I don't think all men 18-60 should be forced to fight and not allowed to leave Ukraine. It should be the choice of individual men and women.

[Jjjayfee]

I just saw a young father in tears as he said goodbye to his wife and baby. He is not allowed to leave Ukraine, but has to stay and fight. I think it should be a choice of individual men and women.

@godmum56

No societies put there women on the front lines of battle. Ever.
You act as though some choice has been made at sometime in the past of whether or not women would fight in wars and it impacted evolution - no, it happened entirely naturally because men are simply better at it and women on the whole wanted to avoid it. It had nothing to do with old societies consciously choosing not to send women to war because they could bear children - there was no choice of this kind ever made, there is no past society that died out because of sending women to war, there is no past society that did it. It’s rooted in our gender differences since before we were even fully “human” in evolutionary terms.

This is what sex isn't looks like for men
It's frustrating that people will come up with excuses why sexism is ok because women are benefiting if you are at fighting age you should be forced to stay no matter what your gender is
If you have kids you pick between yourselves who will go with the kid and who will stay
Like people said before some women are choosing to stay there's no doubt in my mind they are a benefit to the fire

No societies put there women on the front lines of battle. Ever.

Actually that's not true. There are other examples but the best is probably Mao. There's a good book, The Long March, worth reading. Women joined up in big numbers and mostly served logistically but many fought on the front lines as well. They were taught to fight silently because if the enemy worked out they were women the obvious would happen. Mao's army was notable for a low incidence of sexual violence but their enemy was not. Interesting considering what a psycho he turned into. No one is 100% evil.

Also, your point that gender roles are 'reverted to' in times of stress... Oppressive gender roles have only existed since fixed agriculture. Before that there were gender roles, but they didn't involve violence to women. Women's gathering supplied most of the calories (in most hunter gatherer societies) and those calories were the most reliable. Hunting was good but patchy.

Be horrible to the women and they would magically have really bad days out gathering and come back with full stomachs and empty baskets. And since that was 60% of the calories and all of the reliable ones... men largely behaved. Fixed agriculture meant grain storage, hoarding, guarding and violence. Physical strength meant controlling resources in a way that couldn't happen in hunter gatherer societies.

The 'natural' state of humanity is fixed gender roles but not the patriarchy.

@Jjjayfee

If it happened here would it not be fairer if men and women had to stay behind then?

Ignorance at its best here. One man can impregnate many women. One woman can carry one child only. That's why men are more expendable than women in a war. It's got fuck all to do with fairness but everything to do with biological reality and survival of the species

Conscription is quite usual when a country is at war. And woman in Ukraine are taking up arms.

@MrsTerryPratchett

Mao’s army was post industrial revolution and those were very small numbers in gorilla warfare.

Your point about pre-agricultural society is pure fantasy. There is absolutely no proof of that at all in regards to women having “bad days” gathering as a payback to make men behave and it’s become something of feminist type wishful thinking that pre-history was somehow more equal than agricultural times.
As much as can be known about those small types of societies functioning can be learned from what has been observed from first interactions with tribal peoples in more modern times - and violence still very much ruled the roost. Quite possibly more so with less consequence for using it.

There is zero reason to think women felt any more or less “oppressed” in those times than they did in ancient agricultural or more recent (say Medieval) times. There is plenty of reason however to think that whether women were happy, sad or whatever, the idea of women being “oppressed” into their role didn’t even enter people’s minds until modernisation and the industrial revolution made it so the sexes could do many of the same jobs.

@MrsTerryPratchett

The point about Mao’s army being that it was made up after the industrial revolution and ideas of women’s equality - and ideas of communism obviously contributed to what your talking about - even if it wasn’t a large number.

Your point about pre-agricultural society is pure fantasy.

No it's not but I cannot be bothered. Playing chess with a pigeon and all that.

@MrsTerryPratchett

No societies put there women on the front lines of battle. Ever.

Actually that's not true. There are other examples but the best is probably Mao. There's a good book, The Long March, worth reading. Women joined up in big numbers and mostly served logistically but many fought on the front lines as well. They were taught to fight silently because if the enemy worked out they were women the obvious would happen. Mao's army was notable for a low incidence of sexual violence but their enemy was not. Interesting considering what a psycho he turned into. No one is 100% evil.

