Feminists - A question.

[joft]

Wow so much anger, how are people being apes here we are just discussing. Women do have it easier, especially nowadays.

hm, maybe you really are just stupid, and not a vindictive misogynist asshole. how old are you? i suppose if you're like 13 then maybe you can be excused for being so ignorant

[Chun Liroy]

hm, maybe you really are just stupid, and not a vindictive misogynist asshole. how old are you? i suppose if you're like 13 then maybe you can be excused for being so ignorant

Maybe you should kill yourself because this world isn't good enough for your flawless views.

[Draylo]

hm, maybe you really are just stupid, and not a vindictive misogynist asshole. how old are you? i suppose if you're like 13 then maybe you can be excused for being so ignorant

Go see movie G.I. Jane, you need to be like her. But until then enjoy sitting back with more benefits than men in a huge variety of things. Enjoy not having to sign up for a draft, enjoy sitting back while people are out there fighting for you in a war and world full of apes while you enjoy all the luxuries they fought to get for you. All the while complaining that men are apes and have it better than women... lol

[joft]

we've been through this before: signing up for the draft means nothing

people fighting in wars are not fighting for me. however much I am benefiting from imperialism, I don't want to. have you truly understood yet that some people are actually opposed to wars and believe they are nothing more than horrifying wastes of human life? wars always cause far more harm to people overall than benefit.

also, I haven't bothered correcting this before because it doesn't matter, but it's starting to get weird now that you're making it an issue: i'm a dude

[Chun Liroy]

So wars waste those precious fucking horrible ape's lives? seems a bit contradictory.

[Draylo]

we've been through this before: signing up for the draft means nothing

people fighting in wars are not fighting for me. however much I am benefiting from imperialism, I don't want to. have you truly understood yet that some people are actually opposed to wars and believe they are nothing more than horrifying wastes of human life? wars always cause far more harm to people overall than benefit.

also, I haven't bothered correcting this before because it doesn't matter, but it's starting to get weird now that you're making it an issue: i'm a dude

If you don't want to then get out of the country. How does signing up for a draft mean "nothing"? You do realize that if something really bad were to happen and they needed as many troops as possible they would reinstate that draft? Who do you think will be the first to go, women? No, its men. Just like you, a lot of others don't believe in the war yet they are FORCED to sign up as a man.... how is that fair? Why should it just be men only and not women, the point of OP was that if women always fight for equal rights yet shit like this goes down and they don't care. They are happy knowing they don't have to do the rough shit huh.

[joft]

you still aren't getting it. maybe too many war video games have warped your mind to believe that they are just a normal, necessary part of everyday human life?

Silentroy: horrible ape activities waste ape lives, yep. if the apes didn't engage in such horrible activities, then they would be less horrible and their lives wouldn't be wasted as much. it's hard to fathom, this idea that we should just not have wars at all. it's such an alien idea to our primitive ape minds. but here's one ape hoping the others will come around some day, or we'll all die out--either way the horribleness will finally be over.

[Draylo]

lol I am not even talking about wars, I am talking about the fact women want to be equal to men in every way except the things that they don't wanna do. They have it easier, that is fact. I doubt there will ever be any equality tbh, not with that attitude. You seem to skip over the fact that, regardless of feelings on war, *men have to sign up for it* how can there be equality with that small detail there? I have to potentially risk my life to protect the country but women don't have to.

[joft]

it's like talking to bricks

[Draylo]

Are you sure you aren't a women?

[Acturus]

lol I am not even talking about wars, I am talking about the fact women want to be equal to men in every way except the things that they don't wanna do. They have it easier, that is fact. I doubt there will ever be any equality tbh, not with that attitude. You seem to skip over the fact that, regardless of feelings on war, *men have to sign up for it* how can there be equality with that small detail there? I have to potentially risk my life to protect the country but women don't have to.

Come on down to Acme Nightclub! Thursdays, ladies drink free until 11 and pay no cover until midnight!

