To have said that women should be drafted equally to men??

[Pukkajones]

Chatting to a group of friends about the state of the world etc and while in theory I’m against conscription and forced national military service I did say that I think it’s right that there is more equality in girls/women being treated the same as boys/men in the countries that have service.
One friend who has 3 teen girls really had a go at me and got very upset. I have a teen boy and teen girl. While I hate the idea of EITHER being forced to enter the military I think they should be treated equally ( roles allowing - ie some combat roles aren’t open to women) if it came to it. ‘it’ being an actual war with Russia and/or its allies.

it got VERY heated, even though I and another friend pointed out that there are many non-combat roles in the military. And that if we did end up in a World War we’d likely have a role in it regardless of sex or age.

YABU - only men should be drafted
YANBU - in the modern world both sexes should serve in the military.

have you been in the army?
if not - you will never ever understand

if you have - were you not paying attention (fwiw: some cohorts of women were conscripted in WW2)

I don’t think making women fight would be a good idea unless it was a complete last resort. Women and men might be “equal” in terms of brain power but that doesn’t make them the same in all respects.

In general (and obviously there are exceptions) women are not physically equal in strength, not as aggressive and show emotions far more. I think most forced into it rather than as a desired career wouldn’t cope and the men would risk endangering themselves to protect them.

Not to mention women still generally are the care givers for children and older people and there’s not enough women choosing to have children for population stability as it is without delaying it with national service or killing a whole load of potential mothers.

Not at all what I said. But we're talking proportionality here. The vast, vast majority of sexual assaults are male-on-female, even in civilian life. OP's daughter would be at such an increased risk, compared to her son, that I wouldn't feel comfortable encouraging it.

I think the heavy combat roles, which in general will require more people if it's a war, are overall better suited to men.

I also think that when push comes to shove, if you are under existential threat as a people, killing off large numbers of women, or having them impregnated by the enemy, is not helpful.

I live in a country that has conscription and its only compulsory for men (women have been able to volunteer for 30 years now and a fair number do every year, also voluntary training outside of the military is very popular too) and I agree with that for biological reasons - there are many reasons related to the female body that can make it much more difficult in a front line situation, and social reasons - women are far more likely to have caring responsibilities that would make being called back from the reserves very difficult. 80% of the country agrees with the current form of conscription so even the men prefer if this way rather than moaning that women only want equality in some ways but not others.
In the event of actual war though everyone would be conscripted in a way, as we have the doctrine of total defence where every part of society plays a role in defence.
78% of the population (per last year's survey) is willing to defend the country even if the result is uncertain, so they won't exactly need to be forcing people to play their parts. I expect a similar survey in the uk would have a much lower percentage so a draft would be necessary.

If you are in a country being invaded, or under threat of invasion, then a large number of women are going to be killed and/or impregnated anyway. In those circumstances arming and training some of those women to fight would surely be a good thing.

Being drafted doesn’t necessarily mean a front line role, and that’s for men as well as women. My US relatives volunteered for the military in the Vietnam era and got to choose the service and role they went into. They would have been drafted anyway eventually ( poor, no exemptions) so signed up.
TBH in a war situation similar to this or WW2 I would encourage my kids to do this same.

Weird comment. Women have not been drafted in the same way as men have been in the U.K.
National service in the UK wasn’t compulsory for women the way it was for men.
In the US ( currently) men have to register for ‘Selective Service’ at 18, women do not although that almost certainly will change.

Shhhhhhhh! Some of us don't fancy getting blown to bits, thanks.

No seriously, I can only think of a few scenarios in which anyone should be conscripted, ever, and they're so dire that it won't matter what sex we are when it comes to it.

Casual conscription, though? To fight meaningless wars for rich dicks? I'll be at home nursing bone spurs a la Donnie Trump. In full support of any man who does the same. Fuck that.

Does your friend know that women were called up in WW2. Not to fight but to work in factories making munitions, on farms, in docks. My DPs aunt, trained as a court embroiderer, was drafted into the docks as a welder.

My mum was conscripted in 1942.

The thing is, not only will women have the enemy to contend with, but also the men on the same side as them.

Yes, and I had forgotten my aunt in the RAF, looking after barrage balloons in London.

Women were conscripted in December 1941. They were given a choice of working in industry or joining one of the auxiliary services – the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) or the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS).

Excellent way to lose a war.

Agreed but there were large numbers of extremely brave women working undercover in the resistance in Europe, as spies and so forth. more than I'd ever imagined tbh.

Then you can be a conscientious objector.

No need.

DD joined the Royal Navy this year, currently in Phase 2 training to be an aircraft engineering Technician in Fleet Air Arm branch.
Nothing has made us prouder to see her pass out after 10 weeks of basic training. Young ladies since the early 90s go through the exact same training as young men.
Everything is equal

Isn't that what they call a strawman argument?

I think that for equal rights there should also be equal duties.

No conscription for women UNTIL women have equal rights.

We are not going to pay for the equal rights until they have been delivered.

We are not going to pay scammers who will never deliver the goods

Yes. As women we can't argue for equality only when it suits us

I have wondered this myself.
Ww2 only men were drafted. Now women can fight in the army, so I would assume either gender would hsve to join.
I have three daughters myself, if any of them were drafted i would do a reverse Mulan and go instead 😆.
Btw, drafting is very likely, there are simply not enough people in our army right now. My daughters father joined a couple of years ago, someone else in training tested positive for cocaine and rather than being thrown out immediately they just put the lad back to week 1 of training. They are that desperate.

Sure, but god for if we do ever go to war. If we send women, who is going to repopulate the people lost? Imagine losing a million female soldiers

Perhaps if there was equal conscription (as opposed to just using our standing army) every time we went to war, we'd be less keen on joining in? We certainly dont seem to have any qualms about sacrificing other people's sons.

I agree with you. I did my national service and served a role that I think to outsiders would have been seen as quite a ‘male’ role. If we hadn’t moved abroad I would expect both my daughter and my son’s to do theirs too.
My thoughts on conscription are obviously coloured by my own experiences but I’m personally very grateful for the time I served and the life skills/lessons I got from it.