Item — HN Reader

Would love to hear more about why you call that nonsense.

I think that's a great example though. I'm male, and I think a common misconception is that gender equality is only for the benefit of females. But feminist issues effect everyone. Like women being allowed to join the workforce increased productivity which also benefited men from having cheaper products.

Or this example you point out, men are typically the ones being drafted into war or at least the ones serving on the front lines. I think that raises a lot of interesting questions too. Is that fair? Should women more often be included in drafts or mandatory service? Should women be included in the decisions to go to war? Would we have less wars if that were the case?

2 comments

> Or this example you point out, men are typically the ones being drafted into war or at least the ones serving on the front lines. I think that raises a lot of interesting questions too. Is that fair? Should women more often be included in drafts or mandatory service? Should women be included in the decisions to go to war? Would we have less wars if that were the case?

I'd question - aside from medical needs, when should men and women not be treated the same?

Which is a round about way of saying, of course women should be drafted into war.

> Like women being allowed to join the workforce increased productivity which also benefited men from having cheaper products

It also nearly doubled the labour force without actually doubling the number of jobs available, which arguably resulted in the stagnation of wages to the point where dual incomes became necessary for families to maintain the same standard of living as they did decades ago.

There are advantages, but let's not pretend it has been some panacea. Dropping birth rates in the first world may largely be to do with women deferring pregnancy for career advancement.

> Should women more often be included in drafts or mandatory service?

War is war. The military needs to be distinct from other fields as it is not an experimental playground for egalitarianism, it is the profession of targeted death and destruction. Changes to the military have to be evaluated in the context of "what makes the most efficient military unit", not "what military unit represent everyone back home best". It's not a representational game, it's a crudely real necessity for the security of a country.

On that front, real study can show what makes a more cohesive unit. If adding women helps, do it. If it hurts, don't do it. Doing it to make a point may endanger real lives.

> Should women be included in the decisions to go to war?

Aren't they already? Plenty of female politicians, advisors, representatives. Of course they should be involved, but on their own merits and through their own career advancement, please. Trudeau-style arbitrary enforcement of representational quotas promises no guarantee of better decisionmaking.

> Would we have less wars if that were the case?

Do women have fewer interpersonal conflicts with their peers than men?

> War is war. The military needs to be distinct from other fields as it is not an experimental playground for egalitarianism, it is the profession of targeted death and destruction. Changes to the military have to be evaluated in the context of "what makes the most efficient military unit", not "what military unit represent everyone back home best". It's not a representational game, it's a crudely real necessity for the security of a country.

NASA used to have a requirement that astronauts had to have experience as military test pilots. The military said that test pilots could only be men. This meant that women could never become test pilots nor astronauts.

Then someone put a few women through the NASA tests and found they performed at the same level as men, and sometimes better than men.

Too often "let's be careful, we need to test this" is used as an excuse to continue discrimination even though that's objectively worse.

https://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html

> Too often "let's be careful, we need to test this" is used as an excuse to continue discrimination even though that's objectively worse

You just said they tested it and they did fine. That's all I am asking for. I don't think your quoted statement logically follows from that at all.

I think it's pretty fair to say that the battlefield is a different situation even than being an astronaut and what works in one place may not work in all places.

> Do women have fewer interpersonal conflicts with their peers than men?

Perhaps not, but I believe women are more likely than men to resort to using words rather than physical violence during an interpersonal conflict.