Now, I know it’s been in the news a lot lately, but I oppose compulsory military service for anyone. The state does not own people’s bodies or their labor, the draft is, in my opinion, involuntary servitude and against the 13th amendment as such. The only reason it persists is that there is an assumption that is probably central to human nature that men are obligated to protect women and children at cost to themselves. This belief is found in most cultures and seems almost inescapable.
But if a draft is necessary for the survival of the country, I firmly believe that men and women should be drafted equally. Now that women have gained combat roles, there was talk in Congress about moving to make women also required to register with selective service (an Orwellian term if there ever were one, since the people being drafted didn’t select shit!) I believed in this principle even back in high school, when I called myself a feminist. I believed that men and women together had to do their part to defend this country. And I’m glad that many people do and have.
Interestingly, I’m not seeing a lot of support for “equality” in terms of equal responsibility, from feminists. Surprise, surprise. Current feminism treats women like infants, saying that we deserve to be catered to round the clock every time we throw a tantrum, never have to clean up our own messes, and that we are fragile enough to need protections that men do not get. It’s saying that it’s a crying shame that women in country’s they’ve never heard of, in towns they can’t pronounce, oceans away, are practicing female genital cutting since its part of their culture, while turning a blind eye to the male genital cutting that is a part of this culture. And now, it’s saying that women should get the honor of serving in combat roles in the armed forces, without the burden of women having to register for the draft the same as men. Once again we see the pattern of feminists focusing solely on women and ignoring men. If the draft is unfair, it’s unfair to both sexes. If the draft is a necessary evil, it is also that to both sexes. Aren’t you the ones claiming your movement is all for the equal rights of the sexes? What are you fighting for if not that?
One thing I’ve heard from a feminist (but I’m not sure exactly how common this sentiment is among feminists in general) is that women don’t have enough political representation, and therefore, women don’t have the say in the decision to go to war that men do. This is a very twisted way of thinking about the draft.
First of all, genitals do not make someone a representative of everyone else who happens to have the same kind of thing going on between their legs. Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Hillary Clinton don’t represent me or my political beliefs just because they happen to have vaginae, and to think so is just idiotic.
Second, even if there are not an equal number of men and women in Congress and there has not been a female President yet, that doesn’t mean women in this country do not have any political voice. It’s one person = one vote, so women as well as men voted for these politicians that are in power (and you all did such a wonderful job, I might add). Women also have even more power than men in terms of political protests; fewer people listen to, or give money for, social “activism” online and off that is by and for men than that which is by and for women. Women use their bodies to sell everything, including political opinions. They catch more attention when they play the victim. Nobody gives a damn when a man or group of men does that. They also make up a slight majority of voters, if you take into account that women are a slight majority in this country and that they live longer on average than men. This may not make a big difference, but if men were the majority of the voting public, it would be seen as “more proof of the patriarchy” and feminists would likely go on and on like a bunch of children acting like it must all be part of some evil plot to undermine all women.
But anyway, if you want to shut down opposition to your movement by saying “What, how can you be opposed to what we’re doing, being a feminist just means you support equality!”, but you do not support equality of the draft, you are seriously delusional. For all the times I’ve been told some variation of the lie “if you believe in women’s equality with men, congratulations, you’re already a feminist!”, I have yet to see it be backed up by feminists supporting equality if that equality ever comes out to mean women getting shit on just as much as men. They’re never going to en masse support “equality” of the number of men vs. women doing difficult, dangerous, degrading and outdoor jobs, including military service.
But they will continue to bitch about women at the top and their representation in the highest paid and most prestigious jobs, and they will fight for women to be allowed to obtain such jobs with rewritten rules that fix the game in their favor when applying for them. This isn’t equality, this is proof that what they’re really after is money, power, and prestige that they didn’t fucking earn. But maybe when we see an equal number of 18 year-old girls as 18 year-old boys getting their limbs blown off and coming home with the real kind of PTSD, we’ll not treat our armed forces so disrespectfully by plunging them into pointless wars that only serve the people who manufacture bullets. Maybe if more of our soldiers dying are female, people will start to actually fucking care about them.