From: dgross@nike.calpoly.edu (Dave Gross)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: The Draft, et al. (was: Men's issues vs. women's issues)
Date: 20 Aug 1992 01:56:38 GMT
Organization: Manumission:  The Campus Men's Forum
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <2A79CA46.28896@ics.uci.edu> Cindy Tittle Moore writes:
>Are you being forced to serve against your consent?  I'll be happy to
>help you fight against that.  But since there is no draft, I don't
>understand how you're being forced to serve...

and

>Hm...what draft?

and

>What draft?  You do realize that we have no draft, don't you?

This strikes me as a bit disingenuous.  After all, every man in the United
States must sign up with the Selective Service System upon reaching the age
of eighteen.  Saying "what's your problem with military conscription; you
aren't being drafted" seems to be a bit like saying "why are you going to that
pro-choice rally; you aren't pregnant."

I don't share Cindy's cheery view of the draft (i.e. that we're not likely to
have one ever again).  The government is going to a lot of trouble to take
down my name and keep track of where I am.  There's a bit of money involved.
I suspect if the folks in Washington didn't have the idea of putting my body
in the line of fire in the back of their minds, they wouldn't bother.

And besides, there is no shortage of American feminists who will go on and on
about clitorodictomies, something that is not a direct threat to most American
women.  Not to mention such voluntary threats to women as beauty pageants,
breast enhancement surgery, pornography, etc.  Certainly, even if by some
strange stretch of fancy one can call military conscription a frivolous
concern for men, to criticize this frivolity calls into question some of
feminism's favorite topics of discussion.

>(You should note that the U.S. government will probably never institute
>another draft.  Between Vietnam and the Gulf War, we pretty much
>proved the point that a well trained volunteer military does much
>better than a drafted force.)

Again, I am skeptical.  If our government had really learned its lessons, it
would not be spending the money it is spending to keep track of where I and
the other men of my cohort are so that they might call us up for this draft.

I hear an echo from an alternate reality.  Let me share it with you:  "You
should note that the United States will probably never outlaw abortion.  A
majority of Americans are against such a law, and the Constitution protects
the right to choose abortion.  It's an old battle that's already been won..."

>By the way, if you are talking about instituting perhaps a constitutional
>amendment forbidding the U.S. to implement drafts, I'd sign it, and I'm sure
>many, many feminists, men, and other people would also.

I haven't been following this thread as closely as I perhaps should have, but
since it seems to be about whether feminists have, or feminists should have
or should be supporting/supported (oh no, another awkward sentence) men's
issues, I'll add that the draft has already been decided on a federal level
in a Supreme Court case called Rostker v. Goldberg.  A few men challenged the
Selective Service System on equal protection grounds and lost.  As far as I
know, they didn't get active feminist support (I'd be happy to be proved
wrong on this if you have information to the contrary), although Men's Rights,
Inc. submitted an amicus curiae brief.

In fact, when the ERA was going down to defeat, it was supposed by many to
be because many people feared that women would be drafted and would have to
serve in combat alongside men.  In response to this fear, some feminists
proposed a Women's Rights Amendment that would explicitly destroy male
privileges while retaining female privileges.  Because it was impractical to
change course midstream, and because (I hope) of some principled opposition
>from feminists, this WRA didn't get far.  It is my feeling that the climate
of today's feminism is much more WRA than ERA.  To hell with it.

My view is this:  The sexes cannot be liberated individually, but the whole
system of sex roles, intertwined as it is, must be destroyed.  I believe that
the male draft is a vital feminist issue, being perhaps the last explicit
sex discrimination in U.S. law.  Because the male draft props up and justifies
traditional sex roles, it makes other changes in sex roles that much harder to
win.  People will be more likely to trust a woman political leader, for
instance, if they know that leader was as responsible for putting her life on
the line for her country as her brother was for his life.

If this country uses men and women in peacetime, but then relies on men when
things get tough -- that sends a very strong message to people that women are
less reliable, less tough, less able.  Unfortunately, many feminists, like
Angela Davis who said "In the women's movement, we are fighting for equality
for women but that does not mean we seek equality in the right to kill other
people," or Stephanie Salter, who interrupted her steady stream of feminist
op-ed pieces during the gulf war to speak out against women in combat ("A
Woman's Place is Not in Body Bags" 1/20/91, SF Examiner), don't see that you
can't just pick and choose your favorite sex roles.



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