Argumentative Essay: The Status Of Women In The Military

serve in combat positions, the burden of a reinstatement of the draft in the event of a national emergency should be shared equally with both women and men being. The changing of the Military Selective Services Act to a gender-neutral Act will help broaden perceptions and expectations of what women can do. Men and women have fought together in combat for years now. It used to be an unrealistic possibility that the selective service would require women to register. Some say that women are not qualified to serve in the military, but the statistics show that women are perfectly capable to go into combat. For example, there are already women who serve our country in the armed forces. According to Gabrielle Fromer, “Women account for 16.8% of the active duty officer corps and 15% of the enlisted corps. Approximately 280,000 women were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.” Women are capable of going into combat; the 280,000 women that were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan provide proof that women can succeed while serving in combat. Having the draft be gender neutral would allow women to be seen as qualified counterparts in combat.

There is a distinctive physical difference between a man and a woman. The physical ability of a woman can be much less than a man’s physical ability. The down side to women getting drafted is that women have a smaller physical anatomy than a man. According to Mackubin Thomas Owens, is that “ the average female solider is at least five inches shorter than her male counterpart and has half the upper body strength.” Women do not have the muscular strength that men do; this would make it difficult for them to carry the equipment they would need in combat. If a small woman who weighed 150 pounds was required to drag an injured