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!
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