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I've been really thinking about this tweet.
This point is interesting, and I think rather noteworthy. There were many protests over the Vietnam conscription, Muhammad Ali's being the most famous example, so perhaps saying no backlash at all is a bit hastey. And who could forget our poor friends in Ukraine.
Still, I think she raises an interesting point. Most men still, (both legally and socially). Have to abide by the traditional man script. And this pressure is more on them then womens end of the social contract, which (from what I can see) is basically non existent.
Now the easiest explanation for this double standard is probably just gender bias: we simply have less empathy for men as a whole.
The way I see it, there are a couple of plausible solutions to make things for fair or consistent(any additional ones are welcome):
Gender "Equality". Extend "bodily autonomy" rights (for those who are actually consistent and believe in the concept, as a side note, I believe this is just a silly excuse) to men and end the draft, eliminate male disposability. Both men and women ask each other out. Stop valueing men as pure economic units. Men aren't wallets or soldiers, their people! Ect. Basically "Masculism" or some variation of MRA movement.
Extend the social contract obligations to women, and all that entails. Basically bring back some (or all) of the "patriarchy".
From what I can tell, 1 has kinda been tried, and has basically failed, probably due to the gender bias mentioned. I imagine Lauren favors the 2nd option, (& I kinda do). Implementing it may be unrealistic, however, due to various political and environmental constraints. I think realistically though, we are probably gonna have take a hard examination at the female end of the social contract at some-point, when birth rates and their implications become more severe and un-ignorable. Maybe we get lucky technology bails us out, but fundementally, I find the prospect of a society with no children, no families, etc, to be deeply dystopian.
I think one thing conscription shows (and the fact that many societies have it) is that, no society really wants to cease to exist. Nor should we. There is something valuable about societies existing, and continuing on into the future, even if we have to make some sacrifices for it. I think one can make a case (and many indeed do!) for extending some modified version of the social contract/roles to women. I've been deep thought about if societies might attempt this in the future, or what a modified variation of feminine roles/obilgations would look like. What do you think?
This feels like the male Feminist version of They Very Much Did Kill Jesus.
There's never been a draft in recorded history that wasn't opposed, protested, dodged, avoided, manipulated. People very much did bat some eyes during the Civil War in NYC, lynching some unfortunate blacks who happened to be on hand because they didn't want to fight for them. In WWI, gangster Lucky Luciano famously intentionally contracted gonorrhea to fail his draft board. Others overate to come into the exam obese, or paid off local doctors to diagnose bone spurs which kept them out of the army but didn't affect their athletic careers. Politicians sons who supported the war joined the National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam, and in more serious wars there is of course a long history of politicians and their friends landing desk jobs that mostly avoided combat while still getting a pretty uniform to pose in.
History is full of people who flee the country, change their name, desert the army, fake injuries, malinger, goldbrick to get out of military service. We can find evidence of it going back thousands of years. If they didn't, the draft wouldn't be necessary. The whole point of a draft is because sending men to die for their country, in that particular war, is not popular enough to draw volunteers.
Donc, continuing our parallel for a second, the key ingredient to convincing men and women to sacrifice their lives for your civilization is making sure your civilization has a good enough story to make it worthwhile. You aren't getting a million zoomer boys into Iran without a draft, you aren't getting millions of babies out of zoomer girls without explaining to them a positive vision of what they are having those babies for.
Agreed with your points. One point I like to expand on is the following:
While draft dodging is the most visible part of avoiding service, probably even more common in history is manipulating exactly which job a person gets in the military to avoid the worst of combat. As an example, my granddad was actually considered unfit for service medically during WW2 but, since he knew not serving would be socially problematic post war, he became a military policeman stateside and went to dance halls with the wives of servicemen who actually risked life and limb for their country. This is also played out in propaganda since it's honestly true; while the infantryman faces the worst odds and dangers, more socially connected people generally get better postings and often get to stay behind. Even in states engaged in 'existential wars', you see this effect. Draft substitution in the Confederacy, connected people getting better positions in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
Overall, I suspect the man who actually 'does his duty' and faces maximal physical danger is a minority phenomenon; the big bulk of soldiers historically were coerced to a greater or lesser extent. I'll note in the US Civil War once people realized the war wasn't going to be short and that modern combat is very bloody, both sides immediately had to switch over to drafting people since volunteers were insufficient.
The British aristocracy were over-represented among the dead in WW1 and WW2 (and, as far as I am aware, in most of the 19th century wars). That is, of course, to be expected for a group that justifies its privileges by claiming to be a warrior elite. As far as I am aware, the same was true for the Germans. (The Prussian aristocracy was uncomplicatedly a real warrior elite in WW1. In WW2 the Waffen SS did more dangerous stuff than the Reichswehr, and Nazi elites' sons were more likely to be in it).
That the planter class in the Confederacy widely dodged the draft would be surprising to me, if true. They tended (as do their descendants in the red tribe elite) to see themselves as a warrior elite.
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