Swiss voters have decisively rejected a call to require women to do national service in the military, civil protection teams or other forms as men must do already.

Swiss voters on Sunday decisively rejected a call to require women to do national service in the military, civil protection teams or other forms, as all men must do already.

Official results. with counting still ongoing in some areas after a referendum, showed that more than half of Switzerland’s cantons, or states, had rejected the “citizen service initiative” by wide margins. That meant it was defeated, because proposals need a majority of both voters and cantons to pass.

Voters also heavily rejected a separate proposal to impose a new national tax on individual donations or inheritances of more than 50 million francs ($62 million), with the revenues to be used to fight the impact of climate change and help Switzerland meet its ambitions to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

  • XenGi@feddit.orgEnglish
    958·
    5 days ago

    Statistically woman do so much more care work then men, they already served the country well. There is no need to also draft them. It’s only fair. It would also work if more men would take care of kids, the elderly or do other chores without any pay and skip any career for that.

    • Oxysis/Oxy@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      151·
      5 days ago

      That’s great but we are talking about the draft, not domestic life. Women can take on roles in the armed services that mean some men won’t be forced into doing. Combat roles aren’t the entire thing, plenty of support roles that need filling out. Being drafted won’t be fun but if we want true equality then women have to help shoulder the burden when/if a draft happens. It’s a privilege to not have to worry about being drafted, giving that privilege up won’t be fun but it is fair.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zipEnglish
      421·
      5 days ago

      There is also the emprical evidence that women make less over the course of their careers. An extra year or two of work experience can help to offset that.

      Obviously not everyone falls into those gender norm buckets. But… they are “gender norms” for a reason. And while I don’t know how our trans friends impact that (or if Switzerland acknowledges their existence…), it isn’t the worst way to break things down to having roughly half the population on the frontlines and the other half keeping the country running.

      But this is the kind of thing that brings out the MRA tendencies in everyone as a kneejerk reaction.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
        131·
        5 days ago

        Military service isn’t “being on the frontline.” I don’t know how Switzerland handles it, but in the US a lot of aid work is done by reservists. I’m sure Switzerland does similar things with these people. Sure, they’re also all trained to fight, but they aren’t fighting in a war right now, so they use them to do other things. Some of that will be building bunkers and stuff, but a lot is probably doing things that support the country in other ways.