Wall Street Journal: Women Shouldn’t Be In Combat Because Men Poop
Wall Street Journal: Women Shouldn’t Be In Combat Because Men Poop
By Zack Beauchamp on Jan 24, 2013 at 11:12 am
An opinion piece published in one of America’s most prestigious newspapers made a curious assertion this morning: women shouldn’t serve in combat because “social norms” would make it “humiliating” for men.
After Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s surprise announcement on Wednesday that women would be free to serve in most or all combat roles by 2016, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by former Marine infantryman Ryan Smith. Smith argued that since soldiers had to “defecate inches from his seated comrade’s face” during his tour in Iraq, women could not be permitted in combat because it would “humiliate” men:
Societal norms are a reality, and their maintenance is important to most members of a society. It is humiliating enough to relieve yourself in front of your male comrades; one can only imagine the humiliation of being forced to relieve yourself in front of the opposite sex.
Despite the professionalism of Marines, it would be distracting and potentially traumatizing to be forced to be naked in front of the opposite sex, particularly when your body has been ravaged by lack of hygiene. In the reverse, it would be painful to witness a member of the opposite sex in such an uncomfortable and awkward position. Combat effectiveness is based in large part on unit cohesion. The relationships among members of a unit can be irreparably harmed by forcing them to violate societal norms.
MORE:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/01/24/1490151/wall-street-journal-op-ed-women-cant-be-in-combat-because-men-poop/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578260132111473150.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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