Women at War

Back in Desert Storm days (early 90's) the debate was actually pretty heavy. Should we allow women in combat? Americans were staunchly against it. We didn't mind if they served. They had lots of good roles in the military. We just didn't like the idea of putting women directly and intentionally in harm's way. Shouldn't happen.

Times, of course, have changed. I argued before that one of the key goals of certain groups these days was a gender-neutral world. Men and women were not to be regarded as "different". Everyone is the same. The ramifications are quiet at first but staggering when you start counting them up. Nonetheless, it appears that these groups are making headway because more recent studies suggest that now, not even 20 years later, more than 50% of Americans are perfectly fine with putting women in actual combat.

That's right. An apparent majority of Americans think that the right thing to do is have women fight (shoot, kill, die) side by side with men in one of the most horrendous things in which humans engage -- war. Touted as "girl power", several stories are surfacing about how we're perfectly okay sending women to fight our wars. The New York Times headline reads "G.I. Jane Breaks the Combat Barrier". It tells how the military is circumventing its own rules on the subject to put women into actual combat. An article from Oregonlive.com discusses the changes in attitudes for women in combat. An entry from World Politics Review references an Army War College article that concludes "judging by performance-based criteria, there is no objective justification for keeping women out of combat roles."

We who think that there is a difference between men and women are typically painted as "sexist" these days. We who open doors for women at the mall have found ourselves insulted as "demeaning women". We who think that God intended for men and women to be complementary rather than equal in every way are, today, mostly in the wrong. The real way to value women, the real way to support females, the real way to show that we're all of equal value is to take the women in our society and put them on the battlefield next to the men. Let them be shot at, blown up, dismembered just like the men we mourn. Let them kill and suffer the trauma of battle just like the men we applaud. Instead of keeping them from such horrors, let's have them take part. Rather than representing all that is good in humans beings, let's honor them by having them participate in the worst of human beings. Yeah, that makes sense. At least ... it does to a majority these days. Me? Like so many things these days, I'm not getting it.