Does the military pay for abortions? I haven't heard about it, but I've never asked. Seems like a weird intersection of voluntary soldier care and federal dollars going towards a controversial operation. Not trying to make this an issue (I would support it), just want to know what's up.
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PasserbyeI am much older than you.in Beach CityRegistered Userregular
They can still pressure them into getting an abortion and coming back sooner is my point. Even flying to Germany and having an abortion is faster than a full pregnancy, delivery, and recovery period. 'Oh, you're going to abandon the group for a kid you shouldn't even be having? You're a bad soldier!' can be leveled regardless of where you have to go for your abortion.
And there's a major difference when it's being leveled immediately before ten yards from the base clinic and several days earlier hundreds of miles away.
If unit cohesion's as strong as you say it is then that seems like splitting hairs to me. :?
They can still pressure them into getting an abortion and coming back sooner is my point. Even flying to Germany and having an abortion is faster than a full pregnancy, delivery, and recovery period. 'Oh, you're going to abandon the group for a kid you shouldn't even be having? You're a bad soldier!' can be leveled regardless of where you have to go for your abortion.
And there's a major difference when it's being leveled immediately before ten yards from the base clinic and several days earlier hundreds of miles away.
If unit cohesion's as strong as you say it is then that seems like splitting hairs to me. :?
Do you honestly not see the difference between a person constantly being pressured and a person that's been guaranteed several days to consider what it is they want?
I know it sounds wrong, and we're all getting a good laugh out of it, but it is a bigger deal than you'd realize. I spent just over 5 years in the navy, and it was amazing how many women would pop up in medical pregnant, right before a 6 month deployment. Obviously a pregnant women can't be out to see like that, due to medical needs. So, they get a cushy admin job for a couple of months. The non pregnant ones? A lot of them actively try and get pregnant on the deployment
to get sent back home.
Really, the only issue I would have is that abortions aren't provided in the deployment zone. It seems like it would be much more pragmatic to provide them in order to reduce the amount of time the female soldier is away from her duties.
A lot of medical procedures aren't provided, even relatively simple ones. Most people are flown out to Germany.
But that said, I prefer they weren't. I'd rather not hear about how people felt pressured/forced to abort their child in the middle of a combat zone.
Yeah, what's the number one reason someone gets airlifted out of a combat zone? Dental problems.
"Ahh I'm hit sir!"
"Shit gingavitus the silent killer"
When you're stuck at a FOB with limited supplies brushing is not a priority, look up trench mouth. Soon they'll be putting the newly invented gum that brushes your teeth in MRE's though. As for abortions, they may not be paid for with military funds, nor performed on military facilities. Honestly though I've got to agree with Quid, at that point the person is getting sent home anyway, you might as well let them make the decision in a more calm environment.
Mishra on
"Give a man a fire, he's warm for the night. Set a man on fire he's warm for the rest of his life."
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NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
I know it sounds wrong, and we're all getting a good laugh out of it, but it is a bigger deal than you'd realize. I spent just over 5 years in the navy, and it was amazing how many women would pop up in medical pregnant, right before a 6 month deployment. Obviously a pregnant women can't be out to see like that, due to medical needs. So, they get a cushy admin job for a couple of months. The non pregnant ones? A lot of them actively try and get pregnant on the deployment
to get sent back home.
I've seen this as well (Navy man myself). I could ask my mother for some Army stories as well when she played in the sandbox.
Hell, at my last command they offered the morning after pill if the sailor really wanted it and it was truly an accident. They also gave a nice long lecture if you got the Plan B more then 3 or 4 times a month (why? because the morning after pill is not fucking birth control. If you are that active, they will prescribe BC to you.) And there were constant sexual harassment awareness and fraternizing training since my last command was nicknamed "The Love Boat" (highest female population and, at one time, highest number of pregnancies while deployed).
Um... you guys are missing a big point. The military doesn't cover abortions. No women are getting flown back to the states or germany for an abortion and going back to work. They have to pay for the abortion themselves and set it up themselves. Depending on how long the punishment/investigation process takes the army has delayed some women past the point where it isn't easy to get an abortion.
