Years of movies and other forms of entertainment depicting women as sexy fighting machines who can kung-fu kick their way through gangs of burly men have begun to have the inevitable effect on impressionable young women, who are now apparently demanding to be sent to the front lines of Afghanistan. In addition to these girls, feminist academics – surely great authorities on warfare – are challenging the notion that combat is a strictly male realm.

This is not without precedent. The Soviet Union fielded women in combat, and made plenty of propaganda encouraging the same. The reality, of course, was that women were overwhelmingly placed in support roles, including such glamorous jobs as digging anti-tank ditches around Moscow, while the men were thrown into the inferno. If the Russians had opposed Nazi Germany with gender-equal armies in 1942-43, all of Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals would likely have ended up under the Swastika banner.

Now, in the American armed forces, women are complaining that their support roles are not enough, and that they, too, should be able to experience the joys of gun and rocket fire along with the boys. Far be it from me discourage these tough girls; if they want to go through what men have been shoved into since the dawn of humanity, they are free to drink from that cup. However, if I were a male marine, I wouldn’t relish the thought all that much. Who wants to go into combat with slow, weak soldiers who can’t pull their weight? Sounds kind of dangerous to me. Add to that the monthly emotional volatility and the potential for sexual drama in close quarters with young men, and it seems like a rather dubious proposition.

Perhaps an all-female combat corps is the way to go. This way, women could do battle with the evil, sexist Taliban without causing trouble for our male troops. In fact, I would support a feminist recruiting drive, giving women from gender studies departments across the country the chance to really stick it to the Muslim male chauvinists of south central Asia. This would be sure to increase America’s prestige around the world: give us trouble, and we’ll send a bunch of girls after you!

To the academic types, the entire argument is not about winning wars in the field or limiting casualties or anything so trivial as that; no, it is about deconstructing “hegemonic masculinity,” which is based on “the construction of a martial masculine identity.”

One feminist activist in Australia – supposedly a man of some sort – feels that the entire “masculine identity” is an illusion upheld only by the idea that combat is a man’s job. Keep in mind while reading the excerpt below that this man was so upset by The Spearhead that he didn’t feel that he could write coherently about our publication:

In regard to the role of women in combat, and whether or not this is something male military resent, I would argue that it isn’t a resentment of women not being more involved. Rather I’d argue that the masculine identity constructed relies on what is essentially the myth of a homosocially exclusive experience of combat [...] the experience of combat is seen as something so quintessentially male, that great social and cultural lengths are gone maintain the strict gender division.

This kind of garbage is what emerges when you give fantasy and wishes free reign in universities: truth and reality take a back seat to petty discussions of the way things “ought to be.”

Ultimately, this argument over women in combat will not lead to gender equality in the army, even if the Obama administration pushes for it with all its might. I can write this with assurance, because the nature of women themselves will prevent it from happening. As soon as the first female soldier comes home with a horribly disfigured face from a battlefield wound or burn and shows up on a reality plastic surgery show or Oprah, any potential for widespread female support for women in combat will quietly expire, and just as it’s always been, women will do their best to avoid the front lines.

This is as certain as the sunrise.