How are you explaining to your boys about only men being conscripted in Ukraine?

[MiniDaffodils]

I have both girls and boys. We have always brought them up to understand that whilst boys may be physically stronger, girls can undertake the same roles in anything as boys can.
My boys are upset at the thought that only men are being made to fight in Ukraine and not women. They think it’s very unfair.
I think they are imagining themselves in that same situation. Obviously I have explained in this country both men and women would be called up to fight. My boys are gentle souls and the thought of only men having to kill others is disturbing them.
My girls are relieved at the idea that women in Ukraine are not called to fight despite usually them being very vocal about the fact boys and girls are equal in all things.
My main question is how to explain this to my sons, rather than my daughters (who don’t seem as bothered by the issue).
Thanks

@microbius

girlmom21 and what, there were not burned vehicles, shelling, rockets, launchers, all kinds of military equipment and arms destroyed? do you think they were destroyed by hand? Oh you think entire russian army is taking knives and running towards entire ukrainian army and they beat each other up?

There's an incredible amount of face-to-face and hand-to-hand combat going on at the moment.

Those tanks aren't being destroyed by people in offices pushing buttons.

There were many women amongst Ukranian partisans fighting the nazi in the second world war

@aSofaNearYou

I’ve responded to questions claiming that rape was a reason for women not fighting - I’ve also responded to other reasons. As I’ve said IMO most of the reasons are justification after the fact and the reality is instinctual and that instinct is purely out of physical capability. Idk why Suggesting that the bigger, stronger more agressive people (men) who are more inclined to fight are more inclined to fight in a war (as they are) over the smaller less agressive people who are currently fleeing is a strange idea - especially given all of history and the current situation.

That is my point, that no more reason than this is needed or is the reality. There hasn’t been now or ever conscious choices made to keep women out of war because of rape or because they might be carers in the current day (as many aren’t) or because they give birth. The real reason and immediate and instinctual reason is that they’re simply worse at fighting in war and less agressive when faced with someone willing to fight and less able to do something about it. It’s the same reason if a burglar breaks in most of the time it will be the man who does and it s expected to confront him if neccassary.

Why should any more reason than women being much worse at fighting even be needed to explain women not fighting? It’s not by me, I’m fine with it. It’s simply funny watching types who argue for gender equality come up with other over rationalised and “well thought through” reasons why women shouldn’t fight as though gender equal moral rationalising is what happens when war falls upon you, which I assume they’re doing out of some desire to make women not fighting acceptable in their worldview of the frame work of their philosophy.

Because I don’t care about those things or that worldview it doesn’t bother me that women don’t fight and don’t want to - why should they? They will certainly lose. I don’t need any further reasoning than that simple truth and it doesn’t mean I think less of women for it at all.

Women are acting as I would expect in not fighting, there’s a good reason for them to act that way. But a reason is not a moral justification and what many have done on this thread is try to morally justify something which is neither good or bad but simply is.

@BigOlDingleSlinger69

You have mentioned the rape argument as though that is the main thing people are saying in almost every comment you have made. It is clear that this one has really stood out to you because it is not the main thing people have said.

It is just arrogant to be so insistent that nobody else can have a valid point or one worth saying.

Whether you care to acknowledge it or not, being worse at fighting is NOT the only reason women have been kept from fighting throughout history. Caregiving has always been a major element, historically it has been necessary to consider that women are far more necessary to keep the population going, and were also very often pregnant in times when birth rates were higher. Birth rates still are much higher in other countries. Sure, we could conscript women but with far more caveats (ie to exclude pregnant and breastfeeding women), but that does not change the fact that, as many have argued, there ARE many reasons besides just "women are worse at fighting" that mean women are less practical to conscript than men.

Personally I don't need to justify why I think it is fine for women to not fight based on my feminist worldview because I think it should be fine for anyone not to fight.

Hi @MiniDaffodils, if you and your sons are people who are able to consider a wider context, tell them about the woman in labour who was a victim of Putin's strategically targeted attacks designed to promote ultimate terror and fear in the Ukraine population. A women who had been bombed out of her maternity hospital and was giving birth on a stretcher carried by several male helpers. The maternity hospital was targeted because there are vulnerable women and children.

Take note op, women are already treated as collateral damage in any war started by male aggressors, always have, always will be. Are you able to see the context and reconsider your boys' "it's not fair" comments? Or are you and your sons people who are incapable of comprehending context and you see everything as black and white insisting that if there are male conscripts there has to be female ones otherwise not fair.

If it's the latter, no amount of engaging with your post will change you and your boys' mind, it's a lost cause as you will keep focusing on comparing apple with pears. Unless perhaps you'd be willing look at statistics for example of the number of women killed by men and all the other hard facts that prove women are seen as dispensable and boys are on the whole not quite as disadvantaged. But even this might be too much context for you to handle.

