomas:
Yeah, this one is sort of an odd issue for me as well, due to that whole “not terribly keen on war to begin with” thing (which is why I usually stay out of these debates), but look at it this way: it’s not just about women being in the frontlines. It’s about what criteria we are willing to consider acceptable justification for sexual discrimination in the workplace.
See, “it’s bad for morale” isn’t only used to justify trying to keep women out of the military. It’s been used as the justification for excluding women from a very wide range of endeavors, by no means all of them as thorny as soldiery. So the argument does tend to raise a certain number of Red Flags. It begs the question: “at what point does the mere possibility of ‘morale problems’ make it okay to exclude women from a workforce?”
Then, probably we are coming at this from slightly different angles due to the cultural divide. The military here in the US is one the few reliable ways out of poverty for a good number of people, so there are a lot of class issues that get tied up in this question. As sad a state of affairs as it may be, this really is a matter of job opportunity for women in the US. But I won’t belabor that point, because I see it’s already come up.
I wrote:
Tuomas wrote:
Good lord, Tuomas, I know that! We haven’t quite edged into a Heinleinian dystopia yet!
Er.
I hope.
No, what I meant by that is that I’m guessing that the sort of morale problems that come about as a result of high-ranking members of the military being totally blown off in their recommendations for how to do their own jobs are likely to create a more dangerous environment than the sort of ‘morale problems’ that would seem to be more a matter of concern to the civilians at home than to the troops out in the field.
Of course, I could be wrong about the relative morale effects here. I’m hardly a military expert. But that’s all I meant by it. I don’t know what Ginmar might be planning, but I wasn’t thinking in terms of bloody coups or anything like that. :-D
Mainly, though, I feel that the issue is a bit of a smokescreen. This looks to me like yet another attempt to use “national safety” as a handy pretext for pushing back yet more civil rights. All the while waving the flag, of course. Nice.
The Score – Robert: zero,
Ginmar: 1
I await Robert’s return serve.
“Army leaders strongly criticized the legislation in letters to Congress yesterday, saying women are performing “magnificently”? in a wide range of units, working where battlefields have no clear front lines.”
Yes, but they also tried to claim that Jessica Lynch was a female version of Rambo. I’m not entirely certain the official position that women are just as good as men in combat is based on the actual evidence.
Glaivester: Rambo was a movie character. Most soldiers are just people with combat training and low pay. Are you “just as good” as an elite soldier like the Rangers, or the SEALS ? Could you ever be? I doubt it. Statisticaly most people aren’t. But if you’re a man, you get to join a combat unit if your *good enough*. You might be good enough for that. It’s more probable.
Now, are women *good enough* to join combat units? Some yes, some no. Just like men.
On another note, Phill Carter’s Intel Dump has a great post on this topic, and some sterling examples of mysoginistic post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning against women in combat. I urge you all to read it. It’s a shame comments seem to be disabled.
and
My personal opinion regarding both combat and abortion is that men simply do not want women having the same decision-making capacity that they so gloriously monopolize in society. I think that is why abortion is framed by conservatives as murder. The concern really isn’t with the fetus per se because it is abundantly clear that conservatives have no qualms killing infants, children, adolescents etc, when those infants etc are brown skinned or living atop vast oil reserves. The bottom line correlation between abortion and combat is that men do not want women to see through the thin veil of manliness that makes killing in combat look normative or instinctual. Men present their acts of killing or mutalation or what-have-you as a natural extension of the male ego. To have women making the same decisions to kill or injure based on politics instead of instinct would poke huge holes in men’s “reasoning” and “justification.” That is why abortion must be viewed as “murder” — it is the only way for men to justify a woman’s so called inability to make that sort of decision for herself. Men have historically been sanctioned to kill; so has the State. It becomes terrifying to both men and the State to think of women having that power, or the ability to choose that power, because they can easily see that power turned against them — they know they’ve been bucking the odds for far too long. They also know that women would probably be more likely to fight at home, on their own turf because that’s where women have historically been attacked.
Well, at least that’s my view of things…
And because men are sexist (globally) women should just forget about forging their own autonomy? You’re worried about some “backlash” because of antiquated ideas of chivalry (or perhaps just the evil Islamists), but you do know about the reality of women who aren’t allowed to fight in armies, right? Like the women in the Congo. 40,000 raped by the armies? 40,000 raped by State sanctioned (or not) men with guns?
You’re worried about specific battles and escalation of conflicts, it seems, but for women the chance to serve in combat is precisely one of those points that levels the playing field between men and women. It helps destroy the myths about men’s superior physicality and rights to dominate based on that myth. It destroys the myths about women’s frailty and weak cognitive functions. It destroys the myth that women are some man’s property to be protected at the cost of life or limb. Which is probably the scariest idea for men, as evidenced by your concerns regarding backlash. You’ve acknowledged that in 2005, most men, despite nationality still view women as “other” and as property to be protected. It amazes me that men cannot see how insulting and dangerous that ideology is.
Let me spell it out: if we can be “protected” during war time, then the paternalistic “protection” of the State during peacetime is viewed as either benign or beneficent, but rarely viewed as a threat… because that is the male imposed viewpoint on the worth and reality of women’s lives. It stands to reason, according to men, that if they are willing to sacrifice for us during war, then we should be grateful and let them make decisions for us regarding our health, our income, our education, our sexuality. History backs this belief.
From Robert:
War is bad for morale. I live near Ft. Bragg and I can say that war is specifically bad for the morale of the women who were killed by their returning boyfriends or husbands. Heaven forbid if a woman is killed in combat because troop morale might drop; kill your wife or girlfriend when you get home and it’s just chalked up to PTSD. Better yet, throw you cat on the barbecue grill.
Are men such fucking wimps that a woman killed in combat is horrific, but they blandly ignore the women killed back home? Was the woman back home somehow asking for it? and the woman in combat somehow was noble, and pure, ad nauseum? Back home men can rape, beat, or murder women and it’s just a “crime”. If some foreign man does it to “our” women it’s bad for morale.
Fuck men’s morale. Let’s talk about the mind-fuck of being a civilian victim of male atrocities.
I love the debate about women in combat because it is one of the areas where sexist and misogynistic misconceptions about women are really blatantly exposed.
