"Every country that has experimented with women in actual combat has abandoned the idea, and the notion that Israel uses women in combat is a feminist myth"
About this Quote
Schlafly’s sentence is built like a door slammed shut: it opens with the authority of a sweeping historical verdict ("Every country"), then locks it with a contemptuous punchline ("feminist myth"). The specific intent isn’t to debate military policy so much as to foreclose it. By treating women’s combat participation as a failed “experiment,” she frames equality not as a right or capability but as a reckless social trial run that responsible nations supposedly discontinue. It’s a classic Schlafly move: convert a political claim into a common-sense warning.
The subtext is less about battlefield logistics than about policing gender boundaries. “Actual combat” works as a purity test, implying that anything short of front-line infantry is PR, clerical work, or propaganda. That lets her dismiss counterexamples without engaging them. The Israel reference is strategic: Israel is often invoked in American arguments as a hard-nosed security state, the last place you’d expect indulgent liberal symbolism. Calling it a “feminist myth” tries to discredit not only feminists’ facts but their credibility, suggesting they’re powered by narrative rather than reality.
Context matters: Schlafly rose as the face of organized backlash to second-wave feminism, particularly the Equal Rights Amendment. Her rhetoric thrives on rhetorical shortcuts that sound empirical while staying conveniently unsourced. The line plays to an audience primed to distrust “feminism” as ideology, turning a complex, evolving global military debate into a morality tale about what happens when you let social movements rewrite nature.
The subtext is less about battlefield logistics than about policing gender boundaries. “Actual combat” works as a purity test, implying that anything short of front-line infantry is PR, clerical work, or propaganda. That lets her dismiss counterexamples without engaging them. The Israel reference is strategic: Israel is often invoked in American arguments as a hard-nosed security state, the last place you’d expect indulgent liberal symbolism. Calling it a “feminist myth” tries to discredit not only feminists’ facts but their credibility, suggesting they’re powered by narrative rather than reality.
Context matters: Schlafly rose as the face of organized backlash to second-wave feminism, particularly the Equal Rights Amendment. Her rhetoric thrives on rhetorical shortcuts that sound empirical while staying conveniently unsourced. The line plays to an audience primed to distrust “feminism” as ideology, turning a complex, evolving global military debate into a morality tale about what happens when you let social movements rewrite nature.
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| Topic | Military & Soldier |
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