[09725290216]

I cannot understand how German men can be expected to fight while women are exempt. It's pure sexism against men and also very insulting to women.

I'm opposed to conscription in general, but I live in Sweden with gender-neutral conscription laws, and I would do my best to defend my country if it became necessary. If I were a man in an alternate version of Sweden with male-only conscription, I would feel so disrespected and devalued by the state that I couldn't imagine myself defending it, so I would either join a non-state-affiliated resistance group or flee the country.

If I lived in Germany right now (even as a woman, but especially as a man), I would seriously consider emigrating to a more egalitarian country as soon as possible.

[raffael_de]

I think you ask the question wrong. There can be endless debates about whether woman should fight or not. The _real_ question is why only German men are restricted by the law. Even if women do not fight they should be subjected to the same restrictions as they'd have country-bound functions in a war scenario as well - be it fighting or not. And I'd even go a step further and argue that the rule should apply to each and everybody in Germany. It's kind of ridiculous that German men have their movement restricted because of a hypothetical defense situation while Ukrainian men are not just invited by Germany to avoid being drafted and they can come and go as they like.

Having said that. The real problem with that law is not even the law itself but how it came to being, which unveils a completely messed up and incompetent legislative procedure in the German government and parliament.

[ap99]

Women can help the front line fighters but if I was running a country I would not want to put a large number of women on the front, especially young women.

Sure they can fight and kill.

But a country that loses its ability to make more people won't last longer than a generation.

Two things a country needs from which all other needs derive: people and a border that can be defended.

Men historically get sacrificed to protect the border. And women "sacrificed" to make more people.

Food, entertainment, religion, government, taxes, education, etc... it's all to serve those two fundamental requirements.

[benterix]

> And women "sacrificed" to make more people.

By and large, women stopped "sacrificing" a while ago, globally - or at least reduced it by large numbers.

Which is completely fine.

But it makes the original point moot.

[ap99]

It's fine for now. Fast forward even 100 years and tell me what population numbers look like.

Then another 100 years.

[joquarky]

That's a big fat zero for both.

[illiac786]

And men did the same, no?

[asksomeoneelse]

If you are okay with men being forced to go to war by laws, are you also okay with women being forced to "make more people" by laws ?

[vocram]

I hate to call out the obvious, but sacrificing is mandated by laws only in one case.

[illiac786]

“By law“ is funny, as if it was all a legal case. I’m sure Putin respects all international laws.

[BikDk]

Come visit us, we got Germans of every race and color.

[charlie90]

Why make more people? Just import more immigrants to make up for the losses, it's the neo liberal way.

[nozzlegear]

This but unironically. Immigration is good, actually.

[ButlerianJihad]

At the risk of feeding this troll, I'll go for it here.

Men and women are essentially different in real biological ways, as well as emotional and socialization.

For millennia, women and children have been held innocent and protected. This is why Christian societies don't throw them on the frontlines as cannon fodder, but rather, the men go in front and the men fight, as expendables, while the woman and children can be protected far behind the front lines of any conflict.

Women can bear children, feed their infants, and care for families even while men are occupied or absent. Women are much more capable of restarting a civilization even when the men are decimated. It is a very logical and pragmatic decision to protect women and children from warfare and violence.

Conversely, armies of female warriors have enjoyed legendary status as especially fierce and undefeated. How many of us have enjoyed "Wonder Woman", "Calafia", Amazons, and the rest?

Furthermore, a soldier may be victimized by rape. SA of a male has different consequences than SA of a mature woman. You can imagine that a woman who becomes pregnant faces difficult decisions for the rest of her life. Again, the expendable nature of men makes us less susceptible to SA and ransom plots and other manipulation by the enemy.

So the trouble today, is that women are "empowered by equality" and demand every right and privilege that is due to men, and that extends to dirty horrible jobs, and fighting in combat. Women who are empowered by equality are also going to be subjected to responsibilities and duties that they didn't have before. Societies are simply coming up with no other choice but to put women in combat, because the women are doing every other job and it seems absurd to hold back.

Naturally, putting women in harm's way, and even conscripting them, eventually seems necessary if the adversary is doing it too. I am not sure that our Islamic or East Asian adversaries are doing this, but perhaps Westerners believe that we can thus gain the upper hand. I propose that it will disadvantage and disgrace us instead.

[u_sama]

> Men and women are essentially different in real biological ways, as well as emotional and socialization.

I fully agree, now, larger society doesn't and if all of my schooling is proof of it, feminism is the dominant discourse in Western Europe. So we can'be having women be fully equal in all spheres of society when it benefits women, but then remove them from every obligation those rights come with.

