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Comment by blue_dragon | Hacker News Reader

Would you be ok with mandatory draft registration for women if conscription began with only women aged 36 and above? National fertility would be unaffected, since women of that age rarely have children anyways. Then the draft would be gender-balanced and the war hawks would get more bodies for their machine. Everybody wins.

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Fertility only happens if women can find a partner. They are not baby making machines. If you have a catastrophic loss of men, you can still experience a demographic disaster.

Not really, a society that sends women to war is more or less a cowardly society dressing it up as equality.

What sort of male sends the female to check on the noises that sound like an intruder in the wee hours of the night? Do they set turns and when it's her turn she's gotta check out the noises? Any gal married or shacked up with a guy like that should kick him out before night is over.

Can you imagine Paul asking Nancy to check out the basement noises in SF?

Also, those war hawks should see duty in the front lines. None of this sitting behind "green zones" directing grunts. Get out there, get in the line of fire. Imagine Washington, Nimitz, Yamamoto, Zhukov, etc., let's just phone it in.

> Not really, a society that sends women to war is more or less a cowardly society dressing it up as equality.

Israel is likely the most prominent country sending women to war. I'm eager to call Israel many bad names, but "cowardly" is not one of them.

I think it's a worthwhile discussion, but your argumentation seems to be mainly based on stereotypes (women are weak) and some old chivalric ideals.

I mean, when things go bump on our farm my wife won’t hesitate to grab the rifle and haze a black bear or coyote. I’ll lay down my life for my wife and kids but I assure you she can be as dangerous as the next guy; in general much more.

It usually comes down to proximity and appetite.

This blatant mysogyny is shocking so out in the open. There's nothing "cowardly" about asking a woman to protect her country, or her husband.

Not that I support the idea of drafting civilian populations as soldiers in general: it's mostly a way to get innocent people killed and not much more.

> Not that I support the idea of drafting civilian populations as soldiers in general: it's mostly a way to get innocent people killed and not much more.

Not if you train them before sending them to the front. Check Ukraine, they would have been defeated without the massive influx of conscripts due to the massive Russian influx of poorly trained conscripts.

I think you mean misandry. Perhaps it is. Men bear the burden of conflict. Women bear the aftermath. But that’s how things shake out due to biology. Same as we frown upon sending children to war. Yes, they are easier to indoctrinate and can pull a trigger just as well as adults (see today’s conflict ridden areas of Africa). Yet, we know better than to send “future us-es” into the grinder guaranteeing societal collapse.

No, I do mean misogyny. Women are just as capable and willing as men to fight and defend. With modern weapons especially, there is no real difference between the fighting capacity of a woman and that of a man. And women are people in their own right, not things to be protected to perpetuate society.

Also, women are not children. Children deserve protection because they don't know any better, their minds are not fully equipped to understand what going to war means. Additionally, children make very poor soldiers, as their motor skills and reasoning skills and emotional control are just not developed enough to function as well as an adult, particularly in times of extreme stress such as war.

So again, children require and deserve protection from the rest of society. Women neither require it, nor deserve it, not any more than any other civilian.

If going to war front as an infantryman were a privilege, we'd see the likes of Hollywood actors and actresses volunteer for the front as well as any wealthy folks and any other privileged folks --but they rarely do --this indicates it is not a privilege, but rather something the poor and of lesser means, those whose lives are worth less are sent to the front. It's violence, it's abuse. Sometimes someone has to endure it. I don't see how not sending one is either misogyny or misandry. Sending someone however, is both of the above; however, if we must, then I think it's the duty of men to do the fighting. Women, can of course be in support of the front lines.

Of course it's not a privilege. But if you're saying women aren't good at it, that women need to be protected, that's misogyny. It's like saying women can't receive the death penalty because they are not mentally sound to be held responsible for their actions, which was a real misogynistic argument at one point.

Misandry would be saying men must be sent to war instead of women because they are inferior, or because they deserve a worse life, or something like that.

There's nothing misogynistic being said here. You're stretching the word to cover situations it just doesn't apply to.

Misogyny is believing women are less capable than men for certain important things (there are other ways of being misogynistic, but this is one of the most common). Warfare is a very good example.

>but they rarely do

World War 2 had a shitload of famous actors, athletes, politician's kids, etc go off to war. What are you smoking?

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