4 ms·

I can think of two things: 1. Women are on average physically weaker (I hope this is not controversial) and therefore are much more likely to die in hand-to-ha

by m0zg 8y ago

I can think of two things: 1. Women are on average physically weaker (I hope this is not controversial) and therefore are much more likely to die in hand-to-hand combat or just plain not be able to carry the gear soldiers have to carry today, let alone another soldier. 2. After a war of attrition women are crucial to population replacement, due to biological limits on procreation frequency, whereas men have much greater "fanout", and you don't need that many of them, even if you're concerned about inbreeding. That said, I do think women should be draft-able, for two reasons: 1. Women too can be "strong enough" for combat 2. There are lots of non-combat roles And to anyone who says there can't be another WW2-style war, I bet people said the same in the aftermath of WW1. And yet, here we are.

eesmith 8y ago
1. Set the criteria based on abilities, not gender. 2. WTF? When has that ever been important? What sort of situation will we get into where scores of millions of women will die, where they wouldn't die if there wasn't conscription or volunteering, and where we don't have nuclear Armageddon? WWII wasn't simply a do-over of WWI.
- remarkEon 8y ago
  >WTF? When has that ever been important? People who don't understand why this is important have a view of history that doesn't go back beyond the 20th century.
  - eesmith 8y ago
    Rather than accuse me of ignorance - falsely, I might add - wouldn't it have been easier to just list one example?
- m0zg 8y ago
  >> When has that ever been important? Most recently, after WW2. 20+ million Soviet people died in the war, mostly able bodied men. If it were mostly women, that'd permanently decimate their population. I imagine any kind of mass casualty-WW3 scenario would be only worse. Weapons are a lot more deadly now than they've ever been. For the time being the most devastating varieties are constrained by peace-time treaties and such, but if a war of attrition were to break out, it'd all be back on the table in no time at all. And there's no such thing as "volunteering" when dealing with meat grinders like WW1 or WW2. Easily 90% of people who go to war do so very much against their will. A good number of soldiers are executed at the front lines for "cowardice". Imagine yourself having to get out of the trench during a Verdun or Stalingrad style slaughter. You (and I) would need some _serious_ motivation to do so, and definitely wouldn't "volunteer" for any such thing.
  - eesmith 8y ago
    Several objections come quickly to mind. 1) We know that Russian women volunteered for the military, and fought, and died fighting. ("There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war,[1] which is roughly 3 percent of total military personnel." says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II ) If women can't be drafted, because it's better to preserve their wombs for population replenishment, then why should women be allowed to volunteer? 2) Since Soviet women did volunteer to fight on the front lines, and even as partisans in German held territory, your statement "there's no such thing as "volunteering" ..." is wrong. 3) People can be conscripted without being ordered to the front for direct combat.
    - m0zg 8y ago
      They worked pretty much exclusively in non-combat roles. Medics, cooks, various other service personnel. There was an occasional sniper here and there, but there were hardly any women fighting on the front lines otherwise. I grew up in the Soviet Union. To this day in Russia war is not perceived as something women should participate in. It is perceived that way _by women_, as well. In Russia, war is not something abstract, people still remember.
      - eesmith 8y ago
        Two points: 1) By using the phrase "there's no such thing as "volunteering" when dealing with meat grinders like WW1 or WW2", m0zg denies that any Soviet women volunteered to fight on the front lines, or as partisans in German held territory. Quoting from Wikipdia: > Manshuk Mametova was a machine gunner from Kazakhstan ... Mariya Oktyabrskaya and Alexandra Samusenko were tank drivers. Tatyana Kostyrina had over 120 kills and commanded an infantry battalion in 1943 following the death of her commander and a majority of the staff. > The 1077th Anti-aircraft Regiment ... fought during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 ... like many of the anti-aircraft units, was made up almost entirely of young women volunteers, barely out of high school. They are mostly known for their bravery in the defense of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), when they engaged an advancing Panzer unit by setting their guns to the lowest elevation and firing them directly at the advancing tanks. The fact that there were relatively few such women doesn't detract from my point that they were volunteers, making m0zg's statement simply wrong. The earlier argument was that women shouldn't be drafted into the military because their wombs need to be ready for post-war repopulation efforts. My question again is, if that is a valid argument, why should women even be allowed to volunteer? And my follow up is that women can be drafted without being ordered to fight on the front lines. .. eg, as service personnel. 2) You write "perceived". How much of that perception is due to propaganda? In the US, post-war propaganda de-emphasized the importance and competence in doing what was previously considered "male" jobs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II#Women,_war,_and_the_Soviet_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II#W... suggest a similar effect in the USSR. > 1930s Stalinist propaganda promoted the image of women in the home, caring for their families. This ambivalent conception of women's role in society parallels the state's attitude towards females in the military; women's patriotic duty did not include combat until it became absolutely necessary. Even when the efforts of female soldiers could no longer be ignored, state propaganda concealed the full extent of their participation.[24] > Propaganda concerning female soldiers often functioned to preserve male societal dominance, portrayed them as motherly and sisterly figures, an image more consistent with women's role in Soviet society. Furthermore, propaganda emphasized that women joined the army for patriotic reasons, such as protecting the fatherland or avenging dead relatives. These commendable motivations explained women's ability to kill in combat, a phenomenon that contradicted established gender roles.[25] > The Soviet state resisted the deployment of servicewomen, using propaganda to justify female combatants after they became necessary.[26] Conze and Fieseler argue that once women soldiers were no longer needed, they stopped appearing in the media. The state prevented female soldiers from marching in the Moscow Victory Parade. The gains of servicewomen towards female emancipation were ignored after the war, and the state encouraged women to return to their duties at home.[

by m0zg 8y ago

eesmith 8y ago

1. Set the criteria based on abilities, not gender. 2. WTF? When has that ever been important? What sort of situation will we get into where scores of millions of women will die, where they wouldn't die if there wasn't conscription or volunteering, and where we don't have nuclear Armageddon? WWII wasn't simply a do-over of WWI.

