Resisting G.I. Jane - Ctd

SURELY, this had to be an Onion parody piece, I kept thinking. But it wasn't. To wit: "Only someone deliberately blind to human reality could maintain that putting men and women in close quarters 24 hours a day will not produce a proliferation of sex, thus introducing all the irrational passions (and resulting favoritism) of physical attraction into an organization that should be exclusively devoted to the mission of combat preparedness," so wrote National Review commentator Heather Mac Donald who has never served a day in the military, let alone in combat. And we're supposed to take her seriously? Not only did Mac Donald straight-up insult our male warriors (who she blithely paints as a cadre of unethical, unprofessional, sex-crazed brutes), she actually sang a forlorn paean to -- wait for it -- chivalry. No, I'm not kidding. "Chivalry is one of the great civilizing forces, taming men and introducing social graces and nuance to what would otherwise be a brutish social world. It is already on life support, but sex-integrated combat units will provide the coup de grâce," Mac Donald writes. Wow. It's a pity this poor woman wasn't born in the 19th century. She'd clearly be happier.