Well seeing as my exams are finally over I have time to bring up an issue that was discussed during one of our last classes. We were comparing the US to the German military, there are a couple of differences most notably mandatory service. I personally thought it was required of all people in Germany between 18-35 to either spend 9 months in the military or working public service jobs. Much to my surprise, however, I was informed that it is only men who are required to do any type of service. Women are not required by law to do any kind of service for their country.

Now as an Americans a bunch of us thought that this was a bit odd, so we asked the Germans what they thought of this. To the question one promptly replied "It is our job as men to protect the women" we then asked if he thought this was fair, to which he replied "Yes because women can bare children and that is more painful." We were all pretty much stunned by his comments but it appeared that the other German students agreed. Including the one female German student and our female teacher. On the other hand the one American female student got all pissed and started off on a how women can do every thing that men can do. To which the Germans all stopped talking.

So I want to ask what your opinions on this matter are, because I found this to be rather interesting. Especially since Germany otherwise has protections in place to ensure fair treatment and equal treatment due to sex, race or religion, but nothing has been said or done about the mandatory service issue.