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Posted

A lawsuit to allow females to serve in combat units has been started:

 

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/24/11842777-female-soldiers-sue-to-lift-combat-ban-solely-on-the-basis-of-sex?lite

 

I'm not sure what to think of this one. Part of me thinks that, if a woman can perform to the standards of a man at any one military job, then let her have that job. But, another part of me knows that females already are held to lower standards on things like the Physical Fitness Test. So, in a firefight, could a woman hoist a wounded man across her back and carry him to safety if her state of physical fitness is held to lower standards?

 

Anyway, food for thought . . .

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Guest Charles
Posted

A lawsuit to allow females to serve in combat units has been started:

 

http://usnews.msnbc....sis-of-sex?lite

 

I'm not sure what to think of this one. Part of me thinks that, if a woman can perform to the standards of a man at any one military job, then let her have that job. But, another part of me knows that females already are held to lower standards on things like the Physical Fitness Test. So, in a firefight, could a woman hoist a wounded man across her back and carry him to safety if her state of physical fitness is held to lower standards?

 

Anyway, food for thought . . .

 

I was unaware that serving Women are held to a lower physical standard. AFAIK, for entry into the Royal Marine Commando's, the physical test makes NO differenciation if one is a man or woman. You pass the PE, all well and good; fail it...... . Same for the Royal Artillery I believe.

 

IMHO, its all about mental fitness etc. Going from memory here, but The Kirk wrote up a good article on some of the Women he trained with in SE Asia. Their carrying capacity was as great if not greater than most Men's. Going from that, the physical standard should be the same for both sexes. You wish to join an elite formation/unit afterwards; fine but metric just got higher. Again no differentiation should be made for either sex.

 

Charles

Posted

We you read stories, such as the Woman medic in Basra who dragged a wounded man out of a knocked out warrior with bullets pinging off the armour around her.... Well lets just say, we have some pretty strange ideas of what is unsuitable to be a soldier. If they pass the medical, I cant see the problem TBH.

 

I don't think anybody here has voiced the opinion that women, as a group, are unsuited to serving in combat arms units that are currently reserved for men. However, males and females are held to different standards on the Physical Fitness Test, body-fat standards, and height and weight standards. If these women successfully sue, then there must be one standard for everybody - male and female.

 

On another note, I always was told that serving servicemembers could not sue their employer (US Army, US Navy etc.) about any matter and that one regained the ability to sue them once one was no longer a serving member.

Posted (edited)

The "everybody meets the same standards, everybody gets the same speciality" approach is the fairly self-evident ideal preached by most factual-minded folks. Of course reality intrudes, particularly involving people beset with fulfilling quotas for women in the force.

 

Once ordered to open non-medical career tracks to women by the European Court (which was totally warranted, since the earlier refusal was based upon a bullshit interpretation of the constitutional clause prohibiting female conscription), in the usual thorough German way we took a scientific approach and made a law stipulating that women should be hired and promoted favorably over equally-qualified men until a quota of 15 percent (50 percent in medical) was reached in all branches and rank groups, based upon the theory that members of a minority less than that are treated as mere "token" within a given group, with resulting adverse effects.

 

Good theory, little real-world background, because you put a strain on superiors to evaluate female soldiers favorably IOT make them promotable over male comrades to fulfill the targets of the policy. Even if superiors resist that strain, you automatically put women under suspicion of benefiting from it, starting with different physical entry standards. As usual, negative examples will be paraded by the discontent; and I must admit my jaw dropped when I saw a female SSGT(!) struggling to load on a Leopard 2 on a TV programme.

 

Fortunately, most female soldiers don't want any special treatment, and in general are pretty self-selecting towards medical and administrative rather than combat specialities. However, there are women who can keep up with men in the latter, like the first female 1st LT who led an infantry platoon in combat last year in Kunduz (of course she looks pretty much like a dude, too).

 

Also, the special forces have so far resisted lowering their physical standards to admit women; though I hear the women who have tried out for the KSK so far didn't fail due to physical requirements - most of the selections is about mindset after all, and 90+ percent of men wash out there, too. But actually KSK is about to set up a dedicated female sub-unit to make use of specific female capabilities - not for knocking down doors, but blending in for reconnaissance, searching women in Muslim countries without creating unnecessary strain for the mission, etc. I believe the Brits and US do the same for similar reasons.

Edited by BansheeOne
Posted

We have had Canadian women in Combat roles for the last 15 years. We lost a great FO in the sandbox who by all acounts was a brave and excellant officer who lead from the front and died on the front. It just happends that this officer was a female.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichola_Goddard

Posted (edited)

There's a problem when you apply this wonderful egalitarian idea to the US, however. Our cultural blind spot is that we refuse to acknowledge that combat is not gender-normed, and that the world is not a place which is "fair". Every time the services have tried institutionalizing a gender-blind standard, the civilian ninnies have come right along behind that and demanded that everything be made sweetness and light for the ladies, reducing their standards.

