Martha McSally: Women in the military get pregnant to "skirt" deployment

[brooklynite]

Source: Salon

Arizona Republican senator and former Air Force combat pilot Martha McSally once published an academic paper in which she said military servicewomen should be counseled against the "foolishness of entering into a lifetime commitment (motherhood)" to avoid deployment, and called for the Pentagon to repeal the policy that allows women to use pregnancy as an excuse to "skirt" their commitment.

The article, titled "Women in Combat: Is the Current Policy Obsolete?" appeared in a 2007 edition of the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy. At the time, McSally, the first female combat pilot in U.S. history — and the first-ever losing Senate candidate to immediately receive a Senate seat — was pursuing a second graduate degree at Air War College.

She later expanded on the article in a lecture at the Duke University School of Law, which hosts a full video on its website. A clip about the pregnancy issue can be seen here.



Read more: https://www.salon.com/2020/07/08/martha-mcsally-women-in-the-military-get-pregnant-to-skirt-deployment/

[marybourg]

1. For all those who think women can't be misogynists.

[RobinA]

34. My Supervisor

at a previous job, very evangelical, pro-military, flag-waving, surely a Trumper, advised her newly married daughter to do just this post-9/11 and the daughter did it. I was amazed at the hypocrisy. My supervisor (a female) was quite proud of the situation. So no, this writer is not a misogynist, she's just telling it like it is.

[yellowcanine]

2. Yeah because it is so easy to get preggers on command.

She is ignorant.

[MustLoveBeagles]

24. No kidding

I tried for years unsuccessfully.

[geardaddy]

3. Phyllis Schlafly sure got through to this one.

[alwaysinasnit]

6. Yup. Phyllis was really good at "do as I say, not as I do."

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Oh yes,

recall her shouting this when the Army first excepted Women for Combat Duty.

[raising2moredems]

27. Phyllis was worried she might actually have to get a job and work....

Instead of pushing out meal tickets that became the nanny's responsibility.

[Wellstone ruled]

28. She was one messed up piece of work.

Yep,the Good Book fell off the shelf and struck her in the head and the rest is legend.

[Codeine]

10. If you can't hate yourself

who can you hate?

[madaboutharry]

4. She is a truly terrible person.

She called a CNN reporter “hack” for asking her a question.

[2naSalit]

8. That event was so much like a poorly wriiten, poorly acted script.

It was so phony sounding that I'm surprised neither of them burst out laughing before it ended.

[Cha]

19. Sounds like she may have picked that up from her

cult45 leader.

[keithbvadu2]

5. Unlike bone spurs which can be temporary.

[Scalded Nun]

9. I see the GOP is full-throttle fired up against the military

Good that the military is seeing how the GOP REALLY feels...just too bad it took them this long to figure it out. I saw the GOP for what it was in my first enlistment.

McSally, for lack of a better way of stating it, is a real dick. I do not give a shit if she was a combat pilot or not.

[haele]

11. So we go back to the old days...

Where the commands always assumed that any woman who joined the military were either lesbians looking for a hookup with another female while having a career, or a "gal" looking for a man to take care of her and just joined the military because her parents wouldn't take care of her in the meantime.

Seriously. Senior officers would always hope that any female who came to their command was a lesbian, because, as I was told by a supposedly enlightened XO in the 1980's - lesbians were the hardest and most reliable non-combat workers the military had.

Wonder what McSally thought of herself then.

And yes, there was - and probably still is - a particular type of female officer who either projected her own failings or would assert her "privilege" over lower ranked or enlisted females who were potential competition.

I have a story from my days as a work center lead regarding an overheard evaluation conversation between a male department head and a particularly privileged and loud young female DivO that spread through the ship, a ripped out page from one of the Chief's favorite magazines, a ship's post office money order, and a male blow-up doll delivered to the quarterdeck that I can neither confirm nor deny...

You see those type in the civilian world also - wanna-be Queen Bees who peter-principled their way up the hierarchy and are vicious to women below them because they assume all women are like them when it comes to making their way through the world.

Haele

[Stuart G]

12. Welcome to the real world, ex senator McSally...among some you can lecture...make $$$

...note I said...some....

[Roy Rolling]

13. Pregnancy

It isn’t typically an issue for a woman employee, but an Air Force pilot in late-stage pregnancy does present unique issues.

How to deal with those issues is something for smarter people than me.

But from my limited medical experience, it would seem necessary to counsel the mother against Piloting an F-18 in fighter combat near her due date.

I hope that doesn’t seem harsh.

[dhill926]

14. she might want to say that to Tammy Duckworth's face...

and see what happens....

[NonPC]

15. She'll be gone in November

McSally was appointed by Doug Ducey to fill McCain's spot. McSally is down by 11 points to Mark Kelly. Her legacy is just another stain in Arizona's Republican history. Ducey will probably get voted out at his next re-election due to his Trumpian response to the virus here in AZ. It won't be too soon either.

[iluvtennis]

16. Good. I'll be donating to Mark Kelly's campaign as this moronic McSally needs to go. nt

[paleotn]

17. Is there anyone

McStupid hasn't pissed off?

[roamer65]

18. What a foul, disgusting person.

[idziak4ever1234]

20. Who in their right mind says that... Much less a politician

How do you score political points with that comment?

[RhodeIslandOne]

21. She proved herself a fraud by denying a survivor's story.

After claiming she herself has been a victim.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/30/politics/hyten-confirmation-hearing-mcsally/index.html

Washington (CNN)Arizona Republican Sen. Martha McSally, who revealed earlier this year that she was raped while serving in the US Air Force, said Tuesday that the allegations of sexual assault against Gen. John Hyten, President Donald Trump's pick to be the nation's second highest military officer, are unequivocally "false."

