Include women in Selective Service military draft
United States Army
A male-only military draft policy exacerbates sexism, writes reporter Amy Ren.
January 5, 2022
Currently, American men must register for the Selective Service, the agency that executes the military draft and maintains information on eligible draftees, but Congress considered an amendment that would have required women to register as well.
Though Congress dropped this amendment as part of a late-year push to pass a bipartisan defense policy bill, women should be required to register for the Selective Service to promote equality and dismantle sexism.
Not only will requiring women to register for the Selective Service provide a larger draft pool, but it will also help dismantle the harmful stereotypes that women are home-oriented while men fight for the country.
Since all eligible men — regardless of physical ability — must enroll in the Selective Service, the physical differences between men and women should not be a reason to exclude women from the draft. Additionally, all combat roles have been available to women since 2016.
Having only men be subject to a potential draft perpetuates the idea that women need men to defend them, implies that the country depends on only men and exacerbates toxic standards of masculinity.
In order to truly achieve equality, women must be allowed to serve their country in the same way as men, and this means shedding traditional expectations where men are the protectors and women are the protected. Congress should rectify this amendment as soon as possible.
Sharyq Siddiqi • Jan 6, 2022 at 10:56 am
Though I agree that the military is very imbued with lots of sexist attributes, The draft being one of them, I believe placing the draft on everyone is a overall worse approach to this idea. Overall, the draft can be very hurtful to all those who it affects, whether it be the men who are drafted, or the families. I feel like extending the lack of choice on to everyone is not the right way to move about it. As stated, Women can register for all the combat roles, and this is a great thing for women who do want to join the military. I think the direction best to bring this in is making sure the draft is just gotten rid of, and everyone has the same ability to choose whether they would like to do military service. Giving everyone more choice in the end is the best solution, as then nobody will be forced or restricted based on any attribute of their identity.
Jay Molony • Jan 6, 2022 at 10:40 am
Discrimination is definitely a problem in the United States, particularly in the military. However, proposing expanding the draft to reduce this feels like the wrong approach to me. In my opinion, a much better action to take would be to abolish the draft in its entirety. Because, as is said in this article, “all combat roles have been available to women since 2016”, so removing the draft would also allow women to “serve their country in the same way as men”, as anyone that wanted to would be able to serve in any combat role, since there are no laws preventing women from volunteering for service. However, it would have the additional effect of not requiring someone that doesn’t volunteer to go fight a war.