Let’s get this straight: The army jailed a handful of male soldiers for refusing to sit in an armored personnel carrier with a female paramedic. The soldiers were part of a regular combat unit, not an ultraorthodox one, and therefore required to obey the rules by which women serve alongside men. Betsalel Smotrich, a government minister, publicly condemned the army’s move, even though the soldiers’ refusal had supposedly compromised their mission.

The woman, unnamed in the article, was not asked how she felt about the soldiers’ rude boycott.

She was not there to sing, the men were not required to touch her. There would be no orgy in the APC because a woman sat in one of its benches. She was there because she possessed special training. Her seat was not a perk. She was not there due to her having breasts or a vagina, but because she, like the men, had a role to play in whatever action was planned.

I have to wonder. If, g-d forbid, the APC came under attack and some of those men were injured, would they refuse medical care from this woman? Would she be given their gracious permission to touch them in order to stanch bleeding or treat a burn?

Afar Nafisi, in her memoir “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” writes about meeting with male staff in the Iranian university where she taught. The men would avoid looking at her – some ostentatiously keeping their eyes on the windows and walls, others looking down with a hint of embarrassment. She, as well learned to never look a man in the eye or offer a hand,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)