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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29716 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Feminists! Where are you, when the motherland calls for reservists?

Paulina Januszewska

KP journalist

DECEMBER 9, 2022

"Where are the feminist organizations when men get drafted into the army?" the graduates of the University of Peasant Reason ask. Let me now explain.

("Peasant's reason" is an idiom roughly equivalent to "common sense")

If I were to use the same rhetoric as the University of Peasant Reason, which demands compulsory conscription and military service for women as well, and preferably for feminists ("after all, you're all about equality, aren't you?"), I would have to write that you, dear men, have wound the whip on yourselves.

The patriarchy you have established generates conflicts that are later resolved violently and forces you to be cannon fodder, in certain circles called reservists. You are the ones who have decided that gender determines who is fit to fight and who is not. I don't know about that, but I do know that in your battles - those fought in or out of uniform - women also die.*

The argument "women, now you have what you wanted, now go to war" is in fact a misunderstanding of the flagship assumptions of the drive towards emancipation.

No - the fact that a woman becomes a soldier, even a General, is not a celebration for feminism. Just as it is not, for example, when women head greedy corporations or referee soccer matches at the World Cup, which violates human rights, exploits, promotes homophobia and sexism.

While the establishment of quotas in the army may appear to be an equalitarian demand, and indeed rubs the nose in the face of gender stereotypes that assume women are physically weaker than men and unfit for military service, it actually represents an extremely neoliberal and ignorant approach to gender justice that ignores opposition to oppression.

Above all, however, it fails to answer much more legitimate questions about the role of the military and the toxic, impacting everyone "forms of masculinity it creates and supports." This is exactly what Shreshtha Das wrote about, commenting on what happened two years ago in India, and pointing out that "equal roles for women in the army over there are not a victory for feminists." She was referring to a ruling by India's Supreme Court, which, in spite of the government's sexist objections, ruled that gender could not be an obstacle to high-ranking positions in the military and permanent service.

Das recalled that "the military, as a place where blatant hypermasculinity explodes, reinforces hegemonic male notions of aggressiveness, strength and heterosexual prowess in and out of the barracks." Femininity, in turn, is therein an insult and a reason for abuse, as the experiences of harassed, raped, paid less than their male counterparts, shunned from important tasks/positions and ridiculed female members (but also male members) of the armies around the world make clear.

A soldier in the Polish special forces GROM, co-founder and president of the #SayStopFoundation, Katarzyna Kozlowska, once told me about the realities faced by women in the uniformed services:

"You can't avoid the rough advances there. By accepting them, you are treated like a whore, by rejecting - even worse. On top of that, entering the ranks of the military or police, women immediately get the patch of the physically weaker. Men think that since women are inserting themselves over there on their own volition, the hermetic, masculinized and hierarchical environment can dictate any conditions to them. Meanwhile, a female soldier or guard - as a strong woman, after all - should not complain, but manfully endure everything, including when watered down with a coarse, chauvinistic sauce of abuse"

To use a word: putting women in the camouflage, their entry into such male-centered structures, has nothing to do with women's liberation or equating femininity with masculinity. It is merely a gendered "promotion" bestowed by men, a necessity to symbolically put on pants and get rid of everything that could be considered unmanly.

This, by the way, also works against those men who are shown their place in the military hierarchy with aggression and violence (mental and physical) or, for example, who are ridiculed or humiliated there for their homosexuality.

The army is a generator and reproducer of the violence of oppression against which all social emancipation movements headed by feminism are fighting. Therefore, the half-witted expectation that women should join it willingly, with a smile on their lips and male anointment, is nonsense.

While we demand recognition and equal rights, we don't want an equal share of the harms produced by patriarchy. We want those harms to be none - or at least less.

University of Peasant Reason goes on to say, "since we, men, have to go into the army and die, you women must too." (...) it forgets that war means the death of civilians, that it uses a particularly cruel tool - rape. And it so happens that the latter largely involves women, who would often rather die than experience it.

Shreshtha Das reminds us that "the military and the hypermasculinity it promotes also harms women who do not live in areas controlled by the military." In doing so, she cites a 2004 study by Catherine Lutz, clearly showing that rates of domestic violence are three to five times higher among military couples than among civilians, because "the military as an institution that promotes the idea of heterosexual male supremacy glorifies power and control or discipline, and suggests that violence is often a necessary means to achieve its own ends."

You read that right. The year is 2023, Poland. The country is in a panic over military mobilization, triggered by media reports of an increase in the number of reservists in the state army. And Polish male hussars are howling on the Internet: "what about women?".

I'll just reiterate: the main problem of those who insist on the forced conscription of women into the army is that they misunderstand feminism. The coercion to become cannon fodder, on the other hand, is a patriarchal assumption that strikes at any gender.

If the graduates of the University of Peasant Reason wanted to stay in reality for a while, they would learn that there is a not inconsiderable group of men and women who want to join the soldier ranks. And I'm not just talking about the ranks of war-fetishizing nationalists or All-Polish Youth. Maj. Konrad Radzik, spokesman for the Military Complements Headquarters in Rzeszow, told "Wyborcza" that since the beginning of the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, "interest in all forms of military service has increased by about 100 percent - including among women." Besides, there is no shortage of Ukrainian women grabbing weapons of their own volition either.

So there is no doubt that in the face of threats like the one posed by Russia today, the desire to train and defend themselves will grow in societies. If the war escalates, it will force many men and women to adopt defensive measures no matter what their willingness or reluctance to armed conflict.

However, no one has the right to impose on anyone the decision to join the regular army. Indeed, movements striving for equality do not have on their agenda the rewriting of a masculinized world into one that will continue to be violent, with the difference that the oppressors will become women for a change.

