War, the Draft, sending men to kill --Is that sexism?

[caseymoz]

36. No, not sexist.

The draft was perceived as a necessity, and in fact, in the US was only implemented after hostilities had started. In other words, reluctantly and as a necessary evil.

Whereas the sex slaves were not. Almost every country did not do what the Japanese did. Oh, other belligerents did other violations of rights, but the Japanese could have very well conducted the war without sex slavery.

In other words: nobody questioned the draft. Things had always been like that. It was a war, they needed soldiers, they weren't going to question it. Whereas putting women into sex slavery was questionable. So, someone had to consciously put the policy into place. That was a direct act of sexism.

The other thing is, the worldwide culture was different. Telling soldiers to fight was not considered in any way as awful as telling the soldiers to bugger each other for sexual relief. You could bet that order would have never come down. The fact is, they either did not consider it as shameful if the women performed sex acts for men, or they did not think the women mattered. If they had died "in service," nobody was going to write a letter to the family lauding their daughter's sacrifice for the country.

To underscore this fact, the Japanese did not draft their own women like that. No, they drafted Korean women into it. I don't think they impressed Korean men into military service. So, there was some other shameful quality to it that carried the sexism. It was made to shame them and put their country in its place. You could bet that these women are owed compensation.

Any order our military to commit rape or violate a person is an illegal order, but they can order a man or women in service to kill. It underscores that there is a certain psychological quality to rape which is even more shameful than murder. I'm not saying it's rational, but it's there.

So, I'm sorry to disagree. Sexism comes down to the emotional reason why a decision is made, not necessarily to the gender of the people who are burdened with it.