European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 5, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday september 5, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 William f. Buckle face fact that men and women Are commentary different the Senate has now passed a Bill permitting women who Volunteer to Fly combat aircraft to do so and the movement to extend the rights of women to Equality in the trenches is growing. Have a thought please to this Demurray. The practical arguments in favor and against have occupied most of the time of the jurists brought in to decide the question. It is observed that on an average a Man is 40 percent stronger than a woman. Does that sound decisive to you perhaps in which Case you have Given the subject insufficient thought for the simple reason that there is Little correlation Between human strength and military skill. A corollary of the above is the argument that women s reflexes Are every bit As fast As those of men and that Success or failure As a modern Soldier particularly in a fighter aircraft depends on the Speed of response. If Amy can read the dials and do the Correct thing just As fast As Roger Why should the air Force discriminate against her ? the answer of course is that the air Force should not discriminate against her if Speed of response is the Only criterion relevant. To the argument that in combat conditions it is a Burden to provide two sets of washroom facilities the leaders for what they Call women s rights argue to the effect that in combat situations anti macassar niceties become simply irrelevant and that after All even in the narrow confines of a foxhole it is possible to make Token adjustments. Both men and women go up in spacecraft and mixed company has made Iong passages plotted and a plotted on Small boats and even on rafts. Primitive cultures simply ignore biological differences at this level and War making has a great Deal to learn from primitive cultures where the objective is the thing that rules not the taboo which is properly relegated to insignificance. Very Well then the arguments in favor of women in the military Are in. Here is the Side to which i belong the attempt to equalize the sexes is going to be asymptotic. You think you have reached Equality but there is still a tiny Dif Ference there. That difference bespeaks an insight that is a hallmark of civilization. It is a pity that the useless word a a Equality Ever got into the act because one cannot in the nature of things make a a equal that which is not the same. But the Point is overwhelmed and that Point is that men and women Are different. That a woman should aspire to be a poet or an architect a doctor or an Engineer does no violation to the critical insight of separateness of nature. But that a woman should ignore what binds her to the Newborn child or enjoins her to com fort men who cannot adequately be comforted by other men is a tug against nature. And that a Man himself a poet or a doctor or an Engineer or an architect should cease instinctively to gravitate to his responsibility to protect the Home is a violation of his nature. The awful fanatical compulsion to perfect interchangeable sexes does violence to primary instincts that Are wrong when abused. To voc Correct an abuse is to commit a fresh abuse. Because we know that women should be educated and should vote and should exercise their capacity to Lead does not dissipate that tropism that assigns to the woman primary responsibility for the care of the child and to the Man primary responsibility for the care of the woman. Transplanting it All onto the Battle scene we need to wonder whether the machine gunner exposing his life to effect a Mission Isnit dismayed at the thought of a Young woman filing away at his Side causing him to wonder whether the fight he is fighting reflects a civilized order. C Universal press Ellen Goodman saying no becoming full time Job for parents sooner or later most americans become card carrying members of the counterculture. This is not an underground holdout of hippies. No beads Are required. All you need to join is a child. At some Point Between lamaze and Pat it becomes Clear that one of your main jobs As a Parent is to counter the culture. What the Media delivers to children by the masses you Are expected to rebut one at a time. The latest evidence of this frustrating piece of the parenting Job description came from paediatricians. This summer the american Academy of paediatrics called for a ban on television food ads. Their plea was hard on the heels of a study showing that one saturday morning of to cartoons contained 202 junk food ads. The kids see want and nag. That is after All the theory behind advertising to children since few 6-year-Olds have their own Trust funds. The end result said the paediatricians is obesity and High cholesterol. Their Call for a ban was predictably attacked by the grocers association. But it was also attacked by people assembled under the umbrella marked a parental  we done to need bans said these  people we need parents who know How to say  Well i Bow to no one in my capacity for nay saying. I agree that its a Well honed skill of child raising. By the time my daughter was 7, she qualified As a Media critic. But it occurs to me now that the Call for a parental responsibility is increasing in direct proportion to the irresponsibility of the marketplace. Parents Are expected to protect their children from an increasingly hostile environment. Are children being sold junk food just say no. Is television bad turn it off. Are there messages about sex drugs violence All around counter the culture. Mothers and fathers Are expected to screen virtually every aspect of their children a lives. To Check the ratings on the movies to read the labels on the cd to find out if there is mtg in the House next door. All the while keeping in touch with school and in their free time earning a living. In real life most parents do a great Deal of this monitoring and just say no ing. Any trip to the supermarket produces at least one scene of a child grabbing for something Only to have it returned to the shelf by a frazzled Parent. An extraordinary number of the family arguments Are Over the goodies a sneakers clothes games a that the Young know about Only because of ads. But at times it seems that the Media have become the mainstream culture in children s lives. Parents have become the alternative. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead a research associate at the Institute for american values found this out in interviews with Middle class parents. Quot a common complaint i heard from parents was their sense of being overwhelmed by the culture. They Felt their voice was a lot weaker. And they Felt relatively More helpless than their  a parents a she notes a see themselves in a struggle for the hearts and minds of their  it in t that they can to say no. Its that there s so much More to say no to. Without wallowing in false nostalgia there has been a fundamental shift. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they Are expected to raise their children in opposition. Once the chorus of cultural values was full of ministers teachers neighbors leaders. They demanded More conformity but offered More support. Now the messengers Are ninja turtles Madonna rap groups and celebrities pushing sneakers. Parents Are considered a a responsible Only if they Are successful in their resistance. It is what makes child raising harder. It is Why parents feel More isolated. It is just that american families have less time with their children it s that we have to spend More of this time doing Battle with our own culture. It s rather like trying  your children to eat their Green Beans after they be been told All Day about the wonders of Milky Way. Come to think of it its exactly like that.  Boston