One of the big ones you hear are “women aren’t strong enough”. If you overlap bellcurves of women and men for things like strength, hieght and weight you find a HUGE overlap, to the point where they are almost identical. Yes, in all three of threes there are a very small percentage of men that are ‘more’ than women, and the reverse at the other end, but these really aren’t all that statistically significant and show that relevance for discussions like women in combat doesn’t exist.
Are there women that aren’t gonna be able to be in combat? Yep, most definitely. But it’s the same for men; there are those that won’t be able to perform either. Same thing for elite units. Some will, some won’t.
There is another reason that it’s ironic is the myth that somehow women haven’t always been in combat. The idea that women haven’t been in the front lines is a myth that is produced by the privilege that countries that fight battles away from their own shores have. The far majority of countries that have wars within their borders know that women get seriously involved, have to get involved, or they get raped, abused, mutilated, murdered (hell, the revolutionary and civil wars here show this).
As an extension on Q Grrl’s post #31 above what has been really interesting for me as a gender sociologist has been the media images of women leaving for tours of duty and those of the men. While there are certainly ‘family’ context (kissing babies goodbye, crying partners, parents, etc) media images produced for both, the overwhelming numbers are for women. It’s like there is this huge need to ensure that these women’s gender and hetrosexuality are made hugely concrete, like “See? They may be soliders at the moment, but they are really wives and mothers!” It’s a fall back to traditional notions of gender in reaction to serious unease caused by perceived gender norm ‘violations’.
Oh, and as an aside, I was very very close to enroling in the military myself, particularly the air force. I actually had the application packet for officer training. I decided against it in the end as I didn’t want to sign over that many years of my life at that point in my life. I know I made the right decision, but a part of me will always be a touch whistful. I guess that is why I am intending to get into law enforcement, after I have finished my doctorate, to a certain extent :)
Yes, but they also tried to claim that Jessica Lynch was a female version of Rambo. I’m not entirely certain the official position that women are just as good as men in combat is based on the actual evidence.
Well, hell, let’s just base it on the sexism and paranoia of sexist men, then!
Why did Jessica Lynch have to be Rambo, Glaivester? Huh? And how about all the men who aren’t Rambo? How come they never count.
So, the scorecard is….because the Pentagon confused Jessica Lynch with another blond-haired soldier who did fight valiantly but died—all women are somehow suspect?
When people who’ve been there and done that are reporting that women are performing just fine, and you’re looking for ways to conform to the stereotype, you’re the one with the issue—-not the women. If you want perfection from women–if you want Rambo—then you better be demanding that of the men. And I don’t see that happening.
Perhaps I wrote muddily. The act of murder is immoral. It is bad not only because of the life taken and the possibilities killed and the children left parentless. Murder hurts not only the murder victim but the murderer. It is soul-killing to murder, and most good-hearted people eventually shake off their training/brainwashing after a war and understand this (my father was one). Last year I met a WWII veteran who was still haunted by what he had done in the “good” war. Do we think that Vietnam War PTSD is about “seeing” attrocities only? It’s in part about committing them.
My ability to judge an act as immoral also results in companssion for the murderer–including soldiers, Charles Manson and the Mafia hit woman. They can pay, too, for their evil deeds, and pay and pay. Thus, I’m happy to see some segment of the population barred from committing what is not a noble act but an evil act that may well dog them to the grave–or beyond, if there is a beyond. It is, of course, their choice to murder or not, but choosing out of gung-ho brainwashing when they are 19 and then living with 60 years of nightmares…well, it’s just sad for them. I care for their innocent victims more, but I also care for their pain, their souls.
Indeed, war seems sad for all of us, at too many levels to name. Either the killers suffer the guilt and regret or they must justify the evil acts and numb themselves to human suffering for a lifetime. And that has serious repurcussions for us all, does it not? Is that the world we want to inhabit?
I understand, too that women’s motivations to join the “volunteer’ army are the same as men’s: sometimes th e desire to kill and be paid for it or misplaced vengeance, but often an increasing economic disparity in the country, and either their resulting poverty or, more likely, the unmet consumer longings for more gadgetry that “must” be bought. (At least on the local news, all the stories of soldiers have been about middle class men and wives are shown at home on computers and cell phones and watching TV, so they cannot be poor.) I don’t see how this reason for taking up a gun changes the morality of the act, any more than poverty justifies armed robbery or kidnapping. There are other jobs to be had., and people who know right from wrong will seek other jobs
Qgrll,
“War is bad for morale. I live near Ft. Bragg and I can say that war is specifically bad for the morale of the women who were killed by their returning boyfriends or husbands. Heaven forbid if a woman is killed in combat because troop morale might drop; kill your wife or girlfriend when you get home and it’s just chalked up to PTSD. Better yet, throw you cat on the barbecue grill. ”
That was a tragedy of epic proportions. I was a defense counsel at the time of those murders and the military leadership at Bragg was so hell bent on prosecuting the first crime they did not consider PTSD. Because of their prosecutorial zeal five more women had to die. If they had listened to the defense counsel the Army could have prevented the deaths of so many other women.
Those women did not die in vain — we learned their lesson on the West Coast and gave our “special forces” decompression time prior to sending them back home, mandatory psycho therapy and kept a close watch. We also gave classes to the “wives on how to treat their men when they came home” — is that sexist, perhaps, but I think it saved thier lives. “Constantly wanting to spend time with me” was a common thread in those murders. Our Family Advocay Program identified those problems before it came down to someone getting killed.
As for women in combat — they are not paying attention to reality. My wife is a pilot and shit hot at it. We have all female Marine Civil Affairs teams who go out into the small towns and work with Iraqi women. They are all by themselves and provide their own security. Many of the teams have found themselves in ambush situations and have performed as Marines should perform given a hostile situation. Protected the civilians and neutalized the threat.
Those are the people who should speak with the Honorable Mr. Hunter. Also, he could speak with his son who will probably give him an idea of how well Marines of the female persuasion performed.
There can be problems with unit cohesion, however, in mixed units. My wife was in a tent with supply, communication, and other female officers while all the men in her squadron were in tents on the other side of base. They went to chow and other activities and just “forgot to grab her”. Most of the time someone would make the concerted effort to make sure she knew they were getting chow, but usually she was lost in the “I thought you were going — oh shit we forgot (insert last name here)” syndrome that always happens when you are not in sight (outta sight, outta mind).