And I think that Cat was pointing there are reasons other than contraception that a lot of women want access to hormonal BC even while deployed, not saying that there is access to it because of the other indications. And it is prescription medication so a doctor can legally prescribe only a year's worth at once and most insurance companies (don't know about military) will only pay for 3 months at once so it isn't like women can easily get a year's worth to take with them.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Edit: But if you put female soldiers with males, what's going to happen? I think it's wrong that people are using it for a free ticket out, but court martialing them and the other party, eh, wouldn't go that far.
Court Marshall is totally warranted. We are talking about soldiers who are fucking on the job. I am willing to bet just on the job fuckers would get fired from just about every civilian job. Now if we were talking about a woman getting pregnant on leave then going back in country and getting hammered I would raise the bullshit flag.
Greg USN on
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Edit: But if you put female soldiers with males, what's going to happen? I think it's wrong that people are using it for a free ticket out, but court martialing them and the other party, eh, wouldn't go that far.
It is possible to be around members of the opposite sex and not fuck them.
I know it sounds wrong, and we're all getting a good laugh out of it, but it is a bigger deal than you'd realize. I spent just over 5 years in the navy, and it was amazing how many women would pop up in medical pregnant, right before a 6 month deployment. Obviously a pregnant women can't be out to see like that, due to medical needs. So, they get a cushy admin job for a couple of months. The non pregnant ones? A lot of them actively try and get pregnant on the deployment
to get sent back home.
This is all true.
I'll point out again, though, that a majority of women fulfill their obligations and deploy when scheduled.
This doesn't mean that those that fuck it up shouldn't have the hammer dropped on them (along with the penis that helped). It's bad enough that we can't punish women who intentionally get pregnant before a deployment to avoid it, we can at least nail anybody caught fucking around during the deployment.
I only personally knew one female soldier that got sent back for this after deploying, and in fairness she was deployed on the same FOB as her husband...and I also know her well enough to know it was probably unintentional (she'd have rather stayed there with him, all things considered).
Still, this doesn't change the fact that her section just lost 10% of their manpower for the rest of the year. She and her husband should have kept it in their pants, just like every other married soldier who wasn't deployed with their spouse (theoretically) had to.
And yes, of course we need to address sexual assault on deployments, but that's a separate issue.
Um... you guys are missing a big point. The military doesn't cover abortions. No women are getting flown back to the states or germany for an abortion and going back to work. They have to pay for the abortion themselves and set it up themselves. Depending on how long the punishment/investigation process takes the army has delayed some women past the point where it isn't easy to get an abortion.
And I think that Cat was pointing there are reasons other than contraception that a lot of women want access to hormonal BC even while deployed, not saying that there is access to it because of the other indications. And it is prescription medication so a doctor can legally prescribe only a year's worth at once and most insurance companies (don't know about military) will only pay for 3 months at once so it isn't like women can easily get a year's worth to take with them.
This.
Quite a few people in here haven't read what I've linked or what I've written, and should go back and do so.
I know it sounds wrong, and we're all getting a good laugh out of it, but it is a bigger deal than you'd realize. I spent just over 5 years in the navy, and it was amazing how many women would pop up in medical pregnant, right before a 6 month deployment. Obviously a pregnant women can't be out to see like that, due to medical needs. So, they get a cushy admin job for a couple of months. The non pregnant ones? A lot of them actively try and get pregnant on the deployment
to get sent back home.
This is all true.
I'll point out again, though, that a majority of women fulfill their obligations and deploy when scheduled.
Yeah, until someone gives me some numbers, I'm going to give little attention to the "but heeeeeaps of women did it!!" crowd, because you sound like Limbaugh screaming about welfare queens.
And yes, of course we need to address sexual assault on deployments, but that's a separate issue.
This I take issue with, because by what I've been reading and linking, a lot of the pregnancies women are being punished for were the result of rape. They're very much interconnected problems.
