Now that the bellicose Mr. Macron is talking about sending the French army to the killing fields of the Ukraine, can discussion of conscription be far behind? Especially because most sadly-shrunken European armies these days do not have the numbers even to fill a decent sports stadium. The re-emergence of conscription will pose an existential challenge to capital F Feminism.
Feminist leaders (well past the age range to be conscripted themselves) could insist that young women be conscripted equally with young men. However, that would probably cost them the support of most of those young women, who might reasonably say that Feminism is OK when it means they can abort their unwanted babies, but not when it means they get sent to far-off Ukraine and get their legs blown off.
Alternatively, Feminist leaders could demand that young women not be conscripted at all. But that would expose Feminism’s insistence on “equality” as a lie. After all, we have seen the movies in which blonde-haired women in high heels outrun young African-heritage males and wrestle them to the ground without even getting their makeup smudged. Was that mere nonsense?
Most likely, Feminist leaders would be OK with conscription for young women who barely get through high school and work minimum wage service industry jobs – but not for college girls. No, those college girls are too valuable to die in the mud in the Ukraine; they are the future politicians, lawyers, and bureaucrats needed to keep the country running. However, that would expose Feminism as really being a cloak for a class advantage, where the minority of young women who are Daughters of Privilege (mainly white women from Upper Middle Class families) are handed opportunities which they could not have earned on their own merits.
Since none of those options are good, the obvious approach for smart Feminist leaders would be to start advocating now for negotiations to end the conflict, thereby obviating the need for future conscription. Are Feminist leaders smart enough to act in their own best interests?
There’ll always be a conflict, some conflict… So we need to figure this out for the ages.
Okay first of all:PROHIBIT any woman with young children from being drafted AND from enlisting. Thats crazy.
Maybe we need a new Women’s Army Corps. There’s a Lot to be done in warfare that doesn’t involve hand-to-hand conflict. This is major-league obvs, I know.
I think their participation in the military was what mde the Greatest Generation the greatest. And many women worked on the war effort even though they didn’t have to. (it was probably a great way to meet men, hee hee,)
Let’s see, how would I feel if my daughter were to be drafted into the JAG Corps, f’rinstance? I’d worry about her safety, but then, I do that now. But in general I think I’d be proud AND I’d be confident that it would give her additional strength and confidence throughout her life.
You can’t really fatally doubt your own worth once your country has deemed you important and has used you. Or so I imagine.
(BUT P.S. I’ll tell you one other thing, on behalf of my entire generation: NONE of us wanted to go to VietNam, there was no, “thank god I’m not a boy” sentiment among us girls. But I woudnta wanted to go there—WHY? If anybody ever explained it to us, I missed it. AND: we were right. Today VietNam , one of the 5 Communist countries in the world, is a garden spot and tourist destination! So, um, WHAT were we s’posed to be “saving” them from?
No,I think the question of drafting women pales, in any given conflict situation, beside the question of whether we should put any of our youth in harm’s way AT ALL?)
I wholeheartedly agree with that. Fortunately, we live in a “democracy” where 80 Million somethings voted for Joe Biden*, understanding that they were giving him the right to send our youth into harm’s way without even a vote of “Congress”.
I remain convinced that the right way for a truly democratic republic to declare war would look rather like what the Ancient Athenians did – where the young men who would be committed in war first themselves personally voted for the war, then went down to the ships and rowed off towards Sicily (and their deaths).
But none of this resolves the situation that will face the leaders of the Capital F Feminist movement. Their only way out is to make sure that the question of women being conscripted never comes up.
As it happens, a US Senator is taking care of the urgent needs of his citizens by visiting the Ukraine – and making a plea that may be relevant to the conscription conundrum facing capital F Feminists:
On his latest of far too many visits to Ukraine, Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday urged legislators to expand the pool of citizens subject to being drafted and thrown into the country’s losing war against Russia, saying, “We need more people in the line.”
The Ukrainian military accepts voluntary enlistments from those 18 and older. However, in stark contrast to Americans’ experience with military drafts, Ukraine exempts men under 27 from being conscripted.
It is fairly obvious why the Zelensky regime delays male conscription to the post-college age of 27. That avoids the potential for large groups of college-age males starting to chant “Hell no! We won’t go!”. Feminist leaders in other countries could certainly point to that as an example – if no conscription of those under 27 is good enough for the “democratic” Ukraine, then surely it is good enough for France and the US?
If this were allied to Hypatia’s reasonable suggestion that mothers should be exempt from conscription, then practically speaking very few women would have to worry about being conscripted in a truly equitable society. But in a truly equitable society, why should mothers be exempt from conscription while fathers are not?
