By John Swingle

Feminist 'social engineering' weakens our armed forces' morale, endangers lives and ultimately undermines military effectiveness, according to the Center for Military Readiness. Elaine Donnelly, who heads the group, cited 'fem-fear' [a phobia of annoying feminists] as a major factor for acquiescence to military feminization, when she spoke at Accuracy In Academia's Conservative University last summer.

"Women do not have an equal opportunity to survive or to help fellow soldiers survive" in combat roles, said Donnelly, who recently served on the US Air Force Academy's Board of Visitors. The feminist notion of 'sex interchangeability' ignores, she added, physical disparities in "upper body strength, endurance, and stamina," which are "self-evident and irrefutable."

Donnelly [whom the current Chief Executive's father appointed to the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces] reminded the audience that there is "nothing fair or equal about combat," adding that "it is not even civilized." She questioned the wisdom of adopting policies, no matter how "politically correct," that unnecessarily put our soldiers' lives at risk.

Donnelly argued that allowing women in combat contravenes a still existent American cultural value that teaches "young good men to protect and defend women." She recalled illustrative testimony from an Army Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape trainer about a mixed-sex mock POW camp exercise. If any female participants were physically threatened [implying forcible rape], the men "would go crazy because they wanted to fight and defend" the women.

The men would have to be desensitized to violence against women, concluded the SERE trainers, to forestall enemy exploitation of this instinctive concern. In fact, Donnelly argued, allowing women in combat would threaten a desensitizing effect on the entire nation's view of violence against women. She went on to urge the conference attendees at Georgetown University to ask themselves if they thought our society would be better - or worse - as a result.

Read a related article on the Accuracy in Media website: Campaign Seeks to Reform Military's Social Policies