ANYONE who believes that the lifting of the ban on women in combat will eliminate or even diminish feminist resentment toward the Armed Forces is ignorant of the simplest premises of modern feminism. The decision to lift the ban will enhance, not lessen, feminist grievance — and for very good reasons.

Obviously the ban will create resentment that women are and always will be the victims of sexual assault or harassment in the military. In the eyes of feminists, all unwanted sexual advances, even those occurring in close combat, can be prevented by administrative oversight. Obviously the ban will also create perpetual, unending resentment that there are not, and never will be, as many top female commanders or decorated heroes. The more the military opens itself to women, the more it opens itself to their dissatisfaction.

Less obvious is the fact that the decision is an admission that women were the victims of a male conspiracy in the past. What could have motivated the establishment of an all-male military — both in America and virtually every society in recorded history — if women were fully capable of fighting all along? Only enmity toward women by men could explain it. Thus the lifting of the ban affirms the feminist belief in this historic injustice.

In short, all of history is tainted with the claim that women can fight as well as men.

Notice this recent article in The New York Times which comes on the heels of Leon Panetta’s announcement that women can now fight. Three women who have successful careers complain. Why? Because they were excluded from combat before the ban and would have had even more spectacularly successful careers if they had had combat experience. Note their unashamed conviction that a major purpose of the military is to offer them career opportunities.

— Comments —-

Terry Morris writes:

Your concluding statement about the conviction of women that the military exists to provide them with career opportunities put me in mind of a townhall style meeting I attended in 2010 hosted by Senator Coburn. At one point in his presentation lamenting the size and scope of the federal government he mentioned an education agency in Washington D.C. which employs over two hundred people whose combined workload could be done, according to him, by a dozen or less. When he rhetorically asked the audience, after explaining what this agency did, “Now you tell me, what do we need with over two hundred people employed to do that?,” I responded vocally, and in a disparaging tone “Because those people “need” jobs!”

My remark was intended to evoke a response. But I didn’t get one, unfortunately, because I intended to elaborate on the statement. My meaning was, of course, that there is a large dependent population in this country who have been taught from their youths to “get a good education, and get a good paying government job.” And the government, by which I always mean federal, state and local because they are all essentially the same now, interconnected as they are in blatant disregard of fundamental constitutional principles, is more than willing to oblige these people.

This attitude is not exclusive to women. But you are right that women do have a stronger sense of entitlement when it comes to government jobs. Or so I tend to think.

Hannon writes:

Your comments about the advancement of the feminist agenda via military careerism brought to mind parallel instances of secondary consequences in other areas. Affirmative action is an obvious example. But there is also a whole phenomenon, theoretically “neutral,” that operates along similar lines. These are cases where someone else takes note of something and the response is “Now that you mention it …” So it was an idea or observation that was in the stream of consciousness, but it took an outside influence to crystalize it and bring it to life. It is often about trivial things and gives a peculiar satisfaction. But this seems to be a process that works well in progressive ideology as well. It seizes a germ of realization and corrupts it, directs it, and amplifies it to the desired outcome. So many terrible ideas would remain relegated to oblivion if they had never been edified in the first place.

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