How do you fix it. Mixed sex tents — everyone sleeps together. What about sexual tension — I say my wife shared tents with lesbians and I have shared tents with gay men. As long as everyone knows where you stand and that you CANNOT HAVE SEX WITH YOUR SHIPMATE everything will be ok. The problem we face is that people can’t seem to get that through their heads and it seems to become a problem, especially if the sex is consensual. Yes consensual sex is our biggest problem with mixed sexual orientation units.
I understand, too that women’s motivations to join the “volunteer’ army are the same as men’s: sometimes the desire to kill and be paid for it or misplaced vengeance, but often an increasing economic disparity in the country, and either their resulting poverty or, more likely, the unmet consumer longings for more gadgetry that “must”? be bought. (At least on the local news, all the stories of soldiers have been about middle class men and wives are shown at home on computers and cell phones and watching TV, so they cannot be poor.) I don’t see how this reason for taking up a gun changes the morality of the act, any more than poverty justifies armed robbery or kidnapping. There are other jobs to be had., and people who know right from wrong will seek other jobs
You know, if you really tried, you could be even more insulting and patronizing. Come on, give it a shot. I’m sure you could work in some more comments there about how we actually love to kill—because all soldiers must be murderers and rapits, right? We’re so stupid that we don’t know right from wrong—because it’s always murder, and evidently your standards are the ones we have to abide by—–but if we do join the military we’re just greedy bastards who could certainly find another job. Yeah, thanks.
And Amp, I know exactly what you’re going to say, but damn, look at the contempt in the feint there with the sly attempt at saying ‘increasing poverty’ before concluding with ‘more likely unmet consumer longings for things which ‘must’ be bought.
If people are going to bitch at the poor like that, then you know what? Pay for my fucking college. You weren’t around to help? Then you don’t get to bitch like that after it’s all over and done with.
Iorna, do you really think sexism is okay in jobs you consider “immoral?” If you’re against nuclear power, it’s okay to bar women from jobs in nuclear plants? If you think police officers might be forced to kill, it’s okay to bar women from police w0rk? If you think that capital punishment is wrong, it’s okay to bar women from related jobs?
I’d say that civil rights and opinions about the morality of work should be separate issues. This is especially true of military work. In theory, how can we (as women) justify having the full rights of citizens and legal protection against discrimination if we are not willing to make the same sacrifices men make to defend our country? I’m against the Iraq war, too, and I wouldn’t classify it as a defensive war, either. Still, in the broad context of the military (as in the private sector), women should serve in the capacities that match their individual skills and abilities, not in positions predetermined by gender. The morality of the current military situation is not relevant to this issue.
I beg to differ.
Huh. So wife beaters get special treatment in the military. Do they get it before or after they go to war, because at least some of these guys were abusive before they left. Here’s a hint: giving excuses to wife beaters doesn’t end the beating. It just tends to end the woman’s life, because these guys blame everybody but themselves.
Q Girl– I have also seen the double standard, if you will, between a man “doing what he has to do” on the battlefield and a woman doing the same with an abortion. I have often marvelled at how people so willing to accept moral ambiguities for men at war cannot do the same for women. Especially if you take the historical view that preganancy was the most dangerous time in a woman’s life; still is in most of the world.
That argument that women are a distraction is an old one, once used to keep female police officers off the street. Years go by, and the commision to study LA police after the Rodney King riots makes an unexpected determination: the female cops were doing a commendable job at wielding authority and keeping order, and their male colleagues should emulate them.
Does anyone know if the Marines still use the myth of “susie rottencrotch” to give new recruits someone to feel superior to? I remember seeing this in a video about basic training for Marines in college. Even the professor defended it, and shot down students who protested. Some very young Marines were in class defending that and speaking knowledgably about combat until a older student raised his hand and told them that he was a vietnam vet and that they didn’t know what they were talking about and could not until they were in combat. Something to bear in mind for those of us, including those congressmen, who just don’t know.
No, but there was a lot of protest when the Jodies got outlawed. It was seen as surrendering to PC and there was lots of resentment—-because it’s really fun to joke about rape and murder when you’re the one doing the raping and the murdering. This isn’t specifically a military gripe, either—if I had a nickel for every guy who thought rape jokes were the funniest thing in the world, well, you know the deal.
Ginmar: “So wife beaters get special treatment in the military. Do they get it before or after they go to war, because at least some of these guys were abusive before they left. ”
Which one of the SF defendant’s was a wife beater? I don’t want to get into the intracacies of those cases, but you must know (that includes you QGrrl) what you are talking about before you speak. I am sure if you were talking about my client who beat her husband with a baseball bat you would find a way to give her an excuse for her behavior. She had just gotten back from Iraq. PTSD is a real issue in the military and I can guarantee you that the Marine Corps is doing a lot of work to try to mitigate the effects when the men and women come home. FYI QGrrl — the abuse has gone both ways.
One thing I learned as a defense counsel is that it is easy to judge if you are never in the situation of A) being innocent and accused of a crime or B) standing there with the gun in your hand wondering “what have I done”. War does funny things to your mind — regardless of whether you are female or male. Believe you me — if they are guilty — they will be punished. The hard part is determining if they are guilty. This is way off subject so that is all I will say about the Ft Bragg six.
As for Suzie Rottencrotch — the Marine Corps is a much better place for women than it was ten years ago thanks to many pioneering women like my wife and her friends.
Jstevenson, don’t tell what I have or have not expereinced. I know that at least of the Fort Bragg wife-murderers had a history of domestic violence, and your claims of ‘but women do it too’ are the lyrics to a very old song that come very close to invalidating everything else you say.
And if you’re not aware of the fact that the military and the police force both have higher than average rates of wife-beating you’re behind in your research.
War does funny things to your mind. No, really? It makes me a whole hell of a lot likely to tolerate crap from people who feel compelled to tell me things like that.
