Women and the Military Draft

[Deleted User]

So, I was reading this article, and thought I'd give my opinion(s) on the matter, and also wanted to hear yours. (I'm particularly interested in hearing from Mael here)

The top officers in the Army and Marine Corps testified on Tuesday that they believe it is time for women to register for future military drafts, following the Pentagon’s recent decision to open all jobs in combat units to female service members.

There's the old argument that equality means equality in all senses, not just in opportunity but also in responsibility. While I do agree with this train of thought, I come to question the average woman's ability to handle the responsibilities of particular roles in the military. From as near as I can tell, the typical US soldier can be expected to carry 60+ pounds at pretty much all times. It's no secret than men's bodies tend to be more physically capable compared to their female counterparts. Would women be as effective and capable to bear the weight physically and in turn mentally? I'm aware there are women who do so now, but they do it voluntarily. They usually know what they're getting themselves into before hand and accept the challenges that come with it. This is not a jab at women's capability to do what men can also do, but that elephant in the room of the physical differences between men and women and being capable of filling particular roles. I'm certain there are a wide variety of roles women can fill in the military, but there are others I'm not so certain. All in all, this conversation doesn't really mean very much since the last time the United States military had a draft was in 1972 as the war in Vietnam was winding down.

So what say you folks?

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the draft where they make you go into a war and if you say no you go to jail? If that's the case, then how about let's not force people into wars to begin with regardless of their sex.

[Shamitako]

I can't carry 60 pounds whether you wanna draft me as a man or a woman, so I sorta fail to see your point

[Deleted User]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the draft where they make you go into a war and if you say no you go to jail? If that's the case, then how about let's not force people into wars to begin with regardless of their sex.

That's correct, while that would be ideal it's not likely to happen.

I can't carry 60 pounds whether you wanna draft me as a man or a woman, so I sorta fail to see your point

With the conditioning of training camp that might change, you also are not a full grown adult. This is more geared towards asking your opinions, but my point is, I'm not sure if women on average will be able to live up to the physical taxation that comes from typical combat roles, so does it make sense to add Women to the ranks of selective service for the sake of 'equality'?

[Cobalt996]

...Literally none of the women in my family whom I know... cannot lift 60 pounds safely. Well, except my aunt.

EDIT: I fail at typing.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Cobalt996

[Deleted User]

...Literally none of the women in my family whom I know... cannot lift 60 pounds safely. Well, except my aunt.

I'm sure they can LIFT 60 pounds. That's not the issue. I'm sure Mael will be able to reinforce this better than I can, but soldiers likely have it on them at all times while walking through whatever terrain. Including a forrest or a scorching desert of the middle east.

[Shamitako]

And if I can change in training camp, why can't an average woman? You already said yourself that there are women who've put their minds to it and succeeded

[starkidcosmo]

as someone the US government considers a woman, my gut reaction is 'oh god please no,' but that's more because 1) I'm not a huge fan of what the US military has been doing, and 2) I'm not a huge fan of taking orders from people I don't know, much less like, and less because I don't think I'm physically capable. (I mean, I'm probably not physically capable, but I've done some wild shit so who knows.)

In some regards, you're right; the women who've thus far signed up for the military are volunteers, as in, they (hopefully) know that they can handle the physical demands, but at the same time, it's kind of ridiculous to assume every man over the age of 18 can do the same? Regardless of "sex," everyone's bodies are built differently and can or can't handle a wide variety of things. And even if we consider "sex," what are we talking about? Chromosomes? Genitals? What's written on a birth certificate? Because none of those things are reliable, and I'm not even talking about transgender people. Doctors are known to modify a baby's genitals if that baby is born intersex, so not everyone with a penis is going to be "male." Chromosomes can't even be determined without doing tests, so you really can't know for certain what your chromosomes are without doing tests.

So my point is: how do you determine whether or not someone is fit for military duty just by whether they're "male" or "female?" If we're going to do a draft, which I guess the US isn't going to drop anytime soon, it should really be more on a case-by-case basis. Draft everyone, run them through a few tests, take them if they pass.

I can't believe I just wrote that lol

[Arkhi]

And if I can change in training camp, why can't an average woman? You already said yourself that there are women who've put their minds to it and succeeded

I assume Mike means after training, how would women fare in comparison to men? Who knows, maybe there's a scientific journal out there made to address this.