I have to say, I don't get the resistance to reform of female treatment in the service. You need more soldiers, particularly more soldiers who aren't retards and dropouts and felons. Making the service attractive to people who want to serve their country but don't want to be abused by their alleged brothers (I mean, this applies to stupid hazing and such as well) is a good thing.
The Hell does it have to do with punishing people who break the rules by fucking during a deployment?
Again, a lot of the women being punished are "breaking" the rules against their will. Why am I having to reiterate this to you? Read what I've written and join the dots
The Hell does it have to do with punishing people who break the rules by fucking during a deployment?
Again, a lot of the women being punished are "breaking" the rules against their will. Why am I having to reiterate this to you? Read what I've written and join the dots
How about you read what other people have written?
no one thinks rape victims should be punished. Cite a single fucking person that has.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
edited December 2009
For what it's worth, my only experience with deployed Air Force personnel, the women were treated with a great deal of professional respect, and in situations where the local (significantly less progression) population was involved, the male personnel was very protective of their fellow soldiers.
I do not know how pregnancies or other complications were handled, but the integration of women on duty seemed quite well-integrated. It did not feel strained or unusual.
The Hell does it have to do with punishing people who break the rules by fucking during a deployment?
Again, a lot of the women being punished are "breaking" the rules against their will. Why am I having to reiterate this to you? Read what I've written and join the dots
How about you read what other people have written?
no one thinks rape victims should be punished. Cite a single fucking person that has.
Who's going to say that? But there's plenty of people in here sweeping the problem under the carpet by whining about harpies who don't want to get deployed. Its very frustrating. Its nice to hear from some people that things are slowly improving, but the numbers are still freaking terrible. If the armed forces were a normal business, they'd have been sued to death or bankrupted by now.
I'm also not finding any numbers on women being raped and then punished for it so I'd love it if you could link those numbers.
You're asking for numbers on something that everyone involved wants to hide, and you know this, so can you stop being so damned disingenuous? I've linked you stats on assaults in the forces already, and plenty more are easily searchable. Pointing out problems with the service is not attacking you for serving, so stop being so goddamned defensive.
Who's going to say that? But there's plenty of people in here sweeping the problem under the carpet by whining about harpies who don't want to get deployed. Its very frustrating. Its nice to hear from some people that things are slowly improving, but the numbers are still freaking terrible. If the armed forces were a normal business, they'd have been sued to death or bankrupted by now.
If the armed forces were a normal business there'd be far, far fewer women in charge of it too. And cut it out with your assumptions about what people really mean. It's poor form.
And I'd also like to know what this pay disparity you've harped on is all about.
I'm also not finding any numbers on women being raped and then punished for it so I'd love it if you could link those numbers.
You're asking for numbers on something that everyone involved wants to hide, and you know this, so can you stop being so damned disingenuous? I've linked you stats on assaults in the forces already, and plenty more are easily searchable. Pointing out problems with the service is not attacking you for serving, so stop being so goddamned defensive.
Right, so your anecdotal evidence is good enough, but everyone else's is meaningless without numbers backing it up. I've heard nothing about women being punished for getting raped and strongly doubt it's some sort of epidemic problem.
And I don't feel you're attacking me, I feel you're doing a horrible job arguing against a point no one is making.
puts them in combat zones but won't pay them for being blown up because "they can't be on the front lines"
?
Cause you've given zero explanation for that.
And disagreeing with your flawed arguments is not being defensive. You claim "a lot" of women who are punished for getting pregnant during a deployment were raped. Prove it.
The combat zones isn't applicable because plenty of men (in fact due to demographics probably still a majority) are in the exact same situation with not technically being front line soldiers.
The combat zones isn't applicable because plenty of men (in fact due to demographics probably still a majority) are in the exact same situation with not technically being front line soldiers.
It's not applicable at all because there's no difference in pay.
There is no combat zone, anywhere, that a woman is being payed less than a guy of comparable rank. There isn't some special infantry only combat pay.
