The Tentacle - January 28, 2013
There’s
good news, and there’s bad news; women are now slated to work in
front-line military positions due to a change in Pentagon policy by
outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
Reviews
are still coming in – women have been notably silent thus far – but
tentatively. This is good news for the emancipated “feminist” hell-bent
on full equality. It’s bad news for many traditional women concerned
about unwilling death in combat, perhaps after conscription in a future
Selective Service draft.
This latter part was completely skirted by a Frederick News-Post editorial
on January 26, 2013, “Welcoming women to combat.” It was but a liberal
cheerleading for female-male equality without dissertation on
consequences!
After my preliminary comments on Facebook
along these lines, I was reminded by a Jewish friend about women in the
Israeli military, and separately was admonished that I was only
semi-qualified to weigh in on this issue, as I had no vagina. Really?
Well,
absent the plumbing issue, I do have a daughter, and also sons who
could be impacted at some point due to some State Department-inflicted
disaster with North Korea, China, or Iran, etc., so here goes some
expounding.
The
“Law of Unintended Consequences” has not always well served the
National Organization for Women and the women’s movement in general.
Feminism has wrought consequences, many unforeseen and unwanted already.
The inclusion of women in the workforce has resulted in hardships in
the American family, as women compete with men for the same jobs,
lowering the income of men. This – in turn – has resulted in the
necessity of the two-income household in order to make up the
difference! Latchkey children, divorce over money issues, and lack of
marriage “maintenance time,” are all direct consequences thereof.
It’s a beware-of-what-you-wish-for kinda thing…
When
the hand-clapping about the feel-good aspects of military-equality is
complete, some real consequences will then need to be examined. Will a
woman need to prove capable of the physical requirements of the job,
such as carrying a 185 lb. wounded comrade (male or female) 15 yards to
safety in a firefight? Or will the physical requirements simply be
reduced to a ‘more fair” standard out of Political Correctness?
The obvious result of this concern would be a less capable, less formidable fighting force.
Will
male soldiers be emotionally incapable of leaving a female behind
should the success of a desperate mission require it? Years of societies
programming about feelings and worth based on biological and hormonal
considerations will be heard and felt, and not conveniently overcome.
Will
the Geneva Convention need to be rewritten to require separate prison
camp and toiletry for each gender in case of capture and incarceration?
The
controversy surrounding women at the front-line is not simply resolved;
of course women can and do fight just as dirty as men. Sometimes within
a relationship they even chose!
And
I have heard women comment about their own attitudes shifting as a
consequence of monthly ovulation. Would a female commander, weighing
lives in a potential assault be extra-likely to be bold during unwise
circumstances at certain times of the month?
Once
upon a time the U.S. Navy actually experimented with all-female
ballistic missile submarine crews and nixed the program for this reason.
[The reasoning was that they did not want mixed gender crews during
long deployments.] Women working together for extended periods of time
underwater, and at the office as well as on duty have been proven to
have coordinated cycles after adjustment; this a function of a heredity
that forced women to compete equally among themselves to win over males
going back to the hunter-gatherer days.
My column on the above was to be “No semen in submarines,” but sadly, the issue went away.
So,
as we return to final thoughts on this very interesting topic, I can
really see two very good sides to the argument about (some) women’s
equality desires vs. dangerous military duties.
Of
course, the law about who must register as required by The Selective
Service Act was supposition on my part. How this issue is treated, and
whether women weigh-in, will be most fascinating to witness in the next
few weeks.
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