Flaming Mad

What a flying crock of doodoo this article about women in combat is. That it was written by a woman is even more shameful. It starts out innocently enough and poses a good question. Why do we send the mothers of toddlers off to war? Why do we send their dads, who will be missed just as much, no matter what she thinks? I guess she wasn't daddy's little girl so she doesn't think he's all that important to a child's life.

Then she flits over into bashing women in the military, where they are fighting and dying while performing their duties. Just. Like. The. Men.

Women may be able to push buttons as well as men can, but the door-to-door combat in Fallujah proved the irrelevance of that argument. Meanwhile, no one can look at photos of the 15 British marines and sailors and argue convincingly that the British navy is stronger for the presence of Acting Leading Seaman Faye Turney -- no matter how lovely and brave she may be.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that women, despite all evidence to the contrary, are as capable as men in any battle. If our goal is to prevail, shouldn't we also consider other ramifications of putting women in combat and other positions of risk?

What evidence? She doesn't provide any data, just an opinion. And a stupid one at that. But then it gets worse.

Rape, though not a likely risk in this case, is a consistent argument against putting women in or near combat. While advocates for women in combat argue that men are also raped, there is an important difference. Women are raped by men, which, given the inherent power differential between the sexes, raises women's rape to another level of terror.

What kind of man, one shudders to wonder, is willing to allow his country's women to be raped and tortured by men of enemy nations? None that I know, but our military is gradually weaning men of their intuitive inclination to protect women -- which, by extrapolation, means ignoring the screams of women being assaulted.

And the horse you rode in on. I so want to cuss here. What an insult to the men who serve. What a slap in the face to even infer that they would stand by as a woman is being raped, Abeer Hamza notwithstanding. It makes me want to send her one of those nasty emails some of the women bloggers have been receiving.

This is a not so subtle attack on women in the military, for our own good. War is hell. Period. We shouldn't send anyone into harms way unless there is a darn good reason. So far, none has been provided for this little venture, therefore nobody needs to be in Iraq. As a veteran, I am so offended by the tone of this article, as if women are fragile, delicate little flowers that need to be protected, not do the protecting. Why not go all the way and say that women shouldn't be allowed to serve as police or fire officers?

This is a war like no other in a myriad of ways and should not be used as an excuse to roll back the achievements of many fine women. Maybe the callousness of some members of the military can be traced to a lack of respect, that comes from the top down instead of the dehumanization of women in the military. If torture is condoned and encouraged, how long can the perpetrators keep their humanity?

Ms. Parker, please crawl back into your Stepford world and leave the doing to the big girls. And the thinking.

Crossposted at Debsweb.