The strangest thing is your and your darling boys' focus on yourselves rather than focusing on empathy and support for Ukrainians who are under occupation. Rather than indulging your dc by affirming the "it's not fair" claim that's in any case more suited to a pre-schooler, teach them not to focus on their own wimps but act empathetically, ask them what they can do to help Ukrainians. Would they be willing to donate? Would you be willing to host refuges? Book a Ukraine Air B'n'b? Ask your daughters if the women in Ukraine, whether they are fighting or not will be disadvantaged by their periods as there will be no more access to period products.

Some many thinks you could focus on to teach your dc empathy and resilience. "It's not fair" is really selfish and puerile.

I love this….

Just came across a thread from OP started around same time as this one…. About “keeping quails”

Conscription and Ukraine on be one hand
Keeping quails on the other

Made me chuckle

There hasn’t been now or ever conscious choices made to keep women out of war because of rape or because they might be carers in the current day (as many aren’t) or because they give birth. The real reason and immediate and instinctual reason is that they’re simply worse at fighting in war and less agressive when faced with someone willing to fight and less able to do something about it. It’s the same reason if a burglar breaks in most of the time it will be the man who does and it s expected to confront him if neccassary.

Yes - and all that you describe is due to biology. The differences you have noted are mainly down to testosterone, which men possess a lot of and women a little.

Its 18-60 OP.

The threat of rape is one reason why women are worse at fighting and less aggressive.

There is something indescribably creepy about a bloke calling himself 69erBigDingle or whatever it is, flapping around for a day and a night on a predominantly female website about why rape isn't as bad as women say it is.

@microbius

Ukranian army would not conscript women because it is a normal patriarchal country like all other around it, with conscription normally excluding women, and feminism not very advanced (in terms of sharing care etc). This is not to say anything bad about Ukraine, this is just normal, how it is, and perviously there was hope it could improve. So I can clearly see why Ukraine will not conscript women. For me, it's not even a question. What was surprising was to see the volume of women here using mysogynist patriarchal arguments about women in general and how their biology makes them so weak, which is out of patriarchal book.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

@HoppingPavlova

I agree.

Women were only “worse at fighting” historically in some societies because they were denied the training opportunities of men. Denied martial arts classes. Denied enlistment in the military. Denied physical fitness training.

If you look at societies that had no such cultural barrier, eg Ethiopia, the women were just as good at fighting as the men. And today, many of the women in the armed forces are not “worse at fighting” and especially not due to “fear of rape”.

POWs are also routinely tortured, starved, beaten. Many armies also routinely execute or work to death POWs despite the Geneva convention/international laws. Rape is an additional that women POWs would suffer but it’s not like male POWs have nothing to fear at all. Yet military still fight despite the fears of being POW and what might happened to you. Women are not weaker than men in this respect. We have the courage to fight too.

@DrSbaitso

Oh please don’t be hyperbolic, rape and the violence that can follow it in war is horrific - but that doesn’t mean it’s worse or better than being tortured to death or having body parts be blown off and left to slowly die. Don’t try to falsely claim that I’ve ever claimed rape isn’t terrible and evil.

Oh please don’t be hyperbolic

Calm down dear. I'm simply stating facts. Creepy as fuck.

There's an incredible amount of face-to-face and hand-to-hand combat going on at the moment. Those tanks aren't being destroyed by people in offices pushing buttons.

You cannot destroy a tank with hand to hand or face to face combat. So not sure why you are using destroyed tanks as evidence of an “incredible amount” of this. You destroy tanks with anti-tank missiles, other tanks, mines and other explosives. Not with hand to hand or face to face combat......

Creepy. As. Fuck.

@aSofaNearYou

There are other reasons other than women being worse than fighting as to why it would be less practical for women to fight - but all of them are irrelevant as there has never been a conscious choice of “should we send women to the front lines or not for x,w, z reasons” it has always simply happened that men have fought and women fled if neccassary and the reason for that is simply because men are much better at it and it comes more naturally.

If women and men had the same physical attributes and mental nature but it just happened that women gave birth women would be fighting in much larger number and there wouldn’t be any excuses unless they were pregnant or similar. The simple truth is it’s only women being very comparatively bad at fighting by nature and less inclined to it which has meant it’s always been entirely natural that men fight. There’s nothing more to it.

It’s just a laugh that it’s being argued that gender separation should be applied for conscription on this thread by women who probably argue for equality in every other area and believe they should set the terms of that equality - yet they expect men to fight and die based on an assumption of inequality (should have seen the posts slagging or f the Afghan men for not “fighting for” their women against the Taliban). Many studies and the history of the world have shown men and women are different mentally and biology plays a role in that, but you will never hear these same women argue that women should be or have less than 50% of anything on that basis.