18 and up for women, 21 and up for men.

[Warudo Ecksu]

please explain to me, why is there such a law to begin with, in a society that is apparently so liberal that a woman and a man have an equal chance at absolutely everything.

While it is nice for some people to believe this to be the case it rarely works out like that. Very few times in history has divorced favoured women and it is only recently, as in the last 80 years or so, where women can even think of fighting for the custody of their children when divorcing. It was also extremely difficult for a woman to seek a divorce from a husband until recently as well, while a man could divorce his wife. Until the 1960s they had to prove adultery and lay the blame on one party. The introduction of "no fault" divorce made it a lot easier for people to get divorced but while that helped women get out of bad relationships that it was legally and socially impossible previously, it also allowed men much easier access to divorce. In the 1970s there was a wave of middle-age men divorcing their middle-age wives, most of whom had spent the last 20-25 years being housewives raising children (often the "lack of productivity" was a reason these men divorced) and therefore had no work experience. The women got the kids and an alimony payment while the men got the house and cars and the ability to avoid the alimony payment because they weren't enforced very often. It's only in the last 20-25 years that things have been swinging in favour of women, and generally only upper and upper-middle class women. Middle and lower class women still generally get shafted.

^ This guy pretty much said it all. You may think that every woman gets half of what her ex-husband has in the bank account, but no that usually just happens to much-publicized celebrities. And in fact with my boyfriend's dad's last divorce, the judge awarded him $25,000 from the woman b/c of plastic surgery he had paid for. She didn't get a single penny. (No children between the 2)

In most cases involving a woman getting part of her ex's money, it's likely b/c there are children involved, but again if you are middle or lower class, a woman will just get child support, not half his bank account.

[zoobernut]

please explain to me, why is there such a law to begin with, in a society that is apparently so liberal that a woman and a man have an equal chance at absolutely everything.

i'd rather live in a woman-hating country than a man-hating country

I am not 100% sure but I think that the whole "women get half of what a man owns if they divorce" thing is less of a woman/man thing and should be more stated "the person in the relationship who makes less money gets half of what the other person has" there are lots of instances (though not as many) where it goes the other way too. (See K Fed and Brittany Spears).

Also I think that the whole idea started because there were many instances (less now) where one person of the relationship would stay at home and do everything they could to support the other person while the other person put their focus into earning money. If those two people get divorced the person who stayed at home needs some means of supporting themselves which they would not have because they were too busy supporting the other person to go out and get a job to have marketable skills. Or also another example is if a man and woman get married and one person works their ass off in a mediocre job to help support both of them and pay for school for the other person, then after the person in school graduates they get a job paying considerably more. If those two get divorced the first person is entitled to part of the second persons wages because in a sense they invested in the second persons education with the expectation that it will make both their lives better.

Not saying I agree with that mentality I just think that might be why the whole idea started. Pre-nup agreements are there for cases where someone has considerable wealth or a really good job before they meet someone it gives them a chance to try to protect that.

[Demosthenes11]

a lot of liberals wonder why they are construed as condescending douchebags.

Joft isn't that rare

[Ivve]

What i'm trying to say i guess is the motivation isn't there. The type of motivated female that wants to go out and prove herself on equal ground with men is pretty rare in the army. It's too bad, women with that attitude tended to make excellent soldiers, there was one in particular that i was proud to work under. However, for every female like that, there are several of the "bottom-of-the-barrel" types that would take advantage of male chivalry to get out of doing work. This "untapped resource" that you speak of tends to pursue and achieve success in fields other than the military. Many of the women I attend college with would be prime examples of this untapped resource you mentioned. We don't get very many females of that caliber in the military, though. On the whole, these girls are not the types to pursue a movement with the goal of having them do hard work.

