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ACtually, I think our culture has it messed up. Men are equally as valuable than women. Take the Titanic for example. The attitude was "women and children first". But lets think about this. If the men all die, and the women and children survive, who is going to earn the money to support the family. In those days, a woman would have had a much more difficult time earning the money needed to support the family. Once a woman has given birth to the children, she has performed her primary function. After that, the father can just as easily raise the children as she can, so the net result is that today, men are of equal value as women. So to answer the OP's question, there's no difference whether its a man or woman who dies in combat as to its effect on the culture, assuming most of the men in the country survive the war.
I think it's just a part of our biology. I would think that in most species, the male is going to be the dominant sex (at least in humans). It's the male's responsibility to protect the female, at the very core. Of course there are going to be situations where males are protected by females, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, there's a loop in every man's brain saying "Protect the female."
I think it would not be morally worse to kill a noncombatant female than a noncombatant male, but typically in history a soldier might be more readily excused for 'mistaking' a male for a potential combatant. This might have been naive in many cases (consider Soviet women in WW2 for instance) but there's a crude logic to it.
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Originally Posted by Knever
I think it's just a part of our biology. I would think that in most species, the male is going to be the dominant sex (at least in humans). It's the male's responsibility to protect the female, at the very core. Of course there are going to be situations where males are protected by females, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, there's a loop in every man's brain saying "Protect the female."
You know, I was thinking about examples of males protecting females in nature. Most male animals aren't actually that chivalrous. When danger appears, you don't often see a male standing up to protect his mate. If he doesn't flee with the rest of them, he might fight for territory etc, but seldom purely to protect the female. He may protect his harem, for breeding purposes, but in terms of 'protecting' his female from other males it's more like protecting a possession than any sense of wellbeing for her. I would say it is the female which has by far the greater protective instinct - to her infant. Male animals, moreso fish and birds (species where parenting is more equal) are also protective of their offspring, but in terms of mammals it's mostly the mother.
I think that killing a childless adult is killing a childless adult, male or female.
I do not think that the loss is equal if we are discussing killing an infant, a teen, and an elderly person. The elderly person is much less lost potential than the first two, not even touching the contribution/drain side of things.
Cold terms, and ones I certainly hope I never face.
The rules are much different now that we have plenty of childbearing people, the ability to easily store valuable knowledge outside of an elder's brain, and societies that aren't invaded every few years.
I know this is a little off-topic, but I do think that while (obviously) killing anybody is horrible, the age of the person killed should play a little role in how horrible it is. If you kill an infant, they never had a shot to live a "full-life", and accomplish things that benefit both themselves and others, while if you kill an elderly person, they've already lived most of their life.
If a 12-year old fires an AK-47 at you (and you are 60 years old) will the bullet do less damage than one you, the 60 year old, fired at the 12 year old?
If you are (and I'm thinking particularly about the US here) going to have 'equal opportunity' armed forces where women will have the same promotion and advancement prospects as men, should those women not face the same risks?
How can you have 'equal opportunity' without 'equal liability'?
Tread carefully! A number of dedicated (and valiant) females have striven to ensure sexual equality in the US Armed Forces ... I doubt they will b very pleased if some 'Knight Errant' should step in to protect them.
The US (which has an all-volunteer force) has many females who have put themselves in harm's way and a number have died. There can be no doubt that the servicewomen in the US Armed Forces are every bit as dedicated as the servicemen
(The emboldened text may be a comment on the [possible] future liability of a draft.)
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