Reopening a can of worms

The Military Manpower Association is thinking of bringing back the policy where those who have completed their military duty would receive extra points on civil service exams.

The rationale is that those who fulfill their mandatory military requirements will have lost valuable preparation time for the often grueling exams. The problem is that those who are not subject to the draft — namely women and the disabled — are then at a disadvantage when it comes to getting such lucrative jobs.

Both sides claim discrimination if they don't get their way. If women who serve in the military (and there are a growing number that do) do not receive those extra points, then this is definitely gender discrimination, but if women are able to get those extra points by taking 2.5 years out of their lives to serve in uniform, I see the rationale for giving those who have served the extra points.

The way I see it, the only way for this type of situation to be remotely fair would be to have women and the disabled perform national service as well, whether it be in the military or some other government service. That could reduce the amount of time spent in the military or government service to about 1.5 years, while utilizing the system to promote certain job skills.

But nobody listens to me.

The drawback, some say, is that it would take even more fertile years away from women, which could push the already disastrously low fertility rate even lower.