Speaking of things that are degrading to women, back in January, Martin Van Creveld published a fine article in Small Wars Journal. In it he makes the point that got RDML Gaouette fired, namely that there is a double standard existing in today's military-and its one where one gender is in fact devalued-but its men that are being devalued, NOT women.
Last not least, as figures from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan show, relative to their number military women are 90 percent less likely to be killed than military men. In other militaries around the world, incidentally, women’s share among the casualties is much lower still. Uniformed women, in other words, are not pulling their weight. Whether this is because public opinion will not stand for large numbers of dead servicewomen or because the women themselves have found a thousand ways to avoid going where the bullets are is immaterial. Probably both factors play a role. Instead of fighting, women get all the cushy jobs. For anyone who serves in the military, or whose livelihood depends on public approval, the prevailing climate of political correctness makes it impossible to mention the problem even in a whisper. Obviously, though, it is bound to have some effects on the morale of male personnel.
Van Creveld makes a key point about the thought processes behind the feminization of today's readiness. If you view the military as just another large corporation (in fact the largest American corporation) than increasing numbers of women in the force is just a reflection of the trend in society. So too are the large numbers of men unemployed and losing opportunity due to the reduced total numbers and increased numbers in the work force. Which is fine if you support the "corporate" point of view. On the other hand, " If the reason for having armed forces is to guarantee national security, then [having large numbers of women] the answer is clearly no."
As I have pointed out repeatedly in this space, discussions about women in uniform rarely deal with the true issues at hand and instead tend to focus on ideas of "fairness" and "opportunity"-when in fact the execution of wars in defense of the country is not a fair premise, and in a proper world would not exist at all.
So, it might do you well to understand the Professor's key point about what the "transformation" of our military force has wrought. You asked for it, you got it. Welcome to the world mediocrity built.
Looking back, clearly what we see is two long-term processes running in parallel. The first is the decline of U.S. armed forces (as well as all other Western ones, but that is not our topic here). The second is their growing feminization. Critics will object that, even as they were being downsized, the forces went through one qualitative improvement after another. In particular, the so-called “Revolution in Military Affairs” is supposed to have increased their fighting power many times over. That, however, is an illusion. To realize this, all one has to do is look at Afghanistan. Over there, “illiterate” tribesmen—not, take note, tribeswomen—are right now about to force the U.S. to withdraw its troops after a decade of effort in which they achieved hardly anything.
Are the two processes linked? You bet they are. Consider a work by two female professors, Barbara F. Reskin and Patricia A. Roos, with the title Job Queues, Gender Queues. First published in 1990, it has since been quoted no fewer than 1,274 times. As they and countless other researchers, both male and female, have shown, over time the more women that join any organization, and the more important the role they play in that organization, the more its prestige declines in the eyes of both men and women. (emphasis mine) Loss of prestige leads to diminishing economic rewards; diminishing economic rewards lead to loss of prestige. As any number of historical examples has shown, the outcome is a vicious cycle. Can anybody put forward a reason why the U.S. military should be an exception to the rule?
Welcome to the brave new world. To hell with it!
Warning notice: I am leaving comments on. However if someone spirals down the same rat hole we went through last year-and refuses to discuss issues but instead engages in personal attacks, your comment will be deleted immediately.
Well the first part is complete and utter BS and you know it and you and I are happy that it is BS. The women in the US armed forces aren't killed in numbers that equal their % contribution to the overall % of the force. That's largely because we have been fighting tooth and nail to keep them out of the combat arms and off the battlefield. They make the dying cut on warships though where roughly the same percentage get killed in combat operations as men for numbers at sea on warships.
Having women in the armed forces and not integrating them is fundamentally unfair and I'm afraid it always has been even if I was a quiet partisan in favor of not integrating them. (The whole he said/she said crap is maddening). But why is it unfair? Well to start, those undeployable non-seagoing women sucked up shore billets that deployed sailors were accustomed to filling. That was the payback in the olden days. You spent time on a ship and then took a billet ashore. A lot of them were meaningful important billets but others were like sinecures. A lot of those billets ashore started filling up with non-deployable women. So the guys started running out of places to get good shore duty, see and raise families and the service started to suck with back to back sea tours. The girls are unhappy because they believe they have the skills and knowlege necessary to do the job but aren't permitted. It doesn't help any that every time the body count at sea drops there is some jackass proposing to shift the lazy ass shore duty pukes to sea. They just got ashore for the first time in years and now some self important toad thinks they belong at sea.
On the final hand though, the girls chop the guts right out of good order and discipline. Not all of them and not all the time but enough of them to totally destroy the military as an organization designed to kill and break stuff. Just one woman in a snit took out how many jet pilots? One women offended by a picture of a beautiful girl in a bikini means nobody anywhere can ever have a picture that some petty little twit finds offensive? Srsly? In a fucking military force? It's like the insane peanut allergy crowd. I can't eat 'em because you're allergic? Bite me. That's the rebound effect. 'Anything that offends such a sensitive little soul is good in my eyes.'
What if there were absolutely no penalties for sex anymore? Anybody could come alongside and say, "let's bonk!" You are limited to the right of refusal ONLY. You don't get to slap or hit or come crying to me about it. Just say no. A perfect liberal progressive world!!!! Skippy Land! I think this is what being a grown up used to mean back in the 60's and before.
Of course with the complex personalities we got out here there would be murder done because some people just can't take a no. Persistant ones might get verbally belittled. They might get an attitude. They might kill or be killed. Me? I'm OK with that. At least this time there's a Goddamned motherfucking body at the scene of the fucking crime and it's not some stupid moron whining with he said/she said crap!
In answer to your question, being in the military, even that of the United States, was never ever a prestige job. Soldiers and dogs keep off the grass. You could see that in 'Once an Eagle'. A fine book about the military and prestige.
In addition. Imagine a world where a USN frigate is off the coast of a country locked in a naval war with its most hated enemy. Suddenly one night, out of nowhere, with no warning at all, antiship missiles appear and slam into the sleeping ship and one of them hits the women's berthing compartment. It's a total loss. Nobody made it out alive. Or, it could have hit one of the other berthing areas. Live and die. Sometimes it just doesn't matter who you are or how good you are.
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