I am a veteran of the United States Armed Forces. One of the things I learned VERY WELL is the absolute worst thing for unit cohesion and accomplishment of the mission is to have people in the military who are there for the wrong reasons, number one of which is people who don’t want to be there. As such, I believe in an all-volunteer force. I’d rather have fewer people who want to be there than a lot of people who don’t want to be there. The differences in performance and attitudes are like night and day. None of my above-stated opinion is hinged on gender.
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I was posting my answer just as you changed the question, so I am posting this addendum: changing times have made it more difficult for military recruiting, so the foresight of increasing potential numbers by added women to the Selective Service roles is possibly one of the reasons behind the proposed senate action. Another possible reason is a result of the quest for gender equality.
I don’t think adding women to the requirement for enrolling in Selective Service is either all good or all bad. If women truly strive for gender equality in government policies and programs, then restricting it to only men can be seen as unfair. If opportunities within the military occupations and units are being broadened more and more to include women, or more accurately, to stop excluding people on the basis of gender, then this move might make perfect sense.
By switching the conversation from “being drafted” to “registering with a program that introduces the possibility and availability of being drafted sometime in the unforeseeable future”, it makes for completely different considerations. ~
SpunkySenior 