[Tomas Elliot]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the draft where they make you go into a war and if you say no you go to jail? If that's the case, then how about let's not force people into wars to begin with regardless of their sex.

This, pretty much. I cannot say if I find a draft for women to be right or wrong, because IMO the entire concept of draft is wrong to begin with.

[mde2001]

I'm jumping on the I don't support anyone being drafted bandwagon. I don't think anyone, regardless of sex, should be forced to join the military.

[Eviora]

A government that forces its citizens to fight its wars is more than deserving of being overthrown. I'll join the "NO to all drafts" crowd.

[Cobalt996]

I'm sure they can LIFT 60 pounds. That's not the issue. I'm sure Mael will be able to reinforce this better than I can, but soldiers likely have it on them at all times while walking through whatever terrain. Including a forrest or a scorching desert of the middle east.

I typo'd. Corrected it in OP. All but my aunt would be injured by the act of lifting 60lbs.

Also didn't state it there, but drafting gets a no-go from me.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Cobalt996

[Maelstrom]

The likelihood of a draft is super slim. It's a super emergency provision that would happen only in dire circumstances. You guys seem to think that anytime an incident pops off, the military has goes into draft mode from the start. That's not how it works. Did a draft happen when soldiers were sent to Kuwait, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, etc? No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States

If you don't like what the military is doing, blame yourselves, blame your elders, and blame your peers. The military is directed by elected officials. All of us together elected them. That includes all of you with no interest in politics and don't bother to keep up with it or vote. What the military is doing, it is doing at the behest of elected leaders. And some idiots wanna put Trump up there with them.

Uncle Sam, "Hi, we've lost most of our troops in all the fighting and we're being invaded so we're drafting people to help defend the country as a last ditch effort to prevent us from being ruled by a foreign nation." If you're not willing to fight in that situation, you don't deserve your freedom. That would be what a draft would most likely be like in these days. The public would never stand for a draft to occur in an offensive war and the public's general distaste for it since Vietnam. If something like that did happen, we'd all be pretty screwed anyways and there won't be much of a choice for anybody except to fight.

Since the 80's, the military has been an all volunteer organization and the president requires a national crisis to reinstate the draft.

So yeah, those of you hating on the draft clearly have an incomplete picture of what a draft is. You focus in on the forced service like that's all you need to know about it.

Adding women to the draft registry is fine by me.

Just because the Infantry MOS is open to women, that doesn't mean they would be forced to be infantry. The vast majority would not be able to meet the standards and would simply be reclassed to another job that needs more people to fill in. For any job you sign onto the military for, if you don't meet the standards and pass the tests, you will get reclassed to something else. If you sign up to be a medic but fail the tests, they're gonna stick you in another job for the rest of your service term.

TBH, there are a lot of safe jobs in the military.

But hey, it's not like there isn't a double standard already instituted in the military, kappa.

[Eviora]

So yeah, those of you hating on the draft clearly have an incomplete picture of what a draft is.

"Hi, we've lost most of our troops in all the fighting and we're being invaded so we're drafting people to help defend the country as a last ditch effort to prevent us from being ruled by a foreign nation." If you're not willing to fight in that situation, you don't deserve your freedom.

Or maybe we just have different opinions than you.

I can't help but be amused by labeling a situation where you're forced to risk your life or be imprisoned as "freedom."

Edited February 6, 2016 by Eviora

[Sutoratosu]

Or maybe we just have different opinions than you.

I can't help but be amused by labeling a situation where you're forced to risk your life or be imprisoned as "freedom."

Or you're literally just going to take a sliver out of his entire argument and act as if you can truly validate that rebuttal with it alone.

I mean, really, just really....Come on... you straight up ignored every point he made both before and after that statement to support the argument he's making.

Anyway, I'd have to cast my opinion for there being no issue including woman in the draft. For pretty much all the reasons Mael has already explained, just because someone is drafted doesn't mean they'll be forced into infantry or another highly physically intensive position. If you're capable, then your capable. If you aren't, you get assigned somewhere more appropriate. So yeah... the question of whether it be a unwise idea based off of the fact that on average the male anatomy and makeup has more muscle mass than the female anatomy... is kinda moot here- cause obviously not everyone is going to the same MOS.

