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Requiring only young men to register for military conscription is an obvious instance of sexism in the U.S. today.  Women today are an important part of the all-volunteer U.S. military.  One out of every seven soldiers on active duty is a woman, and one out of every forty-three soldiers killed in the Iraq war has been a woman (see data notes and references).  Women are admitted to all the U.S. military academies, and the U.S. military includes female generals, female fighter pilots, and many other women doing difficult, dangerous jobs.  Even if one believes that women should be excluded from some military jobs, the military still could easily employ an equal number of men and women.   Laws that compel only men to serve in the military cannot rationally withstand even a cursory examination of current facts.

This sexism attracts almost no public concern.  In 1981 in Rostker v. Goldberg, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld male-only Selective Service registration.   In light of current circumstances, that decision might best be seen as following in the line of Dred Scott v. Sandford.  One can find some law professors arguing that male-only Selective Service registration discriminates against women.  Occasionally newspaper articles describe middle-aged male government workers getting fired because they failed to register for Selective Service as young men many years earlier (see, e.g. here and here). More generally, most young women probably don't want to be legally obligated to register for compulsory military service.  While male-only Selective Service registration reflects a long, under-appreciated (at least among law professors) history of constraining and devaluing men's lives, most young men probably think that registering is merely a bureaucratic requirement with no real implications. Heated public discussions of sexism tend to focus on issues such as the share of women holding science and engineering professorships, or the media's treatment of female candidates for high public offices. Neither the media, nor young women and young men, nor the legal academy have much interest today in sexist Selective Service registration.

An extraordinary situation that produced a military draft would give Selective Service sexism much greater significance and make that sexism much more difficult to address. While historically normal, being forced into the military would be a life-shaping change for young men in the U.S. today. At the same time, circumstances demanding such change would not be propitious for affirming in new ways ideals of equality between women and men. In the British Commonwealth during World War I, men who did not "volunteer" to serve in the military were shamed with White Feather campaigns. Complaining about sexism in compulsory military service in the midst of a national emergency would be much more difficult for men than personally seeking to avoid military service. The latter was called cowardice, the former might be called subversion or treason.

Male-only selection service registration displays an interesting pattern of circumstantial entrenchment. Because most persons consider male-only selective service registration to be unimportant, its unreasonableness in current circumstances doesn't matter. Circumstances that would make male-only Selective Service registration important would also make asserting its unreasonableness infeasible.

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Tomorrow in the U.S. is Memorial Day. That is a day for honoring the men and women killed in military service. Choosing to sacrifice one's life for others is a heroic act. Assuming that a particular group of persons naturally and necessarily must make such sacrifices takes away from their heroism.

Men vastly predominate among persons serving and dying in armed forces. Among U.S. soldiers on active duty, men outnumber women by about six to one. Among U.S. soldiers fighting in the Iraq war, male soldiers' deaths outnumber female soldiers' deaths by about forty-two to one. The media has often reported the total number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq: through May 3, 2008, 4,059 killed. That number represents 3,935 men killed and 94 women killed.

Some might say that only men can perform the most dangerous tasks in war. But men also work in the most dangerous jobs outside of war: 5,396 men died at work in the U.S. in 2006, compared to 444 women. Some might say that men's lives are less valuable than women's. I don't believe that. Some might say that wars are men's fault. In a democracy where the majority of voters are women, persons who make such a claim merely display their animosity toward men. The deaths of men should be recognized, not ignored or taken for granted.

The sacrifice of men's lives in war gains more significance if men's lives are more valued. Over the past two hundred years, improvements in diet, safety, and health care have greatly increased human lifespans. From 1900 to 2005 in the U.S., life expectancy at birth rose from 47 years to 78 years. Expecting to have 31 more years of life is a huge benefit. Males, however, have benefited less than females. In 1900, males' life expectancy was two years less than females'. In 2005, males' life expectancy was five years less than females'. The sacrifice of men's lives in war would gain significance with more public concern to increase men's relatively short expected lifespans.

Even much greater disparities in lifespan have attracted little public attention. In the U.S., black males have an expected lifespan eleven years less than that of white females. This is not merely a disadvantage among elites, such as university leaders or presidential candidates, competing for even greater status, authority, and wealth. Eleven years less of life for black males compared to white females is an huge difference in the lives of large groups of persons.

Men can be made more heroic by everyone insisting on the equal value of men's lives. We should not obscure in sexless categories or inclusive language the vastly disproportionate number of men who die in military service. We should be concerned about men's relative disadvantage in life expectancy. Most importantly, we should do something to show our concern for men's lives.

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Data notes and references: Male and female solders on active duty on Sept. 30, 2007 can be calculated by subtracting from all active duty military personnel the separate tabulation of women only. Here's U.S. military deaths by sex in the Iraq war. The sex distribution is similar to that of the wounded in action. Additional U.S. military casualty statistics here. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries provides a tabulation by sex of occupational fatalities. For life expectancy at birth in the U.S. from 1900 to 2005, see Table 27 in Health, United States, 2007. This pattern of male lifespan decreasing relative to female lifespan over the past two hundred years has occurred generally; here's data for France. For additional data and analysis, see Daniel J. Kruger and Randolph M. Nesse (2004), "Sexual selection and the Male:Female Mortality Ratio," Evolutionary Psychology 2, pp. 66-77.

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