Conscription and sexism

Both feminists and opponents of discrimination against men have criticized military conscription, or compulsory military service, as sexist.

Feminists have argued that military conscription is sexist because according to them wars typically serve the interests of the patriarchy, because the military is a sexist institution, because conscription of men normalizes male violence as socially acceptable, because conscripts are indoctrinated in sexism and violence against women, and because military training socializes conscripts in patriarchal gender roles. "While not all feminists are anti-militarists, opposition to war and militarism has been a strong current within the women's movement. Prominent suffragists like Quaker Alice Paul, and Barbara Deming, a feminist activist and thinker of the 1960s and '70s, were ardent pacifists. Moreover, feminist critique has often regarded the military as a hierarchical, male-dominated institution promoting destructive forms of power." Feminists have been organizers and participants in resistance to conscription.

Historically, only men have been subjected to conscription, and only in the late 20th century has this begun to change, though most countries still require only men to serve in the military. The integration of women into militaries, and especially into combat forces, did not begin on a large scale until late in the 20th century. In his book The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (2012), philosopher David Benatar states that the theoretical arguments are immaterial to those who are pressed into service: "Some women are excluded from combat, but many more women are exempt. While some men are excluded from combat (because they fail the relevant tests), many more are pressured or forced into combat." According to Benatar, "[t]he prevailing assumption is that where conscription is necessary, it is only men who should be conscripted and, similarly, that only males should be forced into combat". This, he believes, "is a sexist assumption".

Currently, only nine countries have laws allowing for the conscription of women into their armed forces: China, Eritrea, Israel, Libya, Malaysia, North Korea, Norway, Peru and Taiwan. Other countries—such as Finland, Turkey, and Singapore—still use a system of conscription which requires military service from only men, although women are permitted to serve voluntarily. In 2014, Norway became the first NATO country to introduce obligatory military service for women as an act of gender equality. The gender selective draft has been challenged in Switzerland, but the case was rejected by the Federal Supreme Court on the grounds that the specific law requiring service takes precedence over the general law forbidding sex discrimination. Chantal Galladé, former president of the Swiss Defence Committee calls the conscription of men a discrimination against both men and women, cementing the stereotypical gender roles of men and women.

The practice of conscription has been criticized by various men's rights groups, such as the National Coalition for Men, which claims that "no gender oppression is comparable". These groups have been joined on occasion by certain feminist activists. Beginning in the 1970s, "liberal feminists" have argued in favor of extending conscription to women, taking the position that "the best way to insure women's equal treatment with men is to render them equally vulnerable with men to the political will of the state". Radical and pacifists feminists have disagreed, however, contending that "by integrating into existing power structures including military forces and the war system without changing them, women merely prop up a male-dominated world instead of transforming it". There were disagreements between liberal advocates for women's equality and radical and pacifist feminists both in 1980 and again in 2016 on whether women should be included in draft registration or draft registration should be opposed for women and men.

Anthropologist Ayse Gül Altinay has commented that "given equal suffrage rights, there is no other citizenship practice that differentiates as radically between men and women as compulsory male conscription" and continues elsewhere, stating that "any attempt to de-gender nationalism and citizenship needs to incorporate a discussion of universal male conscription". She goes on to quote feminist writer Cynthia Enloe, who argues that "there is a reason that so many states in the world have implemented military conscription laws for young men: most of those men would not join the state's military if it were left up to them to choose".