And honestly, I kinda have to agree with him on all the other points he made as well... It's not like this country is an autocracy. It is the people who hold the ultimate power through their ballot. If you don't like what an elected official is doing, well... exactly like he said, everyone shares the blame, because we all have the power to change it or prevent it, whether some of us choose to exercise that power or not.

And further, if you are able bodied and yet aren't willing to get up off your ass, even when your homeland is under assault and facing the immediate threat of invasion and conquest by a foreign power, a power that will likely strip away any rights you have under the constitution, all the freedoms you've ever enjoyed but taken the price by which they were both obtained and maintained for granted... well, yeah, I see his point and think it's a pretty damn good one. If someone doesn't appreciate their freedom enough to fight in order to defend it... well, perhaps they have no need of freedom in the first place, nor any entitlement to it.

Here's a quote I like alot. I feel it's very fitting:

[Kurotsune]

I agree that drafts are bad during times of peace - I say times of peace because there are countries (like Brazil) with mandatory military service for all males at the age of 18, which is pretty fucking stupid.

In times of war, drafting is a requirement. The men and women who aren't willing to throw away their lives will be doing so to at least attempt save more lives than they've lost. From a government perspective, that's the correct approach.

As for the whole "a woman with training can do it too" bit, I gotta point out that out of the 20 female applicants to the Ranger school, a grand total of two women managed to complete the course.

That's a 10% graduation rate as opposed to the historically-tested male graduation rate of 50%. Too soon and too little to be taken as an accurate comparison, but it nonetheless shows a gigantic deficit in the ability to master this training between one gender and the other, most likely due to the same physical differences Jericho has mentioned.

All that said, let those who want to do it do whatever they want to do.

And all who are drafted should serve the same. Whether or not drafted women should serve in combat roles is not up to them or their gender, but to their commanding officers' ability to determine who is individually best suited for which position so they may better serve.

[Eviora]

I'm against the draft in general, so there's no point in arguing about whether women should be included in my response. Most of the rest of his post consisted of explaining his opinion on the political system in general (which I also disagree with), historical facts about the draft, etc - again, not something I need to answer. I only quoted the parts of the post immediately relevant to my response.

My points above (the latter of which applies to you as well) stand. Whether or not I decide to fight in our theoretical would-be conquerors or not should be *my* decision alone, and a country that tries to blackmail me into it is denying me a freedom even more fundamental than freedom of speech. Sorry, but nations don't own the lives of their citizens.

[Deleted User]

as someone the US government considers a woman, my gut reaction is 'oh god please no,' but that's more because 1) I'm not a huge fan of what the US military has been doing, and 2) I'm not a huge fan of taking orders from people I don't know, much less like, and less because I don't think I'm physically capable. (I mean, I'm probably not physically capable, but I've done some wild shit so who knows.)

In some regards, you're right; the women who've thus far signed up for the military are volunteers, as in, they (hopefully) know that they can handle the physical demands, but at the same time, it's kind of ridiculous to assume every man over the age of 18 can do the same? Regardless of "sex," everyone's bodies are built differently and can or can't handle a wide variety of things. And even if we consider "sex," what are we talking about? Chromosomes? Genitals? What's written on a birth certificate? Because none of those things are reliable, and I'm not even talking about transgender people. Doctors are known to modify a baby's genitals if that baby is born intersex, so not everyone with a penis is going to be "male." Chromosomes can't even be determined without doing tests, so you really can't know for certain what your chromosomes are without doing tests.

So my point is: how do you determine whether or not someone is fit for military duty just by whether they're "male" or "female?" If we're going to do a draft, which I guess the US isn't going to drop anytime soon, it should really be more on a case-by-case basis. Draft everyone, run them through a few tests, take them if they pass.

I can't believe I just wrote that lol

You're not wrong, but their are the tendencies that men are usually stronger and much for attuned to add the necessary muscle mass/needed levels of fitness expected for the duties of a soldier. All in all, I think after having read this thread, I'm in support of what Mael and others have said. Add women to the ranks of the selective services and should it be necessary at some point in the future, assign people to the roles they'd be best at, even if for women it's mostly non combat.

