Donnelly Says Allowing Women In Combat Is Like Forcing Cheerleaders To Play In NFL Games; Rios Blames Spider-Woman

Center for Military Readiness head Elaine Donnelly appeared on Sandy Rios In The Morning today to once again warn of the perils of allowing women in combat. She told the American Family Association radio host that the Obama administration’s plan to open combat roles to women service members is “like saying let’s take those cheerleaders and put them into the frontlines of the NFL and football games.”

Rios said that the problem all started with the “feminist influence” found in movies that made women think that they “can do it all.”

“We are watching movies, almost every action movie has a chick hero and she’s stronger than the men, and she’s able to kick and to move and to kill as lethally as they are,” Rios added. “It started maybe with Spider-Woman, I don’t know.”

She went on to recount her time in Israel talking to the country’s female soldiers who “were very proud of what they were able to do” on the frontlines.

Rios sidestepped the issue on whether Israel’s policy towards women in the military harmed its country’s security, unlike her AFA colleague Bryan Fischer who tackled it by falsely claiming that Israel bans women in combat.

Donnelly: In that environment, direct ground combat, women are at a severe disadvantage. They do not have an equal opportunity to survive or help fellow soldiers survive. To force women into that environment it’s like saying let’s take those cheerleaders and put them into the frontlines of the NFL and football games. Well we don’t even do that with the officials in the football games. To do that would be unfair, injuries would skyrocket and it certainly wouldn’t help that team win any games, and that’s non-lethal combat. So if we’re not going to do it in non-lethal combat in the NFL, why are we planning on doing this in lethal combat where national security is at risk?

Rios: You and I both know that our daughters and many women listening to you and me, women our age too, are products of feminist influence even if they don’t consider themselves a feminist. We are watching movies, almost every action movie has a chick hero and she’s stronger than the men, and she’s able to kick and to move and to kill as lethally as they are, with Catherine Zeta Jones and think of all the women who have played these roles. It started maybe with Spider-Woman, I don’t know. It’s like ‘women power’ and ‘we can do this.’ In fact I just was in Israel interviewing some of the females in the Israeli military and they were talking about their frontline experience and they were very proud of what they were able to do, so there’s this mood, this feeling, that women can do it all.