 

This has happened multiple times, over the years. When I went to enlist in '81, all the jobs were coded with strength requirements, and there was an easy-peasy Universal Gym setup that you had to do a set weight and a set number of repetitions for each job's qualifications. The test basically replicated what we Americans call a "military press", which is lifting a barbell from waist to overhead in one movement. I don't recall having a huge problem with maxing the damn thing, and I wasn't in the best shape possible for a young man--I was used to a lot of heavy physical labor and riding a bike, but running wasn't my thing. In very short order, the nice ladies at DACOWITS (which was an advisory group covering "opportunities" for women in the military) had determined that the Army was actually using the test as a (gasp!) way to keep girls away from the "good jobs" which had high physical demands. The test was discontinued (I think--It may have been later on) by the time I returned to MEPS to ship out for Initial Entry Training.

 

Every other time the US military has tried something similar, they've been shot down. It's been a steady erosion of common sense, as they open up more and more positions to women. Combat medics who are female are fine in formations that aren't comprised entirely of big, heavy young males in the prime of their lives. So long as the ladies don't have to do casevac as individuals under fire, they're fine in that position. Move them to a slot where that's a routine part of the job, and you're setting them and the men they're supposed to be saving up for utter failure. I had numerous young ladies, all of enthusiastic bent and who were good Soldiers when evaluated in a vacuum, and they all failed miserably as Combat Medics whenever we did realistic training. There's something simultaneously hilarious and yet tragically horrifying when you consider the real-world implications, when you regard three female medics who are struggling manfully to even move one male casualty on the ground over some logs and other obstacles. That same simulated casualty was scooped up and thrown over the shoulder of one of the bigger guys we had, while he ran like a deer over the fallen trees with him.

 

Body mass and upper body strength are not something you can compensate for on the battlefield, and every unit I ever served with that included the girls was dramatically reduced in terms of capabilities--Even for simple shit like loading vehicles for a command post. We operated a jump TOC for the I Corps headquarters while I was with the Staff Engineer Section there in the early 1990s. We had a Neanderthal (literally, the guy was scary-strong...) Sergeant Major running the place, who'd made the determination that it would be an all-male affair. He'd be there with a stopwatch timing everything, from setting up the camouflage net to putting in security. It usually took us an hour to set up everything that mattered to run the place from pulling into site and being able to get out the first message. On a really good day, maybe 45 minutes. As soon as he left to retire, they moved in a more "enlightened" soul, who said that banning the girls was a sexist practice, and who promptly integrated the place. Set-up times promptly increased to around 3 hours, and I got really tired of being pulled off what I was doing to "go help someone with that...". Shortly after the first few piss-poor performances, we quit keeping track of the time it took to set things up. I can regale you with similar stories, from throughout my career. Adding women to the mix means lower standards, across the board. They can't keep up, and nobody wants to lance the boil of unpleasant truth, so they gender-norm the entire unit's performance. We used to evaluate a whole lot of things on time, but those standards have steadily been erased as more and more less capable Soldiers get slotted into units where they really don't belong.

 

Don't get me wrong. I think women have a place in the military, and they can do a lot of things very well. It's just that when these idiots implementing things insist on ignoring very real differences in physical capability that things start to go wrong. For that lack of discipline alone, on their parts, I'd ban women from the military entirely. Culturally, we can't seem to cope with the idea that boys and girls are inherently different, and apply common-sense solutions to that problem. And, it's not the men and women in the military who are the problem--It's all the assholes and idiots on the civilian side who are the problem. I've talked to some of the people making these decisions, and they're utterly blind to the problems their idealized visions have in the real world.

 

I also doubt that putting women into these situations and assignments is really doing right by them, either. I venture to predict that the VA is going to be focused a lot more heavily, and spending enormously disproportionate amounts of money on female veterans over the next few generations for musculo-skeletal long-term injuries. Every single one of the enlisted women I knew who tried meeting the standards of the guys just didn't last, at all--Most of the really good ones, the ones I'd put up against any male Soldier I knew, just did not last over the course of even just a single long enlistment. Guys break too, but not all of them. Every young lady I had work for me over the years that came close to approaching male standards for PT or physical participation in military-related tasks wound up with severe long-term consequences, and quite a few were medically retired. Officers, not so much--Their work is not so physical, and they get many breaks from the action over the course of their careers, unlike the enlisted types who stay at the coalface for their entire careers. I really don't think we're doing the right thing as a society by these young ladies who we're telling "Go ahead, be GI Jane... You can do it!". Fact is, they simply can't, over the long haul, and they're winding up injured in disproportionate numbers to the guys.