Also, your point that gender roles are 'reverted to' in times of stress... Oppressive gender roles have only existed since fixed agriculture. Before that there were gender roles, but they didn't involve violence to women. Women's gathering supplied most of the calories (in most hunter gatherer societies) and those calories were the most reliable. Hunting was good but patchy.

Be horrible to the women and they would magically have really bad days out gathering and come back with full stomachs and empty baskets. And since that was 60% of the calories and all of the reliable ones... men largely behaved. Fixed agriculture meant grain storage, hoarding, guarding and violence. Physical strength meant controlling resources in a way that couldn't happen in hunter gatherer societies.

The 'natural' state of humanity is fixed gender roles but not the patriarchy.

We don’t have the evidence to know that about pre-ag society. It might have been the case or it might not, but images of female fertility figures (which is where this idea came from) don’t indicate equality, just a focus on fertility in both women and the earth.

And I say this as someone who works in pre-history with a huge variety of experts.

[quote BigOlDingleSlinger69]@godmum56

No societies put there women on the front lines of battle. Ever.
You act as though some choice has been made at sometime in the past of whether or not women would fight in wars and it impacted evolution - no, it happened entirely naturally because men are simply better at it and women on the whole wanted to avoid it. It had nothing to do with old societies consciously choosing not to send women to war because they could bear children - there was no choice of this kind ever made, there is no past society that died out because of sending women to war, there is no past society that did it. It’s rooted in our gender differences since before we were even fully “human” in evolutionary terms.[/quote]
I don't think we can know that....only that the ones who might have existed and did this didn't survive.

I really love it when men cry sexism when it's about war and punching women back ("you wanted equality" type comments.

That they'll take the kids and flee and the women can stay and fight. Despite childcare being overwhelmingly women's burden to bear, but all of a sudden men are volunteering left right and centre to do it.

Disregarding that women are at additional risk even in time of peace, let alone war.

@godmum56

I think we can safely say that we do know it. It’s not recorded on any kind of (even noticeable but small) scale in any historical accounts of any kind, and these types of stories date back thousands upon thousands of years. If your talking about tribal warfare in pre historical times it seems even more unlikely that in a contest even more dependent on brute strength of close quarters fighting with weaponry that amounted to sharp sticks and rocks that women would ever be taking meaningful part of the main violence because it would be illogical for them to do so in the extreme and even (or maybe especially) pre historic people’s would instantly realise this since they lived in a world much more dependent on human physicality.

Societies aren’t subject to the forces of evolution in the same way species are, early societies weren’t all throwing totally random wacky stuff together to see what happend (which is what using obviously physically weaker people in fighting would be) - they were subject to the evolutionary forces that had already shaped humanity which came from their early human ancestors before, which in turn is from what their societies sprung from - that is to say it’s unlikely to the point of impossible that given the differences in size, strength, speed and agression coupled with the already developed seperate gender roles of males and females, that early forgotten societies were full of either predominantly female warriors or egalitarian armies.

That’s no knock on women, it would have made zero sense practically or logically for them to do that kind of fighting as they’re not suited for it against men. The only reason women should ever do that is if they feel that something is worth dying for (since they will) and the alternative (living) would be worse, because they would stand little to no chance if shit really hit the fan in that situation, even in the modern world, outside of being in tokenistic role in a predominantly male army. Which is kind of what people here have been saying - but also trying to excuse as somehow still holding up to the principles of gender equality (which it doesn’t).

There’s a simple reality which is neither morally right or wrong but just truth and that’s that men are better at killing and war than women and when faced directly with this most women will flee or give up and get by as best as they can. We see this in the Ukraine where the men are still fighting and we saw it in Afghanistan where the men didn’t - but despite the apparent hatred of the Taliban by (some of) the women there, there is and was no real resistance by them, even if it would have been futile.

@MrsTerryPratchett

We’re not playing chess, you have made the strange and baseless claim that in pre-historic times violence against women was less and they held sway by way of denying their “gatherings” to men.

If you have actual evidence of this simply post it, I’m sure apart from me the entire field dedicated to studying prehistory would love to see this before unknown evidence of what you say. If your basing your theory in any observance of tribal societies in more modern times then you could also state it, since it doesn’t jive with anything already known and observed.

