content: Military service in Israel isn't great either if you're interested in fairness:  Female draftees who state that they maintain a religious Jewish way of life are exempt from military service, and many of them choose to volunteer for an alternative national service called Sherut Leumi.  and  About 25 percent of eligible Israeli male draftees do not serve -- more than double that of 1980. Of those not serving, almost half are legally exempt as ultra-Orthodox Jews. With Israel's 20 percent Arab minority also exempt, only 54 percent of the country's 18-year-old men are now inducted into the Israel Defense Forces for their mandatory three-year service. Some 43 percent of eligible women, who are required to serve two years, don't join the army either. An additional 17.7 percent of all soldiers do not complete their full term in uniform, according to the army's tally.  And I'm guessing even the 57% in the second source is counting those serving in the glorified social outreach program noted in the first source that basically exists to give women an out. Fundamentally, I refuse to believe there's an army on earth that asks as much of women as it does of men until there's an actual war and the bodies are counted and found to be even.  Until then, even if the numbers serving are equal among men and women (which they never are anyway), I'm going to assume the women are in fact serving in safer positions.