Hyten's accuser, Col. Kathryn Spletstoser, was sitting just feet away as McSally dismissed her allegations as untrue before the Senate Armed Services Committee, setting the tone for the entire hearing, which Spletstoser would ultimately condemn as a "political spectacle."

"To be clear, this wasn't just a jump ball. Not a 'he said, McSally said.' Not a situation where we just couldn't prove what allegedly happened. I believe the truth still matters in our country. And the full truth was revealed in this process. The truth is that General Hyten is innocent of these charges," she said during Tuesday's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee to consider Hyten's nomination as the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

[maxrandb]

22. This is such bullshit

I served 28.5 years in the Navy. Started as an E-Nothing, rose to the enlisted Rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer, earned a commission as a Navy LDO Officer and retired as a CDR.

First, let me tell you about "former Fighter Pilots".

I was a Department Head at two VFA Squadrons (F18 Squadrons).

The majority of the pilots were decent people. A small minority were complete jacknuts. Now, anyone who flew fighter jets gets my respect for that, but that doesn't give them some magical greatness... just as my service doesn't mean I can't be a dickhead at times.

I served with fighter pilots. Just like any other job, there are cooks that I wouldn't eat whatever they cooked, and there are fighter pilots I wouldn't let drive my lawnmower.

Second, we actually did in-depth research about women in the military.

You may be surprised if I told you that we had way more problems with medical issues making men undeployable then we did with women. And no! That's not because there were more men serving.

As a percentage, we lost more man-hours from men with medical issues than we did with females .

Mcsally knows this! She's surely seen the same statistics that I did.

But there's more than that. If you throw in the men that become undeployable because of legal issues... that's even a higher number .

Anyone who has served and been positions of authority will tell you what I am about to say...if they're being honest with you

"As a department head and commander in the military, if you asked me to choose between a workforce of all women, or a workforce of all men, I'd take the women everytime .

My experience was, they were smarter, they were more dedicated, they had way less medical and legal issues, they were more prompt, more innovative, more willing to pick up the slack, more productive, more intelligent and had more integrity.

Now, that's not to say we didn't have some women that were knuckleheads and had medical and legal issues, but statistically, those women were a fraction of the total...

[pfitz59]

26. When I was Aircraft Division Officer

my very best mechanic was an female first class petty officer. She had 4 sons, with a stay-at-home husband. Last I heard she made Senior Chief. McSally sounds like McNutty. The article says she was working on her SECOND War College degree. Seems the Detailer wanted her away out of the way... I wouldn't want her as a CO

[maxrandb]

31. Women like Mcsally do more to harm women in the military

than the worst male misogynist you could find.

Best Sailor I ever had working for me was a AT2. She was a single mom with two kids and a volunteer with the local Virginia Beach Rescue Squad. Her kids went to Grandma's when we deployed and she made it work.

She was eventually selected for the Seaman to Admiral Program.

Last I knew, she was Flag Aide to Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.

[Demovictory9]

23. please let her lose

[Baked Potato]

25. Wadda fricken Jackwagon!

[jmowreader]

29. Apparently they don't have FCPs in the Air Force

FCP means Family Care Plan. If you have children, but don't have a non-military spouse (single soldiers and dual-military couples fall into this), you must declare a temporary guardian, a long-term caregiver, and an escort to transport the kids from the temporary guardian to the long-term caregiver on DA Form 5305. These people must have powers of attorney over your kids (DA Form 5841) and must sign forms (DA Form 5840) stating they know and will accept the duties of their office. There is a lot of other paperwork that goes into a FCP packet - a completed one on a family with three children is about a quarter-inch thick if none of the children are in the Exceptional Family Member Program, the Army's name for its services for special-needs children. EFMP FCPs get thick in a right hurry.

Failure to maintain a workable FCP is grounds for getting kicked out of the Army, and I know of commanders who would throw your ass into the street in a New York minute for a bad FCP.

Now, I'd like to know what Sen. McSally suggests happen if a soldier gets pregnant while on active duty. Are we supposed to set up maternity wards in field hospitals and day care centers at Division Tactical Operations Center? We'd have camouflage diapers, coyote-colored suede baby booties and cute little baby-size Kevlar helmets with matching cute little baby-size HANS Devices because K-pots are heavy and babies' heads flop around.

[maxrandb]

32. Great point about the FCP, but I'm more interested

in McSally's plan and her take on what we do with the male military member who falls off a ladder cleaning their gutters, drags themselves over 150 feet of gravel because they wrecked their crotch rocket, blows out their knee playing pick-up basketball, gets arrested for DUI, drunk in public, disorderly conduct or domestic violence.

Those are much more common occurrences than a women getting pregnant.

I guess McSally would just say losing male troops to medical and legal issues was just "the cost of doing business".

The fact that McSally doesn't have the same attitude towards pregnancy tells us all we need to know about what type of "officer" she is.

BTW-does she have children? Did she resign her commission when she got pregnant?

[JonLP24]

30. I don't recall this being a thing when I was in

It seemed like most of the pregnancies occurred after deployment.

[maxrandb]

33. It's not a thing now.

It's just the right wing nut jobs using the opportunity to talk about "icky" female stuff to further their anti women in the military agenda.

You can point out the much higher number of male troops that lose deployment eligibility because some ER had to use steel wool to scrub all the gravel out their back after their motorcycle crash, but that doesn't get to the rightwing... despite the fact that this is a much bigger problem in the military than pregnancy.

No, make no mistake about it! They talk about pregnancy, because it makes their base think of "moist, slippery, mysterious female things". This ensures their ignorant base gets all worked up about it.