The article that I cited from the Ottawa Citizen is called, Death of Nichola Goddard Showed Modern Face of Canada’s Fighting Forces by Tom Spears. Look at what is written in it: “It frustrated her [Nichola Goddard] that after a series of sexual assaults inside the Kandahar base she had to accept that she couldn’t walk anywhere alone at night.” She was a captain, and she couldn’t walk around alone at night, even on the base. When we legislate for exceptions—like when we make it legal for women to serve in combat arms trades just because some women reckon they’re as tough as men—we have to knit a whole patchwork of exceptions, don’t we? Because of the weaker vessel that she was, an exception had to be made to accommodate her vulnerability. Some soldiers were allowed to walk around alone at night inside the base, obviously, the captain and other women excepted. And what is very likely is this: Because she did not have liberty to walk around alone at night, the soldiers directly under her command had to be shut in too. When women are let into stations that men alone should occupy, not only do they cramp style, they make things harder for the men. “Get that tarp set up to make a division in the tent, men!” That’s just one extra piece of kit that a woman among men makes necessary. Life’s not hard enough for the men; let’s make their lot even harder. What if no exception had been made about walking on the base alone at night? What if she had been allowed to roam the base as some of the men no doubt did? There might have been a crime and a scandal to contend with, and a victim to rescue and tend—all because the soldiers had been given a woman for their captain instead of a man.
If she could not walk around on the base at night without a male chaperone, what other restrictions did her sex impose upon her and the men under her command? We know from the annals of war and also from the war in Afghanistan that it is critically important to get to know the region you are fighting in, as well as its inhabitants, the locals; and that it is critically important to gather this intelligence through partisans, which partisans must be identified and dialogued with. We also know that in time of war, the soldier is on duty, so to speak, even when he is not. What did Nichola Goddard’s gender prevent her from doing? Was her sex not a disadvantage? What intelligence might she have gathered if she had had as much freedom to get to know the locals as the men had the liberty to do? Did the men not have to do certain aspects of her job for her? Had she been a man instead of a woman out of place in a man’s world, might she have gathered some information that would have saved some lives? We cannot rule this out. “Women bring a different mindset, a different mentality, a different set of skills with them,” the article from the Ottawa Citizen says. No details are given on this. Why say ‘different mentality’ right after saying ‘different mindset’ when the terms are synonymous? Because something is trying to be said when there is nothing to say, that’s why. What, exactly, did this woman bring that was over and above what a qualified man would have brought? Nothing specific is mentioned. It is impossible to think of any special skills that her sex brought to the front line; it is not possible to think of any advantage because in that part of the world, women have less access to intelligence than have the men. Did she have access to Afghan women? The article doesn’t say. Again, from the article, speaking of Captain Goddard: “The woman who as a child had dined on taro, caribou and seal had no trouble sitting down to a meal of goat soup with Afghan elders.” Afghan elders are men. For certain the men in that part of the world do not like to mingle, much less discuss serious matters, with foreign women. Many, maybe most, at least among certain Muslim factions, would rather rape them. Anyone who knows anything about how camaraderie develops will tell you that when men are sitting in a circle, without women present, they open up and they talk to each other. They tell stories, they flatter, they boast, they point, they paw, they poke, they punch, they drink, they smoke, they spit, they joke, they jest, and pretty soon they are saying what they didn’t intend to say. They tell ‘where the bodies are buried,’ as it were; even their body language reveals secrets. Acta exteriora indicant interiora secreta. (The outward conduct indicates the secrets of the heart.) Every man has had the experience of having secrets revealed to him by a man just because he was a fellow man; even Prime Minister Trudeau—a mama’s boy if ever there was one—has had this happen. Put a woman in the midst, though, and every man locks down whatever he would have disclosed. Yes, put a feminist woman from Canada in the midst when the men you want information from are Afghan elders! What a bright idea from the unenlightened politicians of progressive Canada! What a way to find out where landmines are buried! What a way to find out who is only pretending to be a partisan! What a way to prevent an ambush! What a way to win a war! This captain was a hindrance to gathering intelligence. It cannot have been otherwise. It might be that because of her many soldiers are dead that would right now be alive. I said ‘might.’ And that much must at least be said. From the same article: “But they [women] are also fully capable because you can’t get into the combat arms unless you pass the test to do it, no matter if you’re a man or a woman.” This is a falsehood. Standards have been lowered or overlooked, just like what happens to make women into firefighters. If not for feminism and the scared politicians who caved in to that pernicious ideology, Nichola Goddard might be in her kitchen right now canning green tomatoes to provide relish for her household—a household that feminist policies paved the road for her never to populate and enjoy. She was “the first combat-certified, female Canadian soldier to die in a combat role,” the article says. Is this something to be proud of? No, this fact is a shame; this woman should be alive right now. She died for the feminist cause—for radical feminists and their twisted philosophy. Feminists are glad that they have their first kill. It is more honorable not to be glad about her death, though. It’s so exciting to have the first feminist killed in action, I guess, that a school was named in Captain Goddard’s honor in Calgary in 2013. Boys aren’t belittled enough, apparently; now they are made to go to a school named in honor of a woman who helped to bring the army down a peg! A regiment named after a woman is romantic and honorable, but only because Princess Patricia didn’t step out of her role (as a figurehead) into that of a man’s. A school named after a dismantler of traditions, though, that’s unacceptable. Yes, Goddard’s involvement as a combat soldier was legal; but not all legislation is righteous.
