Military Women: Past, Present, Future (WisCon 30 Panel)
... women in military
... notes starting at 9:19am; panel started at 8:30!!!
Nancy Jane Moore: there's still a bias for reproduction - we have lots of kids
Delany: issues of women in the military & status of people gay of both genders are basically contoured by population probelm ... and for humanity to survive we have to stop having so many children, by a major factor - there have to be several generations where birthrate is not brought down by 5, 7%, but by 40% - and when that happens maybe we'll get back to a sensible way to live. but in 2000 years we've gone from a species with maybe 500 million to 6 billion - that's insane.
NJM: in your lifetime we've more than doubled - i knew it had grown a lot - somebody born in 1960 - the population doubled and we already knew about it. shift ... expanded roles for women can be a positive part of making that shift. you don't have to have children to be a real woman, you don't have to kill to be a real man.
audience: maybe if we have fewer people we won't need wars
delany: war is very effective for bringing down population
Victoria Gaydosik - disease is even more effective
delany: why do you thinkw e have a world aids epidemic
VG: ... go out and fight diesease. part of that fight might be exposing yourself to it to build antibiotics. that would be a form of service, in warfare, you would be risking your life, in say a hot zone ... what are the diseases so deadly, say ... build a resistance to spread thru population ... how do we know we're not already at war with some other species sending not bombs but microbes
jane susan fletcher - science fiction trivia question - ... enemy spacecraft crashes and pilot is a pregnant woman who was put in there b/c she has faster reflexes ...
njm: chip has done that
jsf: you're thinking of heinlein in starship troopers pointed out women have faster reflexes
njm: don't you do that (chip?) in -- ?
delany: i don't remember ... laughter
aud: ... combat, what does that say about genetic mixing
vict: would pull it back
david haseman
aud: i don't think the joint chiefs say jeepers we don't have enough of gany gene in our mix and go and invade. seriously i'm tryin gto figure out if there are background genetic issues that drive us how do they bubble up thru the chain of command
dh: talking about two diff things - authors who are fantasy writers who are dealing w/ genetic imperatrive (having children) and also writers who are near future, far future & alt history, who do not have to do that, two diff discussions in same room 7 i can see your confusion.
njm: i think the genetic mixing sort of thing is something we don't understand biologically, but there are certain things we do b/c ... life will out. we do things that will preserve life that have nothing to do w/ our conscious decisionmaking but that go back alon g the way one celled creatures become two cells ... there must be a biologist in the room; don't call me on it ... i don't think anyone ever thought of genetic mixing, which is usually considered a bad thing culturally, socially, but is a good thing genetically. ... biology was outing pushing us out there to do it. i don't know if it's true but i think it's one theory in terms of survival making as much diversity in the human race.
VG: talking about human race but we have also have national interests and nations have economic interests
JF: ... oil ... control
aud: not a part of modern warfare but ancient warfare, women considered a prize - sexual gratification and happened to get pregnant ... genetic mixing may have been a byproduct
aud: no doub tthat some of the genetic cleansing nthat's gone on has been driven by this
aud: so consequences may not have been a goal, just a side-effect
aud: just to add to comment about interbreeding, one of the recent articles in last month's new scientist was looking at ... two attempts, two periods in which humans diverged from apes but seemed to go back together again ... so genetic variety with interbreeding
JSF: wart is usually about controlling land. what war does is assert control of land, that's what armies tare there for. and one thing about ... future ... democracies tend to be far less warlike than any other form of govt. ... b/w end of ww2 and outbreak of fighting in fighting in yugoslavia ... can't think of war b/w two democracies
aud: germany & france
- they had the forms but not the actual democracy
JSF: a future of democracies where war gets less & less common ... b/c democracies tend to not have war b/c it's high risk so unless they're certain it's going to win they're more likely to talk their way around it.
NJM: but there is a panel called are we living in a dictatorship yet - and the fragility of a democracy - the sheer fact that we're ... democracy is a fragile thing; germany was technically a democracy but had already lost most of what made it democracy. a good argument in favor of participatory govts of various kinds ... but i'm not sure we can count on it.
