As the Pentagon's gradual reforms recognise, women's march toward equality in the US military means more combat roles
Rick Santorum has lady problems. Big ones.
Of course, you'll remember that the rightwing Republican presidential candidate had the cojones to say that rape babies are a gift from God – and that he wouldn't let his own little girl get an abortion if she were impregnated via sexual assault. Sounds like a real gent, right?
Santorum's recent statements on women in combat, however, demonstrate that this pol is not just out of touch with American women's reproductive concerns. Rather, they reflect both Santorum's own retrograde sexism and a general misunderstanding of the military and US workforce.
Santorum said last week that he opposes a recent Pentagon decision to open 14,000 combat positions – such as tank mechanic and fire detection specialist jobs – to women. He told CNN's John King:
"I think that can be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interests of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved."
He also said that: "Men have emotions when you see a woman in harm's way."
The surprising thing here isn't simply that Santorum didn't follow up with a mood motif, with a PMS or period remark. What's shocking is that Santorum thinks that women should be barred from combat because their presence would make military settings "emotional" – a sentiment that reflects nothing more than the age-old notion of female hysteria. He also thinks that women – hot-blooded temptresses that we are – would infect male soldiers with these strength-sapping, emotion things.
(If you deconstruct his rationale, Santorum seems to think that guys will act as stoic enemy-killers in an all-male environment because men don't have emotions unless they are around females. PTSD, anyone?)
Santorum's statements don't just insult servicemen, as well as service women; they are also rooted in factual error. Though women have long been technically barred from serving in the proverbial trenches, modern warfare's definition of combat – especially in the Middle East – is very much a gray area.
As detailed in a recent issue of Ms Magazine, many all-female teams gather intel from conservative Muslim women, who will not speak with male soldiers because of religious concerns. Women also diffuse bombs and lead convoys, among countless other dangerous duties. They get by the combat rule by being deployed as "attachments", but news reports routinely make clear that women obviously do battle right alongside their male counterparts.
NPR reports that 144 American women have been killed and 865 wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. To say that these fatalities and injuries can all be attributed to non-battle causes – and to denigrate women's concrete sacrifices and questioning their valor by calling them "emotional" – would be unconscionable and factually flawed.
Santorum's missplaced scruples aside, the real concern is that because of gender-based restrictions on "combat work" – many of which will remain despite the Pentagon's new ruling – women do not get the same combat training as men, as Ms Magazine notes. Obviously, this disparity in preparedness represents a significant risk to 15% of America's active armed forces.
Limiting official access to these jobs also perpetuates the problem of military sexual assault. Reports from other traditionally male-dominated fields, such as firefighting, suggest that rape is no longer institutionally tolerated once women have a strong presence in said fields. The Pentagon's decision, though a step in the right direction, does not allow women to serve on the front lines, which will prove a hindrance for female advancement in the armed forces.
Frankly, it's shameful in 2012 that we still cannot serve in infantry units, experience that is requisite for gaining promotion – especially when so many other countries seem to have no problems whatsoever with females in these capacities.
Santorum's misguided sentiments have no place in military policy. And the belief system they reflect – Santorum's disapproval of women working outside the home – should have no place in 21st-century American culture.