WOMEN IN THE MILITARY

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.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.