 

In an ideal world, you'd test to standard and ignore gender. The US military, and primarily its civilian masters, has demonstrated that it can't do that. And, even if the lot of them did have the willpower, would it make a worthwhile, cost-effective difference? The number of women who can muster what it takes to match even the lowest percentile of the male population in those physical areas that pertain to military service is vanishingly small, and probably about as big as that percentage of the population who are Olympic-level athletes. I'm sad to say it, but those girls are far more likely to be doing something else with their lives, like athletics, than be in the military.

Edited by thekirk
Posted

From the featured article:

 

Command Sergeant Major Jane Baldwin and Colonel Ellen Haring, both Army reservists, said policies barring them from assignments "solely on the basis of sex" violated their right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

 

If this suit is allowed to proceed to trial, however that may be, then current military restrictions of the First Amendment would have to be challenged as well. This would include ending the muzzling servicemen and women's open personal opinions regarding the CINC and superior officers. It would also include granting all that serve to have the absolute right to freedom of assembly - including membership in racist or subversive organizations.

Posted

From the featured article:

 

Command Sergeant Major Jane Baldwin and Colonel Ellen Haring, both Army reservists, said policies barring them from assignments "solely on the basis of sex" violated their right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

 

If this suit is allowed to proceed to trial, however that may be, then current military restrictions of the First Amendment would have to be challenged as well. This would include ending the muzzling servicemen and women's open personal opinions regarding the CINC and superior officers. It would also include granting all that serve to have the absolute right to freedom of assembly - including membership in racist or subversive organizations.

 

Here's a question, Rocky: Precisely which combat arms jobs in the Reserves are these women being kept out of? Last time I looked, the Reserve was entirely Combat Support and Combat Service Support--Where are their actual grounds for suing?

 

Frankly, if I were in charge, both of these clowns would be out on their ears for political grandstanding. I'd had no idea they were so senior--I figured a captain or a major, and maybe an SFC or a SSG. Disconnected idiots--I doubt either one of them has any real idea what the life of an average Infantryman looks like from the bottom-up. The irony here? If they succeed, there are going to be huge numbers of their fellow women who will come to hate them for doing this, because I can't see the male-only draft surviving this policy shift. Either Selective Service goes away, or it becomes gender-blind, and the girlies get their asses drafted according to the needs of the services right alongside their male counterparts.

Posted

1. Here's a question, Rocky: Precisely which combat arms jobs in the Reserves are these women being kept out of? Last time I looked, the Reserve was entirely Combat Support and Combat Service Support--Where are their actual grounds for suing?

 

2. Frankly, if I were in charge, both of these clowns would be out on their ears for political grandstanding. I'd had no idea they were so senior--I figured a captain or a major, and maybe an SFC or a SSG. Disconnected idiots--I doubt either one of them has any real idea what the life of an average Infantryman looks like from the bottom-up. The irony here? If they succeed, there are going to be huge numbers of their fellow women who will come to hate them for doing this, because I can't see the male-only draft surviving this policy shift. Either Selective Service goes away, or it becomes gender-blind, and the girlies get their asses drafted according to the needs of the services right alongside their male counterparts.

 

1. You are correct - the US Army Reserve has no combat arms units. However, this could be an age-old error committed by the media . . . you know, the one that labels both Reserves and National Guard (which does have combat units) as being "Reserves" - kind of like the way they label anything with tracks as being "a tank."

 

2. Sometimes, the opening of one door that is seen as pleasurable also simultaneously opens others that are not so pleasurable.

Posted

AFAIK, for entry into the Royal Marine Commando's, the physical test makes NO differenciation if one is a man or woman.

 

Women cannot join the Royal Marines. The All Arms Commando Course is open to women, but that is for other branches supporting RM. The first woman to pass did so in 2002. I don't think there have been very many since.

Guest Charles
Posted

AFAIK, for entry into the Royal Marine Commando's, the physical test makes NO differenciation if one is a man or woman.

 

Women cannot join the Royal Marines. The All Arms Commando Course is open to women, but that is for other branches supporting RM. The first woman to pass did so in 2002. I don't think there have been very many since.

 

Thanks for the info; was unaware that some Lass had passed. Last I had heard, pre 2002 was a woman had yet to pass the AACC.

 

Charles

Guest Jason L
Posted

Don't get me wrong. I think women have a place in the military, and they can do a lot of things very well. It's just that when these idiots implementing things insist on ignoring very real differences in physical capability that things start to go wrong. For that lack of discipline alone, on their parts, I'd ban women from the military entirely. Culturally, we can't seem to cope with the idea that boys and girls are inherently different, and apply common-sense solutions to that problem. And, it's not the men and women in the military who are the problem--It's all the assholes and idiots on the civilian side who are the problem. I've talked to some of the people making these decisions, and they're utterly blind to the problems their idealized visions have in the real world.