Hell, Jstevenson…
my point is that for all our high tech military prowess you’d damn well think that military officials could second guess that their troops are going to come home PTSD. But they’re content to let women die (not in vain of course!) before they wake the fuck up. My point also is that for all our social fear of women in combat, it’s a fuck lot more dangerous when you are either a civilian or a female soldier AT HOME in PEACETIME. In Iraq, if someone beat me repeatedly, raped me, and threatened to kill me, it would be called torture. Here, in the US, it would be called “domestic violence.”
Now I ask you, why aren’t more women PTSD and shooting the balls off of men?
And please drop the patronizing tone.
True, and I dont approve that power and right to kill that men and state have. I will even add that occasionally men are expected to kill, and celebrated for it.
Of course…
This is a thing that I originally missed, so thank you. (And I dont like being proven wrong but I will admit when I am wrong, and I have been wrong now). If I may restate myself, it seems that allowing women to do everything (even things I find morally objectionable both for men and women, and state) men are allowed to do does indeed crumbe the myths about “masculinity” or “feminity”, and at the same time it might make wars less likely due to fact that there is no “male ego” to be appeased by wars and no “real, feminine women” to be be owned/protected. Therefore it may in fact decrease wars in the long run. So even though there may be short-term disadvantages like the ones I have described it would be beneficial in the long run both for the cause of peace and for ending sexism (which are very mutually inclusive causes). This thing wasnt easy for me, because I oppose both sexism and militarism.
I tend to agree with this point. PTSD has been an acknowledged problem for decades, so preparing for the eventuality of it as soldiers came home should have not occurred after the murders of several people.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that poor planning and lack of regard for potential violent behavior was something limited to the return of soldiers. Lack of regard for people in general, coupled with poor planning in fact seem to be more like core traits with regards to the Bush administration.
QGrrl: “for all our high tech military prowess you’d damn well think that military officials could second guess that their troops are going to come home PTSD.”
I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately it took the death of several aircrew for the “machine” to realize that we needed night vision goggles if we are going to fly, at night, 2% illum, into an unlit airfield, surrounded by mountains, at 7,000 feet, extremely fatigued. It also took the death of several Marines for the “machine” to figure out that everyone in the helicopter should have $15.00 emergency oxygen bottles if they are going to fly over water.
My point is that Navy and Army chaplins and doctors had warned the government repeatedly about the problems encounted by those returning from Afghanistan — they were the same problems we had with the Marines returning from 1991 Gulf War, Vietnam, and other wars. The defense counsel on the case at Ft Bragg said that his client’s problem was not limited to him and there should be something done (I know this through personal knowlege due to the similarities between his case and my “husband abuse” case). Fortunately mine did not die he was just beat badly. The bottom line was that the “machine” refused to listen to the problem — “he/she is just a criminal and needs to be punished” or “he/she just needs to learn to control his/her emotions” — dismissed him as a “slimy defense counsel just trying to get his guy off”. Just like everything else that takes money it took the needless death of several people before the “machine” figured out that the “slimy defense lawyer” was actually right and maybe we should shell out some money to provide mental health treatment for these people.
Oh shit, I keep getting off topic. It seems as though we both agree that what those guys did was wrong and that the government should not have waited until someone died to fix it. If I am wrong in that interpretation please correct me.
I think women can and should be in combat units. As long as the standards are maintained and it is not done as a “social experiment”. One of areas where my wife initiated change was the different physical standards for men and women (gender norming). The Marines have almost gotten rid of gender norming. You are only as strong as your weakest link. If your weakest link is only expected to meet a lower standard they will always be your weakest link, regardless of your gender. Likewise, the whole unit will be weaker. Women, in the Marine Corps, are required to meet the same minimal physical standards (for the most part). That goes a long way in determining whether or not a person is able to fullfill direct combat duties. My Martial Arts training partner was a woman — I was paired up with her and it did not matter her sex. The point was that Marines in Falluja will not have the opportunity to pick their opponent when they storm a bunker, then you should not be able to pick one here. Train as you fight.
Elkins/Ginmar, on military questions I am inclined to defer very strongly to pragmatic concerns over idealistic ones. Your point about what kind of society we want our soldiers fighting for is a good one – but it is also valid to note that most societies cannot be defended on their own terms and require a separate military that operates under different rules and with a different culture.
Now, I am not an expert on the question of women in combat – so I have to go on what other people tell me and on what history I know. Lots and lots of military people seem to think having women in combat would cause too many problems. Additionally, the one Western nation with a comparable military culture and similar operational structure had women in combat, and seems to have decided it was a bad idea. Are they right? I don’t know. My inclination, though, is to go with the bulk of the voices I hear from the services, saying women in combat is a bad thing.
I contrast this with the question of gays in the military. On that question, there seem to be some people who think it would be a problem if open gays served. However, I know from both personal experience and a good familiarity with the history that lots and lots of gay people have served just fine and without causing any of these problems, even though people in their units knew perfectly well they were gay. So again I bow to pragmatism; although civil rights for homosexuals is not high on my priority list (to be mild), there appears to be no pragmatic case against it. So I’m all for changing those rules.
(Sorry for any potential derailment, I just want to demonstrate that my commitment to pragmatism on the military question is not just a smokescreen for saying nyet to gals with guns.)
And yeah, Ginmar, losing any soldier is bad for morale. But we have cultural values which aren’t going to change by fiat or because feminists want them to, at least not in the short term, and people holding those values are greatly distressed when a female is put in harm’s way, much more so than when a man is. Whether this is right or just or compatible with an equal society are all interesting questions, but not questions material to recognizing the differential impact of combat deaths, maimings or torture.
Robert, that is just bullshit and you know it. Deferring to cultural values only happens wehn women question why men get to set all the standards and make all the rules in the culture. Men never get their cultural values questioned. Doing that, as a matter of fact, is called feminism. Refusing to do it is called something very different, which Amp won’t like if I say it out loud. Come up with something better.
And don’t talk to me about this sugar and spice crap again. If you can’t regard women as human beings and not creatures that society values differently from men you’ve got no business so much as being on a feminist board.
Yeah, and can you stop spouting bullshit about how people are so much more upset when a woman dies? 1500 women will die this year at the hands of men and I don’t see the culture valuing their deaths in any way at all. So, once again, you’re wasting my time.
You know, back in the forties and even further than that, the Military would say that African-Americans and other people of Color would create “too much distraction” and “cause problems” all because they aren’t white. The same shit is now and still being applied to women and even Gay and Lesbian soldiers. Sounds like certain military officers and certain members of the Pentagon are allowing themselves to be distracted by their own prejudices. They are distracting themselves and they are creating all the problems–not the female troops and the Gay and Lesbian soldiers. Their phobia of women and Gays and Lesbians, and their wretched fear of not preserving the traditional/patriarchal gender roles within the Military is the source of this “problem” and “distraction”. There’s always a “problem” and “distractions” when some of the soldiers aren’t white hetero-males it seems, or simply not the traditional masculine [hetero] male. Certain members of Congress and the Pentagon are trying to make the armed forces the great last refuge for the such cherished traditional/patriarchal, rigid gender roles. How pitifully desperate of them.
Men never get their cultural values questioned. Doing that, as a matter of fact, is called feminism.
Men’s cultural values are questioned all the time, whether they could be considered feminist or not. Women’s cultural values are questioned all the time. Cultural values are dynamic, living things that are questioned (often by their owners) constantly.
You seem to be offended at the existence of these protective-of-women feelings on the part of people, and extremely offended that I notice their existence. Sorry; however, your offense does not control the universe. The feelings exist. I am more worried about my daughter getting hurt than my son. I feel a deeper pang when I hear of a woman soldier getting killed in Iraq than when I hear of a man. Sue me.
Women die in domestic violence situations, and that is horrible and awful. I’m not sure where you get the bizarre belief that the culture doesn’t value their deaths. It seems to get a fair amount of attention from where I sit, although not enough.
If you can’t regard women as human beings and not creatures that society values differently from men you’ve got no business so much as being on a feminist board.
I believe that I do regard women as human beings. I also view them as creatures that society values differently from men. I suspect that we value men and women differently because men and women are in fact different, but that’s just my personal view.
As far as whether I belong here or not, I think I will take my lead on that from the proprietors of the board, rather than from their guests. Again, your feelings don’t control the universe.
So, once again, you’re wasting my time.
If you believe that engaging me in a conversation is a waste of your time, then that is your prerogative and your decision. However, it is not I who am wasting your time; you are choosing to do that yourself. You are free to ignore whatever I say. My contribution to this thread has been a suggestion that perhaps the experience of the country that has had broad experience with women in combat has some teaching value for us. You have thus far ignored that invitation to discussion – again, as is your prerogative – in favor of attempting to silence a sometimes dissenting viewpoint. As anyone who knows me can attest, it is sometimes frustrating, sometimes entertaining, and sometimes enlightening to engage me in a discussion. But to try and get me to shut up because you don’t like what I have to say is, indeed, a profound waste of your time.
I believe that I do regard women as human beings. I also view them as creatures that society values differently from men
Make up your mind, Robert — human or creature.
Not that I think that keeping women out of combat has anything to do with ‘valuing’ them (any more than keeping blacks out did).
I am more worried about my daughter getting hurt than my son. I feel a deeper pang when I hear of a woman soldier getting killed in Iraq than when I hear of a man. Sue me.
No, I feel sorry for you and your children (but hope your statement about your children was made only for effect).
However, that someone feels worse about women being killed in combat is no justification for anything. I feel terrible when anyone — male, female, soldier, or civilian — gets killed in combat but I doubt seriously that can be used as way to convince Bush to get out of Iraq.
Robert:
History supports a differnt claim. But then, you’re not interested in history, and arguments you make don’t have to have to have reason. Something can be “emotionalty true” to you, and therefore its true.
History, on the other hand, supports the claim that men treat women differently in situations like this because they think women are property. Me, I’m all for lieteral equality in the armed forces. If you can do the job, you should get the job. I’m not interested in treating women like property. You are.
You’re not treating women like adult human beings. You’re treating them in some ways worse than male children, int hat you *never* stop patronizing them, and then tell them they have no buisness getting insulted. Ginmar, as much as I don’t like her, has put her life at risk as a soldier, and you’re not giving her the respect she’s due from that. You’re treating her as if she needed to be coddled and protected more than a man, and then you’re telling, not asking her not to be offended.
Josh:
Please try to attack Robert’s arguments, not Robert personally. Thanks.
(Disclaimer: My moderation style is “random spot check,” and thus a bit arbitrary. I fully acknowlege that other people may have been just as bad and not gotten a comment from me. I’m sorry for that, but I don’t have the time to fully moderate every single comment on “Alas,” so spot-checks are the only viable alternative to no moderation at all. –Amp)
I’ve had this hazy thought drifting around in the back of my head today about this ‘amendment’. While I don’t know if I can verbalize it properly, does anyone else find it at all ironic that the same people who shout so loudly about the 2nd Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms) seems in direct contradiction with this Amendment? Maybe I’m stretching it here, but on the same token, I can’t shake this feeling of irony when considering both notions.
Amp: Please try to attack Robert’s arguments, not Robert personally. Thanks.
Nowhere was there a peraonsl attack on Robert. It was entirley a description of his actions, ie: You’re treating women like objects, and his stated argument style, that history was less important than something being enotionaly true. I’m deriving this entirley from what he said here and elsewhere. Was it harsh? Yes. But then, telling women that they’re not worthy of being treated the same as men are is vile.
telling women that they’re not worthy of being treated the same as men are is vile
You are imputing a motive, and then reacting to my statements in terms of the same motive. I have said (elsewehere) that men and women should be treated differently in some circumstances. My motivation for this belief has nothing to do with women being “unworthy”. That is purely your own imputation.
To my recollection, I haven’t said that history is less important than something being emotionally true. (Maybe I’ve said something along those lines, though it is doubtful my meaning or intention was what you have glossed them as.) The only “emotional truths” we’ve discussed on this thread has been the truth that some people have certain emotions. This has been mentioned by me, in pretty much the same tones as I would write “the weather was nice today.” I don’t see the point in pretending that people don’t have those feelings, particularly in a context in which I expressed the noncontroversial idea that pragmatism ought to have a certain sway in military matters.