It still seems that the smart move for Feminist leaders would be to obviate any dangerous discussion about the gender inequities of conscription by pushing for peace.
You’re assuming they’re afraid. But they aren’t, because they can’t even imagine what combat is really like.
I doubt anybody else remembers this, but I think it was during the “First” Gulf War, a female soldier, Jessica Lynch, was wounded and (gasp!) captured, and for weeks the entire country was titillated by imagining what might be happening to her…I could not effing believe it. I mean during the VietNam war we saw awful carnage on TV every night, hundreds of guys brought home in plastic bags every week. I remember thinking, this war effort isnt going to get far if the entire country is going to get bent outta shape over ONE soldier. It was ludicrous.
I don’t think it will be a conundrum. One would think that having men claiming to be woman join female sports would have been a conundrum for the Feminist, but it isn’t.
The military won’t send women into combat any more than the IDF, but the propagandist will do their best to indicate that the woman are in combat and performing better than men.
From the Martin van Creveld article linked by Mettulus:
“Israel’s media have been bristling with stories about heroic Israeli … women. … Here I want to say, loud and clear: almost all of it is nonsense. Nonsense in tomato juice, as we Israelis like to say.”
While Mr. van C. may be correct that Israeli media are overstating the contribution of Israeli women in combat, the situation under the Zelensky regime may be different – and worse.
Just wandering through the InterWebs, it is not uncommon to find reports of Ukrainian women complaining about being in the trenches while menstruating. Nor it is uncommon to see reports of Russian troops coming across increasing numbers of dead female Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield. There was one report of a captured Ukrainian female soldier pleading with her Russian captor not to hit her because she was pregnant – provoking the Russian response of “Then why the hell are you here?”
Feminism leads directly to women suffering in combat – unless capital F Feminists rediscover the gentler side of womanhood and start pushing for female-inspired jaw-jaw instead of war-war.
Gavin points out the silliness of today’s “Feminism”. It is totally a political movement, with no hat tip to practical issues. Women are today put into places they realistically have no business being.
I believe I may be the only one here with practical experience in the military and women. I served my last 16 years in the military as a flight surgeon in an Air Force clinic, 9 of those as its commander. In the first Gulf War I took the mobilized part of my clinic to active duty. We ended up being sent to backfill the hospital in Miinot, ND, while they sent their people to the Middle east. That was rather the pattern throughout the services - reserves to back up the active duty while the AD went to the fight. In most instances the active duty refused to cede any control to the Reserves. In my parent unit’s instance, we sent the whole flying segment to Cairo (KC-135 unit), complete with a bird colonel (our base commander) in command. The AF then sent some stranger O-6 to be our commander - just so they would be in command. The ONLY exception to this general rule was the Marine Corps where intact units with their commanders were mobilized and used.
By the tiime of Iraq/Afghanistan, this changed. This was in large part because in the interval time the military had changed its nature. The Gulf War accelerated many of those changes. Among other things, the GW showed the services they could not undertake a major war without the Reserves. It also led to the integration of the Reserves into mainline military thinking and the divestiture of the AD of many “subsidiary” parts. So, eg., today ALL the AF refueling assets are in the reserves, as well as much of the air transport capability.
Today the real military is still composed mainly of males. There is female use in non-combat units like my clinic, transport, etc. Mainly as a result of the military academies inclusion of females, there are generally more women in. uniform, but except for the “tokens” here and there, they generally are not in frontline combat units. They DO make real contributions to the efficacy of the services, but generally not from behind a rifle. This generally mirrors the make-up of the IDF, but the we tend to make a lot of noise about all this, while the IDF quietly goes about their deadly business of survival.
But alll this belies the whole cooncept of Feminism. Women are not “equal”, they are “different”. Yes, they have real and practical ways they can contribute to national security, but those ways are circumscribed by physical limitations. Failure to acknowledge this fact is like distortion of the market - it will lead to suboptimal results.
I recall reading somewhere in the distant past that the transformation of the Reserves into a deliberate part of the fighting military had been a conscious decision on the part of some far-sighted past military commanders.
They wanted to raise the political cost before foolish politicians could commit forces in far-flung places. The necessity to activate the Reserves would – like the implementation of conscription – make it more likely that the Political Class would be forced to think twice.
But that was in a now-lost world when the US had better military commanders, and arguably better politicians.
Feminism is simply one more tool for the communists, used similarly like many others to subvert the family, which is their real enemy. Conscription of females for any military related service is immoral.