I'm also not finding any numbers on women being raped and then punished for it so I'd love it if you could link those numbers.
You're asking for numbers on something that everyone involved wants to hide, and you know this, so can you stop being so damned disingenuous? I've linked you stats on assaults in the forces already, and plenty more are easily searchable. Pointing out problems with the service is not attacking you for serving, so stop being so goddamned defensive.
We're being defensive because your painting us with a pretty broad brush. As an officer in the armed forces when you say leadership is fostering a culture of rape and sexual abuse, well guess what, I'm that leadership. I want to know where your numbers are coming from to get an idea of the scale of the problem, especially because in my experience I don't see it happening. What I do see is an organization that makes a huge effort to provide outlets for abuse to be reported and acted upon, as well as efforts to reduce this "culture of rape". Regardless, it's a different issue from this order which was the original topic. I have never heard of a woman getting punished for getting pregnant after getting raped in a combat zone. So then what is the discussion here? People who break the rules get punished for it, that's the way military's have been run for millenia.
Mishra on
"Give a man a fire, he's warm for the night. Set a man on fire he's warm for the rest of his life."
-Terry Pratchett
If you're going to be having sex when you shouldn't be, at least use contraception. It's not that hard.
But female soldiers don't always have access to contraception and can't get abortions without going back stateside, so even if an accident happens (or they're raped, which happens a whole fuckload) they're fucked. And they're usually the only one who gets punished, because you can't do a paternity test on an embryo.
The US military takes on female soldiers, but a) doesn't train them to the same standard as males, b) puts them in combat zones but won't pay them for being blown up because "they can't be on the front lines", c) refuses to even attempt to create a culture that reduces the rampant rate of sexual assault by fellow male staff, d) doesn't adequately care for their reproductive health or rights. Women should be able to choose to defend their country, but they get shat all over for even trying.
Until these problems are fixed, this policy is nothing more than good old fashioned slut-punishing.
I'm not reading any more.
Cat has, as always, shown why the underlying fear is a product of misogyny.
I overstated a couple of those points initially (well, depends on the army, pay does differ in the Aus armed services according to a number of factors that structurally discriminate against women but at least they have access to decent repro health as far as I know, e.g.), but the situation is still pretty piss-poor.
I overstated a couple of those points initially (well, depends on the army, pay does differ in the Aus armed services according to a number of factors that structurally discriminate against women but at least they have access to decent repro health as far as I know, e.g.), but the situation is still pretty piss-poor.
Yeah but - structurally. No one gets paid less because they are a women. The pay grades go by rank and deployment circumstance, which are pretty broadly defined IIRC. The only thing I can think of is distribution of women across the ranks and well, lolmilitary on that one I suppose.
And then repeatedly dodged questions calling you out for it until people nagged you enough to come clean. I love the fact that you call everyone else out for spouting bullshit, yet there you are shoveling it down everyone's throat and claiming everything you say is fact. I wasn't even half way through your first post in this thread and I knew exactly who had written it, lol.
And then repeatedly dodged questions calling you out for it until people nagged you enough to come clean. I love the fact that you call everyone else out for spouting bullshit, yet there you are shoveling it down everyone's throat and claiming everything you say is fact. I wasn't even half way through your first post in this thread and I knew exactly who had written it, lol.
I overstated a couple of those points initially (well, depends on the army, pay does differ in the Aus armed services according to a number of factors that structurally discriminate against women but at least they have access to decent repro health as far as I know, e.g.), but the situation is still pretty piss-poor.
Yeah but - structurally. No one gets paid less because they are a women. The pay grades go by rank and deployment circumstance, which are pretty broadly defined IIRC. The only thing I can think of is distribution of women across the ranks and well, lolmilitary on that one I suppose.
Gender-based structural discrimination is just as much a problem as the overt stuff O_o
I overstated a couple of those points initially (well, depends on the army, pay does differ in the Aus armed services according to a number of factors that structurally discriminate against women but at least they have access to decent repro health as far as I know, e.g.), but the situation is still pretty piss-poor.