VG: sometimes my probably most cynical thought about the military is the reason we keep having conflicts break out is that we have to have training grounds fo rnext generation of military leaders.
JF: ... brotherinlaw fighting in ireland ... does confer an advatnage. but northern ireland actual fatalities of england were very small but did mean that every british soldier had done a tour and had had an experience of commanding ... war games but actually experience
DH: as i said my dad was a grad and i'm a grad, and if you wantn to find a bunch of pacifiests who do not want to get shot at, go to the military and say hey what do you think of this. ... i can promise you that the men & women in the armed forces are not saying oh yeah i really want to do this. there's the 2% psychopaths but those people are also running around in ny & dc shooting people, and they're in the military, and also in the officer corps and i can tell you that ... [incident about officer finding someone to shoot mayor]
aud: economic issues of recruiting ... in 70s women went into law enforcement etc so they could afford family. two different levels in which people are making experience.
DH: people who were in reserve & national guard are expecting to do it for their state & country ... they're expecting to be deployed to california in time of earthquake, not to iraq
aud (LQ): race/minority recruiting ... service
NJM: so many women ... this is a job. for women, you can work at mcdonald's or to got military. military doesnt pay a lot better but has a lot of benefits. ... people thinking service, but after sept 11th they're thinking i'll be available, but they're thinking how am i going to protect my neighbors ...
JF: armies were pretty much invented by romans ... in advance ... armiest in historic times were very different. romans invented professional army. ... idea of brniging in the young and disinfecting. ... send them somewhere else.
VG: the military is something of a throwback to an aristocratic system.
aud (LQ): spanish civil war
aud: israeli army moved ... original army moved from very informal and moved to command and control. changed that there is a professional army structure.
aud: ... dutch army is unionized ... but they don't have a lot of combat experience
aud: maybe that's saying something right there ...
aud: they haven't been invaded by germany that way
aud: i'd like to see more sf experiments about moving to a society where they don't have war any more. i'm thinking of experiments about women as booty, i don't know about women as booty, but women are still dying, rape & murder in war, women are still involved w/ war very much, and ndavid i'm just wondering what would happen if not nec w/ what david s talking about re: women on front lines, let's not even go there ... military will evolve, why not train women in combat not to go fight, but when you get invaded, men are protecting women but what about women back home ... they're vulnerable. why not train women to protect themselves so that rape & pillage element is taken out. and what if your booty can fight back. would that dissipate ... i know countries that everyone requires a gun at home
aud: switzerland
NJM: yeah they have a high percentage of women murders too
DH: why do schools have a higher percentage of ... army navy have done research on physical qualities of trained men & women and show that they're the same and folks who say that women are smaller & weaker haven't studied women who are trained
aud: women are let off the hook too easily
DH: not that they're let off the hook but they're crippled
aud: i'm a pacifist, i don't like th eidea of training herslef, but nancy trains herself
dh: you can learn martial arts and be a pacifist. if you exercsercise pain on someone else as part of martial arts you've both lost. ... training yourself to establish a limit, you can come thi sfar and no farther, and you train everyone, men and women alike -
aud: do you think that would be a deterrent hundreds of years from now
njm/dh: yes!
njm; i think if you train that, eliminate that victimization, i think that maybe the step you take toward getting a society without war.
nobody ever talks about it ...
aud (LQ): i agree w/ what you're saying but can you distinguish it b/w heinlein's mantra that an armed society is a polite one.
njm: heinlein's view, that's a primitive one
dh: i would say that rather an armed society is a civil onee, i would say rather that a prepared society is a ... i draw the line at arms ... offering and protecting space is civility ... i still have cards if anybody is interested in contacting that professor at west point
aud: i would say an armed society in israel - they're rude but don't try to rob a bank
last comments
DH: thank you for one diff b/w theis panel this year & last year. last year we were saying could women be in the military. thank you for letting us be able to take past that.