The funny part is if their wasn’t a real war going on which brought reality to the question of women fighting I think you’d find many of the women advocating against it here would be saying women would fight. I remember a thread when the war was seen as an unlikely possibility where many where saying “of course I would fight” and such, but now there’s an actual war there are far far fewer of those comments.

If you're a male eligible to be enlisted, then you're being enlisted no matter what, and you're chances of survival are greatly increased if you're fighting alongside other males rather than females who are weaker.

I think the survivability of 4 people will generally be greater than 2, even if the additional 2 are weaker.

These creepy internet men are so weird. You assume they're trying to unsettle women, because why else go online with a name like BigSwingingPenis69 (I knew one once who called himself TexBigBollocks, and another who chose IDoItForHorseCock) to argue for nigh on 24 hours with women about why rape isn't as bad as they think? And yet, when you express how creepy they are, they go all sensitive and offended.

I don't know what effect they're trying to have, if not that? Is it actually some kind of attempt at seduction? God knows they let you know they're not doing anything else at night.

[quote BigOlDingleSlinger69]@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

It doesn’t need explains that women are raped in war, everyone knows it. That poster has chosen to keep on repeating it as though it proves that women can’t fight in war when in fact it doesn’t.

If death, death by torture, maiming, mutilation etc. are all on the cards for men (plus rape) then there is no special reason why the rape of women is such a horrible thing compared to theses that women must avoid fighting.

There are many psychological destabilising tactics which are used on society after war to break the spirit of the population - and often used successfully and yet they are braves to fight the conflict and here people are saying rape can’t be? Why not?
Either way it’s going to be extremely bad after you lose.

Women being raped or bearing children is just a flimsy reasoning for women not fighting, but it isn’t a conscious choice as much as those trying to make it seem like one say it is so it jives with their gender equal ideas.

The reality is women are worse at fighting and more inclined to flee from it and in a crisis like this one that instinct plays out quickly. It’s got nothing to do with wanting to avoid the long term destabilising tactics of women being raped. That’s a dubious excuse when men are braving all manner of horrors.[/quote]
But as also pointed out extensively women in combat would be subject to all you've listed AND the added bonus of sexual violence.

Plus of course on the whole men are going to be more effective on the battlefield.

Of course any life lost is tragic, on that we all agree. Conscription is awful but it makes sense to me why women aren't called up.

It's all such a horrible mess.

@DrSbaitso

I see what you did there. You were probably thinking being called “creepy” by a woman is probably some great source of shame to a man since obviously you’ve used it in lieu of an actual argument as to why women being raped is specifically a disqualifyer to women fighting amidst all the other horrors they might suffer which men also share. You sure showed me. I’m very very embarrassed.

But actually you failed to answer the question of why the possibility of rape is the worst of all the horrors of war and that anything from torture to death can be braved but not that.

@RoseslnTheHospital

It's quite clear that "BigOl..." despises women in general for what he perceives as weakness and a lack of desire to get involved in violent conflict. And he somehow seems to think that not being as strong as men and being more likely to want to avoid conflict and look after others is against "gender equality" or feminism. As if we deserve to be second class citizens due to the biological differences between men and women, and for being considerably less violent and aggressive overall.

It absolutely comes across this why.

Women, fear of rape is no excuse

@DrSbaitso

The threat of rape is one reason why women are worse at fighting and less aggressive.

There is something indescribably creepy about a bloke calling himself 69erBigDingle or whatever it is, flapping around for a day and a night on a predominantly female website about why rape isn't as bad as women say it is.

This.

The lengths @BigOlDingleSlinger69 has gone to to claim that rape is no worse than other (obviously still awful) violations shows a misogynistic attitude, given that the vast vast majority of rape victims are women. As well as complete ignorance or at least choosing to ignore the specific reasons why rape is such a hideous, hideous crime.

To come on a site that is in the majority used by women, a significant number of whom will have suffered horribly after being raped, and to continually keep mansplaining that it is no worse than other crimes is really disgusting.

@DrSbaitso

You know it’s very telling that you are incapable of responding to disagreements with men by sticking to the actual argument and instead begin trying to call them creepy or whatever. Kind of makes it seem like you don’t actually have an argument and your used to falling back on that kind of thing. Either way you become upset and resort to that kind of thing far too quickly so I’ll know not to take you seriously.

The Russians appear to be aiming at genocide. They are bombing children's hospitals and maternity units FGS.

If the mothers can take the children to a place of safety then wouldn't there be a better chance of survival for their people and culture?

And much better for the children to have the primary care giver with them.

Likewise if women are doing another caring role in the family - and it is more likely to be women doing that and to be the primary carer for the children.

Presumably if women actively choose to fight then they could?