The full consequence of your ideas is that men and women are different people meaning it affects every sphere of life, and leads you to ask some unsavory questions, which doesn't mean curtailing women's rights necessarily but it does mean that the the way we model society and genders is opposite to reality, because when reality, like war, asks hard questions we default to the old order of men in the front and women in the factories.

[Grimburger]

I think you have a misconception of how modern militaries work and think every one is out with a gun fighting.

Only around 10% of the US military is in combat roles.

[u_sama]

The US military does not do combat, look at real engaged armies like the Ukranian/Russian one which are the closest examples to modern warfare between nation states.

[benterix]

How do you mean? I see daily videos of Russian men being killed by drones.

[u_sama]

I agree, I meant that armies engaged in conflicts are male like all armies have been in history, save the Soviets who had female battalions for propaganda purposes

[analognoise]

> or millennia, women and children have been held innocent and protected

This is a Victorian (or incel) look back at history.

[asksomeoneelse]

We already disgrace ourselves by having some of the core ideologies of our society being blatant lies.

We have been repeatedly told that "equality" is primordial to our values. That men had to forego their privileges in the name of it.

The hypocrisy of the defenders of those ideas suddenly being so complacent when we look at the other side of the coin is revolting.

[lemontheme]

Just curious – what privileges do you feel you've had to give up on the path to a slightly more equitable society?

Because as a man myself I honestly wouldn't be able to say which privileges I've lost that my forefathers enjoyed, besides sexism with impunity. In fact, I have it easier, for the time being at least. No military conscription for one. And with the recognition that the patriarchy hurts all I've been able to actualize myself in a way that is more authentic to myself than the constraints of past generations would have allowed.

[asksomeoneelse]

> what privileges do you feel you've had to give up on the path to a slightly more equitable society?

None. The privileges that I was supposed to enjoy thanks to my gender were either vastly exaggerated or already revoked.

But I still get to "enjoy" the measures installed to counterbalance and compensate for them anyway.

> No military conscription for one

Lucky you. I don't. And the voters for "equality" massively voted to keep it that way for me a few months ago [0]

[0] https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/2025/article/double-non-aux-i...

[benterix]

> That men had to forego their privileges in the name of it.

Care to name a few?

[general1465]

Like being paid more (because they work in more dangerous or risky jobs) or having higher suicide rate or being able to wear clothes repeatedly without being judged. Not being forced to wear makeup

[benterix]

I don't get it. People who take dangerous or risky jobs nobody else wants do get paid more. Higher suicide rate has nothing to do with some privileges being taken away. As for clothes, it depends on your social circle - in mine people couldn't care less. As for make up, I have no idea what you mean.

[jltsiren]

I guess it depends on what you are used to and what you have grown to expect.

Life is not fair, but you can learn to accept what is expected from you by the circumstances of your birth. I had to serve in the military, because I was born a man and a Finnish citizen. I accepted that, because it was my lot in life. My rights and duties would have been different, had I been a woman or a Swedish or US citizen.

On the other hand, I would have found it extremely unfair if conscription had been based on a random lot. Regardless of if it would have covered only men or women as well. It would be unfair to condemn someone to serve due to bad luck, when another person like them is allowed to walk free.

Universality is the fundamental justification for conscription. Conscripts should only have to fight in a war that is serious enough that the country is willing to send all its sons (and daughters, if you prefer that) to risk their lives. If the country does not believe in the war enough to justify that, it should send volunteers, not conscripts.

The vast majority of men in my grandparents' generation served in WW2. Most of them saw combat. That was always the expectation what conscription is supposed to be for. My parents' generation saw their peers in the US conscripted and sent to fight in Vietnam. But only some men were conscripted, and only some conscripts were sent to Vietnam. It's not inherently wrong to use conscripts in a foreign war, but it's wrong to use them in a war that's too unpopular and too irrelevant to justify mobilizing the entire generation.

[Markoff]

> I would do my best to defend my country if it became necessary

I still don't understand this in my 40s and after serving in military (conscription) - why would you defend any country?

I can't imagine scenario when I am defending any country just because some other management wanna take over, I mean, what's the point risking your life for having different politicians maybe speaking different language.

If you fight people are gonna get killed, so unless it is some evil taking over who wanna do genocide, if it's just about gaining area/resources whar's the point in fighting?

I'd sure protect my own family if it would be in danger, but if I don't fight other soldiers why would they care about my family?

Btw. while I agree the conscription should be equal, you need much more women to repopulate the country than you need the men, since men don't give a birth.

[adrian_b]

You do not defend "the country".

