For the last several years, the United States has debated the issue of requiring women to sign up for the selective draft along with their male counterparts. Several dismiss the debate as archaic, as they believe a draft will never be reinstated. In the last few months, a Texas court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the selective service to require only men be subject to the draft. Now the debate is headed to the Supreme Court. Much to my disgust, several people have used the event to laugh at feminists for getting “a dose of equality” that they did not intend and did not want. As a woman who has directly involved myself with military service, gone to war, and assisted with the integration of women into combat positions, I am taken aback by these comments. What does it say about our society and what does it say about my service, as female combat vet, when so many people are against the draft for women?
Ironically and as a weird twist, the court ruled the draft as sexual discrimination against men, not women, as only men are required to register. Only four years ago, women fought to end the legal sexual discrimination which can in the form of the ban on women in combat positions; a majority of people did not want women in the military much less combat positions and now all the sudden, they do? They now laugh in women’s faces that they got what they had coming with these court ruling. Women against the new requirement to register themselves for the draft lashed out against those women who wanted equality in the right to fight, because they did not want to fight. It’s a mess. How is it that feminists would want to be allowed into direct ground combat and yet not want to sign up for the draft? It does not make sense simply because it is not true; most feminists have always wanted the draft to enlist females just as they wanted access to all combat positions. Along the same lines, it does not make sense for someone to say that it is okay to send their son off to war and not their daughter. The reasons I have heard are “Well my daughter could get raped. She is not as capable as my son,” or “We can’t stomach seeing American women coming back in body bags.” Hearing this makes me sick, actually, because it indirectly disregards the families that have already received their daughters home in a body bag. Further, it criticizes all the families that deal with the trauma of military sexual assault. They point to the fact that if she wasn’t there, none of this would have happened, so it’s the family’s fault, or it’s the country’s fault for letting them in the military in the first place. Does this mean my own parents don’t care about me? Would they ever think they would be somehow responsible for my death or rape by “allowing” me to go off and fight? These comments are nothing more than benevolent sexism, and it discriminates against women AND men in a horrific way. I can assure you that my parents care deeply about me so much that they “allow” me to be a full class citizen and fight for what I believe in no matter the cost. I personally did not sign up to be raped, and I did not sign up to die, I signed up to serve; if a consequence of my actions was rape or death, than so be it; but none of those actions would be my parents’ fault or my country’s fault; they are the faults of the rapist and the enemy. Period.
On another note, to avoid such an uncomfortable debate on whose life is more valuable, a man or a woman’s, many divert to the argument that to require women to sign up for the draft would add extreme, nightmarish administrative costs or at least cost more than what the country would gain in return. They cite higher injury rates for women, equally higher costs over all, or they cite the legal costs of investigations and court martials for sexual assault. They dig into the “infrastructural” changes that will have to take place in order to support the new female population; whether it is medical costs of pregnancy or gynecological issues or new female bays and camera systems to protect women from sexual intruders; they lump it altogether as a “female” problem, not an American problem. Many of these so-called required changes are “nice to haves” not necessities, and I could dig into the details, but I would argue that many of these are mutually benefitting, meaning they benefit both male and female Soldiers directly and indirectly. Thus all of these arguments that women come with a more costly tab than men is simple covert sexism in my opinion and a futile attempt to keep women out of the military in order to maintain the “good ole boys club.” I have yet to see a comprehensive, factual, unbiased report on the cost of women’s legal, medical, and administrative costs against the cost of men’s. Creating a tangible, result-oriented report on what the military would gain for including women has yet to be seen.
The statistics that I find interesting are that women are more recruitable out of high school because of a general lack of criminal records compared to the men and more women score higher on the ASFAB than their male counterparts. These facts point toward the necessity to have women sign up for the draft because the improve the military, not take away from. Don’t we want a smarter and more discipline force or are we still so blind sighted that Soldiers having sex during deployment and may see each other naked is going to amount to doomsday for unit cohesion?
Critics have long stated they are concerned with “readiness” and “lethality” of the force if women are allowed in or are forced in. Adding a small female population who led to a break down in unit cohesion. Soldiers will have sex, get distracted, and sacrifice their life or the mission unneccessarily to rescue their love and the damsel in distress. From my experience, Soldiers have been having sex during war since the beginning of time and it made small waves, no large, the-world-is-ending-waves. When I was in Afghanistan, my soldiers had sex with female contractors or local women or other men. It was kept quiet because there was a set rule of no sex. I only knew of one incident for sure, which I had to confront because I was in charge. Minor annoyance that would have been present regardless if female Soldiers were there or not. The hat is already out of the bag so to speak; women are every where on the battle field now. Also, the military called for a need of “critical mass” of women entering the military or at least combat branches, for their own protection, to normalize the presence of women so men will not act like dogs, and to change the culture to accept women as capable warriors. Well, a draft might help with that on more than one level; it at least changes what is expected of women which is crucial in cultural change.
At the center of this all is the sexist concept that we must protect our daughters and “let the boys be boys” by maintaining an exclusive right for men to fight wars and keep our women at home. By protecting our daughters, we are denying them an incredible honor, opportunity for self-improvement, and leadership growth unparalleled in any other business sphere. By allowing our “boys to be boys,” we are allowing them to die without utilizing 50% of our capable population to support the war effort and possibly saving their lives in doing so. You cannot argue against the tangible saving of lives we saw in World War II when women entered the war effort. They saved lives, and possibly would have saved more had they been allowed into more critical roles. Indirectly, we are maintaining the status quo when we say no women in the draft; this is so infused in our society that men and women are not equal, the end result is women are still second class citizens. To be first class, women must be require to meet the same standards as the men in all aspects of civil life. They must vote, they must work, they pay taxes, they must own property, and they must fight. They should at the very least be allowed to take part in the ultimate act of patriotism, to enlist, or commission, into the US Armed Forces or be available through the selective service channels. As a civil, progressive society, we must not get in their way.
So let me be clear when I state that I do not want equality by default, and I do not want women to register for the draft because men have to. I want women to register for the draft so America can be at its best, or at a minimum, postured for its greatest success.
