American women are dying in combat in Iraq. The fact that some of the American casualties are women is causing a political ruckus. I hate the underlying assumption and belief that a woman's life is more important than a man's life.
But it makes perfect sense in keeping the population up! If half of the men in your population die, the other half can still father the whole next generation with relative ease (and, presumably, delight). If half of the women die, there's a serious breeding problem for producing the next generation!
I suspect that this rule of thumb (protect the fertile women) has been so successful for so long that it's hard to go against it, even in a situation like America where we don't really care about maintaining the population and losing 3000 troops in combat is still a tiny fraction of the total population anyway.
I'm not surprised at all that this is causing a political problem. Those old rules of thumb are deeply ingrained in our genes and our culture, I suspect.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
I suspect that this rule of thumb (protect the fertile women) has been so successful for so long that it's hard to go against it, even in a situation like America where we don't really care about maintaining the population and losing 3000 troops in combat is still a tiny fraction of the total population anyway.
I'm not surprised at all that this is causing a political problem. Those old rules of thumb are deeply ingrained in our genes and our culture, I suspect.
no subject
no subject