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“Our nation just got within spitting distance of sending teenage girls off to war against their will in the name of ‘equality.’”
A provision requiring all young women to sign up for the Selective Service that had been added to both the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has been scrapped despite bipartisan support for the measure. The decision to pull it appears to be an unlikely compromise with the small group of conservatives who had ferociously opposed expanding Selective Service to all citizens.
Initially, it seemed that the measure would succeed, thanks to a motley crew of supporters that included Republican military veterans and progressive feminists, but according to Politico, which first reported on the elimination of the provision, a compromise appears to have been reached with a vocal group of conservative lawmakers, who agreed to military justice reform measures as a concession.
However, whether the provision had been included in the final NDAA or not, we see the perpetual inconsistency of progressive feminism.
They faced two options: 1) Eliminate the distinction between male and female citizens for the Selective Service and see “equality between the sexes” through to its natural inclusion which holds men and women to the same standards on every front, or 2) keep this distinction between male and female citizens intact and admit that true equality between the sexes when it comes to the selfless defense of our nation isn’t exactly a top priority for today’s otherwise wildly progressive left-wing factions.
In other words, it’s hard not to feel like the feminists blinked when confronted with the harsh, undeniable reality that men and women simply are not the same — and that it most certainly is not the same thing to send 18-year-old girls off to war as it is to send 18-year-old boys should the nation ever again find itself in a conflict so major as to require a military draft.
Over the last century, aggressive social movements targeting gender norms for women have impacted politics, academia, the corporate world, and the accepted standard of family life in dramatic ways. However, the idea that women ought not be shackled to previous expectations as to how a wife and mother should live her life has been far from an even swap as far as men are concerned.
Men still overwhelmingly perform the kinds of vital and often far more dangerous jobs that make our modern civilization function, such as construction, mining, farming, firefighting, law enforcement, and yes, warfighting.
There is no serious push to get women into these fields, but rather only into the glamorous, white-collar jobs that pose no substantial physical challenge to women. Because let’s get down to stone-cold reality here: Women are overall — both in the modern era as in previous less “enlightened” eras — smaller and weaker than men. Furthermore, and even more to the point, women simply are not men, no matter how strong, intelligent, capable, and, in some uncommon cases, as physically adept as men in certain arenas.
To deny that women are different than men to the point that one denies that gender is anything more than a social construct is to deny that anyone should ever need take a special interest in women’s issues.
And if that’s the case, what then is the point of feminism?
There can be no feminism if there isn’t such a thing as “woman” to begin with. We are told these days that “men” can get pregnant, menstruate, and “chest feed.” We are told, nay, screamed at, that “trans women are women.”
Meanwhile, spaces previously reserved for women, in particular, bathrooms and competitive athletics, are being breached by men who identify as women and largely still possess innate physical advantages over the females they’re put in close contact with.
In all of these cases, the very essence of what it means to be a woman — which no amount of surgery, makeup, or synthetic hormones can mimic — is being erased and eliminated. And in the latter two examples, women are being overpowered and overwhelmed by…men.
This is the natural conclusion of “equality.” This is the full circle at which we have arrived as society has sought to address the unique needs and attributes that women have by completely denying that they are unique from men.
This is not “equal rights” for the fairer sex, which we all agreed are distinct from men up until about five minutes ago — despite the wide array of opinions as to how women ought to be treated by society in light of this undeniable fact.
And now, our nation just got within spitting distance of sending teenage girls off to war against their will in the name of “equality.”
The way progressive feminism has played out has, ironically, highlighted just how important it is to first recognize and acknowledge the differences between the sexes before we can ever hope to honestly and effectively pursue and promote policies and social trends that sincerely and genuinely benefit women.
The Second Wave feminists of the 1950s and 1960s were fond of scoffing at the notion that women should be expected to subject themselves to the “intellectually inferior” pursuits of homemaking and childrearing.
As sexist as it was to imply that traditional “women’s work” is inferior to the loftier pursuits of the business, academic, and political realms, it is certainly true that the pursuits society has typically reserved for women were grueling.
But so too have been the jobs we largely reserve for men: The physically intensive, daring, noble, risk-taking, deadly pursuits that any civil society requires to function, including enforcing the law, saving lives in peril, and defending a sovereign nation against its enemies.
Men and women are different and have different — but equally worthy and valuable — roles in society.
The more we try to dissolve these differences, the more unequal the impact upon women will be.
The bottom line is simple: We cannot claim to stand for women if we continue to try to refuse to acknowledge what makes them different from men.
