In addition to Joe Carter’s lament this morning on the subject of women in combat, see (if you can, it’s behind a paywall) this piece by Iraq war veteran Ryan Smith in today’s Wall Street Journal. His description of modern combat’s reality—that the ancient indignities men must endure to fight the enemy have not changed much at all—is not for the squeamish. Here’s a bit of the less offensive stuff:
The invasion [of March 2003] was a blitzkrieg. The goal was to move as fast to Baghdad as possible. The column would not stop for a lance corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, or even a company commander to go to the restroom. Sometimes we spent over 48 hours on the move without exiting the [overcrowded amphibious assault] vehicles. We were forced to urinate in empty water bottles inches from our comrades.
Read the whole thing, but not while eating lunch.
January 24th, 2013 | 12:36 pm
The comparison of combat and athletics is an interesting one. Of course, historically they have been most closely linked, the latter being a training ground for the former.
When it comes to combat, American feminist egalitarians insist that the bodies of men and women are for all meaningful purposes equivalent and must be treated as such (if you have not read Ryan Smith’s WSJ op-ed yet, you will not fully appreciate the point here).
Yet when it comes to athletics (viz. Title IX), American feminist egalitarians insist that the bodies of men and women are fundamentally different and must be treated as such. Yes, a handful of girls play football on the boys teams and a handful of boys play volleyball on the girls teams. Yet we do this only because it would be too expensive or impossible to field two separate teams when the interest imbalances by sex are so extreme. The proof is in our continuing segmentation by sex of children and young adults playing basketball, baseball/softball, hockey, tennis, etc etc.
Why is it so important to have “equality” in combat but to maintain “inequality” in athletics?
January 24th, 2013 | 1:41 pm
When it comes to combat, American feminist egalitarians insist that the bodies of men and women are for all meaningful purposes equivalent and must be treated as such . . . .
Devinicus,
Can you cite some instance of feminists making this argument?
This is not an order that all jobs currently done by men must, in the future, be done by women as well. It is an end to automatically excluding women from all combat positions, not a requirement that women must now serve in all combat positions. From the discussion by pundits that I have heard, this is largely just a recognition of what is already the case, in many ways.
Ryan’s Smith’s piece in the WSJ is harrowing, but under extreme conditions like that, it seems to me that modesty would be a trivial concern.
January 24th, 2013 | 9:38 pm
QUESTION: Is an air force pilot who sits in a building piloting a drone considered serving in combat? Under the previous policy would female officers be prohibited from such positions on the grounds that was ‘combat’?
I’m not saying we’ve arrived at an age where all combat happens from sofas in living rooms. But it does seem like the old rule was becomming increasing unworkable and unfair as the distinction between combat and non-combat positions has gotten fuzzier and fuzzier. In WWI and before there seemed to be a much crisper concept of the battlefield as distinct from the rest of the war. After the battlefield became much less clear as war expanded beyond armies fighting it out on a field and becoming a much broader concept.
January 25th, 2013 | 12:41 am
i wonder what devinicus would think of boys breaking girls’ swimming records:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/sports/boys-swimming-on-girls-teams-find-success-then-draw-ire.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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