You defend yourself, your family, your relatives and your friends.

You are not strong enough to defend these by yourself, so you can do this only by joining the army of the country in such cases.

It would be great if these kinds of actions would have become unnecessary in the modern society, but wars are still started by despicable humans like Putin, Trump and their associates, and there are even hundreds of millions of people who appear to approve such actions.

In the distant past there have existed a few "civilized" wars, where for much of the population it did not matter who won the war, because that just meant that they would pay the same taxes as before to a different authority, but they would just go on with their lives.

However, this has never happened again in modern wars.

In modern wars, the winners do not really have any use for the inhabitants of the occupied territory, so even when they avoid to kill them, they will just steal in one form or another most of what they own and they will discriminate them in various ways.

Especially the Russians have a long history of stealing everything they could from their neighbors after winning any war against them and making any conquered people 2nd class citizens, who had to give up their language, culture and history, and replace that with praising their Russian conquerors, rebranded as "liberators".

So when faced with something like a Russian invasion, which is a real risk for any neighbor of Russia, there is only one way of survival, which is "defending the country".

This is not some theory devoid of content, like the propaganda that American soldiers should invade for instance Cuba, because this "defends the interests of their country" (which is code for defending the interests of a few ultra-rich people).

When you are in Europe, there is a non-null risk that you might be forced in the future to "defend your country", as the only means for your own survival.

[Markoff]

still fail to see how would fighting in organized army help my family instead of staying home, taking care of them and protect them from whoever wants to attack them directly

my family is not some dumb country, I have no allegiance to any country, heck I dont even live in country where I was born, but even if I was I cant imagine fighting whoever just to please local politicians

you are talking about some politicians wars, if people ignored politicians and everyone minded their own family there would be nobody to fight against

so once again, unless someone attacking plans to do genocide on us (like Israel vs Palestine), I dont see point in fighting (like Ukrainians should do with Russians, especially since they are basically brothers sharing same language, same recent past and it was really just about change of management)

Russia occupied my country for decades, people lived their lives, it was certainly better than if they died fighting them

[Jamesbeam]

It’s a constitutional issue.

Article 12a of the German constitution states:

"(1) Men may be called up for service in the armed forces, the Federal Border Guard, or a civil defence unit upon reaching the age of eighteen."

The current administration has a majority, I think three votes (excuse my inaccuracy), to change the constitution. Women can fight as well, and they do. But there is currently no legal, constitutional way to officially draft them.

Some of the toughest soldiers I trained were women. I got put on my back on international cqc training exchanges by Israeli women more often than by anyone else.

Also, most of the high-profile politicians only have daughters, take the German Chancellor (two daughters) or the Prime Minister of Bavaria (1 1/2 daughters). They don’t have any personal interest that their daughters might get drafted. That’s another dimension to the problem.

Women in general are a great military asset, as they provide a non-male perspective you won’t get only working with testosterone-dominated brains.

It’s not like women don’t want to protect their fellow citizens.

It’s that the German military has huge structural problems to include them into the force properly, and the people in charge also know that, for a lot of men serving, they are still not equal, and a lot of men in the service don’t want to fight alongside a woman and trust them to have their back.

It’s a mix of toxic masculinity bred inside the military and a lack of combat experience alongside women. If you ask any American or Israeli soldier who fought alongside women in actual combat, it will be tough to find anyone to critique their value as soldiers or questioning their equality in the service.

I also appreciate your female perspective on this very much. But Sweden, in terms of gender equality, is miles ahead of Germany in many places. And to be fair, Swedish women live a more independent and less male-reliant model of relationships and live than most people on this planet.

The German defence minister acknowledges this, btw, by often talking about how implementing the "Swedish model" would raise a next generation of soldiers with a more modern view of freedom and responsibility that is more balanced between the genders than the current conservative societal model in Germany that is the man goes to work, the woman stays at home and takes care of the kids and the man fights to protect them if necessary.

[sam_lowry_]

This answer is so hilariously German )

[Jamesbeam]

Probably. But it’s actually nice to see that my comment gets downvoted.

A lot of our modern human rights today come from the anti-war movement. This is a highly controversial topic, and I read a lot of interesting opinions in this thread. It’s hard to argue for combat readiness for both genders if most people right now witness the abuse of military superpower like in Ukraine by the Russians or in Iran, causing a lot of loss of life and hardship.

I have been through all this before. Young students shouting murderers at the airport, peace signs everywhere. Most of my colleagues were angry, I was happy so many people showed up and made their voice heard without fear or repression. That’s the kind of freedom you fight for. It’s not always pretty if you’re on the receiving end but I considered that part of the job.