Yeah but - structurally. No one gets paid less because they are a women. The pay grades go by rank and deployment circumstance, which are pretty broadly defined IIRC. The only thing I can think of is distribution of women across the ranks and well, lolmilitary on that one I suppose.
Gender-based structural discrimination is just as much a problem as the overt stuff O_o
Yet the institutionalized sexism isn't really the core of the issue. Are minority groups, in general, more advanced than they were 10 years ago? yes; this is a statement that is almost always, as a whole, true.
The issue arises in the fact that men and women are functionally different. I'm no military man, but my assumption from speaking to service members and listening to stories is that male sexuality is, of course, a "celebrated" aspect of culture. At the same time women are, as is culturally apparent, more often demonized for the same sexuality that is trumpeted, "among the boys".
It comes down to a question of effectiveness, really. And the General's statement was, at the core, simply an economic statement that "soldiers who remove themselves from duty are bad soldiers". I don't think anyone is going to disagree with that.
The problem is that a man can go out and fuck twenty women, and consequences are private. Burns when you pee? you can still hold a rifle. Meanwhile, a woman is not afforded this luxury of exercising sexuality because of the role of her organs.
It comes down, in the end, to punitive vs. preventative measures. Everyone is going to fuck. Especially when under hardship. I'd have a lot less of an issue if the general in questions made a statement to the effect of "we're exploring means to effectively prevent our soldiers from using pregnancy as a means of avoiding service"; or, "we're proposing that every member of the services be required to take birth control".
The spirit of the comment was sexist, and provides little in any constructive means of assuring that we have the bodies necessary to act as a cohesive and effective military, which is the real goal after you strip away the moral and ethical crap.
The Hell does it have to do with punishing people who break the rules by fucking during a deployment?
Because the punishment is going to fall disproportionately on women. And there are fairly simple things the military could implement (access to bc) that would eliminate the loss of manpower and could be easily explained away as regulating periods or eliminating disabling cramps. Obviously bc isn't perfect, but it is a lot more effective than not having it.
And if you disagree with my first statement, if the women doesn't want the pregnancy do you think the military should force her to keep it long enough to do paternity testing?
Kistra on
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The Hell does it have to do with punishing people who break the rules by fucking during a deployment?
Because the punishment is going to fall disproportionately on women. And there are fairly simple things the military could implement (access to bc) that would eliminate the loss of manpower and could be easily explained away as regulating periods or eliminating disabling cramps. Obviously bc isn't perfect, but it is a lot more effective than not having it.
And if you disagree with my first statement, if the women doesn't want the pregnancy do you think the military should force her to keep it long enough to do paternity testing?
I don't have any statistics but I have seen a lot of these situations while I have been in.
Girl gets pregnant when she isn't suppose to be, gives up the guys name, they both get kicked out.
I could tell a dozen or so stories of girls calling rape on guys (some deserving possibly, most not) but they all end the same. The guy gets in trouble and the girl gets nothing. Women are always the victim in the eyes of the military. The military will not pay for abortions as far as I know.
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If unit cohesion's as strong as you say it is then that seems like splitting hairs to me. :?
Face Twit Rav Gram
Do you honestly not see the difference between a person constantly being pressured and a person that's been guaranteed several days to consider what it is they want?
to get sent back home.
When you're stuck at a FOB with limited supplies brushing is not a priority, look up trench mouth. Soon they'll be putting the newly invented gum that brushes your teeth in MRE's though. As for abortions, they may not be paid for with military funds, nor performed on military facilities. Honestly though I've got to agree with Quid, at that point the person is getting sent home anyway, you might as well let them make the decision in a more calm environment.
-Terry Pratchett
I've seen this as well (Navy man myself). I could ask my mother for some Army stories as well when she played in the sandbox.
