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Fools rush in where wise men fear to go
But wise men never fall in love so how are they to know…
The first line above applies to my text, but the second one does not. That’s
because I’m not writing about love, but I am rushing into unknown territory
full of mines and booby traps. This was okay when I just wrote these pieces in
my mind, but now I’m paying for a website which I hope to succeed with by
writing things that people may actually read. (They aren’t doing that yet, but
when I get around to getting listed by the search engines, there’ll be
something already available for those who find me through them).
The dangerous topic I want to cover today is the subject of women in the
military, which I just found out about from the cover of Time on December 29th.
Okay, I heard about it before, but with a war on you actually tend to think
about it, instead of passing over it. The young woman from Time offered a lot of
starting points from which to follow a train of thought. For instance, she’s
in full combat gear with something in her hands that looks like an elephant
gun at least, which I wouldn’t want to face under any circumstances. It’s no
peashooter, that’s for sure.
The cover story says she’s a medic, which raises the question why all the
firepower? Medics are supposed to go unarmed and wear big Red Cross armbands and
also a cross on their helmets. Is the Army so convinced the Iraqis won’t
respect this that they don’t bother with it anymore? Or is this some subterfuge
of the women-in-combat crowd to get the girls into the firing line shooting
it out with the Mustache Petes? Call them medics but use them otherwise? Then
after they come home loaded with medals the country will succumb to the idea
of fighting ladies and demand that all females become liable for combat duty
at least in time for the next war in 2006 or so. Is that the plan? The kind
of mind that planted the fleet at Pearl Harbor to tempt the Japs to attack or
invented an attack at Dim Sum Bay or wherever to get into Vietnam is perfectly
capable of cooking it up.
So much for women as a force for peace. When the suffragettes were fighting
for the right of women to vote, they told the world that this was one of the
dividends that could be expected when it came about. The women’s vote would
exert a moderating influence on wild men howling for blood and slaughter and
looking around for candidates for the experience. Women had no use for this kind
of thing, they said, and with power in their hands could be counted on to
resist it and bring warmongers to heel. In due time an era of universal peace
would dawn, swords would be beaten into plowshares and the lion would lie down
with the lamb.
Everyone agreed with this vision. What could be more logical? Obviously
women were less inclined to violence than men and could be trusted to resist it
and do their best to suppress it. When General MacArthur was drawing up the
Japanese constitution he insisted on including women suffrage in it, saying
"Women don’t like war" and (after what he had been through with the Japanese men)
this was all to the good.
I’m not trying to say that this is all bunk and women are actually a
bloodthirsty lot with an itch for mass destruction. What seems to have happened to
puncture the balloon though, is that the urge for inclusion is even stronger
than the drive for society’s acceptance of female values. It’s clear that wars
haven’t ceased, no more than other activities inimical to women like
pornography and adultery. But instead of closing ranks and setting their faces against
such things, some women have concluded that equality means getting themselves
included in them. For some, this means shooting it out on the front line.
The question here, though, is if a woman can engage in a gunfight with a man in
Iraq, why can’t she engage in a fistfight with a man in America?
I leave that interesting question unanswered because (a) I don’t have an
answer and (b) even if I did, I might not offer it because I’m not looking to be a
pundit brimming with advice, but prefer being a troublemaker bringing up
awkward questions that will keep people awake nights looking for answers. Of
course they may just say "Nuts to him" and ignore them, but they’ll be missing a
significant experience if they do. I don’t want to say that only a lowbrow
would prefer sleep.
Since I have a number of books in the house doing nothing but leaning idly
against each other, I thought I’d see if I could dig something out of one of
them to use for a tagline here, but all the writers, male and female, seemed to
be frightened of women and to have a lot more to say about their potential for
aggression than their devotion to peace and tranquility. Some of them get
quite worked up about this and exhibited actual fear, if not panic. I’m serious,
I went through pages and pages of one book of quotations and emerged with a
distinctly negative impression of the sex. I don’t think this corresponds with
reality, it reflects the neuroses of the writers more than anything else, but
then, I ask you, how did these neuroses…originate? Once more we come up
against a question with no answer, indicating that closing time is here. Goodbye.
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