Saturday 21 June 2008

Equality: Hypocrisy In Death

Two events this week that have sparked some passionate debate in Britain. The first was the death of 26 year old Sarah Bryant, now infamous for being the first British servicewoman to be killed in Afghanistan when she and three others died in a roadside bomb attack.
The tragic death of such a young woman inevitably debate centered around should women be sent to serve in conflicts with the suggestion from some being that they should be given jobs 'behind the lines'.
The nature of the war in Afghanistan is that there is no front line, as soon as you land you are in the thick of it so regardless of if you are infantry or intelligence, you are equally in peril.
If the armed forces are prepared to sign up young women, and there are women prepared to do the job, then they must show equality when it comes to the less publicised areas of their chosen career.
Britain has lost 106 members of its armed forces in Afghanistan and although the Prime Minister pays lip service to the dead and injured each week, this death seems to have struck a chord that the deaths of 105 men never seemed to chime.
To a grieving parent or child, whether it is their mother, father, son or daughter that dies at the hand of the Taliban, it is just as much a life altering catastrophe.
You either have equality and ask everyone to do the same job with the same consequences or don't let women into the job in the first place if you don't want to see them getting killed.
To the Government and newspapers like the Murdoch owned Sun, that were so gung-ho to send our men and women there and are shouting the loudest on this topic, i say too late. You got what you wanted so deal with the consequences.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent Lucy. The dead are the dead, no matter what the sex...

Nog said...

Humans are humans regardless of whether they are women, who belong at home cooking, cleaning, sewing, and dutifully obeying their husbands' every command, or men who, being by nature superior, belong in high paying jobs which will enable to buy more chickens and pot roasts for their wives to cook.

But seriously now, if y'all ladies want to get killed in battle more power to you and if we boys want to sew and cook and clean more power to us. There just isn't any meaningful difference between men and women that marks this one death as such a big deal.

So you are most correct. It isn't 105 men and 1 woman its 106 individuals, none any less human than any other. This "oh heavens! it was a woman!" stuff is crap.

-Nog

Anonymous said...

Last time I looked, there was a meaningful difference between men and women! I haven't seen too many men giving birth lately, have you, Nog?

Cause in America things might be different. Looking at some of those nasal, peroxided, yelling women on American television I could well believe that they have balls and who knows what else.

Anyone who claims that men and women are the same needs to see a psychiatrist!

Cheers.

Falling on a bruise said...

I agree with you Nog, apart from the woman containing the equipment to give birth and the man having the equipment to instigate birth, there is no meaningful difference between us. To say otherwise puts the argument for equality back generations.
I will make my appointment at the psychiatrist first thing in the morning david.

Anonymous said...

No need to, Lucy.

I eagerly await your next post, the one about how the Olympics should no longer have different events for men and women. Seeing they are equal and the only difference is in birthing equipment (which is not meaningful), let's put them all in together, show just how equal they are. Same applies to soccer, tennis, boxing.

And while we're at it, let's do away with women's hospitals, girl's only schools, women-only toilets, dresses, maternity leave, etc.

Yeah, bring on equality I say.

Falling on a bruise said...

Leaving aside the reproductive element, name something that a man can do that a woman can't david. There are female sportsmen, politicians, astronauts, military, artists, authors and whatever other discipline you care to mention unless you can think of something else i have overlooked that a woman is unable to do.