Hell, at my last command they offered the morning after pill if the sailor really wanted it and it was truly an accident. They also gave a nice long lecture if you got the Plan B more then 3 or 4 times a month (why? because the morning after pill is not fucking birth control. If you are that active, they will prescribe BC to you.) And there were constant sexual harassment awareness and fraternizing training since my last command was nicknamed "The Love Boat" (highest female population and, at one time, highest number of pregnancies while deployed).
And I think that Cat was pointing there are reasons other than contraception that a lot of women want access to hormonal BC even while deployed, not saying that there is access to it because of the other indications. And it is prescription medication so a doctor can legally prescribe only a year's worth at once and most insurance companies (don't know about military) will only pay for 3 months at once so it isn't like women can easily get a year's worth to take with them.
Court Marshall is totally warranted. We are talking about soldiers who are fucking on the job. I am willing to bet just on the job fuckers would get fired from just about every civilian job. Now if we were talking about a woman getting pregnant on leave then going back in country and getting hammered I would raise the bullshit flag.
Infinity Mog 21 and over Free Company Sargatanas Server. Recruitment currently closed.
Yeah. It's called marriage. Heeyyyyyooooo.
This is all true.
I'll point out again, though, that a majority of women fulfill their obligations and deploy when scheduled.
This doesn't mean that those that fuck it up shouldn't have the hammer dropped on them (along with the penis that helped). It's bad enough that we can't punish women who intentionally get pregnant before a deployment to avoid it, we can at least nail anybody caught fucking around during the deployment.
I only personally knew one female soldier that got sent back for this after deploying, and in fairness she was deployed on the same FOB as her husband...and I also know her well enough to know it was probably unintentional (she'd have rather stayed there with him, all things considered).
Still, this doesn't change the fact that her section just lost 10% of their manpower for the rest of the year. She and her husband should have kept it in their pants, just like every other married soldier who wasn't deployed with their spouse (theoretically) had to.
And yes, of course we need to address sexual assault on deployments, but that's a separate issue.
This.
Quite a few people in here haven't read what I've linked or what I've written, and should go back and do so.
The Hell does it have to do with punishing people who break the rules by fucking during a deployment?
This I take issue with, because by what I've been reading and linking, a lot of the pregnancies women are being punished for were the result of rape. They're very much interconnected problems.
I have to say, I don't get the resistance to reform of female treatment in the service. You need more soldiers, particularly more soldiers who aren't retards and dropouts and felons. Making the service attractive to people who want to serve their country but don't want to be abused by their alleged brothers (I mean, this applies to stupid hazing and such as well) is a good thing.
Again, a lot of the women being punished are "breaking" the rules against their will. Why am I having to reiterate this to you? Read what I've written and join the dots
nobody is resisting this. At least no one posting here.
How about you read what other people have written?
no one thinks rape victims should be punished. Cite a single fucking person that has.
I do not know how pregnancies or other complications were handled, but the integration of women on duty seemed quite well-integrated. It did not feel strained or unusual.
Who's going to say that? But there's plenty of people in here sweeping the problem under the carpet by whining about harpies who don't want to get deployed. Its very frustrating. Its nice to hear from some people that things are slowly improving, but the numbers are still freaking terrible. If the armed forces were a normal business, they'd have been sued to death or bankrupted by now.
You're asking for numbers on something that everyone involved wants to hide, and you know this, so can you stop being so damned disingenuous? I've linked you stats on assaults in the forces already, and plenty more are easily searchable. Pointing out problems with the service is not attacking you for serving, so stop being so goddamned defensive.
If the armed forces were a normal business there'd be far, far fewer women in charge of it too. And cut it out with your assumptions about what people really mean. It's poor form.
And I'd also like to know what this pay disparity you've harped on is all about.
And you do get really, really defensive in military threads. You don't need to.
Right, so your anecdotal evidence is good enough, but everyone else's is meaningless without numbers backing it up. I've heard nothing about women being punished for getting raped and strongly doubt it's some sort of epidemic problem.
And I don't feel you're attacking me, I feel you're doing a horrible job arguing against a point no one is making.
So you have no explanation for:
?
Cause you've given zero explanation for that.
