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Women and the

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By Julie Fisher

There has never been a registration without a draft and there has never been a draft without a subsequent war. With America facing the gravest threat since the Vietnam era of a return to the draft, thousands of women and men across the country are rising up and saying, "No to the draft! No to the U.S. war drive!" Yet many women have remained on the sidelines, claiming that this is solely a man's fight. Others have actually taken the position that the draft is a viable vehicle for equalizing women's roles  ́in society.

Equality to Kill, Equality to Die

Often when people face discrimination they try to attain equality by becoming like their oppressors. Women have fallen into this trap. Some are trying to prove themselves equal in war. But what will they gain from such equality? They can take orders from a superior, just like men. They can die in battle, just like men. And they can kill, just like men.

The draft is a basic violation of freedom. If you are drafted and enter the military, you lose the rights to (1) live and work where you wish; (2) travel or not as you choose; (3) marry and raise a family; (4) live with the individual of your choice; and (5) speak freely and protest politically.

increased military spending has most heavily hit black and other minority women. Women must demand that less money be spent on the military and more on the programs needed for our equality and a healthy economy. We are in a fight against rapidly increasing prices with rapidly decreasing sources of income. We are in a fight for our very survival.

Life for Women in the Military

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Of the women who do turn to the military with hopes of equal opportunity and guaranteed pay, few find their hopes realized. More women recruits (46.7 percent) attempt to get discharged from the service before their first term of enlistment ends than male recruits (33.2 percent). Catherine Carpenter, head of the Pentagon's Equal Opportunity program, says the reason for nearly half the women being granted early release from the military is a significant lack of acceptance by their male peers of women in nontraditional roles.

Women are often deprived of larger military paychecks because they are not allowed in any combat positions. Of the non-combatant positions available to women, many are in traditional career areas, such as secretaries, typists, and clerks. Although non-traditional positions are open to women in theory, they are often closed in fact because of inadequate housing or other facilities. The armed services justify keeping women in low skill, low paying slots by claiming that women will be kept off the front lines in the event-of-war. But in truth many women are already stationed in combat zones although-their-positions

The military is just another name for involuntary servitude and cannot be used as a means of allegedly promoting the equal rights of women. Thus, one can only question the grounds of the American Civil Liberties Union's court action-that the draft is un-although their positions are described as nonconstitutional because it discriminates against young women. The struggle for women's equality is a struggle for the betterment of women's rights. Few people would want equality at the expense of some of our civil rights, men's as well as women's.

The draft is just one step our government has taken on a soon to be irreversible road to war. The struggle for women's equality is inseparable from the struggle for peace and against the draft. War requires the suppression of all opposition to the status quo. Among the first casualties in an all-out call for war would be the rights of black and other minority women. Affirmative action programs and daycare centers would close as more and more of the federal budget feeds the war machine. At best the same thing that happened to women during World War II would happen again: women would be allowed into the factories and trained in skilled jobs, only to be laid off when the war ended and the men returned. War is not the solution in the fight for the equality of women.

Economic Conscription

To be successful in our struggle against the draft, we must realize that in reality the draft has never ended for black and other minority women and men. The high rate of unemployment and lack of job opportunities has led to an economic draft among the working class.

The struggle for jobs is an integral part of the struggle for women's equality, but the military cannot be viewed as a job-creating institution. Increased military spending actually costs jobs. One billion dollars spent on education creates 187,299 jobs; the same amount spent on health care creates 138,939 jobs; if spent on construction it creates 100,072 jobs; or if on mass transit 92,071 jobs. But $1 billion spent on the military creates only 75,710 jobs..

Rising unemployment due to the loss of jobs from

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combatant. In the next war some women will kill and some will die. Does it really matter whether the position is described as combatant or non-combatant?

Maltreatment in the service does not end with job discrimination. Loss of freedom and harassment, although shared by all people in the military, are particularly felt by women. In the Army and Air Force single parents, the majority of whom are women, are forced either to give up custody of their children to the other parent or put them up for adoption prior to entering the military. This particular regulation is being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union in a nationwide class action suit on the grounds that it violates the right of a single parent to have a family.

Women also find themselves under heavy psychological pressure and sexual harassment. Nor is the pressure only psychological: rape is the fastest rising crime in the military, at twice the rate of the civilian sector. It is also the hardest crime to prove. Women

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recruits, is it any wonder that many have opted to become pregnant, since pregnancy is a guaranteed way out of the service? Should a woman have to choose between four years of involuntary servitude and twenty years of nurturing in order to survive? Is this the way the military plans to make us equal?

Another form of sexual harassment is now being used in the Navy. It recently occurred on the U.S.S. Norton where eight women were accused of alleged homosexual acts. It takes only one person's accusation of alleged homosexual activities on a ship to start an investigation, no matter how suspect that person's motives might be. Suits may take months. Few women can afford the attorney fees necessary to pay for such a prolonged lawsuit and are forced to leave the service with a less than honorable discharge. Accusations of homosexuality have been based on the flimsiest of evidence, such as one women having another as the beneficiary of her life insurance policy. The point, of course, is not whether or not these women are "guilty", but that the Navy has the audacity to pry into areas of recruits' lives that have nothing whatsoever to do with their ability to perform their jobs. It is just one more instance of the military; attempting to have total control over people's lives.

This is Our Fight!

The only route to the winning of full equality for all women is to join with men in saying "No to the draft! No to the U.S. war drive! Give us money for jobs and not for. wars." Here in Cleveland women can take up the fight by joining the local chapter of the Committee Against Registration and the Draft (CARD). CARD is a coalition of over fifty national peace, civil rights, women's, students', religious and political organizations. To find out more about CARD, write Emergency Coalition to Defend Students' Rights, Box 109, University Center, Room 301, Cleveland State University, 2121 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115.

Women and men, black and white, do not want to die together in war, but to live together in peace. Equality to destroy our sisters and brothers in other countries will not move our struggle for equality at home one inch forward.

Peace is essential to the fight for women's equality.

Portions of the above are reprinted in whole or in part from literature of various organizations, including: Women for Racial and Economic Equality, Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, American Friends Service Committee, and various

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who claim to have been raped are often accused of having seduced the alleged rapist.

With all this psychological pressure on women

Nicole Hollander

newspapers. I would also like to thank the people! spoke to from various organizations, including. CCCO and the ACLU.

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