What is a good, main topic of focus for an essay on feminism and militarism?

[Loving Love]

I have to write a research paper on feminism and militarism but I am having trouble finding a specific "subtopic" to focus on; something I can bring forth a PRO and CON of and present both sides.
Problem: I know nothing of the topic. It's a class I have to take for courses, even though I know nothing about it. What are some elements of feminism and war/militarism that I could focus on in my essay/mention in my thesis statement?

[Mike Hammer]

They're both firmly tied in with politics & Bulls--t.

Here's how Charlie Sheen would put it...
Think of it this way - U.S. government (Metaphor for feminism) maufactures lies and creates reasons (metaphor for 9/11) to go to war against the enemy terrorists (Metaphor for men).

That is the style of politics. Manipulation, control, power, propaganda...these things all tie in with militarism/feminism, and it's masqueraded as "fighting for freedom".

Understand?

[Kilroy]

You can write on how the US Army scapegoated Pvt. Lynndie England a few years ago. Now that military women serve close to (and even at) the front lines, they (like their male counterparts) are easy targets for any officers who doesn't properly train their troops.

[Pink08]

You could write about women in actual combat situations.

[Billy]

I can think of 3 things.....The idea of women warriors is vast and interesting....through out history
#1 The Israeli Army....All women in Israel must serve in the armed forces
#2 The French Underground during WW II.....Vital to the war against the germans....50% were women
#3 Fantasy Women Warriors.....Like : the Valkyries and the Amazons....fierce and feared by men

[Helen P]

The suffragettes campaigned for the vote for years but did not get it. When men went off to WW1 women took over their jobs and essentially kept the country going. It was this that got them the vote in the end. There were all sorts of categories of women in the forces as well and you could compare the work they did with the image of women as the frail creatures not to be trusted with too much responsibility or decision making. e.g land girls delivered animals, operated farm machinery etc etc - hard physical work which kept the country fed.

Equally it was WW2 which triggered the second wave of feminism. Women again took over men's jobs and when the men wanted them back there was great pressure on women to be domestic goddesses (see all the 1950's idealised depictions of women) Women were strongly discouraged from working and it was said it was not women's work despite the fact that they had done it. It was this attitude which caused women to start campaigning for access to more areas of work and comparable pay in the 60s and more so in the seventies.

Pros for the feminist point of view are very clear but cons could include the fact that there simply could not be enough jobs for all the returning men and the women who wanted to work - you could argue that men returning from a traumatic war and needing to be returned to normality and occupied gainfully suddenly had competition from women who had proved their ability - reason for a bit of hostility and opposition.

Sorry, I'm better with the feminism than with the military! You could google women in the forces during the world wars and see what comes up related to feminism. Much of the stuff I mentioned occurred in Britain where air raids had women working as firefighters and ambulance drivers and paramedics but if you are elsewhere the same situation re women taking over mens jobs and being in the forces themselves does apply.

[.]

you can discus how wars an militarism effected womens rights.

It is hard indeed, at a time like the present, to detach oneself even for a moment from the duties which the common danger has imposed on us all–men and women in every country. But, sooner or later, our attitude to certain fundamental questions must be decided, lest the critical moment come upon us unprepared. Every movement that stands for progress raises such questions, and none is more important than the future of the women's movement in relation to war and militarism. Will–or should–its course be modified in the light of recent events? It is hardly too early to discuss this question, for the advocates of militarism are already busy in our midst, and it is easy to take a wrong turning or a short view. Opinions within the movement are divided. Yet it seems probable that there would be less disagreement if once the results of militarism were clearly understood.

We are faced by issues on which it seems not improbable that the ideals of most men are different from those of most women.. The difference has usually been obscured in feminist propaganda: the argument so often has to run, and quite truly, that on the majority of questions there will be no great split of society into two halves, the men wanting one thing and the women another. But militarism, as such, raises different problems.

For Feminism history has only one message on the question of war, and it is this:–

Militarism has been the curse of women, as women, from the first dawn of social life. Owing to the turmoil in which it has kept every tribe and every nation almost without exception, mankind has seldom been able to pause for a moment to set social affairs in order–and the first and most crying reform has ever been the condition of woman. Violence at home, violence abroad; violence between individuals, between classes, between nations, between religions; violence between man and woman: this it is which, more than all other influences, has prevented the voice of woman being heard in public affairs until almost yesterday. War has created Slavery with its degrading results for women, and its double standard of morality from which we [Page 4] are not yet completely free: War, and the consequent enslavement of women, has been the main inducement to Polygamy, with its conception of women as property, and its debasement of love to physical enjoyment: War has engendered and perpetuated that dominance of man as a military animal which has pervaded every social institution from Parliament downwards. In War man alone rules: when War is over man does not surrender his privileges. Militarist ethics have perverted the peaceful and individualising tendencies of Industry to which woman owes so much. Industry has united with competition to produce Industrial Warfare: Commerce has combined with Imperialism for the capture of markets and the exploitation of the lower races. Militarism has ruined Education with its traditions of discipline and its conception of history. Militarism has even left its blighting imprint on Religion–on Mohammedanism the religion of conquest with its depreciation of woman; on the religion of the Prince of Peace, so that the Churches can say what they are not ashamed to say to-day. War, and the fear of War, has kept woman in perpetual subjection, making it her chief duty to exhaust all her faculties in the ceaseless production of children that nations might have the warriors needed for aggression or defence. She must not have any real education–for the warrior alone required knowledge and independence; she must not have a voice in the affairs of the nation, for War and preparation for War were so fundamental in the life of nations that woman, with her silly humanitarianism, must not be allowed to meddle therewith! And so War, which the influence of women alone might have prevented, was used as the main argument against enfranchisement, as it had been the main barrier to emancipation in the past. The circle is complete.

[Laura]

Ever since women have acquired the right of vote, military life, as well as anything that has to do with violence: war games, toy guns, hunting and fishing, are getting a really bad press. Women do most of the shopping and therefore the medias cater more and more to women, and women are typically anti-violence. This is good, but ... because of this, we might be invaded by other societies run exclusively by men who believe in violence and we might simply disappear because of our refusal to go to war.