Faith Fellowship Church…PO Box 1586…Broken Arrow, OK 74013…Pastor Terry Dashner
I just can’t be a Woman –
Written from a man’s perspective of course—
I firmly believe that men and women are equal in most everything. Women are just as intelligent as their counter parts. Women are just as talented as men are, and women are equal with men in the eyes of God. (Please do not touch the delete button until I’ve spoken my peace.)
“ Dave Bischel [National Guardsman, 870th Military Police unit] was quoted in the New York Post on May 14, 2004, as saying, ‘There were lots of affair... ”
Through the years I’ve tried to embrace the feminist movement. I’ve welcomed equal rights of women, but I’ve stopped short of championing equal roles. With all do respect to my wife and mother, I still believe there are many female roles that I can not fulfill as a man; therefore, I must tell you that I’m not going to fill a woman’s shoes any longer.
You might be wondering why I’m making this confession. You’re probably okay with the statement that as a man, I’m at my best being a man. So you ask, “What gives?” It’s nothing personal, ladies. For one, it has to do with Abu Ghraib.
According to Cal Thomas in writing about the incident said this, “Dave Bischel [National Guardsman, 870th Military Police unit] was quoted in the New York Post on May 14, 2004, as saying, ‘There were lots of affairs. There was all kinds of adultery and alcoholism and all kinds of crap going on.’”
Then Cal goes on writing about something that has concerned me from its beginning—coed basic training in the military. Thomas writes this, “The one dirty little secret that no one appears interested in discussing as a contributing factor to the whorehouse [“whore” is a Biblical word from the KJV] behavior at Abu Ghraib is coed basic training and what it has done to upset order and discipline.”
I couldn’t agree more. I remember the speeches of the feminist pundits who 15 years ago told us that putting young men and women together in basic training would not disrupt the focus of military training; however, their idea of male and female cohesion in the military overlooked a major oversight. That oversight is now come calling with much pain for our nation. Some military roles that were once reserved for men need to return to the men.
When the military academies started their coed practices several years ago, we started hearing about sex scandals almost immediately like the one at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. In 1997 former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, R-Kansas, headed an independent advisory committee that studied coed basic training. The committee unanimously found that bundling men and women together in such situations ‘is resulting in less discipline, less unit cohesion and more distraction from training programs.’
A year later, the House passed legislation to end coed basic training, but the Senate called for a congressional commission instead. Key findings of the 1999 commission escaped notice, but in 2002 an Army briefing concluded that gender-integrated basic training was ‘not efficient’ and ‘effective’ only in sociological terms. But, should sociology be a concern of people who are supposed to know how to fight wars?
One thing I know for sure about young men and women in the sexual prime of their lives is this. If they are put together in extended, overnight-training situations, they come forward later about female “so and so” being involved in sexual activities with male “so and so.”
I also know that training is not as focused as it should be when young men and women train together. Young men will either show off and get injured or hold back, afraid of the embarrassment before the ladies, and not push themselves to their full potential. There are some things that men do better when they’re around men only. It’s true for young women as well. I think the only military branch that has refused to coed is the Marine Corps. Is it any wonder why the Marines are still the elite fighting force of our nation’s military (as a Navy veteran it hurts me to write that).
Think what you want of me, but I’m on to something here. There are some roles women fill better then men do. I’m going so far as to say that there are some female roles that I can not fill, period.
I think the Bible has some wisdom regarding gender roles. Although male and female are equal in the eyes of God, when a man and woman marry, the two become one according to Scripture. They are one unit. And every unit must have a headship role or the unit does not move forward (Democracy v. the Republic).
That’s why God said that, in the family relationship, there are certain roles that must be filled by one gender only. The Bible says that the husband is the head of the family in the role of leadership before God. He is commanded to lead his wife and children in the way of Christ. The wife is commanded to submit to the Husband’s authority to follow after Christ. The children are commanded to obey their parents in the Lord. When the family unit functions this way, things move forward the Bible way. When they operate outside these parameters, things get very confusing.
The seven American soldiers who were photographed engaging in perverted sexual acts and humiliating enemy prisoners to simulate the same were not the norm of our nation’s military. That needs to be said. I believe for the most part, that our men and women in uniform are professionals and conduct themselves in a professional manner on and off the battlefield. The idea that a coed military caused the Abu-Ghraib scandal is ludicrous; however, I do think that it was one factor. I think that one could certainly argue that as long as the military continues to integrate male and female training, America is going to witness more escapades of the same perverted kind.
I don’t want to seem out of step here, but I don’t recall one incident of pregnancy on my ship when I served in the Navy in the early 1970’s. That’s because there were no females on my ship. A female could have certainly done my job aboard ship, but since no females were allowed to serve at sea, there were no infamous, sexual scandals aboard ship to report. Services aboard ship were reserved for males only because of what could happen when males and females get together, alone at sea. And now that those traditional male roles are being given to women, the Navy has a crisis on its hands. It’s in a quandary over the pregnancy explosion among its female sailors, stationed at sea.
I may never convince the modern feminist that some roles in life are best filled by one gender only. I may never convince this nation that a revival of morality is needed more then ever to awaken our sense of honor before God and country. I may never achieve the impossible in life, but I will take this notion to the grave: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The military had a good thing going when it trained females in one basic training camp and the males in another. When they tried to improve on something that didn’t need improvement, they broke it. And now, at the expense of the American taxpayer, the military will revise policies, looking more closely at traditional gender roles. If they had only interviewed me or any other American male before they changed the first system, I would have told them—there are some things in life that are better left alone. Being the man that I am, I just can’t function very well in the role of a woman.
Pastor T.
Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is soon coming for men and women.
About the Author:
Pastors a small church in
Oklahoma. U.S. Navy veteran of the Viet Nam era, retired police officer for the city of
Tulsa, and father of three grown children. Married for 28 years with two grand children--London rests with Jesus in Heaven.