And disagreeing with your flawed arguments is not being defensive. You claim "a lot" of women who are punished for getting pregnant during a deployment were raped. Prove it.
It's not applicable at all because there's no difference in pay.
There is no combat zone, anywhere, that a woman is being payed less than a guy of comparable rank. There isn't some special infantry only combat pay.
Choose your rate choose your fate.
Point still stands. Fucking on the job is unacceptable, especially on the ground with a forward deployed unit.
Infinity Mog 21 and over Free Company Sargatanas Server. Recruitment currently closed.
We're being defensive because your painting us with a pretty broad brush. As an officer in the armed forces when you say leadership is fostering a culture of rape and sexual abuse, well guess what, I'm that leadership. I want to know where your numbers are coming from to get an idea of the scale of the problem, especially because in my experience I don't see it happening. What I do see is an organization that makes a huge effort to provide outlets for abuse to be reported and acted upon, as well as efforts to reduce this "culture of rape". Regardless, it's a different issue from this order which was the original topic. I have never heard of a woman getting punished for getting pregnant after getting raped in a combat zone. So then what is the discussion here? People who break the rules get punished for it, that's the way military's have been run for millenia.
-Terry Pratchett
I'm not reading any more.
Cat has, as always, shown why the underlying fear is a product of misogyny.
Yeah but - structurally. No one gets paid less because they are a women. The pay grades go by rank and deployment circumstance, which are pretty broadly defined IIRC. The only thing I can think of is distribution of women across the ranks and well, lolmilitary on that one I suppose.
And then repeatedly dodged questions calling you out for it until people nagged you enough to come clean. I love the fact that you call everyone else out for spouting bullshit, yet there you are shoveling it down everyone's throat and claiming everything you say is fact. I wasn't even half way through your first post in this thread and I knew exactly who had written it, lol.
That's not true.
lol.
Gender-based structural discrimination is just as much a problem as the overt stuff O_o
Yet the institutionalized sexism isn't really the core of the issue. Are minority groups, in general, more advanced than they were 10 years ago? yes; this is a statement that is almost always, as a whole, true.
The issue arises in the fact that men and women are functionally different. I'm no military man, but my assumption from speaking to service members and listening to stories is that male sexuality is, of course, a "celebrated" aspect of culture. At the same time women are, as is culturally apparent, more often demonized for the same sexuality that is trumpeted, "among the boys".
It comes down to a question of effectiveness, really. And the General's statement was, at the core, simply an economic statement that "soldiers who remove themselves from duty are bad soldiers". I don't think anyone is going to disagree with that.
The problem is that a man can go out and fuck twenty women, and consequences are private. Burns when you pee? you can still hold a rifle. Meanwhile, a woman is not afforded this luxury of exercising sexuality because of the role of her organs.
It comes down, in the end, to punitive vs. preventative measures. Everyone is going to fuck. Especially when under hardship. I'd have a lot less of an issue if the general in questions made a statement to the effect of "we're exploring means to effectively prevent our soldiers from using pregnancy as a means of avoiding service"; or, "we're proposing that every member of the services be required to take birth control".
The spirit of the comment was sexist, and provides little in any constructive means of assuring that we have the bodies necessary to act as a cohesive and effective military, which is the real goal after you strip away the moral and ethical crap.
Because the punishment is going to fall disproportionately on women. And there are fairly simple things the military could implement (access to bc) that would eliminate the loss of manpower and could be easily explained away as regulating periods or eliminating disabling cramps. Obviously bc isn't perfect, but it is a lot more effective than not having it.
And if you disagree with my first statement, if the women doesn't want the pregnancy do you think the military should force her to keep it long enough to do paternity testing?
Girl gets pregnant when she isn't suppose to be, gives up the guys name, they both get kicked out.
I could tell a dozen or so stories of girls calling rape on guys (some deserving possibly, most not) but they all end the same. The guy gets in trouble and the girl gets nothing. Women are always the victim in the eyes of the military. The military will not pay for abortions as far as I know.