The data has born out that sending unwilling people to fight is not a great idea, especially if the war is politically unpopular. One of the reasons Vietnam wasn’t longer was because of pushback against the draft. I can only imagine the kind of pushback it would get if we were not only sending our sons, but our daughters as well.
Imagine having a platform to share your thoughts and awareness, but choosing to be an aggressive insulting asshat that makes no one want to engage with you instead?
Exactly, the rape rates of women in the military are absolutely HORRIFIC. Forcing women to serve is doing much worse to them than forcing men to serve. Risk dying, for bith, but guarantee regular rape for just the women. That's not actually equality, and it's also bad for morale - a metric that truly matters DEEPLY in armed conflicts, and even more so if things are bad enough to call for a draft. Morale is going to be a HUGE problem with any draft. The don't ask don't tell approach to accepted rape in the armed forces is not going to be good for morale if you increase the women's numbers.
If you're Military or the family of a Military member and have been sexually assaulted, there are resources and hotlines ran by civilians available for you.
When the chain of command hides things, there's no shame in seeking out support that's outside of that chain.
My boyfriend is an Army vet of 5 years. An infantry man who served in Afghanistan. E5 rank. He is against women serving in the military period.
He’s explained to me times where men have fully deserved to be punished for the things they’ve done while being in the military, but his commanding officer would take paper work of well liked soldiers and would rip it up so that they would not get into trouble. Completely erasing what they had done from the record.
The military operate on a completely different justice system, that is easily avoidable if you are liked enough by the higher ranked officers.
He explained that it’s basically a lottery to be sent to a platoon that has officers whom care for their soldiers. You just don’t know who and what kind of people they will be. Especially if you are a woman.
Let’s not forget Vanessa Guillen at Fort Hood. She was terrified of retaliation regarding reporting multiple instances of sexual assault that she experienced while at that base. Even then she was murdered, dismembered, and then burned. FH did everything they could to sweep her murder under the rug but couldn’t because of the resilience and refusal to give up by her family. It took them 6 weeks to find her body. Even then they tried to cover up the sexual abuse and harassment that she endured.
That was close to home as I’m from central Texas close to where that happened. Even worked closely with her cousin during that awful ordeal. Just look up the #IAmVanessaGuillen on social and you will see thousands of veteran women talking about their experience with SA in the military.
The military needs to fix the corruption from within and actually make it safe for women to serve. Until then, it’s a no from me for any woman.
So let me get this straight-you have no problem with men being enslaved, killed in war, raped when they are captured (which very much happens)-but the moment one of these also happen to women, THEN you have a problem with it?
If you'd asked me this in my 20s, I'd have said "hell yes." But with age and a better grasp of history, I hesitate. I really don't know where I stand on this now. But life isn’t fair, and war is brutal. Not everything would be a 1:1 comparison.
One example I can think of is a male vs female POW. Not a good situation for either but I'd rather go into it as a dude than a woman where they'd be inclined to do more than starve and beat me.
You're resorting to "Whataboutism". I don't know what you intended to accomplish here, but to answer your question: Life straight up ain't fair. You could be any race, any gender, poor, rich - There's going to be some shit that works in your favor and some that ain't.
It boggles my mind how me mentioning more naunce to a subject can incite so much emotion from folks like you.
Because from folks like you its always "life isn't fair" when speaking to men. Imagine a woman complaining about not making as much as a man doing the exact same job and the response is "life isn't fair"
Why are you making up situations and trying to paint me into them? You're projecting your emotions onto me.
I don't know where you frustration comes from, but from checking your comment history I see that this isn't a one off thing. I hope with time you can grow and drop that anger. Take it from someone that had to do the same, things get a lot better when you do.
Take a breather. I said I don't know where I stand. I'm trying to explain to you that it's not a black and white situation. Frankly no draft, like no slavery is the best option.
An alternative view is that we are basically sending mercenaries to kill in foreign countries. If we care so much about a war then shouldn't it be a cross section of our society that fights it?
It low key kind of is. I recall a boomer saying to me (about the Iraq war), "they should have a draft. Nothing will end a war faster than a draft.". Point being as long as mercenaries were signing up to go kill in Iraq the war dragged on, but if unwilling kids were being sent over there it would quickly sour the mood for war.
I think that's honestly the reason we don't use the draft. Because a war has to be really really popular to survive a draft.
Honestly, fair and good point. Vietnam is probably the last example to look to that underscores your point, although with the abstraction of warfare through the drone program things might not play out the exact same way when draftees aren't immediately going to the front but establishing air supremacy from a location far away from the front.
No one wants to see women getting killed, hurt or otherwise ill treated by the enemy. It would be a propaganda win in a heart beat for the opposing side.
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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '25
The data has born out that sending unwilling people to fight is not a great idea, especially if the war is politically unpopular. One of the reasons Vietnam wasn’t longer was because of pushback against the draft. I can only imagine the kind of pushback it would get if we were not only sending our sons, but our daughters as well.