Thoughts on a More Somber Note

I thought what Linda Chavez said about the Iraqi prisoner issue struck most true. My gut reaction on hearing that many of the accused guards were women was, "Wait a minute, women don't do that kind of thing." They don't . . . unless they're trying hard to prove that they can be "one of the guys." Women are wired to want male approval. If their situation and the character of the men around them makes it impossible for them to attain it in traditional ways, they will use whatever means they have.

Hey, I remember being a junior high tomboy, first becoming dimly aware that male attention was desirable, and proceeding to beat as many boys as possible in arm-wrestling contests. Eventually the boys got bigger and I had the sense and training to realize that this was not the most effective approach. (I debated them instead. But I wound up marrying the guy who could out-debate me. ;-) )

Systemized killing of human beings is a disgusting, but sometimes necessary, job. It is a distinctly masculine job: physically, hormonally, emotionally. It is the antithesis of giving life, which is the exclusive province of women. The more women are assigned to perform that job, the more they have to deny who they are. Yet they are still young, surrounded by attractive young men, and earnestly desiring male attention. So some of them try to get it by out-guying the guys.

Women could tame the Wild West because they could go to the West and still be women. They could even take up arms on occasion, when they were defending their own homes and families, without denying that role. But women can't civilize the military, which by nature is anti-civil and anti-life. What they can do is abdicate their role as an outside check on what the men do.