Kuntmode
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2002
- Posts
- 1,249
There is so much to find distressing about the reports we are reading and hearing from Iraq. The elongated conflict, the loss of civilian lives, the desperate plight of fleeing families. But another thing that is ubiquitous in depictions of modern day war is the sickening values unfairly placed on people's lives.
'Among the dead in the bombing were 20 civilians, mostly women and children.' How many times do we hear such sentences?
Why is it somehow more horrific that women and children are killed? Are their lives somehow more important? I think not.
It is just as tragic that 20 year old men at a market place are killed as it would be if their sisters became innocent victims. People love them too.
And what of the women and children they leave behind? The loss felt by a man's family and friends is no less than it would be if he were a 'woman or child'.
The world was obsessed with the fate of the American POW, Private First Class Jessica Lynch. Her sweet face smiling from beneath a camouflage cap became an heroic image for her nation.
But was it her youth that made her special among the six other soldiers who disappeared when the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company was ambushed? Was it the fact that, at 19, she was too young to order a beer in the US, but old enough to risk a violent desert death far away from her family and friends? Is it because she is a girl?
There is still enormous controversy over whether women have any place in combat. People come up with all sorts of reasons women aren't equipped to be in combat situations, from physical strength to the reproductive system. But deep down it is because of this weird value system where somehow people get squeamish about women getting hurt. Like it's any nicer to hear your brother has had his legs blown off. Or your boyfriend is dead? Is combat no place for a woman? In war history, one of the best remembered names is in fact a war heroine.
Journalist Nancy Wake was a highly trained spy. her job was not combat as we understand it today. But, as one of the most wanted by the Gestapo, she was at extraordinary risk of horrendous torture and violent death. Few of the opponents of women in combat would argue that Wake should not have done the job she did.
But is it any less palatable for a woman to risk death by gunfire in combat than it would be to risk the same - or worse, working as a spy?
When our fathers' numbers came up for Vietnam, they had no choice in the matter. Their lives were valued less than our mother's. And we continue to do that in less obvious ways.
What happened to Private Lynch was frightening. But it would've been frightening for the boys with her, too. It's time we stop arguing about where women should and should not be, and value every life equally.
'Among the dead in the bombing were 20 civilians, mostly women and children.' How many times do we hear such sentences?
Why is it somehow more horrific that women and children are killed? Are their lives somehow more important? I think not.
It is just as tragic that 20 year old men at a market place are killed as it would be if their sisters became innocent victims. People love them too.
And what of the women and children they leave behind? The loss felt by a man's family and friends is no less than it would be if he were a 'woman or child'.
The world was obsessed with the fate of the American POW, Private First Class Jessica Lynch. Her sweet face smiling from beneath a camouflage cap became an heroic image for her nation.
But was it her youth that made her special among the six other soldiers who disappeared when the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company was ambushed? Was it the fact that, at 19, she was too young to order a beer in the US, but old enough to risk a violent desert death far away from her family and friends? Is it because she is a girl?
There is still enormous controversy over whether women have any place in combat. People come up with all sorts of reasons women aren't equipped to be in combat situations, from physical strength to the reproductive system. But deep down it is because of this weird value system where somehow people get squeamish about women getting hurt. Like it's any nicer to hear your brother has had his legs blown off. Or your boyfriend is dead? Is combat no place for a woman? In war history, one of the best remembered names is in fact a war heroine.
Journalist Nancy Wake was a highly trained spy. her job was not combat as we understand it today. But, as one of the most wanted by the Gestapo, she was at extraordinary risk of horrendous torture and violent death. Few of the opponents of women in combat would argue that Wake should not have done the job she did.
But is it any less palatable for a woman to risk death by gunfire in combat than it would be to risk the same - or worse, working as a spy?
When our fathers' numbers came up for Vietnam, they had no choice in the matter. Their lives were valued less than our mother's. And we continue to do that in less obvious ways.
What happened to Private Lynch was frightening. But it would've been frightening for the boys with her, too. It's time we stop arguing about where women should and should not be, and value every life equally.
