Should 18 year old women have to register for the draft too?

We have had a long fight for equal pay, voting rights and against exclusive clubs and glass ceilings.

Is it time to demand equality in the draft?

Do you think it would be fair to draft only men?

Women should have to register for the draft. After all, they are in the military now. Whether or not they should be put in combat is another matter.

I meant no, women should not be drafted. But your question was should they have to register for the draft. My mistake.

In fairness, I guess I don't see any reason why women couldn't be required to register. I wouldn't agree to put them in combat. But I don't know that it would be necessary to draft women for support services - I think their are enough who volunteer to fill those positions.

The male-only draft has never been fair. But don't hold your breath waiting for anybody to do anything about it. There will never be conscription of females. It won't happen.

Where there are equal rights of citizenship there must be equal responsibilities.

But the religious right will never allow their president to support it. They still idealize this fantasy world from the 1940's where "our boys" go off to war and the ladies stay home and kiss them goodbye.

In all fairness, they should.
In all reality, no they should not.

I have three daughters, one of which would have to register should (god forbid) AWOL get his "Four More Wars".

Cheers
Drifter

shouldn't they be liable for the draft too, even if they serve in other capacities? Nurses have always been a necessary part of the military especially in combat and many have lost their lives doing so.

but until women are represented equally in CONGRESS I don't think they should be drafted.

Women have ALL the rights of citizenship, they should have all the responsibilities.

women do not have all the rights of citizenship. Even so I do believe women should be subject to the draft so don't bother trying to pick an imaginary fight with feminists.

They have all the rights. Blacks, we have the all the rights too, but the same applies and black males are all forced to sign up.

any more than someone with daughters. I believe that it would be a moot point if someone won a case for equal draft rights for women. I don't believe they would bring the draft back period.

I don't understand why the ACLU hasn't fought a case against the fact that only males are required to register at 18. I think that is fundamentally wrong.

heroically in every military engagement. In WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, they were viewed by out enemies as quasi or true noncombatants like medical corps personnel. Assignment to combat units however, blurs their military role and if captured, encourages abuse and degradation. I’m not ready for that and I believe most Americans share my view.

As regards the draft, a more important question is why don’t we draft corporations? SCOTUS is systematically giving corporations the same freedoms and rights as humans, so draft the corporations for the duration of the War on Terrorism.

If Corporations want to be people, then perhaps they should be allowed the resnponsibilities as well as the benefits - I think I like it :)

Would you want a bunch of women running around with M-4s and grenades?? Just kidding!

no one should register. Selective Service should be abolished.

the rich?

If all men and women are equal, shouldn't dying be spread uniformly across all social levels?

I know AWOL and his chicken-hawk cronies will answer NO, because they've already voted, but what about you? :shrug:

Put them in infantry units, and watch how quickly the reasons for war go away.

Nobody should HAVE to register. Regardless of gender.


-C

E.R.A. not ratified.

http://www.now.org/issues/economic/cea/who.html
Who Needs An Equal Rights Amendment? You Do!

After more than 200 years of living under the United States Constitution and despite all of the progress we have made, women continue to suffer discrimination in employment, insurance, health care, education, the criminal justice system, social security and pensions, and just about any other area you can name. </snip>

there are more women than men, yet there isn't a equal rights amendment. what is wrong with this picture?

Yes it IS time to demand equality in the draft IF it is going to be instituted again, though I don't believe it ever should be brought back.

As a military spouse, I have no doubt about my ability to watch another's back, to fight as much for my unit-mates as for myself. I've told my husband that I'd feel a lot safer if I was beside him in a foxhole rather than some jerk who could just as well wish him dead as anything else.

It's an issue of fundamental fairness. The selective service law as currently written is unconstitutional.

:)

For the current selective service

Yes, in the very unlikely bizzaro world of a revived draft.

But, if there is a blatant draft, women should be drafted as well. I just hate the idea that the terror of the draft should be forced upon anyone.

