WOMEN IN THE MILITARY
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James Joyner | Monday, June 23, 2003 |
Rowan Scarborough notes that, unlike 1991, there has been no call to expand the role of women in the armed forces after this war with Iraq. Mainly, it’s because the roles that could reasonably be opened to women already have.
While I long felt having women in anything but combat service support roles (i.e., nurses, personnel, finance, quartermaster and transportation) was a bad idea, the services seem to have adjusted. I’d be interested to see the studies on non-deployability rates due to pregnancy or other female-specific issues, but I suspect it is much more negligible than many of us feared. And arguments by such as Elaine Donnelly’s are just silly:
“It’s not right to subject women to combat violence unnecessarily.”
Well, gee whiz. It’s not right to subject MEN, (or children or pets, for that matter) to combat violence unnecessarily. And, it’s not like there’s a draft on. The women who go to combat are volunteers. The only legitimate questions are whether they can do the job and whether their presence compromises the mission because men are distracted by it.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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