In 1940, the United States instituted the Selective Training and Service Act, which required all men between the ages of 21 and 45 to register for the draft. In 1942, the age was lowered to 18. More than 10 million men entered military service through the Selective Service system during World War II alone.
The last time the draft was used was in the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975. Recently there has been talk of women being required to sign up for the draft. Personally, I am opposed to this, however that is not how everyone feels.
After speaking to some Gustavus students, I discovered that people had either one of three opinions, the first similar to mine: women should not have to sign up for the draft unless they volunteer. Others thought that women need more places in the military and on the battlefield. And lastly, another is that the draft should not be used today due to the unnecessity of it.
After some elaboration these three opinions became broken down into many more, ranging from the opinion that women are not capable of being successful in the military to the opinion that women do much more in the military than men could ever do. I found this incredibly interesting and decided to look into these ways of thinking.
As of Jan. 2016, women will be allowed to serve in any job in the armed services, if they meet gender-neutral performance standards. This was initiated in 2013 and then finalized under Defense Secretary Ash Carter. This is estimated to open around 220,000 jobs to females.
It is estimated that this will increase the overall population of women in the military from the current 14.5 percent. This percentage accounts for those in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. Women make up an average of 2.7 percent of those on the frontline. One of the reasons this number is so low is because men, on average, are 50 percent stronger than women when using brute strength.
Because of women’s lack of strength the Marine Corps requested an exemption from the Defense Department-wide requirement.
As evidence to justify their request, the Marine Corps conducted a study to see how ground combat units that included women would perform relative to all male units when against a range of tasks associated with their possible responsibilities in combat.
This unit with women was said to have performed at a mediocre level for most of its missions, scoring well below average. Even though the women who joined the test unit had scored very well in relation to the average female marine on various physical fitness tests, they were not screened specifically for service in the jobs they were asked to perform.
While there are some women who compare with some men in this area, among the participants of this study the top 10 percent of women overlaps with the bottom 50 percent of men in both aerobic and anaerobic capacity.
Anatomically speaking, men have higher bone density, which reduces the chances of breaking and other forms of injury. They also have larger hearts, higher red blood cell count and haemoglobin, and therefore, a greater oxygen-carrying capacity.
Men have higher levels of vitamin K, prothrombin, and platelets, which increases blood clotting abilities. These differences increase healing time of injuries and higher overall pain tolerance.
In addition to basic anatomy, women are more likely to develop certain infections and diseases, as well as life threatening diseases . These include lupus, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, and many autoimmune diseases.
Now, women will need to think about the future, are we ready for it to be mandatory that we sign up for the draft? At first blush this may scream of true equality. However, I believe something different.
As much as women have equal rights we will never be the same as men both physically and mentally, and therefore cannot be treated the same. Because this is a volunteer army I believe that the only women who should be in the military are those who choose to be.
The chances of the draft being instituted are very slim. I remember when my brother had to sign up for the draft, and I knew never had to be in that situation.
Even though my family knew the odds of the draft being enacted, we still worried about my brother being taken from us. My mother has told me stories of when she was younger and the government would say numbers on the television.
She would tell me how her classmates’ family members were sent off. This scares me, but what I learned most was what would scare my mother more would be having the threat of both of her children being taken away.
Sons are just as important as daughters and vice versa. But increasing the chances of taking more children away from mothers is not a good thing. Along with this I believe that because it is a volunteer army that we should not have to be forced to sign up. Why fix something that isn’t broken? For these reasons I believe that women should not be required to sign up for the draft.