Sometimes, people who are afraid that their own ideas and/or values aren’t as self-consistent, coherent, workable as they might wish, protect their memetic shell with an impenetrable belief that everyone who thinks appositely is a monstrous entity. That way, anything particular logical or coherent from the enemy camp can be encysted as an emanation from Satan, and ignored. This certainly happens a lot on my side of the fence; when I was on the left, I saw it happen there, too. I hope that phenomena isn’t the explanation for your own seemingly implacable hostility to anything I have to say. The ability to peaceably discuss issues of state with our ideological enemies is one of the strengths of democracy.
And like Chancellor Palpatine, I love democracy. ;)
You are imputing a motive
Nope, I’m describing an action. You’ve said that women ‘s death in combat has a different value than mens. To you, it might seem to be more, but to women who’re interested in equality, it makes them out to be less. To you, women are of different worth than men. You’re trying to tell us that this is acceptable, and that women ought to accept it.
Again, going back to history, your arguments have traditionaly been made by the side trying to deny women things like the right to vote, the right to property, the right to wear pants, the right to vote, the right to control thier fertility, etc…
I think that the peopel who were denying women those things were pretty much the same as you. They saw what they were doing as good and right. Today, most of us know better.
Yes, you’re describing my actions – but then you are using emotional language to characterize those actions’ intention (I think women are UNWORTHY – not different-than-men) and responding to your own imputation. I haven’t said women are unworthy of equal treatment. I’ve said that I think men and women should be treated differently in some circumstances.
You could choose to impute any number of motivations to that statement. You’ve chosen the one that’s most distateful to you, personally.
I think women and men should be treated differently in certain contexts and certain circumstances because I think that men and women are different. You can decide that this position is as vile as you wish, but its a position held by tens of millions of people who do not hate women and whose principal motivation is not the restoration of the patriarchy and the termination of women’s suffrage.
People of good faith can disagree about many issues, and can have discussions that are mutually enlightening. However, those discussions are impossible – simply impossible – if people in one camp cannot conceive that people in another camp can have reasons for being over there that don’t involve being minions of Satan.
Do you want to have a discussion, or do you want to continue telling me how evil it is to think what I think and how I’m an anti-suffragist who wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant?
Robert :
Again, these are the same arguments made by men who were involved in denying women the right to vote. Pretty much down to the letter. They made the exact same claims, that they valued women differnetly, but not less. Some even tried to convice women that they were valued more because they were protecting them from the harshness of the world by keeping them from the dangers of commerce or politics.
You keep trying to go on as if you were different from those people. I don’t see it. They were pretty vile. They were not people of good faith, despite wanting to be that way. No one wants to be seen as a bad guy, but there are bad guys.
No, acutaly, I chose the one that I thought fit best, and I also put forth that you probably have ‘good intentions’ paving the road to hell. You probably do think that what you’re doing is not harmful to equality, and that you’re valuing women in combat more than men.
I’m not saying that, I’m saying that you’re argueing from the same perspective that they were, just on a differnt scale. And you are. You’re using the same arguments they were, and claiming the same motivations. If you’re personaly insulted by the truth, that’s not my problem. The whole idea that differently worth is not the same as unworthy is something that failed during segregation, and it fails now, expecialy because you’re not proposing seperate but equal combat units, but seperate and unequal combat units. Sperate but equal is not equal not matter how you slice it. Equality is equality, and ‘differently equal’ is just as nonsensical.
And you’re not even proposing that women are all unfit, but that it’s your feelings of hurt that deserve to be privelaged here. That is where the inequality comes in. That you feel an obligaiton as a man to deny women in the armed forces something that the majority of them seem to want because of your delicate sensibilities.
The irony is stunning. here are people who’re already putting thier lives on the line to defend you and others, and they’re willing to do more, but you’re not OK with letting them, because you’re upset more when a woman dies in combat, and can’t bear to deal with that.
Talk about gender role reversals!
You seem to have a psychic insight into my mind, Josh, but I have to tell you that the reception seems a bit fuzzy.
Do you think that you could look over my posts, and tell me where I say that women can’t be in combat, and that it’s my feelings that dictate that?
I think ill just barge in to this discussion with some “memories” (blockquotes):
Robert wrote:
Btw, I totally respect that, everyone is entitled to their own feelings…
Josh Jasper wrote:
and
Isnt that what the first quote was about?
To which Robert wrote:
It doesnt take someone attuned with the Force to make observations like the ones Josh Jasper made. But I guess Im being a nitpicker and a spoilsport here. ;)
Okay, I am hurt more when I hear a man is killed than a woman. Now we’re 50/50 and that argument has no more weight anymore. Simple!
Amanda, thank you for validating the idea that people’s feelings should have weight in questions like this. Your feelings and my feelings now individually cancel each other out.
Let us now proceed to survey the electorate and find out how many people feel your way, and how many people feel my way.
The problem is, Robert, is that your feelings should not determine other people’s rights, as long as those rights don’t hurt more than your feelings. It’s your isuse.
I was just re-reading Amp’s post on how MRAs like to whine that men do more dangerous jobs than women do and that’s why the poor dears deserve all that extra pay, and I frankly expected to see some crosstalk between that one and this one. It’s the reason men want to protect us so much, whehter it’s from combat or from jobs that are only as dangerous as having an abusive husband, just being a woman, or walking down a dark alley in a miniskirt. Men always use that danger they face—on behalf of others, of course!—-to justify not only the high pay but a variety of other things. The fact that they fairly obviously shut women out of those jobs so as to shut them out of the same justification process never seems to surface in the mainstream discussion at all.
I have to catch up on the comments now.
Robert — you apparently support a system which disallows women to defend themselves to the same extent that it allows men (and the State) to defend themselves. Do you really not see how you are valuing a hypothetical death in combat for women more than you are valuing the real deaths that occur during peacetime for female citizens? You are claiming that men feel some impassioned resistance to women getting hurt in combat — but you aren’t as equally outraged at how women’s hurt, their rape and their murder, is practically the #1 entertainment value in America. What about the women hurt during the production of porn? The woman hurt during a forced pregnancy? The woman/girl raped by her father/brother/uncle?
You have a strange sense of collateral damage, where certain pain inflicted on women seems, from what you have expressed, to be culturally acceptable and unavoidable because “men have notions.”
Q Grrl, you’re taking the fact that we haven’t DISCUSSED these other harms to women to accuse me of not caring about harms to women.