remarkEon 8y ago
>WTF? When has that ever been important? People who don't understand why this is important have a view of history that doesn't go back beyond the 20th century.
- eesmith 8y ago
  Rather than accuse me of ignorance - falsely, I might add - wouldn't it have been easier to just list one example?
m0zg 8y ago
>> When has that ever been important? Most recently, after WW2. 20+ million Soviet people died in the war, mostly able bodied men. If it were mostly women, that'd permanently decimate their population. I imagine any kind of mass casualty-WW3 scenario would be only worse. Weapons are a lot more deadly now than they've ever been. For the time being the most devastating varieties are constrained by peace-time treaties and such, but if a war of attrition were to break out, it'd all be back on the table in no time at all. And there's no such thing as "volunteering" when dealing with meat grinders like WW1 or WW2. Easily 90% of people who go to war do so very much against their will. A good number of soldiers are executed at the front lines for "cowardice". Imagine yourself having to get out of the trench during a Verdun or Stalingrad style slaughter. You (and I) would need some _serious_ motivation to do so, and definitely wouldn't "volunteer" for any such thing.
- eesmith 8y ago
  Several objections come quickly to mind. 1) We know that Russian women volunteered for the military, and fought, and died fighting. ("There were 800,000 women who served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war,[1] which is roughly 3 percent of total military personnel." says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II ) If women can't be drafted, because it's better to preserve their wombs for population replenishment, then why should women be allowed to volunteer? 2) Since Soviet women did volunteer to fight on the front lines, and even as partisans in German held territory, your statement "there's no such thing as "volunteering" ..." is wrong. 3) People can be conscripted without being ordered to the front for direct combat.
  - m0zg 8y ago
    They worked pretty much exclusively in non-combat roles. Medics, cooks, various other service personnel. There was an occasional sniper here and there, but there were hardly any women fighting on the front lines otherwise. I grew up in the Soviet Union. To this day in Russia war is not perceived as something women should participate in. It is perceived that way _by women_, as well. In Russia, war is not something abstract, people still remember.
    - eesmith 8y ago
      Two points: 1) By using the phrase "there's no such thing as "volunteering" when dealing with meat grinders like WW1 or WW2", m0zg denies that any Soviet women volunteered to fight on the front lines, or as partisans in German held territory. Quoting from Wikipdia: > Manshuk Mametova was a machine gunner from Kazakhstan ... Mariya Oktyabrskaya and Alexandra Samusenko were tank drivers. Tatyana Kostyrina had over 120 kills and commanded an infantry battalion in 1943 following the death of her commander and a majority of the staff. > The 1077th Anti-aircraft Regiment ... fought during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 ... like many of the anti-aircraft units, was made up almost entirely of young women volunteers, barely out of high school. They are mostly known for their bravery in the defense of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), when they engaged an advancing Panzer unit by setting their guns to the lowest elevation and firing them directly at the advancing tanks. The fact that there were relatively few such women doesn't detract from my point that they were volunteers, making m0zg's statement simply wrong. The earlier argument was that women shouldn't be drafted into the military because their wombs need to be ready for post-war repopulation efforts. My question again is, if that is a valid argument, why should women even be allowed to volunteer? And my follow up is that women can be drafted without being ordered to fight on the front lines. .. eg, as service personnel. 2) You write "perceived". How much of that perception is due to propaganda? In the US, post-war propaganda de-emphasized the importance and competence in doing what was previously considered "male" jobs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II#Women,_war,_and_the_Soviet_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II#W... suggest a similar effect in the USSR. > 1930s Stalinist propaganda promoted the image of women in the home, caring for their families. This ambivalent conception of women's role in society parallels the state's attitude towards females in the military; women's patriotic duty did not include combat until it became absolutely necessary. Even when the efforts of female soldiers could no longer be ignored, state propaganda concealed the full extent of their participation.[24] > Propaganda concerning female soldiers often functioned to preserve male societal dominance, portrayed them as motherly and sisterly figures, an image more consistent with women's role in Soviet society. Furthermore, propaganda emphasized that women joined the army for patriotic reasons, such as protecting the fatherland or avenging dead relatives. These commendable motivations explained women's ability to kill in combat, a phenomenon that contradicted established gender roles.[25] > The Soviet state resisted the deployment of servicewomen, using propaganda to justify female combatants after they became necessary.[26] Conze and Fieseler argue that once women soldiers were no longer needed, they stopped appearing in the media. The state prevented female soldiers from marching in the Moscow Victory Parade. The gains of servicewomen towards female emancipation were ignored after the war, and the state encouraged women to return to their duties at home.[