Personally, I agree with you completely. However, I think the fundamental reason behind this is that the military simply does not hold the same kind of attraction for women as it does for men. In a way, the military is a system where you either will or will be perceived as getting ahead by doing less because you are a woman and the military has some kind of diversity quota to meet. What person who strives to achieve wants to either a) have their successes handed to them without truly proving themselves to be the best, or b) have all of their success tainted because even though they may have been a top achiever and did indeed earn their rewards, people will still view them through the same lens as every other woman who skates by in the military? Nobody wants that. That fucking sucks.

As a man, you can distinguish yourself in a number of ways. You can achieve a certain level of credibility that no woman can ever have, because no matter how successful any woman will ever be in the military, all she's ever done is be a paper pusher. There's always been a side you're excluded from, and for a lot of men, if you lack a combat facet to your career, in their opinion you lack the ability to tell them what to do. They might do what you say, but there's a huge amount of resentment there.

Women also don't ever truly belong or fit in with most military settings due to policy and attitude. When everyone else has to make concessions simply because of your presence, like taking down their bikini model calendar, it makes you separate and apart. There isn't a sense of camaraderie, my life for the soldier next to me. You will not be welcomed into the fold -- at least not in a complete way. Perhaps people will be civil with you at work, but you're not being invited to go have beers at the titty bar later with the other dudes.

I'm not saying that serving in combat would solve all of this, just explaining why I think many women choose to gain success in places where they're not perceived to have gotten to the top while avoiding all the difficult work.

as for working smarter and not harder, as i believe someone else in the thread mentioned, if you discovered a way for females to work smarter, males could most likely adopt the same methods with even better results.

I don't doubt that could be the case, but I also think that a willing volunteer is probably a better soldier than a draftee. There are some women who would gladly step into this role, and would perform better than a hastily trained and scared shitless male who is there because of the draft. Also, I don't think working smarter necessarily means it would work for men. Modifying gear to function differently for women, who have a differently placed center of gravity and overall different bodies, simply might not work in the same manner for men.

Also, I'm not arguing that this is the best possible idea to ever be had in terms of what it would do to a budget. Integrating women into the military at all isn't fiscally responsible, even when they are not serving in combat-related roles. My argument is simply that if anyone is going to say that women should be drafted and held to the same physical standards as men, that women should be allowed to perform all the same jobs as men if they so choose. Otherwise, it just seems there is very little point to any of it.

Knowing the reality of the situation already, where women are just not desired by pretty much anyone in the military for a variety of reasons, this whole idea seems totally pointless to me.

I've been both infantry and combat service support, so I've seen both sides of the coin. Sure, we pay lip service to the idea that you are a Soldier first, and your MOS second, but it's simply not true. There's no comparing infantry training and combat service support training. Combat Service Support troops are regular people with desk jobs wearing a uniform and carrying a weapon during deployments. If you sent them into combat outside of a draft/large scale war, most would probably refuse to go and take a discharge over an MOS reclassification to infantry. If you sent them off to fight in a large scale war/draft situation, i think they would be only marginally more effective than hastily trained civilians. Requalifying on your weapon every six months does not a Soldier make.

That's pretty much what I expected to hear.

As for a female draft, i simply don't think we have the facilities or infrastructure in place to support the influx of females such a draft would produce. Regardless of how i feel morally, it's simply not practical. Besides, historically, in world war 1 and 2, females manned(lol) factories that drafted males left empty. They made sacrifices and did work that was absolutely vital to our success. For every female you draft, you lose someone that stays behind to support from the home front, and you need many rear-echelon supporters for every Soldier on the front line. Again, i think the current system is more practical.

Well if you were drafting women, you'd probably be drafting fewer men, who would just stay behind and continue doing the jobs they were doing before, or take up factory jobs and the other misc bits that women have taken up in the past. Completely discarding the idea of women going into combat, if you did draft a number of women for non-combat positions, I'm sure it would suffice. I don't think it would be the best of all possible options because of the current attitudes and ideas about women in the military, but I think it could be workable.