However, I say that the real draft is economic and that already includes women. People that are forced into military service due to poor opportunities and lack of Poppy Bushes are already facing a draft of the working class.

There might be one to fight North Korea (which I would not support even though we have to help SK)

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more seriously.

that said, I have to justify this. And admit problems with selective service. Couple of notes:

1) To get federal financial aid for college, men must register with Selective Serv. Not women. Not fair.

2) I feel we are all equal as humans, and if there is a just war, we should be willing to serve as our beleifs allow.

3) The poster who made the note that women are unfairly represented in government pointed out an important fact. How can we draft women without their being properly represented in their government?

the guys would take them more seriously and vote them in. Besides, I think women are pretty much represented as much as they want to be in government. You have to look at how many women are trying to get these jobs as opposed to men. It may be that the same percentage that try for the offices of each sex get appointed or voted in or whatever.

I have an 18 year old son and I think it would be even easier for his friends that are girls to be drafted than the boys. Girls have an easier time getting acqainted and feeling at home than boys do. It's also a different world. I think girls would do well and I don't think it would be fair to send all of the guys off to war and leave the girls behind to take all of the good jobs because they don't have to go. It's not like the old days when they gave the jobs back after the war. It would give them a leg up in their careers.

I really think they could be in combat too. I think a lot of them would want to. But I wouldn't push that. At least if they took the non combat jobs, that would be less guys needed in total anyway. So maybe there would be a chance that every son wouldn't have to go.

As an eighteen year old male, almost nineteen, I have not yet signed for the draft, and refuse to do so until women are required to as well.
Not just women, though. I want to see the sons and daughters of the wealthy go to war beside, since it's their daddies that are benefiting from the slaughter, not mine. None of this AWOL from a fucking national guard unit...
Even then, I'm still not signing up until the Chickenhawk-in-Chief is out of office and the War Against Iraqi's ends. No matter who is required to sign up, I refuse to die for Haliburton.

rights within the selective service system. Call the ACLU and ask them if they would be interested in representing this. I think this is the time to fight this injustice.

On edit: I also think it would bring people into real life when they have to face the havoc that this war may bring to their children.

I picket once a week against this war and I often wonder how many of those representing the other side have no children or just female children.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

make things fair, if a person is not fit for military service they should have to do community service at the same rate of pay for the same amount of time.
With the obesity problem, in this country most folks would not be taken into the service.

However, 18 year old with a child/ren, need to automatically get community service.

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. f

No one should be drafted, if we would start and partake in only just wars, the draft would not be needed. There is no draft to demand equality in. That said, many service age women were not required to register with selective services, so it would be a big hassle to make it equal.

The real question is not should women be drafted, but is why the hell would anyone let themselves be drafted.

(The constitution doesn't seem to matter in these times) :(

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That's a great point against the draft, the only problem is that if somebody were to bring that up the supreme court would overturn it. Nowhere in the constitution does it mention that free speech does not protect obscenity, yet we all know the outcome of the Roth case. BTW the whole concept of a draft seems stupid to me, if Americans aren't willing to step up and fight a war then we don't have a war, it's that simple. Why would you put troops on a battlefield who are there against their will, how do you know they won't sabatoge the mission?

It's all bullshit. As far as my knowledge dictates the Constitution has been ignored and ripped apart since the Alien and Sedition acts. It's now being ripped apart by the breakup of peaceful assemblys (i.e. protests), and the suspensions of habeus corpus among other things in the Patriot Act.

I read Zinn's "A Peoples History of the United States", found many parts regarding the revolutionary period as very cynical (and from an obviously biased Marxist viewpoint), but the more I see throughout history in instances where the Constitution was blatantly violated (many a times in the case of the clause thats states we must abide by treaties we sign), I fear Zinn might be right: The constitution used liberal rhetoric to set the middle class in line (the middle class being a buffer), further the interests of the elite at the time (by shaking off the people who capitalized off of them), and nothing else.

