My guess – just off the top of my head, mind you – is that the answer here would be that the mothers in question were, well, volunteers. Essentially advocating sexual discrimination, Parker manages in a very brief space to say a very many nutty things. Take this, for example:
Just because we may not "feel" humiliated doesn't mean we're not. In the eyes of Iran and other Muslim nations, we're wimps.
Sorry, Ms Parker, but that's exactly what it means. If you don’t feel humiliated, you aren’t. Simple as that. Besides, in “the eyes of Iran and other Muslim nations,” we are far worse than mere wimps. We’re also, amusingly enough, misogynists for letting, well, women like you “dress like prostitutes.” Who cares what “Iran and other Muslim nations” think about our concepts of personal liberty and sexual equality? You might as well tell us most witch doctors take a dim view of MRIs and antibiotics.
Here’s another choice tidbit:
Rape, though not a likely risk in this case, is a consistent argument against putting women in or near combat. While advocates for women in combat argue that men are also raped, there is an important difference. Women are raped by men, which, given the inherent power differential between the sexes, raises women's rape to another level of terror.
Huh? Men aren’t raped by men? Aren’t equally or maybe even more terrified at the prospect? Does Parker really think that because of this alleged “inherent power differential between the sexes,” we manly men are somehow better equipped psychologically or physically to just, um, suck it up and take it like a man? Jeez!
Look, I’m entirely sympathetic to arguments, first, that young children need their mothers more than their fathers and that this is a sufficient reason for women with such children not to enter or remain in the military. Where I clearly draw the line with Parker, however, is whether they should be permitted to make that decision for themselves and, yes, by extension for their children. As between those mothers making that call or leaving it to the state or the likes of Parker, I'd say the answer is a no-brainer. (Sadly, it does not follow from something being a no-brainer that many people, even including those with brains, won't get it wrong.)
Second, I’m all about the argument that physical standards should be set high enough to get the job done in the infantry or any other combat position, and if any particular woman can’t meet those standards, then she has no business being in that position. But the same is just as true of men. God forbid the defense of my nation should ever fall to needing, well, wimps like me to fight off the enemy in hand to hand combat. The point here, though, is that sex has nothing to do with who is or is not physically capable of getting the job done. Have the forces of Political Correctness undermined that principle? Yes. Does that have any friggin' thing to do whatever with whether any particular woman (a young Janet Reno springs to mind) would be capable of meeting the physical requirements? Of course not.
Still, my read of Parker’s real concern is that it isn’t about average physical strength differences between the sexes or even about motherhood. It’s really all about the risk of rape, I think. And she may be right, for all I know, at least in her own mind. Only, that is, I mean, but, on the other hand, um, just who the hell is she to make that decision for every other woman in the Western world?
Oh yeah, that’s right, she’s that writer with roughly the same sexual politics as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Which reminds me that there is at least one thing Parker got exactly right.
“Positioning women to become pawns of propaganda, meanwhile, is called aiding and abetting the enemy,” Parker wrote.
Just so, Ms Parker. When will you be turning yourself in?
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