I made an odd statement today. Something that I never really thought I would raise my hand for. In my Womens Studies class, we talked about women and Selective Service for a part of the hour. I can't say I'd never thought of this, because I had, but I had never allowed for a conclusion of the matter for myself. But after a discussion today, when asked, I agreed that if we are going to expect men to register for the draft, and we're going to claim gender equality, then women should also have to register. Now, having said that, it's not a idea that I'm thrilled about, I wouldn't want to have to do that...yet at the same time, if we're going to allow women to serve in the military and allow them the oportunity to fight and die, and call that equality, then we also must make the requirement to possibly fight and die equal for both sexes too. Although I must qualify that statement by saying that I don't necessarily think it would be a good idea to require women to be drafted to the front lines, which I know would be an inequality, but I believe there are good reasons for this.
I think that this sort of policy would have to be carefully monitored and regulated for two basic reasons. First of all, what about the children? How do we provide for their care, both physically and emotionally? Especially very young children, what of their needs? Can we really send both mommy and daddy away to die and leave them completely stranded? I know that after WWII, we had a whole generation of fatherless children, but what about the children who could potentially lose both parents? And secondly, can men handle having women drafted to the front lines? Look at Israel, the causalties actually went up when they started sending women to the front lines because men would flock to injured women. I know that within the military today, they're trying to overcome those sort of sterotypes, but while that may work in units who have trained together for longer periods of time, can it be made to work in units that are trained much more quickly because of the crisis situation? Studies have listed the death of a spouse as being the number one most traumatic occurance that can occur in the life of an adult, how can one partner handle going to war/remaining in war after the other has died? And along with that, partners obviously could not be allowed to serve together, but how can they serve apart, constantly wondering if the other was even still alive?
Basically, I found one idea that was at least tolerable as a solution to this. First, we go ahead and require that women register exactly as men do. In the event of a draft, women who are nursing mothers, or with very young (age 3 or younger) children are automatically exempt. Women who are pregnant, or have young children (3 - 5 years) will only be eligible for stateside duties. In the event of both partners being drafted, if there are children, one spouse would be assigned to stateside duty only. And drafted women would not be sent to frontline combat, instead they would fill other positions such as nurses, secretaries, etc.
I know this doesn't promote complete equality. But after consideration of the issue, this seems to me to be the only acceptable compromise until those issues can be better resolved. My professor is right though, our generation of women has grown up with that same old sense of safety that we wouldn't ever be asked to die for our country without it being our express wish to be allowed to do so...now of course, at the same time, this generation of men has felt that same sort of safety. But times change and things change. I would hate to have to go register for something like that, really I would, because as much as I may consider myself a "feminist", I don't like the idea of being equal if it means I might have to go fight a war. But at the same time, one of my classmates was right, many of us would be much more capable than some of our male counterparts that would be drafted for combat.
Odd issue, brings up many difficult feelings...interesting to consider though...
