Preventing Pregnant Soldiers: The Female's Responsibility

Last I checked, you need one man and one woman in order to make a baby. Elementary school children know this, but apparently they forgot to tell the British military. It is encouraging female soldiers to use condoms, in order to avoid embarrassing and expensive (for the military) pregnancies while on duty.

This would be fine, if male solders were admonished in the same way. But no, the responsibility falls solely on the woman. A series of ads in the army magazine Soldier calls for women to arm themselves against the "50 blokes for each woman" who are hovering around threatening to impregnate them.

Perhaps the army thinks it doesn't need to remind men to carry condoms, because perhaps there is already a culture of condom-carrying among males in the military. But somehow I doubt it.

From 2003 to 2009, over 100 female troops had to be sent home from Iraq due to pregnancy. Considering the sheer numbers of troops in Iraq, 100 over six years doesn't seem like that many, but yes, it is expensive and bad for morale to send even a few pregnant women home, as bemoaned by Tory MP Patrick Mercer who said, "One has to wonder why this sort of advertisement has only been used now."

Because, Pat, until now we'd been mostly living in the twenty-first century. How about we stick to keeping the responsibility gender-neutral?

Photo credit: Anka Grzywacz