Conscription: Encyclopedia II - Conscription - The Gender-issue

Conscription - The Gender-issue

Some countries which draft women include the People's Republic of China, Taiwan (ROC), North Korea, Peru, Malaysia, Libya, Israel, and Eritrea. In 2002, Sweden's government asked the army to consider mandatory military service for women. Some have considered the practice of excluding women from the draft unfair, because they feel it goes against principles of equality. Some simply argue that women can be militarily useful, and that excluding them places an unnecessary limit on resources. During World War II, women were drafted into the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. The United States came close to drafting women into the Nurse Corps in preparation for a planned invasion of Japan; the Japanese surrender made this unnecessary.

The non-egalitarian policy practiced by some countries of drafting men and not women has often been a flash point and source of conflict. This policy is often cited by some masculists as an example of an unfair policy which benefits women over men; however, most avowed anti-feminists are strongly opposed to women in combat. Apprehension about the possible conscription of women was a key factor that led to the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States.

Conscription certainly imposes on the freedom of the individual and although some conscripts feel that they benefited from the experience others feel that their time could have been spent more productively pursuing their chosen studies or career paths See BBC news article on the end of French conscription Individual resentment may also be compounded by the typically low wages paid to conscripts, especially in countries such as Greece. Feminists and others calling for more equal treatment of women in society have rarely extended their demands to include a call for equality for women with regards the draft.

The topic of male-only conscription in the UK was the focus of a large number of books, plays and other literature, most of which portrayed the writers experience of conscription in a very negative way, emphasizing the brutality and tedium of military training. Examples include Arnold Wesker's Chips with Everything and Ginger You're barmy by David Lodge . In his book, Lodge suggests that the practice of male-only conscription helped to generate sexist attitudes by making it difficult for men to regard those who were excused the rigors of military training as their equals.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Gender-issue", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki