The Stronger the Military the Freer the Women?
In Sparta, according to Wikipedia, “Spartan women could legally own and inherit property and they were usually better educated (than Athenian women).” Athens went to war with Sparta in 431 B.C.
Sparta won.
Recently, I asked one of my favorite feminists if she agreed with the U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan, considering that the Taliban would prevent women from going to school once they took full control. She said something along the line of “If America wasn’t trying to rule the world with its military, Afghanistan would go back to before, when women could go to school.” Huh!?
She was perfectly clear that she believed that the U.S. military’s function is to subjugate other people and help corrupt corporations take what they want.
I was of the same opinion well into my 30s.
The following is why my views changed.
First, I learned that for hundreds of thousands of years humans lived without police or military.
For most of human existence we’ve been hunter-gatherers without police. We had no belongings, or land. Once farming took hold, everything changed. The farmer and community felt the crop was theirs and not open to gathering. Hunters and Gatherers felt farming was was wrong because it interfered with their ability to live naturally (without possessions).
Jesus was very clear that gatherers should be given what they ask. Obviously, his community felt that was one step too far.
My feminist friend owns property. She has locks on her doors. The locks separate her possessions from gatherers. If she is robbed she will call the police. She would accept that police might jail someone who took her car, laptop and other possessions.
We all feel we work for our possessions; that we have a right to them. We don’t consider that every part of our possessions comes from a property somewhere that is not open to gatherers.
(Ironically, when the property owners become too powerful the workers form unions in an effort to extract more wealth, which is just another form of right-to-gather.)
My feminist friend would probably argue that the military is a completely different animal then the police. Is it?
Police protect her possessions and those of local farms and manufacturers.
What about the local farms and manufacturers that buy materials from other farms and manufacturers in foreign lands? What happens when their goods are gathered (stolen)?
They must hire a larger police force. To do that, property-based communities chip in and call it a military.
What happens when the gatherers in those foreign lands overrun those sources and refuse to honor existing contracts? This is what happened in Iran and Venezuela to name the most well-known. The gatherers took over the properties.
They said they’d share it equally with their countrymen.
Except they never do.
They go right back to selling the goods to other property-based nations and don’t evenly distribute the money back into their population. That leads some of their countrymen to become very angry. They become terrorists. They attack the foreigners who are doing deals with their former gatherers turned property owners.
Then the military comes in — again.
It’s a widespread misconception that a military serves only the country of its origin. Every large military also serves the foreign property owners who do business with it. The U.S. military isn’t in Japan to protect the U.S. from another Pearl Harbor. It’s there to protect U.S.-Japanese trade based on common commercial interests.
Yes, the U.S. had no direct commercial interests in Afghanistan. However, regional instability threatens Western trade, from terrorist attacks originating from Afghanistan, to the potential of an Indian-Pakistan war. I explain more here.
Does a weaker nation like Japan want a larger nation’s military policing its trade? No. But what American citizen wants the police running around either? No one wants to pay for power that could be turned back on themselves. The reason many Americans are so gun-crazed is they intuitively understand that their police are no match for the most powerful military on Earth, should someone in the government take it over and declare Martial Law.
This recently happened in Myanmar.
This brings us to places like Sweden, Denmark, Finland and all those other nations people hold up as alternatives to “police” states. Why don’t they have large militaries?
The simple reason is they don’t buy enough foreign goods where military protection makes sense. They ride on the coattails of larger powers. By allowing minimal immigration they can easily keep every family owning the same property for generations (with no one to complain about it).
Furthermore, from the 1600s to the 1700s, the Dutch ran the United East India Company which had one of the largest private militaries in the World up to that point. The Dutch people are totally capable of going back to military power should their situation change.
Back to our original question. Can feminism survive without a large military? Yes. Certainly if you take away property rights. Do women in a hunter-gatherer groups complain about their rights or oppressive patriarchies? Not that I’m aware.
What does it mean to be a feminist in a nation with a large military? First, a feminist should accept the principle of property. Next, a feminist should recognize the same problems of property as males deal with, especially with global trade. This is where some feminists want the benefits of a large military for themselves — protection of their property — but criticize it when it leads to war in other nations where women might have to pay with their lives to achieve it.
Such is the case in Afghanistan.
Are the women of Afghanistan telling the U.S. Military to go home? Do Western feminists talk to women in Afghan or many other nations where women are indeed property?
Yes, a U.S. presence in Afghanistan forced the economy into the Western system of property rights. But “forced” is a strong word. To many Afghans, and everywhere else, the U.S. protects their property rights without a preference for gender or race, it wasn’t forced but desired.
In a sparsely populated country like Afghanistan, with a wide variety of localized issues, there is little national consensus about anything. Most men and women don’t care about an Afghan nation. The world is their village. Is it so different anywhere?
The Taliban cares. The Taliban wants all Afghanis to buy into an Islamic State. They too are forcing Islamic rule on all people. They are not taking power based on general consensus. Pakistan gives them the weapons and resources to achieve it for reasons having nothing to do with women.
My feminist friend believes that is a temporary blip. She is quick to put the blame on the U.S. military — as I used to do.
Look around. Britain supposedly subjugated India. Most Indians I know love the British. The British colonized America. Most Americans also love the Brits. America ruled Germany and Japan. Both countries love Americans (IMO). Many Canadians identify with either Britain or France. Same in Australia. Even Vietnam of all places, loves America!
I don’t get why Americans are so quick to criticize colonialism and imperialism when they were a colony once too, who don’t look back on Britain as an evil empire but an inspiration.
If the U.S. Military was still in Afghanistan, Afghan women could easily make money on the Internet. They could run tours for tourists. They could easily attend Western universities. Afghan men would be freer to follow the religion and customs they choose.
I’m no longer ashamed of our military. Is it perfect? Far from it. For a while it gave many Afghan women the power to pursue their interests. I’m all for a better way of giving them the same opportunities women get in the West. Further, many women serve in Western militaries. They too have more opportunities than generations before.
If one wants time-tested equality they should go back to hunter-gathering. Otherwise, we need to fix the problems of private property, which, honestly, may take tens of thousands of years.
I’d love to see the day when we don’t need the police or military to fix the problems that arise from property disputes. Until then, we need to work with the crude tools we have and remember, for better or worse, Afghan women were thrown out with the Taliban bath water.
They didn’t see the U.S. as a colonist or imperialist. They saw what Western feminists take for granted — an open society. And many wanted it enough to lose their lives trying to get it.
If one believes the U.S. leaving Afghanistan is obviously the right move, they might as well call all those Afghan women idiots for believing Western feminists would have their back.
