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Equal rights mean equal opportunity and equal responsibility.

by berbec 8y ago

MyHypatia 8y ago
Agreed. Expanding the military draft to include women came up in 2016 as well. In 2016 Republican representative Duncan Hunter introduced an amendment to include women in the draft. Unfortunately his amendment was not a good faith attempt to address equal responsibility. He proposed the amendment as a joke, thinking that the left would never vote for it, and therefore demonstrating that the talk of "gender equality" is all hypocrisy. It turned out that the amendment actually had broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties. However, it was fiercely opposed by conservative law makers. Hunter ended up voting against his own proposal (he is a vocal opponent of women serving in combat). The amendment ended up being stripped from the final bill in a procedural move. It seems that there is a lot of support for including women in the draft both on the Democrat and Republican side. It's disappointing that in 2016, instead of having a genuine conversation about equal responsibility, the amendment was proposed to mock the idea of women being drafted, and to make the idea of gender equality seem hypocritical. Here are some relevant news articles on the topic from 2016: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-unlikely-birth-and-unseemly-death-of-an-amendment-to-draft-americas-women/483599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-unl... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/congress-women-military-draft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/congress-wome...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kendallpark 8y ago
I do share this "equality" sentiment, but I think there's a valid counterpoint in that only women assume the risks and responsibility of pregnancy and childbirth. Society depends on women putting their bodies on the line to produce more members of society. There quite simply isn't a way to equalize this burden between the sexes for the foreseeable future. Some people see a male-only draft as a means to artificially balance this biological inequality. EDIT: Point out another group's reasoning that hasn't been mentioned yet, get downvoted. ??? For all the "forced impregnation" replies, forced impregnation isn't analogous to the draft. The draft and pregnancy are fundamentally different things that can't be made equivalent. The argument being cited here never implied that this would be an equivalent exchange. It's not.
- x220 8y ago
  >Society depends on women putting their bodies on the line to produce more members of society. I agree. I think to make sure women uphold their unique biological responsibility to society, in times of war all healthy women under 30 should be forcibly impregnated so that our population is not decimated. This is a separate but equal sacrifice that the country needs in times of war.
- Pristina 8y ago
  By this logic enforced pregnancy would be permissible instead of enforced military slavery.
  - afiori 8y ago
    Yes, they are equally indefensible and horrible. Luckily both of them no longer happen in the west since quite a few decades.
    - kendallpark 8y ago
      You can regard both as detrimental to equal human dignity in different ways. For most of human history you had exactly this. Women having little means to control their reproductive status (treated as property, no concept of marital rape), and men being forced to partake in the wars of their tribe/nation/state. As society expands the rights of the individual over the utilitarian needs of the collective, both become less tolerated by society.
- berbec 8y ago
  I would be fine with pregnancy & child-rearing responsibilities being a valid reason to avoid the draft. Of course, in the interest of equality, both parents would be eligible for the child-rearing exemption but only one parent would be allowed to claim it.
  - kendallpark 8y ago
    In some ways, the reasoning I cited above might simply be shortcutting a system like what you've described (via binning by biological sex). Simpler rules, but less comprehensive.

Equal rights mean equal opportunity and equal responsibility.

by berbec 8y ago

Equal rights mean equal opportunity and equal responsibility.

Agreed. Expanding the military draft to include women came up in 2016 as well. In 2016 Republican representative Duncan Hunter introduced an amendment to include women in the draft. Unfortunately his amendment was not a good faith attempt to address equal responsibility. He proposed the amendment as a joke, thinking that the left would never vote for it, and therefore demonstrating that the talk of "gender equality" is all hypocrisy. It turned out that the amendment actually had broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties. However, it was fiercely opposed by conservative law makers. Hunter ended up voting against his own proposal (he is a vocal opponent of women serving in combat). The amendment ended up being stripped from the final bill in a procedural move. It seems that there is a lot of support for including women in the draft both on the Democrat and Republican side. It's disappointing that in 2016, instead of having a genuine conversation about equal responsibility, the amendment was proposed to mock the idea of women being drafted, and to make the idea of gender equality seem hypocritical. Here are some relevant news articles on the topic from 2016: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-unlikely-birth-and-unseemly-death-of-an-amendment-to-draft-americas-women/483599/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-unl... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/congress-women-military-draft.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/15/us/politics/congress-wome...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

kendallpark 8y ago

I do share this "equality" sentiment, but I think there's a valid counterpoint in that only women assume the risks and responsibility of pregnancy and childbirth. Society depends on women putting their bodies on the line to produce more members of society. There quite simply isn't a way to equalize this burden between the sexes for the foreseeable future. Some people see a male-only draft as a means to artificially balance this biological inequality. EDIT: Point out another group's reasoning that hasn't been mentioned yet, get downvoted. ??? For all the "forced impregnation" replies, forced impregnation isn't analogous to the draft. The draft and pregnancy are fundamentally different things that can't be made equivalent. The argument being cited here never implied that this would be an equivalent exchange. It's not.

x220 8y ago
>Society depends on women putting their bodies on the line to produce more members of society. I agree. I think to make sure women uphold their unique biological responsibility to society, in times of war all healthy women under 30 should be forcibly impregnated so that our population is not decimated. This is a separate but equal sacrifice that the country needs in times of war.
Pristina 8y ago
By this logic enforced pregnancy would be permissible instead of enforced military slavery.
- afiori 8y ago
  Yes, they are equally indefensible and horrible. Luckily both of them no longer happen in the west since quite a few decades.
  - kendallpark 8y ago
    You can regard both as detrimental to equal human dignity in different ways. For most of human history you had exactly this. Women having little means to control their reproductive status (treated as property, no concept of marital rape), and men being forced to partake in the wars of their tribe/nation/state. As society expands the rights of the individual over the utilitarian needs of the collective, both become less tolerated by society.
berbec 8y ago
I would be fine with pregnancy & child-rearing responsibilities being a valid reason to avoid the draft. Of course, in the interest of equality, both parents would be eligible for the child-rearing exemption but only one parent would be allowed to claim it.
- kendallpark 8y ago
  In some ways, the reasoning I cited above might simply be shortcutting a system like what you've described (via binning by biological sex). Simpler rules, but less comprehensive.