[Shamitako]

I suppose I should clarify slightly. The point I was trying to make was not that women and men were equal in the regards of physical ability, because I don't actually believe that. But that if you were going to argue that women shouldn't be drafted at all because of being possibly unable to succeed physically, you should keep in mind that there are plenty of men who can't achieve that either

[Commander]

Drafting is a necessary evil despite how much people may hate it. Saying it's completely wrong is like saying "I don't feel like fighting so I guess that means we're going to give up and lose." It's very, very situational and it's a really, really dumb argument to say it's not needed. The draft is there just so that the government can force those who didn't sign up for the army to fight if they need it. I mean I had to fill out that draft paper, but if they looked at me, they'd probably laugh and want to get a woman instead. The point is that not much will change if woman are drafted as they'll go for those they see most fit for the roles first (which is why during the Vietnam war quite a few college students were selected iirc. It's been a few years since I study US history, but I remember something like that).

Here's actually probably a better way to answer the draft question: should women be allowed to play sports like football considered to be male sports? If you say yes, especially due to wanting equality, a draft is no different. Don't call me sexist for this, but I don't think it's completely wrong for women to be treated differently than men. That's mostly because of the roles men and women play in a stereotypical point-of-view. What I'm not saying is that men should be considered superior to women as a woman could be more than capable of doing a man's job. My personal opinion though is that woman should have to be drafted unless of course the feminists and equalists want to take back half the things they've been arguing over the years.

[Kurotsune]

I suppose I should clarify slightly. The point I was trying to make was not that women and men were equal in the regards of physical ability, because I don't actually believe that. But that if you were going to argue that women shouldn't be drafted at all because of being possibly unable to succeed physically, you should keep in mind that there are plenty of men who can't achieve that either

Well, that's returns to my earlier point where the people in charge of the drafts have to figure out where each person will best serve. Someone who can't do a physically challenging task can still do something, even if that something is making soup, that's one less combat-able soldier you have to assign to soup-making.

Dumb example, but I hope it illustrates my reasoning.

[Maelstrom]

I'm against the draft in general, so there's no point in arguing about whether women should be included in my response. Most of the rest of his post consisted of explaining his opinion on the political system in general (which I also disagree with), historical facts about the draft, etc - again, not something I need to answer. I only quoted the parts of the post immediately relevant to my response.

My points above (the latter of which applies to you as well) stand. Whether or not I decide to fight in our theoretical would-be conquerors or not should be *my* decision alone, and a country that tries to blackmail me into it is denying me a freedom even more fundamental than freedom of speech. Sorry, but nations don't own the lives of their citizens.

As a conscientious objector, you would be exempt from the draft, either fully or in part, depending on the totality of your stance. Or you could willingly go to another country whose laws and policies better suit you. You have that freedom of choice. If you want things to change or stay the same, you have to fight for it either physically or politically.

The country doesn't own its citizens, but its citizens should own up to their country or else it won't be a country anymore in those circumstances. Whatever the choices and results, we'd all have to live with it.

But yeah, all that is why it exists, but isn't used. Even if a massive war erupted tomorrow, they'd jump up recruitment, mobilize more of the active duty, call in the reserves, and call back people who are out of the military but are still in their inactive ready reserve window.... long before they'd even begin to imagine using a draft.

[Shamitako]

Well, that's returns to my earlier point where the people in charge of the drafts have to figure out where each person will best serve. Someone who can't do a physically challenging task can still do something, even if that something is making soup, that's one less combat-able soldier you have to assign to soup-making.

Dumb example, but I hope it illustrates my reasoning.

Oh no, that makes perfect sense. I think we're agreed here but I'm failing to communicate that >_<

I'm just trying to say that physical disadvantage isn't a good reason to exclude women from the draft

Also, BTW Jerry, I would not get all that much better with training. Whether it be because I am actually physically incapable or because I couldn't hold up to it mentally, I wouldn't make it and would be shafted a much easier job. Probably something detail-oriented, I'm good at details and spacial stuff. Also also, I actually am fully grown

[Chevaleresse]

Yeah, if there was another draft, you probably wouldn't mind being part of it because that would mean a serious existential threat to the country.

It's worth mentioning in regard to this topic that there are a few militaries that have experimented a bit with mixed-gender units and the results are not promising, to say the least. To quote the summary:

All-male squads, teams, and crews demonstrated higher performance levels on 69% of tasks evaluated (93 of 134) as compared to gender-integrated squads, teams, and crews. Gender-integrated teams performed better than their all-male counterparts in 2 events.

As well as several more specific instances that also give the same information. Morale isn't any worse, but combat performance is.