Dan Mayer

WRTG 3030

Paper 3

Equality in Responsibilities

Women of America fought hard, and by 1920 they had won the right to vote. The women's movement led to their equality as citizens. Most Americans now believe in freedom and equality for all and that no person is better than another person based on gender or race. If there is supposed to be equality, why are there still laws that favor women in society? Women fought hard to be equal, but they have not fought to gain the equal responsibility that is associated with being full citizens. To this day, this country supports advantages given to people based on gender. For America to have true equality these advantages must end. As long as women do not have the responsibility to register for the draft, there is no such thing as equality for all. The fact that there has not been a draft since 1970 during the Vietnam war is not important. The fact that right now only men register for the draft means that if there is an emergency only men will be drafted. Registering for the draft is not a privilege. Registration is a responsibility that comes along with being a citizen of the United States.

There are many reasons that people have believed that women should not be included in the draft. One reason, stated by the selective service website, is that there are still laws that exclude women from front line combat positions (1997). This is the primary reason given by the selective service website. Also, women are believed to in many cases to be too physically weak to handle the intensity that can occur during war. Some also claim that women would be a liability in war because they may “lock up,” or be unable to kill when necessary. The Department of defense(DOD) stated that there has not been a need for women in the draft, seeing as there have been enough men to fill the positions (1997). There has not been any real push by any groups to change the laws that give a specific benefit to women. Many women do not want to be in the draft, nor do men want them there. These reasons are put forth by different groups, including our own government. These reasons can all be read clearly on our government's selective service website. The United States obviously believes that women should not be included in the registration process .

Many of these arguments do not hold up to scrutiny once seriously questioned with logic and reasoning. The argument that women cannot be in the draft because they still are not legally allowed to be in the front line is circular. The real question to ask is why is there still any law that would state that women any different than men? If a woman is not good enough o fight and die for our country, why is she considered good enough to run the country or occupy important positions? Women are allowed to run for any office including the presidency of the United States. Are positions such as the presidency really considered easier and with more acceptable costs of failure? Even if i was not to argue that women could fight for our country just as well as men, not being in combat should not exclude women from other positions.

Do women really increase the risk of military failure? The idea that women would fail in combat leads us to believe women are too weak to be in battle or “fight like a man.” Women's rights groups will not accept the belief that men are stronger than women. Women's rights groups have made it illegal to try to prevent women from becoming firefighters, so long as they are able to pass all of the same physical tests that a male would(2002). This should be the same for combat positions. If we can accept the fact that women and men are fundamentally different, but are still equal this is not a problem. It is true that the average male is stronger than the average woman, this would lead to more men being able to pass the physical tests required for combat positions, but that would not mean that women would be unable to pass. Those that could pass could fight. Women are physically catching up to men in many sports and closing in on many records. In fact according to muscle monthly on line, “women are gaining in rate of competitive performance on a par with men in both speed and strength”(2000). Physical ability is not determined by gender. Physical ability can only be determine by a individual's personal strengths. The concept that a person's strength is dependent only on that person seems to be difficult for the DOD to accept. Women who volunteer for the Army must be able to make it through the physical training during basic training, and this should be the same with the people drafted. If an individual is not physically fit enough to make it through the training procedures, regardless of gender, then that individual could not be put in combat positions.

A simple extension of the argument above also answers the problems of womens emotions causing them to lock up or be unable to kill. Granted some women will lock up, but some men will too. Decisions can not be based on blanket judgments based entirely on gender. If women really do lock up more often in combat, there should be proof. If the ability to kill is a fundamental difference between men and women, that could be understandable. However, the current logic keeping women out of combat is not science, it is a sexist history in the armed forces. If we can determine which soldiers are best at carrying out certain duties, we should also apply these tests to find out which person would be more likely to lock up. In the cases where it is determined that there may be a problem with an individual's ability to kill, either the man or woman could be moved into a position that does not involve combat.

In modern war there are smaller percentages of military personnel on the front lines during war. The modern army relies heavily on technology and machines. This technology requires many people in the army to work far from any combat, with computers, scanners, and in the lab. There are many positions that need to be filled - desk jobs, nurses, water purification, and even engineering - that would not require such difficult physical requirements. Many responsibilities, like designing and building tanks could be carried out from an entirely different country than where the battles were being fought. Other highly important positions such as pilots for the air force, which are relied upon more than in the past, do not require hand to hand combat. If the current law disallowing women to be in front line combat remains, there are still a majority of military positions open to women. Evidence of this can be found in a table presenting the percent of women allowed in U.S. Military positions during 1997, according to the Alliance for national defense website(1998).

Coast Guard: 100 percent 
Air Force: 99 percent 
Navy: 94 percent 
Army: 70 percent
Marine Corps: 62 percent

These figures show that without involving women in front line positions, which may be a more difficult issue to argue, there would still be more than enough positions for women to fill in the military. Keeping women out of the registration process because there is a small minority of positions they are not allowed to fill is unjustifiable.

The DOD currently has only one policy about positions women can not fill in the military. Women are ineligible for positions in which the “primary mission is to engage on direct combat on the ground”(1997). As this policy is currently stated, women are not allowed to be assigned to infantry, armor, field artillery, or ground special forces. The fact that some women would be just as capable as the men currently in these positions is a larger and more challenging issue that will be left for other discussions.

If women really want equality let them fight for it. Let them fight for the privileges and the responsibilities. The draft may never occur again, but that point does not really matter, what does matter is that every law giving benefit to either sex be erased from the existing laws. Prejudice cannot cease to exist when even the laws of our country make a clear difference between which sex is strong enough or smart enough for any activity. This country has not seen a woman president yet, but i believe that if it was illegal for a woman to be president there would be protests and women's groups would fight that battle until they won. So, prove to me that women are truly equal by fighting to become equal. The way the laws stand and the causes women's rights groups are fighting for, only lead me to believe that women's activists fight for benefits not equality. After registering for the draft, men alone carry the burden of knowing that at any moment if our country needs them, they could be picked up out of their lives, homes, families, jobs, and dreams to fight for a cause they may or may not believe in.

References

Alliance For National Defense (1998). Facts and Figures. Alliance For National Defense on line, <http://www.all4nationaldefense.org/> (2002)

Muscle Monthly (2000). Should women train like men. Muscle Monthly Online, <http://musclemonthly.com/> (2002)

Selective Service System(1998). Women and the Draft in America. Selective Service System Online, <http://www.sss.gov/> (2002)

Women in the Fire Service, Inc (2002). Women in Firefighting: A History. Women in the Fire Service Online, <http://www.wfsi.org/> (2002)