"Women in combat a dangerous experment" ???

photo: www.newyorker.com

Trying out writing with a bit of snark. Is this more fun to read, or do you just take the content less seriously? I'd love to know your thoughts!

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Reading up on the new changes that will allow women to fill combat positions within the military, I came across this opinion piece, stating that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's announcement of the changes marks the beginning of "a dangerous experiment."

Just for fun, let me take you though the argument and so-called reasoning of the author, Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, of the Family Research Council, and then let me point out all the reasons that his ideas are completely bonkers.

He goes on  for a bit about how women are great, women are valuable, the military needs to draw from the full pool of talent blah blah blah BUT, here's the thing, women will now be allowed into the Special Forces, where soldiers have to spend extended periods of time together in awful environments without privacy or bathrooms, while enduring life-threatening situations, and now on top of that, they will have to add to the mix of horrible things UNDERLYING SEXUAL TENSIONS.

My God.

Let's unpack this. First off, this idea is built on a few assumptions:
1. All men and women are straight.
2. All men and women, when placed together, will develop some level of sexual-based feelings/interactions, or "tension."
3. This sexual tension negatively impacts their ability to do difficult work together.

First, not everyone in the military is straight, or did you miss the whole thing where "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was removed so that all the gay people in the military could be open about it?
There are gay people serving, and to say that these sexual tensions would only exist in these specialized troops if women were present is basically saying that gay people don't have sex drives. Anyone want to argue that?

Second, I strongly reject the idea that relationships between men and women are always based on something related to sexuality, which is what assumption #2 implies. There are also friends, acquaintances, people you dislike, and oh yeah, co-workers. It's pretty ridiculous to say that it's difficult to do a job when struggling with all the sexual tension oozing from every person of the opposite sex you ever come into contact with. If that were true, we'd all be banging each other in store rooms instead of updating our google docs. There goes premise #3.

It gets nuttier though. The author goes on to say:

"This is a lot to ask of the young leaders, both men and women, who will have to juggle the need to join and separate the sexes within the context of quickly developing and deadly situations."

If anyone knows what it means to "separate the sexes," please let me know. Maybe, one second you're lusting after the sexy troop next to you and the next you're under fire, and for some reason the previous bit of fantasizing about what's under all that camouflage makes you react slower to being shot at? Is that what he means?

There's one last thing I want to mention. Our friend Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin also mentions how this decision is "ideologically and not militarily based," and that the people involved are now part of a "vast social experiment in which hundreds of thousands of men and women will be the guinea pigs." OK, I guess it's two things I want to mention. First: how batshit crazy is it to accuse the military of simply doing a social experiment, like the war in Afghanistan is taking place in a lab full of rats. Second, I wanted to point out that it's a bit rich of the Lieutenant General to accuse anyone else of being ideological when he is the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, a Christian organization that promotes its own ideals, which include, among other things, abstinence until marriage, turning gays straight, overturning hate crime legislation, and parent's rights to beat discipline their kids without the pesky government stepping in.

Who are you to tell anyone not to spread their idealogical ideas?

Oh, and he also says that "Congress needs to put in place a comprehensive, nonpoliticized system that will track the physical effects of these changes on women" and that the "data needs to be made public, so there can be a fair, scientific assessment of this great experiment." Let me reference again the Family Research Council website, which claims that gays can be cured of gayness, abortion causes mental and physical suffering, and abstinence till marriage is the best and most effective form of birth control. All of which have been strongly disproved by the data and science that is suddenly so important.

Hopefully you've now been convinced that the author is a screwy screwy screwball, and that if there are reasons for why women shouldn't serve is combat positions, these aren't them. 

The action bit of this isn't very deep. Have friends of the opposite sex. Don't buy into the idea that women in combat is dangerous because of possible sexual attractions. Just like the whole discussion about men having more control that a being that is constantly on the verge of raping and a short skirt can set that off, continue the discussion that men, and women, are more than our sexuality. We can all exercise self-control, place it on the back burner, not give into urges. It's actually pretty common to not screw every person you think is cute or have a connection with. Keep talking about this. Oh, and whenever you see something from the Family Research Council, immediately look for the wholes in their logic. It's always there.