nine out of ten feminists recommend...

...knowing what a feminist is before claiming to be one.

According to Wikipedia:

Themes explored in feminist theory include discrimination, stereotyping, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression and patriarchy.

I think that's what I'll be getting at when I rant about something to do with Greg Sheridan's view that equality for women in war is lunacy:

All societies have recognised that they therefore need warriors. The warriors are not barbarians. They are brave, skilled, disciplined individuals who risk their lives for something bigger than themselves. The overwhelming majority of people who have lived, and the overwhelming majority of people and societies today, recognise that the warriors are men. This is something that most people know, even if they deny it.

As with so many issues, normal people are smarter here than intellectuals. Is there a home in Australia in which, if attacked by a burglar, the husband would not respond first?

Hello discrimination - surely society at large doesn't really believe you need a penis in order to be a brave, skilled, disciplined individual that risks their life for the greater good? I'm guessing that Sheridan's view of what it takes to be a real warrior in this day and age is whatever image he's got in his head from reading too many SAS books/novels, and he's willing to look past all of the women that have fought/died for their cause and/or country.

As for stereotyping, well it seems that the overwhelming majority has no choice but to agree with Sheridan's logic, which supports that warriors are men. I wouldn't want to seem bitter or anything, but I'd like to point out my doubts as to whether despite his job as foreign editor, Sheridan really knows what most people out of the general population (living or dead!) typically identify as warriors. Assuming he is correct in that I know that I recognise society's warriors as men, even if I deny it, I can't really begin to question whether the glorification of men on the frontline throughout the course of history has anything to do with the fact that women haven't been allowed anywhere near such roles until quite recently, can I?

I'm not too clear on the boundaries of definition for objectification and oppression, but I can't help but twitch a little when I read the last sentence quoted above, referring to a husband's first response. The underlying implication that a woman's place in the home is not only as a wife, but as the second responder, or even worse, the passive bystander whilst the man of the household does all the dirty work of counterattacking burglars (and what mighty warrior work you do, husbands of Australia!) bothers me too much for me to not mention.

I might have winged a distinction in statistics earlier this year, but I don't know what the real facts are on what the typical Australian household is made up of, how many burglaries occur whilst people are still at home, or whether more males than females are first to respond to a break-in. I could probably look these up, after spending a couple of captivating hours researching on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website, but I think I've sacrificed too much time to it already for my marketing subject last study period. But I digress. It wouldn't have taken a seasoned professional (such as Sheridan) particularly long to figure out whether The Husband™ is really the ultimate first responder to crime in an Australian household.

As for patriarchy, well...

Many practical considerations arise from the special nature of military culture and the extreme demands of battle. In close combat male soldiers will try to protect female soldiers. This is a law of human nature. The unit's effectiveness will suffer.

A military unit is bound by common identity, by deep traditions of comradely bonding. The romantic liaisons that inevitably develop in mixed gender units militate against the absolute teamwork, group identity and lack of favouritism that characterise military units in combat. A lack of knowledge of military culture leads to a lack of respect for it and then to policies that compromise effectiveness.

I guess the mother of all patriarchies would be inherent in present Australian military culture. After all this time without anywhere near a 50% female representation in the ranks, is it any wonder? Doesn't it make sense to send young boys and their fathers to war whilst girls stayed back to learn how to babysit and sew, whilst their mothers manufactured and packed parachutes, and filled in jobs that were left empty from all the conscriptions? To a certain degree, this situation is difficult to get around, you know, the whole preservation of the species thing. I've got to say though, lumping all women into the 'stay home and breed for the nation' category without giving them the option to not have children, and fight alongside men for their freedoms is almost insulting in 2009.

The real kick in the teeth from these telling paragraphs from Sheridan is the overall message that with his thorough understanding of military culture, women are a hindrance to the effectiveness of military units in combat. Who would have thought that despite modern training techniques, improvements in battle equipment, and access to wartime intelligence that our forebears could only dream of... the most highly developed of our military warriors could be so easily compromised by a female in the ranks?

Perhaps after seeing the group dynamics of typical military units today, it is difficult for people like Sheridan to imagine the existence of a hoo-ah sisterhood. Despite the ADF discussing the possibility of providing women with more job opportunities if they can meet the physical and psychological requirements, they are working against years of ingrained thought regarding what a woman's place is and/or should be in times of war. Although I see no point in debating which gender would be more effective in close quarter combat for as long as women are actively discouraged or prohibited from the frontline (the word of the day is moot, kids!) I would be interested to see if there was some kind of research into whether 'comradely bonding' is strictly the territory of heterosexual males in the peak of conflict.

So I guess what I'm saying is... does this make me a feminist? :)