In discussing the history of male suffrage and its link to the history of male military obligation, I realized there’s an aspect of this history we’re not talking about. In today’s political debates we’re told that historically, patriarchal attitudes kept women out of military service and many other harsh realities of life; dirty jobs like coal mining, dangerous work like hunting, because they have always been the fairer, weaker sex. The story history tells is not so patriarchal… not so gynocentric, nor so black and white. Whatever can be said about women today, the women we evolved from would probably kick all our asses.