Women in the War Part Trois
This is the third post I have written about the topic of women in the War on Terror. At the tank and on Free Republic I have seen just about every existing argument advanced against women in combat.
- Women are not big enough or strong enough.
- Women do not have the temperament to fight.
- Women should be protected from the cruelties of war.
- Women are a distraction.
- Women manipulate the system unfairly.
- Women do not act like men.
That pretty well sums up the arguments against women in combat.
I’ve discussed the size and strength issue. Men vary in size and strength and combat units do not limit their soldiers to specific body types or abilities. Elite units, like the SEALS, are different but the grunts in the First Infantry Division will vary from one extreme to the other. Arguing that women do not belong in combat without addressing the issue of whether or not some men do not belong in combat changes the argument to one purely about sex and not ability.
How many men in our military are called upon to carry another man of about their own weight over their shoulder once a year or more? How many men in our military are called upon to hike day after day with full packs, for days on end? Size and strength arguments should be based upon the frequent tasks that the soldier performs, not the exceptional ones.
The quote was that women do not have a flair for fighting. I’m not sure what that is supposed to mean. In our society, folks that fight all the time are called criminals. We expect our citizens to restrain themselves. Making an assumption about women based on a supposed lack of “flair” is either a suggestion that our military is full of sociopaths or that their sex alone is, yet again, the sole issue. As I understand the military, it is not supposed to be spoiling for a fight, only willing to fight. Nothing in any of that excludes women.
June Cleaver did not volunteer to serve in our military. The notion that women in the military should be protected from the sight, smell, sound and cruelties of war is sexist in the extreme. It suggests that women are better than men, or worse, weaker than man emotionally and spiritually. The exclusion from combat on this basis is not about biology but philosophy. There are things that women should not do even if they want to. It reminds me that women cannot legally drive in Saudi Arabia. We are not Saudi Arabia.
Another part of this argument is the risk that women in the military run of being assaulted sexually, by their fellow troops or by the enemy. Whether the military wants to admit it or not, it is a risk that men have run over the centuries. Should women be protected based on the potential that they might be raped? Where in our society are women protected this way? Why should the military be an exception? Is being raped by an Iraqi worse than being raped by a prison guard or by your stepfather? This is yet another argument that rests on the premise that the exclusion is solely sex based.
I, personally, have been distracted by women. That is a failing of mine and not anything that the women in question did. Indeed, many of them never knew that I was distracted by them. Blaming women for the actions that men take around them makes men out to be rather feeble minded and women quite powerful. As a man, I’m not willing to accept that. I would suggest that if you are that easily distracted, as a man, perhaps you do not belong in combat. People talk about an “instinct” men have to protect women. I do not believe that it exists. Proponents of this behavior are making excuses for choices that they made or would make that put them is a less flattering light. Again, behaviors by men that are being blamed on women.
Women manipulate the system that was created in the military to protect them. Yeah, so? Manipulating the system is as old as armies. Want a better assignment? Want to be based someplace else? Manipulate the system. Some women, like some men, look to get ahead by any means including manipulating the system. That’s not a sex issue but an organizational issue.
Women do not act like men. Really? Now there’s a deep thought. Not all men act like men, either. In fact, when it comes right down to it, few people act exactly like anyone else. If you’re talking about certain behaviors, they can be learned. Basic trains a lot of young men and women in behaviors they did not have prior. Few men in the military have the behaviors and mind set of a SEAL. They are not expected to have those. Just as with size and strength, the variations in behaviors among military men mean that similar variations in women should not exclude them.
I am reminded that blacks were not welcome in combat in World War II, except in very unique circumstances. Replace the word “women” with the word “Negroes” in the list above. That is exactly the way that it used to be. Before that, war was a gentleman’s game. Officers had to be members of the elite, the nobility. The common people were not capable of leading men in battle.
My first post on this topic had an extensive list of stories about the actions of women in combat in the War on Terror. Under difficult and unexpected circumstances, women have demonstrated that they are equally as capable as men in performing their jobs in combat. Arguments to the contrary have to go beyond “everyone says” and “we all know” and “I heard that”. They also have to get over the fact that women have different plumbing than men.
On Free Republic two of the women involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal were cited as examples of why women do not belong in combat. As you recall, there was no combat involved. For every woman who may have not fought hard or well in combat, there is a man who did so as well. Sometimes people do not react optimally. It is not about their sex, it is about them as individuals.
Prior posts on this topic:
Women in the War
Women in the War Part Deux
Table of contents for Women in the War
- Women in the War
- Women in the War Part Deux
- Women in the War Part Trois
- Women in Combat – Medics
- Pfc. Monica Brown
“Women are a distraction.”
They certainly distract me everywhere else. Why, just yesterday, I was at the community pool….