Women registering for Selective Service

Keep in mind there is a difference between the draft and Selective Service. "As a practical matter if both men and women were required to register and did if the contingency were to happen the armed forces one could reasonably assume would end up being roughly divided 50-50 between men and women. Problem with it is it contradicts two things about the gender make up of the current military-- one of which is changeable albeit not necessarily wisely, the other isn't and is also the reason why it isn't wise to change the first." That is not true, people will always volunteer (men more than women in general) so it does not mean there will be a 50-50 gender difference in the Armed Forces. We fought two wars at around the same time in Afghanistan and Iraq, we did not once have to draft anyone as we maintained an all volunteer force. For the draft to be reinstated it would need to be a truly necessary. Regardless, what is wrong with a 50-50 gender difference in the Armed Forces? "The first-- currently only 14% of the armed forces consists of women. The second and more important is there are strength requirements which women are much less able to meet than men. The fact is men have a substantial advantage when it comes to upper body strength over women; and for tasks which require upper body strength women are going to be left out. Thus registering women becomes symbolic but little else." The military is more than just physically fitness, obviously fitness is more important for someone in combat roles than admins. Only a small fraction of the military is actually combat jobs, for an Infantryman to do his job he would need supplies, air support, naval support etc etc etc. If we went by the physical capabilities of both genders women would not be allowed to serve in the military, which we clearly know is unfair. Physical abilities is not the only necessity of the Armed Forces, the military needs intelligence from their Airman, Soldiers, Marines etc. It's something people seem to not realize, not anyone can fly planes, operate space systems, work on nukes be a linguist etc etc etc. So as a result requiring women to register for Selective Service doubles the pool of recruits we can draw from if need be. That means we would not have to lower the quality of recruits drafted as much, would it be better to draft quality men and women than to resort to drafting criminals? As you know criminals do not make for quality recruits and often endanger the lives of their fellow Armed Forces personnel. "The third reason is propaganda. The draft has always been unpopular even and especially in time of war. It may have been less so in WW II due to the nature of the enemy but it certainly was in the Civil War, WW I and in the Korean and Viet Nam Wars Rape has always been a part of war. Now lets add those two things together the unpopularity of the draft and rape. Now we have an image of an 18 year old girl-- still a child really being sexually abused by the enemy. Now what is the reaction of the public going to be? One will be to demand more women and children and old men living in enemy territory be mindless and irrationally slaughtered thus handing the enemy a big propaganda victory. The other would be to demand withdrawal from the war also potentially handing the enemy a victory." Again the draft and Selective Service are not the same thing. The draft is actually ONLY implemented in the US during a time of war. What if we didn't draft men during WWI and II? No one likes the draft, it'd be political suicide for a politician to actually implement the draft unless it was truly necessary. Yes war is not moral but what about men? They can be raped as well, who said we'll start irrationally slaughtering anyone during a time of war? Have you noticed how far the US had gone to prevent civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq? They often put their own military personnel in danger to prevent civilian casualties. And as you know terrorists tend to hide within the civilian population and use them as human shields. How would drafting women exactly bring the US to withdraw from a war? Rape is actually not the epidemic people seem to think it is in the military. "Here"s what it adds up to: All in all, the rate of sexual assault in the military doesn"t appear significantly higher than the rate in the broader civilian population " and when you look at college campuses, which, like the military, are full of 17- to 24-year-olds, the military"s sexual assault rates start looking low in comparison. The New York Times may be right to assert that the military has an "entrenched culture of sexual violence," but it would be more accurate to observe that the United States as a whole is characterized by an entrenched culture of sexual violence. Macho traditions notwithstanding, the military appears to have done a better job than most colleges of reducing the sexual assault rate and increasing women"s willingness to report assaults to the authorities." The military employs millions of people, there are bound to be a few bad apples within the basket. If people are truly against rape they'd fight to decrease rape within the civilian population as the US military has less rape than the untrained civilian population. Keep in mind punishments for breaking the law especially rape is more severe in the military than the civilian judicial system. Source: http://foreignpolicy.com...