

When Did It Become an Insult to Train Like a Girl? - hackuser
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/lt-col-kate-germano-on-the-marines-and-women/

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dudul
The army is under a lot of pressure to become more "inclusive". If the
standards for female recruits were the same as they are for males, no women
(with a few exceptions) would be able to join the marines, or any other corp.
Despite the popular narrative, men and women are _not_ equal when it comes to
physical capacity. It doesn't mean that women can't join the army in positions
that don't require such capacities.

As a side note, it is interesting to see that social activists are pushing
really hard for women to be able to join elite units on a "free will" basis,
but not at all for girls to be required to enroll into selective service.

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cafard
As far as I know, the youngest persons to have been drafted into the US Armed
Forces are now eligible for Social Security. That is to say, nobody turning 19
in 1974 or even 1973 was drafted. It is hard to imagine the circumstances in
which the US would return to a draft; the draft was unfairly arbitrary in the
1960s, even with so many troops in Vietnam and in western Europe. With the
size of the military DoD now has in mind it would be impossible to make it
fair.

But yes there are agendas out there.

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dudul
I totally agree with you, it is highly unlikely that the draft will be used
any time soon. But then maybe we should get rid of the selective service
altogether.

It would be a symbolic fight, to include girls in the selective service, but
don't feminists fight symbolic fights all the time? It would be a very strong
gesture, that proves that feminism is about true equality, to take a stand
against an inequality that does advantage women. Nowadays, when feminism and
feminists are highly criticized, I think it would be a great PR move.