Is that to say it's a good solution? No. There is no real problem to solve. This whole idea presented has only been presented because some civilian asshole with penis-related anger doesn't understand shit. Is that surprising? Nah.

I guess what it boils down to is that you seem to be under the impression that somewhere there is this large group of super-motivated females who are in the military, in uniform, and itching to go into combat, fight, and do all the dirty, unpleasant stuff that even the men don't really want to do. If that group is out there, i never saw them. Those types of girls are around, but they are WAY in the minority,(top 2-3%, like i said in an earlier post) and they are all scattered around equally. there really aren't enough of them to have any major "draft women and have them serve in combat roles." type of movement. When enough of those smart, highly motivated women that i attend college with decide to make their careers in the military, things might change. until then, we're probably sticking with the status quo.

Edit: so i read the rest of your posts and for the most part i'm pretty much telling you a bunch of stuff you already know. You seem very aware of the mindset of your average military male. Really should have read everything you said/the entire thread before i posted, sorry. I still have to wonder though. you seem to know the score when it comes to your average woman in the army. I'm not morally averse to all-female units in combat, but knowing what you know about your average female soldier, how would it happen? they don't want to do it and most males don't want them to do it. the will to change simply isn't there.

Oh no, I don't think those women are currently in the military. I simply think those women exist, but they've chosen to succeed in other places rather than struggle under the burden of gender in a system not designed to include them. I think you agree with the crux of that idea. I think that being able to distinguish yourself like a man, and be part of a unit that is actually capable of experiencing a similar bond and camaraderie like male units have would be instrumental in changing how women feel about military service, and also what kind of women the military attracts. Personally, for me, if tomorrow there was a huge summit that announced they were allowing women to choose combat positions and making some female-only units, I'd be the first fucking person in line, regardless of anything else going on in my life. I would want to be part of something like that, because regardless of the price I might pay for it, nobody could ever say to me that I haven't given 110% of myself like any other man in this country is given the opportunity to choose to do. I know I'm not the only woman that feels that way.

I also think that if one wants to hold women to equal standards as men and then draft them into the military the same as men, there has to be a justification for doing so. I honestly don't see why anyone's upset about women running their mile a minute slower than a man in their physical fitness tests. It has no bearing on anything. You're not going to allow them, let alone make them do any kind of strenuous physical work, so who really cares? I'm just saying if A, then B. If you're raising the physical requirements for women, make a suitable reason for it or you're just spinning your wheels. Women have lower requirements because people have lower expectations of them. Simply, don't. Expect better results. Stop putting stock in the idea that women can't. They can if you make them, because they sure as fuck won't on their own.

Edit: that last paragraph was more directed toward other people who have pointed that out over and over, not so much you personally.

[Ivve]

lol I am not even talking about wars, I am talking about the fact women want to be equal to men in every way except the things that they don't wanna do. They have it easier, that is fact. I doubt there will ever be any equality tbh, not with that attitude. You seem to skip over the fact that, regardless of feelings on war, *men have to sign up for it* how can there be equality with that small detail there? I have to potentially risk my life to protect the country but women don't have to.

Women are purposely excluded from being able to risk their lives for their country, due to current beliefs in the military itself. They couldn't risk their lives for their country if they begged to do it. You need to read the thread.

[Kuya]

a lot of liberals wonder why they are construed as condescending douchebags.

Joft isn't that rare

I don't wonder. I am purposely condescending..

[Xno Kappa]

Women in the Army damn near get 20 minutes to run 2-miles lol.

[Demosthenes11]

I don't wonder. I am purposely condescending..

lol if you think you sound like him you have a really low (high? ) self esteem

[Kuya]

I don't sound like him because i am explicit though. Instead of making sentences that have a condescending tone, i just tell people (people whom i take to be stupid) not to waste my time.

edit: not defending him btw, since his posts do annoy me