Tony White
Period 6
1/22/10
Global Issues
Women and the Military

Women in the Military

	It has always been that men were the ones who fight for freedom and for this country. Almost every modern culture is this way, and I believe it’s not without good reason. The author claims that it is time for women to finally have the opportunity for full service in the military and in combat. I strongly disagree with this, however, for several reasons that I feel the article doesn’t touch on, or otherwise glosses over.
	The presence of women can be highly distracting for a lot of other soldiers. It would be very detrimental to the cohesion and focus of a combat squad when women are involved because men are bound to feel the need to protect women. It may not be necessary, and I am sure there are several women who are even stronger than some men. However, whether needed or not, most men still have the knee jerking reaction to assume a woman cannot defend herself, and may do something foolish to try and protect her. This could lead to conflicts between the men, between the man and woman, and between the soldiers and their officers whose orders they may have disobeyed. Also, for a squad to be efficient in their carrying out of orders, they need to be able to think, act, and carry out similarly. Often times, women can be subjects to an entirely different thought process than men are. It could be hindering to the mission at hand for a group of men agreeing on one course of action, and a group of women agreeing on another course. It would cause major conflicts between men and women. It is also my opinion that men are much more able to see reason or necessity in morally grey orders or situations, while women are much more compassionate and more in tune with their emotions and could not carry out controversial orders as well as men could.
	In reference to my last point, we can conclude that women are more quickly able to be characterized as more caring, and less suitable to deal with controversial situations. Because women come across as a more loving, cherishable figure, Americans would respond in a drastically different way to their deaths, as opposed to the deaths of men. It has always been taught to school children that one mark of a savage is their ability to murder women and children, much like how Viking raids are thought of as acts of extreme cruelty because they spared no one. For this reason, having a massive amount of women coming back in body bags may trigger an extreme emotional response in the hearts of Americans, which would drive us to wholly believe it’s our duty to stamp out the murderers of women. Whereas I would agree with the masses, I also recognize that it could easily become an overreaction to a single situation. The best way to avoid such a situation is to avoid putting women on the front lines where they’re likely to be gunned down.
	Just like Americans; historically, many civilizations have viewed women as a cherished, fragile, and often times, sacred being. The idea of putting them on the front lines would be blasphemy in more than one religion, and abhorred in several more cultures. On top of that, though I don’t personally don’t agree, many cultures have also believed women to be inferior to men; physically, mentally, and spiritually. Though the latter reason for their ban from the combat military is obviously incorrect, it is still the default mind’s-eye image of women in general, and that could affect how men fight beside women, and how Americans back home react to their being killed in action. Since it is still a consensus of the American people that women aren’t combat material, it’s definitely not an archaic idea. When the time comes that women are ready to be accepted as suitable combat soldiers, it will no longer be that women are generally thought of as fragile.
	If my daughter were to tell me she aspires to be a soldier, I personally would do everything in my power to either dissuade or prohibit her from reaching her goal. So it is my firm belief that America is not ready to have their women sacrificed in the turmoil of military combat. They may not be ready for many more years to come, until it can be the consent of the majority of the people that freedom and the ongoing combat against terrorism is worth sending women out into strange new lands, only to be returned in a body bag.