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Background: The military did not accept male nurses in WW II. (In reality, there were probably very few male nurses then, the profession is still 90% female today, >70 years later.)
Late in 1944, nursing enlistments were down; there was a "nursing shortage" in the military. In his State of the Union address in January 1945, President Roosevelt proposed drafting nurses. This would obviously have been an all female draft. The Nurses Selective Service Act breezed through the House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate. The end of the War in Europe in April eliminated the need for nurses there; some of these nurses were reassigned to the Pacific front. This plus a surge in enlistments eliminated the need to draft nurses at that time. Drafting Women? | HistoryNet
The point: Congress can and will draft women if it needs the "womanpower".
I voted yes, all genders should be required to register for Selective Service. For anybody interested, I am female, a veteran, and *gasp*, a liberal.
For that matter, I think two years of some kind of military or otherwise public service (for example, those whose religions forbid military service) should be required for *all* able bodied/mentally able right out of high school. If you can prove undue hardship (you're helping support your family and they can't afford to lose your civilian pay), you get a pass, but otherwise, you serve.
I think it was 36 when I was in. I went to basic training with a 36 year old woman who had just become a grandmother (she'd had her kid when she was 18, then her kid had a kid when she was 18.)
I voted yes, all genders should be required to register for Selective Service. For anybody interested, I am female, a veteran, and *gasp*, a liberal.
For that matter, I think two years of some kind of military or otherwise public service (for example, those whose religions forbid military service) should be required for *all* able bodied/mentally able right out of high school. If you can prove undue hardship (you're helping support your family and they can't afford to lose your civilian pay), you get a pass, but otherwise, you serve.
You don't sound liberal to me. The idea of forcing people to engage in military service is about as illiberal as it gets.
My son is 18 years old and graduated from high school last July. On Monday of this week we received a letter from the Selective Service politely demanding that he register for the draft under threat of penalties which included but were not limited to prison time. Of course, I too registered for the draft when I was his age so this was not unexpected. In fact, I was surprised that he had not already been registered. So I proceeded to go to the online registry with my son and take care of his registration. However, when we were filling out the paperwork, we somehow selected that he was a female instead of a male. Of course, the page immediately changed to inform us that females were not required to register. Well, that got me thinking. We live in a world in which gender equality is a big issue. Women everywhere are demanding, and rightly so, that they be treated as the equals of men in all respects. So I was just wondering, when are women going to stand up and demand to be included in this aspect of equality in our nation? Is it not unfair that only our young men are required to sign up for conscription? I'm just saying, if we are going to go all the way here and do everything we can to ensure equality, then that should also extend to things like registering for Selective Service. The road has to go both ways here. Equal means equal, which means both genders should be equally qualified to serve their country if the need arises to impose a draft. Equality does not just extend to certain issues, it is an all-encompassing ideal which should include both the good and the possibly bad aspects of life. I'm sorry, but you can't only fight for certain aspects of equality. And I feel this is an issue that needs to be brought into the public eye and resolved. All it would take would be a simple amendment to the law by Congress to include women in the draft.
The equality to allow women to serve in combat roles was passed in 2015 with a bit of opposition. So now that women are allowed to fight they should also be required to register. It has only been about 2 years, give it a little more time and it will be so.
Conscription should take place only for the purpose of defending the country, and not for example what was done during the Vietnam war. There should also be a supermajority requirement from Congress to institute a draft, and a "sunset" requirement that the draft must be re-voted on every two years (with each new Congress) or else conscription ends.
If there IS a draft, both genders should be equally liable for mandatory service, but if for example women are excluded from combat even voluntarily then different roles can be assigned accordingly.
Unless we have another World War, which is thankfully doubtful, we will not see another draft. The ridiculous way the draft was run during Vietnam is still in people's minds. If you had money, you could just stay in school, and get a college deferment. I was way too young to get drafted for Vietnam, but I saw some relatives doing this. College over? Just get into a Master program for whatever, and stay in school, and wait it out.
Another point about combat roles being opened up to women: That would make the all-male requirement of the draft (but not the draft itself) subject to constitutional challenge again, since the basis for this SCOTUS ruling upholding the male-only draft was based on the fact that women were excluded from combat.
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