But I can tell you right now that if you debated this argument with any conservative he/she would tell you...

"Well if we're breaking the constitution by violating the Bill of Rights then you liberals break the constitution all the time with your federal government social programs that the constitution doesn't give you them the authority to do."

I like the community service option. Give everyone who signs up the option of choice -- military or community service.

needless war. Maybe they would think a little harder about the committment of troops and war would become the extremely rare defensive event it should be.

I just really see no reason to change the system. Besides women are still discriminated in several instances even though it is against the law.

if men have to register...so should women.

Of course I believe nobody should have to register for the draft, if you can't get the volunteers..either they are being underpayed or badly used.

Its sexist to only allow men the privledge.

by women during combat? Thats also why women are not allowed in submarines, last I checked.

If I'm gonna die in anyone's war, there better be my sister right by my side.

Or are you girls/gals/women/womyn for equality when it only benifits you?

Can't have it both ways. Either you're for equal rights, and all the COSTS as well as the benifits, or you're an opportunistic hypocrit.

I'm for total equality.

They should have to or not have to. But if they want the right, they should not have the choice. Selective service registration should be MANDATORY, just like it is for guys.

If the draft is reinstated and I hope to hell that it's not, both women and men should be drafted.
It's not fair that only men should go. Then on the other hand, until women get total equality, I don't think it's fair to draft them.

We have not redefined effectively what our military is as of yet though obviously the face and function of it has changed dramaticaly in recent times.

When I was in high school we all took the asvab. I scored an 92% in the mechanical aptitude and 97% in the spatial quality catagories overall. As a female my scores were in the 100th percentile. The Marines had a hard on for me for 2 years.

Even then the military was moving away from brute to brains. There are many reasons for needing a physicaly strong person in the military but increasingly it is about balance. You must be smart and strong.

I have only one child, my genetic eggs lie in one basket alone. She is 15 years old right now. We are closer than many teen/parent pairs. She will still hold my hand at the mall and kiss me in public. Would I bite my nails to the wrist if she were required to register ---- OF COURSE! But if she were my son instead of my daughter would that make her less valuable or vulnerable? No.

The draft should be based on the ability to serve - - - ONLY. Not race, gender, not college status, not rich daddy status, not having "other priorities". If you are a true contientious objector you should have to prove that status by some battery and then serve in a humanitarian role.

I do believe if the nations daughters and mothers were put in peril it would be more difficult for politicians to treat war so lightly.

so if you are looking to find a double standard amoung feminists here, I think you will be disapointed.

Becasue that will give the wrong message to politicans that society finds the draft accpetable instead of repulsive. Instead the ONLY time their should ever be a draft is if America gets invaded like a foreign country is trying to take over. Which would make millions sign up and fight or stand on their rooftop and fight along with their neighboors. A draft has never been for the right reasons vietnam,Korea,and civil war, etc. So I think it is evil and should be abolished. The current bill to reinsate the draft inroduced last year by the Congressman from Newyork includs women which is not proberly not likely to pass.

You mean that draft during WWII wasn't appropriate? Didn't we also draft in WWI? Were you opposed to that? How about the Civil War?

Yup, I totally agree. I don't see how drafting women because men would be drafted has anything to do with sending the message NO WAR, NO DRAFT. It wouldn't be about equality (of all places, the military?) because the women would be drafted for fairness to understandably frightened men and their parents, not for their country. It really just smacks of "an eye for an eye" and I don't think women should fall for such silliness to prove their worth as women and feminists. The games people play.

Mushroom

Women combat units in israel have proven VERY effective, so i see no reason why not to have women in all areas similarly to men provided the physical strength is there.

A women holds the world record for free diving, deeper than any man... methinks its about time we force the equality issue across the board and remove sexism from the common.

The old fashioned view that women should not fight serves only to undermine women in a social quest for justice. Perhaps if your dear little daughter will be drafted and die in the next imperial adventure, you'll not be so inclined to vote in a war-fucker.

