Men, Women, Wars and Fighting in Ukraine

There’s a popular idea (in some circles) regarding women and war that’s resurfacing due to the conflict in Ukraine. It’s the idea that women are super lucky because we get to flee violence with the children and elderly, while the men are heroes because they stick around and do most of the fighting.

I remember about fifteen years ago listening to Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s popular call in talk program called “The Doctor Laura Show”. A military wife called in and asked for advice on something related to her husband’s deployment. I don’t remember the details of her question, but I remember Dr. Laura telling her, “You aren’t the one deployed and getting shot at. You aren’t the one who might get injured or killed. You don’t get to complain, especially not to him, because what he’s going through is so much worse than what you’re experiencing.”

I just happen to be an army wife myself, with several long years of deployments during early motherhood under my belt. I know from experience that while some men are on the frontlines, in modern warfare many more of them are safely stationed on large bases with no real risk of physical harm. Some even enjoy deployments because of the extended break it gives them from adulthood and the responsibilities of family life. Telling this wife not to complain about her stressful situation felt unfair and unkind, because I’d been that woman before and I knew how difficult it can be. 

This attitude that women should be grateful to men for providing military service and never complain is once again frequently on display, such as this TikTok page, and in many Reddit comments:

There are plenty of relevant arguments against these idea, such as the facts that…

1. Many women do indeed fight. 
2. Women who want to be in infantry positions face enormous obstacles to do so – largely obstructed by men. 
3. Women and girls are generally not taught fighting and military skills like their male counterparts are, and it’s unfair to expect them to magically know these things once war starts.
4. Women die less on the battlefield during wars but more in the aftermath from starvation, disease and tyranny, and women are raped and pillaged and taken as sexual slaves, so to pretend that they are relaxing in safety while men shoulder all the physical suffering is absurd. 

I’m not going to delve further into any of those very reasonable arguments, but rather talk about how silly it feels to be to be praising the men (in general) for protecting us when it is the men (in general) who are starting these conflicts in the first place. Yes, the Ukrainian military right now is a majority male force protecting a majority female population – but are they protecting and saving the women from something other women have done, or is there something that femininity and female qualities have done to create this horror show? No, they aren’t. They’re protecting the women from other men in other patriarchal societies who seek to dominate and control others through violence and conquest. 

If we’re going to divide war efforts into these neat categories of men, women, children and the elderly, let’s also organize it in a different hypothetical way to make it easier to think about. What if society was divided into categories of say, kindergarten teachers, construction workers, dentists and warmongers? Only one category of people has the tendency to start fights, and the rest just want to live in peace with everyone else. When another country’s warmongers come around and start to battle for land, the invaded country’s warmongers fight back. On the one hand, all the peace loving groups are grateful that someone will step up and fight for them – but on the other hand, the only reason anyone is fighting at all is because the warmongers are constantly starting wars with each other. How do you express your gratitude for those who are fighting for you while at the same time acknowledging that the warmongering system they are part of is the problem? They are only being praised for ending the problem that they started in the first place. 

As a woman who does not fight in the army, I am grateful for the men who do. At the same time, I realize there would likely be a dramatic decrease in wars to fight in at all if women dominated world politics instead of men. When there are more women in a country’s legislature it significantly decreases the chances that a conflict will be resolved with military violence, so pretending that the men are hapless sacrificial lambs dying at the whims of the women they serve is wrong. We praise men for fighting in wars that only exist because of men in the first place. 

This is a global nightmare and my heart goes out to everyone in Ukraine – male or female – and I hope that this invasion and the needless suffering ends soon. I know there are many selfless and heroic men who fight for their countries, and this is not a criticism of them. Good men are hurt in patriarchal and misogynistic systems, too – and war is a prime example of this. It makes men the protectors and aggressors (and women the weaker and more helpless victims). Is the system really all that awesome? Wouldn’t we prefer a system that includes men and women at equal levels in international governments that primarily brings peace instead of the current male dominated one that brings so much war? 

(If you are interested, here’s a link to another post I wrote in 2020 where I shared some of my experiences as a military wife.)