Effects on morale can be particularly adverse. The presence of women among male troops weakens combat readiness. All-male units in the field experience bonding that enhances unit cohesion and effectiveness. When women are introduced, men stop relating to each other and begin trying to attract the women. Nor can morale be improved when accusations of harassment are always a threat. Male officers leave the office door open or have a third person in the room when dealing with a female subordinate. An accusation of sexual harassment by the woman, even if unproven, would severely damage the man's service career, and both the man and the woman are acutely aware of that fact. They could hardly not be sensitive to the issue when, for example, Representative Pat Schroeder demanded and got sexual harassment training for all personnel in order to rid the Navy of bad attitudes.

The Israelis, Soviets, and Germans, when in desperate need of front-line troops, placed women in combat, but later barred them. Male troops forgot their tactical objectives in order to protect the women from harm or capture, knowing what the enemy would do to female prisoners of war. This made combat units less effective and exposed the men to even greater risks. In the Gulf War a female American pilot was captured, raped, and sodomized by Iraqi troops. She declared that this was just part of combat risk. But can anyone suppose that male pilots will not now divert their efforts to protecting female pilots whenever possible?

Our military seems quite aware of such dangers, but, because of the feminists, it would be politically dangerous to respond as the Israelis did by taking women out of harm's way. Instead, the American solution is to try to stifle the natural reactions of men. The Air Force, for example, established a mock prisoner of war camp to desensitize male recruits so they won't react like men when women prisoners scream under torture. There is a very considerable anomaly here. The military is training men to be more sensitive to women in order to prevent sexual harassment and also training men to be insensitive to women being raped and sodomized or screaming under torture. It is impossible to believe that both efforts can succeed simultaneously.