I think pornography should be banned, and its producers jailed, largely because their actions hurt women. I think that rapists should be executed. And so on.
Uh, robert. We’ve discussed all of those items multiple times in the last five months. Most of the feminists make a political habit of linking all of those items, uh, because, uh, Robert… they all effect women’s lives. I see you’re still stuck on woman-as-theoretical-creature. Strange.
Your inability to link major issues on women’s safety IS NOT MY FAULT. But it clearly shows how those issues play out in your politics. Your gross assumptions about women are degrading and immature.
I wish your daughter luck.
But I do link them. You just pretend that I don’t.
You do a very poor job of actively expressing it then. Or maybe I’m just picky.
Or maybe you’re just observant Q-grrl. CAn’t have that. For me, the argument ends once the flag of ‘feelings’ gets waved. “I really don’t want to be made uncomfortable by women dying in combat!” I might have to respect them then and ask myself some really unpleasant questions about why it takes women dying in combat to get them to matter to me, when all the women killed by men in peacetime don’t seem to get me that pissed off.
In other news, here’s a truly revolting and scary response from James Inhofe from Oklahoma. I got this from comments on my LJ.
I live in Oklahoma and Senator Inhofe was the first to respond to my request to let women serve in combat. I’m sitting here and I honestly can’t believe this:
———-
Dear Mr. A*****:
Thank you for your correspondence. As your voice in Washington, D.C., I appreciate knowing your views.
I fully support the right of women to pursue a variety of rewarding
careers. However, affirmative action has no place on the battlefield.
The military is not an institution whose primary aim is to promote
diversity and equality. The principal purpose of the United States military is to field the most effective fighting force possible in order to protect the nation’s citizens. This is achieved by recruiting and retaining soldiers based on their ability to carry out a mission, not their gender. In an environment where unit cohesiveness and camaraderie are key factors in maintaining the high level of morale necessary to fight and win wars, diversity cannot take precedence over unity.
Again, thank you for your comments. Please do not hesitate to contact
me again.
———-
This was my response:
Senator Inhofe and staff,
I recently wrote you to urge you to allow qualified women to serve in direct ground combat. In your response you stated that “affirmative action has no place on the battlefield.” I never said that we should use affirmative action. I said QUALIFIED women who meet the EXISTING standards should be allowed to serve their country. I would like you or your staff to explain why a QUALIFIED woman who meets the EXISTING standards should not be allowed to serve.
Worse yet, you or your staff had the nerve to respond with “The military is not an institution whose primary aim is to promote diversity and equality. The principal purpose of the United States military is to field the most effective fighting force possible in order to protect the nation’s citizens.” I am almost certain that I stated in my previous submission that I am IN the military. I don’t need to be lectured on what its purpose is. And if I did forget to include that, which I highly doubt, you assume that civilians don’t know what the military’s purpose is with such a rude comment.
So in conclusion I will restate my opening request. I would like you or your staff to explain why a QUALIFIED woman who meets EXISTING standards should not be allowed to serve in direct ground combat.
Diversity cannot take precedence over unity.
A unity of bigots is therefore justified, I guess.
Ginmar, the IDF apparently has an answer to your question:
“Because in our experience, the overall effectiveness of the military unit goes down when that happens.”
Robert, if “effectiveness” goes down it is not because women are in the military; it is BECAUSE MEN DO NOT HAVE THE ADEQUATE DISCIPLINE TO DEAL WITH WOMEN IN THE MILITARY. Quit supporting the belief that it is women’s fault that the effectiveness drops.
It just fascinates me when people use bigotry to justify more bigotry.
Q Grrl, who said anything about fault?
Ginmar, what’s bigoted about measuring effectiveness?
Effectiveness, Robert is a euphemism, and it’s beneath me to tolerate. Effectiveness the way you use it means, “Well, if the men don’t get their way, they’ll take their toys and go home.”
Let them, then.
Yeah, that would be fine if we were talking about a baseball game. But we’re talking about the defense of our nation.
“Effectiveness” as the IDF uses it means how useful each unit is in completing missions. You’re a soldier. If considerations of effectiveness are beneatb you to tolerate, then maybe you’re in the wrong line of work.
I especially like the ‘feelings’ argument, too. “I feel really bad when a female soldier gets killed, so the rights of those female soldiers must be restricted so that my feelings come first. Make them disappear!”
It always comes down to burkas, doesn’t it? We have to get ourselves out of the sight of men whose tender feelings for us never seem to include giving a shit what’s good for us or not.
That takes the cake Robert. I don’t think you even have the balls to write the above trash to a male soldier who served for you in Iraq. I think what you wrote is perfectly tailored to the question of how “morale” crumbles — and it has nothing to do with women and all to do with male posturing, even in times of combat.
Don’t be cute, Robert, because that’s what you’re being. “Effectiveness” was used against African American soldiers, too, to justify the bigotry of whites. You’re putting yourself squarely on that side here.
The defense of our nation is being run by a bunch of guys who have NO combat experience. George Bush dodged Vietnam. So did everybody else in his cabinet. Rumsfeld was a medic. I don’t recall he ever saw service. Inhofe’s service record remains a mystery so far.
Every time I hear arguments against the military treating people according to their abilities, rather than restricting them to their culturaly proscribed roles, simply because doing so may be “bad for morale” “bad for troop cohesion” or “upset people back home” I can’t help but think of that scene from the West Wing. You know, the one where a decorated African American congressman essentially responds to such arguments with something along the lines of “I see your point, the problem is, people said the same things about me 50 years ago.”
Also, stop bitching about the IDF and provide a cite. Effectiveness in wartime means how many soldiers and how much material was workable. I don’t see any recognition of that in your posts, merely a tiresome clinging to the notion that mens’ reactions to women are so special that they must be coddled and indulged no matter what, no how bad the effect on women is.
Jenny, it’s a measure of privelege that some people’s feelings about the rights of other people take precedence. Robert’s argument here is essentially the one these nutjob pharmacists are making: Mens’ feelings abuot women come first, and that’s it.
Yeah, there probably is some male posturing involved. So? I’m talking pragmatism here. Does it MATTER why things would go to shit? Whose “fault” it is? “Let’s not set the airplane on fire.” “You’re saying that the people on this plane can’t deal with a little heat! You’re a bigot!” “Yeah, whatever. But let’s not set the airplane on fire.”