The draft is unequal as it stands. It should be a lottery of social security numbers... unbiased in all ways.

Absolutely!

Are not women the equal of men? Are they not as equally capable of filling slots in the military? Are they not deserving of equal oppertunities adn protection under the law?

With all of that equality come responsibility. Can't have it both ways. To demand such is to be...well...hypocritical.

However there should still be a high "physical fitness" requirement for those serving in combat. If a woman can measure up to the physical standards of combat, she should be in combat. If not, she can be in a support position, like Jessica Lynch (driving a truck, being a mechanic, etc.).

period.

I may be a woman but that doesn't mean I shouldn't serve my country.

Better to be a soldier than a victim...I think that all women in combat zones (military or civilian) should be armed to the teeth... I bet rapes would plummet in the war zones if that were the case.

during bush war I being interviewed on the tube about the role of women in the military. She replied, "If it is wrong for your daughters to kill and be killed in combat, why is it not wrong for your sons?"

...to approach the situation. And, while we are at it, let's take away ANY AND ALL deferments or special interest packages. If one of-age citizen of the US has to register for the draft, then they all should.

women handle pain much better ... think childbirth

women are better at endurance activities than men of similar health ..... marching, carryin' shit, etc.

women are more likely to think before they do something violent

women need less food/water than men

besides, if this were a policy (not that i am for the draft, i think the concept is unamerican), then maybe -- just maybe -- young women would be more encouraged to keep up with physical activity through adolescence, and athletic women would not be stigmatized (come on, you know it happens.

seems to work okay in israel.

Teens and War

"The following countries will draft women; Angola, Chile, Israel, Libyan Arab Jamahirya, and Paraguay. The following countries will draft women as non-combatants (support, humanitarian and medical roles) on an as needed basis; Croatia, Yugoslavia, and Switzerland. "


I say, why not, maybe if women were drafted there woud be fewer bloodthirsty Peggy Noonans and Ann Coulters running around exhorting the men to go off and kill people.

There are men out there who will not support the ERA and other equal rights legislation until women become equals with men in that they might be required to serve their country in war. There are men that say that women want all of the benefits and none of the responsibilities of being male. We should prove them wrong every chance we get.

I'm for full equality

It wouldn't be fair to only take the boys .

think much longer and harder about starting wars.

I don't think there should be a draft, but if it comes to that, I think women should be drafted too.

Its a hi tech army, lots of jobs for women. If women want equal pay and opportunity they have to share the same social responsibility.

there either IS equality, or there ISN'T equality. no qualifiers needed.

I am one of the minority who support mandatory national service for all 18-20 year-olds regardless of class, religion, or gender. Here's my reason:

American society has a huge problem. Most of our young people are not invested in America or American Society. They couldn't care less. Sure there are anti-globalization activists (and junior dems - and I'm sorry to make it sound like you don't count - because i really think you do) representing a small to moderate percentage of all young people. This percentage is no bigger than the percentage of young adults in the military (and any halfwit junoir rethugs out there), but it is dwarfed by the majority percentage of young people who don't watch or read the news, don't vote, probably don't have jobs, are even often in jail, but still don't really give a shit one way or the other.

Only 50% of voting age Americans vote. 'CAUSE PEOPLE DON'T CARE. I want people to start caring again.

If we want a society that fosters civic responsibility, engagement and pride, we are going to have to make the youth of America get off their obese Play Station asses and get involved. Otherwise we are going to continue to have what we've got today - and it ain't pretty as far as I'm concerned.

Furthermore, if everybody were required to do mandatory national service, with the majority being in the military, we will see a lot more diversity in the political makeup of the military, and, more importantly, in the PARENTS of the kids in the military. This would lead directly to more congressional interest in taking their constitutionally mandated war-declaration responsibilities seriously and likely lead to a much more sober and serious foreign policy.

I think those who are knee-jerk opposed to the draft and madatory national service should seriously consider the small-d democratic benefits to our society that would accrue.