The trouble of men sharing idiotic posters on their social media with the slogan "show you're a real femina, fight for equality in reserve exercises" lies in masculine fear. In the Polish state's deprivation of men's choices. You know, the same choice that women in Poland do not have, at least in the matter of aborting a pregnancy.

Your fear of military service, your disagreement with the state deciding for you without you, however, is not the fault of feminists. It is the fault of the oppression of the patriarchy and men in power in Poland. If you choose to oppose them, we will go with you. But don't expect us to be happy that you wish for us as badly as you wish for yourselves.

The patriarchy you have established generates conflicts that are later resolved violently and forces you to be cannon fodder, in certain circles called reservists.

Did this feminist or any of her sisters ever advocate for a diplomatic compromise involving concessions etc. with regard to the Crimea and the Donbass? In order to, you know, avert the violence of war? Because that was the only way to avert war. They do recognize that, don't they?

Stuff like this really demonstrate the philosophical kinship feminism has with Marxism with this blatant utopianism. The argument being put forward is "if the entire world was in a permanent communist revolution feminist, there there would be no war and no problems in the first place, everything would be great! Problems only exist because patriarchy creates problems to then solve (for some reason)." Nirvana fallacy par excellence.

If Poland were not patriarchal, but was under threat from a patriarchal force, would a non-patriarchal Poland not defend itself?

This is not really a question. Feminist LARP is just that. But I don't understand, in the spirit of proper world building LARP's like Anarcho-Capitalism and such, what the feminist answer to the 'defense issue' is.

The lack of self-awareness needed to stake every single one of your positions on the presupposition of a utopia without ever acknowledging it in the context of real-world issues is an embarrassment.

Feminist utopian larp doesn’t have an answer. Neither does communist utopian larp.

@hydroacetylene: in general yes. There are some disturbing answers / fantasies through. Link

A lot gentler. A lot kinder. A lot more concerned with the feelings of others. The Pony virus changed a lot of things, Dylan. It increased the amount of oxytocin all bodies make. That's a hormone that helps make us care and be nurturing. When mothers care for their children, their bodies are flooded with the stuff. But men used to have very little of it."

"Were men mean, before the Pony virus?" It was a difficult question.

"Well... I guess they were. There were hundreds of wars, all over the planet, all the time. Every single day, there was about one hundred wars going on. Now we don't have any. There aren't any armies anymore. Nobody sees the point of having an army, because all of the money to make weapons and train soldiers is used to feed people, and clothe them, and make sure everyone has a place to live." The world was pretty scary before the Pony virus, Richard had to admit.

"And war stopped because of that oxy hormone?"

"No. Not just that. Oxytocin was only part of it. The virus changed the part of the genes that controlled territoriality and aggression too, and it also... cut the level of testosterone by two thirds. Testosterone is the male hormone. It makes men hairy... or it used to anyway... but it also made them extra aggressive, and extra territorial, and... well... horny all the time. So men were pretty frustrated, and they also were... I guess... a little more mean and prone to anger and violence." Richard decided to leave out the old statistics that showed that 98% of all violence was committed by males alone. Testosterone was probably a very big factor. Maybe the creators of the Pony virus had intended everything after all.

"So... the virus basically made men... less like men." Dylan was a smart kid. He'd pretty much hit the nail on the head.

"Um... yeah. Pretty much. Having breasts is just incidental. The real point was to make males act more like females, to make them more caring, more concerned with feelings, less violent, and less aggressive. That's why there are no more violent contact sports, no more wars, and no more hunger. No man can stand to let another man die in a ditch anymore." Richard watched the boys playing jump-rope. A smaller child wanted to play. They had welcomed him in, and took the time to gently teach him how to play. He couldn't imagine boys doing that when he had been growing up. "But the virus also affected women too, son. It made them even more nurturing than they ever were before as well. Both men and women were made less violent, aggressive, and more caring overall. And it only took eight weeks to spread to every human on earth."

Dylan sat up, hugging his knees to his chest, gently. His painted toenails matched his sisters, they had painted them together the night before. "So basically, the world sucked before the Pony virus."

Richard had to think about it. Decades of masculinity fought in his mind with the reality of the new world he now lived in. Gone was Hockey, Rugby, American Football. Gone was being macho, tough, and hard. The old action heroes and the old war heroes were all monsters now. Being a man was defined more by being pretty than by being rough and tumble.

But there was no war. The world shared, now. It was unthinkable to let people starve. It was even more unthinkable to invade and kill anyone. Rape had ended almost overnight. A night at the pub ended with singing, and not with a fight. And women finally had real and lasting equality in the world. It was like living on a different earth.

But it was a better one. Even though his background, everything he had been taught screamed inside of him, he was a scientist, he was a smart man. Richard had to admit. It was better.

The world had been converted into something new and strange, but it was a safer world. A friendlier world. A less violent and more nurturing world. Whoever those gene hackers were, or whoever it was, had done what all of the philosophers and pundits and saviors had all failed to do. They had made the Earth a planet of peace and relative harmony.

In the comments, author references stats about male violence a lot; shame no one brought up stats about technology and science... I suspect author would just claim it's irrelevant and it's all because of women being kept down by men tho.

Perhaps they think that if Poland were under attack from a patriarchal force, Polish men should fight because as men they bear collective responsibility for the warmongering of their fellow men across the border.

Feminist utopian larp doesn’t have an answer. Neither does communist utopian larp.

I mean I suppose it’s interesting to note that right wing utopian worldbuilding larp usually has answers to questions about but what if x, albeit often very stupid or pre-falsified ones, while left wing ones usually don’t. But at the end of the day that’s not really the point.

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