If a male soldier had the same opinion as Ginmar has, I would say the same thing to him. Although if ENOUGH soldiers had the same opinion as Ginmar, then my position – which is based on pragmatism – would perforce change. Maybe Ginmar should be trying to convince her coworkers, rather than us civilians.
The analogy to African-American soldiers fails on motivational grounds. There was prejudice against black soldiers on the part of the majority, a desire not to serve with them, and a widespread belief that they weren’t up to the job. The actual service of black soldiers dispelled that third belief, which led to a sea change in the feelings of white servicemen. When the civilian leadership imposed integration, the white servicepeople were able to handle it because their experience told them that it could be made to work.
There is some prejudice against female soldiers, but I don’t get the impression from my male military friends that they mind serving with women, or (by and large) that there is a feeling that women aren’t up to the job. (There is such a feeling in some civilian activist groups, but I’m not worried about what they think.) An imposition of women-in-combat soldiers would probably not work out as easily as integration did.
I’ve made the point I wish to make, and I think I’m going to bow out at this point. This isn’t a listening space, it’s a condemning space. “You feel differently than me and that means you’re bad.” Pass.
When you take my life so glibly into theoretical space you better damn well expect that I’m not going to listen and I will condemn your ignorance and arrogance. What did you expect?
Well Robert, yes it does matter. If men are blaming women for men’s weakness and then prohibiting (through legislation) women’s full access to citizen rights, then it matters hugely. And yes it does matter when men can, again glibly, sit back and discuss what they *think* might happen if women are in combat while they, again glibly, ignore the often combat-like experiences of domestic battery and rape. You can calmly extract the one set of your personal beliefs from the reality that women experience, and that too MATTERS.
You are giving more credence to your FEARS and PATERNALISM then you are to what women face as battered, raped, not-quite-full citizens of the US of A. That MATTERS.
You would rather worry about a theoretical “going to shit”, which you seem to want to pin on me because I think it MATTERS whose fault it is, then you want to worry about the GOING TO SHIT that happens every day, everywhere to WOMEN.
… but I do hope you stick around to realize the truth you yourself are embodying about Ginmar’s comments about “effectiveness.” You can’t get anywhere effectively with your arguments, so you’re just going to pack up your toys and leave. Nice way to prove the point.
Uh, Robert, hate to be the bearer of bad news but what you call ‘pragmatisim’ is just bowing to prejudice, however much you deny it and take your toys with you.
The analogy to African-American soldiers fails on motivational grounds. There was prejudice against black soldiers on the part of the majority, a desire not to serve with them, and a widespread belief that they weren’t up to the job. The actual service of black soldiers dispelled that third belief, which led to a sea change in the feelings of white servicemen. When the civilian leadership imposed integration, the white servicepeople were able to handle it because their experience told them that it could be made to work.
I guess I’m supposed to accept everything Robert says because Robert says it.
“You feel differently from me and that means you’re bad.”
God, that’s one the stupidest things I’ve ever heard—and also one of the most dishonest. You started out saying that you were more upset at the deaths of female soldiers. You want your feelings about women to determine what rights and respect they get. You got nailed for those beliefs.
You call accepting bigotry ‘pragmatism.’ If I said what I called it, I’d get banned, but it would at least have the virtue of being accurate.
When the rights of a minority are restricted because the majority finds those rights hurt the ability to discriminate, that isn’t pragmatism, Robert.
Ginmar:
I am not defending Robert in this case, however, one thing to point out. You attributed the decrease in unit effectiveness to “MEN [WHO] DO NOT HAVE THE ADEQUATE DISCIPLINE TO DEAL WITH WOMEN IN THE MILITARY. ” Actually, from my experience as a defense lawyer it has been both men and women who lack the discipline.
The problem is mostly maturity and nature. These problems that we are dealing with, for instance prostitution on Navy ships, in a combat zone, in Kuwait, etc. Jilted lovers blowing each other up with hand granades, etc. Have all contributed to the lessening of unit effectiveness. It is the lack of discipline of ALL military members. Additionally, these problems exist with our homosexual brothers in arms also. They are just not as widely acknowleged as opposite sex cases that decrease unit effectiveness.
I am all for qualified women in combat (I am actually married to one). However, it cannot be a social experiment and “feelings” have gotta f’off. Warriors must live and fight as warriors and the institution cannot be changed to accomodate civilian sensibilities.
Those were my words, not Ginmar’s.
How come when it’s men’s feelings, it’s so important, J? Huh? How come it’s always a social experiment when it’s women’s rights?
Women always get told to wait a little while longer, to be a little bit more patient, to speak a bit more softly, and then at long last men will finally listen and respond and let us have what we shouldn’t have been denied in the first place.
In this case, blind men are shortchanging not just women but Americans. By kowtowing to bigotry, they’re denying the miltary qualified soldiers.
Feelings is never an option in the military unless it comes to sexism. I’ve yet to see a commander give a shit if a lawful order hurt somebody’s feelings. ARe these guys soldiers or school boys? They can suck it up and drive on, then.
Also amusing is the idea that sexism is somehow different from racism, and must be coddled and encouraged and allowed to die a natural death, despite its amazing longevity.
Yeah, Q grrl. You know we all just look alike. Er, sound alike.
yeah, those silly civilians. with their sensibilities and social experiments.
I think Rouseau would argue that on your terms they wouldn’t qualify as civilians anymore since their common will is being ignored.
so who exactly is your military institution fighting for jstevenson?
What did you expect?
Discourse with adults.
Oh Robert, so sharp, so witty.
So, now we’re not adults because we disagree? Because I (and others) refuse to let you dictate what is and is not pertinent to women?
I thought you were leaving.
Q grrl, you’re missing the part where the speaker kind of assumes that women can’t be warriers, and that civilians can’t be warriers. Because of course women ned to have manicure kits with them at all times or something.
Adults? Waht next? Complaining that it’s not civil to point out the holes in your argument?
Betcha five bucks we’re facing a retread of the dreaded civility issue, plus a few more rounds of the ‘feelings’ debate. Funny, feelings never comes up unless it’s in discussion of this kind of subject.