In 2016 the ban on women serving in ground close combat roles in the British army was lifted.

Was that a mistake? Many people on here clearly believe so.

@DolphinFC

In 2016 the ban on women serving in ground close combat roles in the British army was lifted.

Was that a mistake? Many people on here clearly believe so.

I don’t think they do.

Some women are staying to fight and do support work on the front in Ukraine and I don’t think anyone has said they shouldn’t.

What people are saying is that compulsory conscription cannot be sex-blind, for a variety of reasons previously listed on this thread at some length.

@Jjjayfee

I just saw a young father in tears as he said goodbye to his wife and baby. He is not allowed to leave Ukraine, but has to stay and fight. I think it should be a choice of individual men and women.

Well yes. But that's why war is bad op 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Jjjayfee

If it happened here would it not be fairer if men and women had to stay behind then?

Life is not always fair op. Especially in war time. So let's think carefully about those we elect to power!

Many people clearly believe that a battlefield is no place for a woman. Woman aren't strong enough - that point has been made several times.

@ChangeNameagain2

I have to be honest, I'm in awe of the bravery of these people. But if this happened here, there isn't a hope in hell my husband or oldest son would be staying behind. I don't care how I would get them out. We were talking about it the other night and honestly I'd push them down the stairs, break a leg on each on them, anything, I just couldn't imagine fleeing with 3 kids, our foster daughter and leaving them behind. I had been wondering if some people are exempt eg my husband is a surgeon, so would he be allowed/needed to keep on working? Aware of how much of selfish coward this makes me!

I think that makes you sound sensible!

Conscripting women who don’t have children or elderly to care for would be a possibility, as would be exempting lone fathers, but I can see how Ukraine didn’t have time for distinctions like this.
Lone fathers are allowed to leave, as well as fathers of 3+ children.

@XelaM

The Ukrainian men I know had every chance to leave (all very wealthy) but chose to stay in Kiev yo protect their country. It's like WWII - their homeland is under attack.

Whereas my uncle and cousins (boys in their 20-s) in Moscow want to flee in case Putin declares a state of emergency and forces my cousins into the army. No one wants to fight this war for Putin.

Good to know.

@DolphinFC

Many people clearly believe that a battlefield is no place for a woman. Woman aren't strong enough - that point has been made several times.

No, people are making the point that women are less likely than men to be strong enough.

If a women wants to serve with the Marines in the UK or US she needs to pass the fitness test. A few years ago in the US over 80% of women failed, compared to less than 5% of men. That was probably partly a flurry of female applicants as jobs opened up, so figures will improve. But no one would think the same % of women would pass frontline combat physical fitness tests as men.

[quote LatteToday]@PlanetNormal you should read this unherd.com/2022/03/how-ukrainian-women-will-suffer/
So far, 11 women raped by Russian soldiers, only 5 of these survived.

Pornhub has a new category- Ukrainian girls and war rape videos.
So maybe the women aren’t being shot at- but they’re being raped- and filmed being raped. Possibly so forcibly that it kills them.[/quote]
Just like the Soviets in Ww2

A scholar I know did a review of American data from 1900-2000. She found that during this time over twice the amount of women died in childbirth vs men dying in war or other military conflicts. Now, Europe may have different numbers during that timeframe, but it's an interesting exercise to ponder.

We can think that it's equal to have men and women conscripted, but our biological differences do matter and so how can these necessary things, like defending your country during an invasion or having children ever be fair? They just can't be.

Also most evacuees were still sent within their own country, where their foster families spoke the same language as them, and (because we hadn't been invaded) could return at any point if their parents wanted them to come back.

Not sent to a completely random country with different languages and customs and no way of returning home.

Have you heard of the Kinder transport?

The children who were evacuated from the Channel Islands did not all speak English and many were housed in Scotland, that must have been a culture shock, maybe not on the same scale but huge for a small child who then had no contact with their parents for years.

On the point of women combatants, there are some women who can do it, as a PP mentioned the marines but there are other roles women have played in war.

In WWII women drove ambulances from the front line to hospitals not far behind, spies have always been of both sexes, the 'night witches' who were an all female bombing division in the soviet forces in WWII.