 

Please support this assertion with actual references. Or even better yet, simply list exactly what these differences are.

 

This should be good, I'll even pre-make the popcorn.

Posted

Don't get me wrong. I think women have a place in the military, and they can do a lot of things very well. It's just that when these idiots implementing things insist on ignoring very real differences in physical capability that things start to go wrong. For that lack of discipline alone, on their parts, I'd ban women from the military entirely. Culturally, we can't seem to cope with the idea that boys and girls are inherently different, and apply common-sense solutions to that problem. And, it's not the men and women in the military who are the problem--It's all the assholes and idiots on the civilian side who are the problem. I've talked to some of the people making these decisions, and they're utterly blind to the problems their idealized visions have in the real world.

 

Please support this assertion with actual references. Or even better yet, simply list exactly what these differences are.

 

This should be good, I'll even pre-make the popcorn.

 

Another delusional self-identifies... If you need me to explicate the differences between men and women, I'm afraid you're far more out of tune from reality than I am.

 

Oh, and by the way--Get back with me when you have some real-world experience running male and female troops, and of accomplishing military missions with both. Until then, keep to the peanut gallery. You sound less ridiculous there.

Posted (edited)

Don't get me wrong. I think women have a place in the military, and they can do a lot of things very well. It's just that when these idiots implementing things insist on ignoring very real differences in physical capability that things start to go wrong. For that lack of discipline alone, on their parts, I'd ban women from the military entirely. Culturally, we can't seem to cope with the idea that boys and girls are inherently different, and apply common-sense solutions to that problem. And, it's not the men and women in the military who are the problem--It's all the assholes and idiots on the civilian side who are the problem. I've talked to some of the people making these decisions, and they're utterly blind to the problems their idealized visions have in the real world.

 

AHAHAH, BRAVO Kirk!

 

In the police service there are some issues as well. The 'mixed couple' are the worst in the riots. It happens that the couple came in a riot, the man enters and came to be isolated and whipped, while the woman cannot enter and help him, while screaming outside the mob.

 

Simply, the women are lighter and less strong than the men. They were good enough in some works, especially the ones that do not have some less heavy workload. RAF Auxiliaries in the RAF fighter command were OK, while the men fought with the Spitfires. Inverting the tasks would have been worst in both the sides, command and fighter units. Women were and are good in second line duties. And even with some first line duties, see the soviet snipers in WWII. Just you have to take in account their capabilities and their weakness.

 

Even more so, the discipline is another issue, for not that mysterious reasons. Check for Parolisi /Melania Rea killing, as example (the infamous murder case in Italì).

 

In military ships there are issues as well, still for well known reasons.

Edited by istvan47
Guest Jason L
Posted (edited)

Don't get me wrong. I think women have a place in the military, and they can do a lot of things very well. It's just that when these idiots implementing things insist on ignoring very real differences in physical capability that things start to go wrong. For that lack of discipline alone, on their parts, I'd ban women from the military entirely. Culturally, we can't seem to cope with the idea that boys and girls are inherently different, and apply common-sense solutions to that problem. And, it's not the men and women in the military who are the problem--It's all the assholes and idiots on the civilian side who are the problem. I've talked to some of the people making these decisions, and they're utterly blind to the problems their idealized visions have in the real world.

 

Please support this assertion with actual references. Or even better yet, simply list exactly what these differences are.

 

This should be good, I'll even pre-make the popcorn.

 

Another delusional self-identifies... If you need me to explicate the differences between men and women, I'm afraid you're far more out of tune from reality than I am.

 

Oh, and by the way--Get back with me when you have some real-world experience running male and female troops, and of accomplishing military missions with both. Until then, keep to the peanut gallery. You sound less ridiculous there.

 

Riiight.....how many failed marriages have you racked up exactly?

 

Most. Cop. Out. Reply. Ever.

 

Canadians manage just fine with women in combat duties. As do several other countries. If you've had problems leading women and men, maybe its a personal one. Or America just sucks at the whole social thing.

 

But if you can't provide a simple list after writing what is practically a thousand word essay on the subject, you probably really just don't know what you're talking about. I mean it should be soooo easy to describe the differences.

Edited by Jason L
Posted

Don't get me wrong. I think women have a place in the military, and they can do a lot of things very well. It's just that when these idiots implementing things insist on ignoring very real differences in physical capability that things start to go wrong. For that lack of discipline alone, on their parts, I'd ban women from the military entirely. Culturally, we can't seem to cope with the idea that boys and girls are inherently different, and apply common-sense solutions to that problem. And, it's not the men and women in the military who are the problem--It's all the assholes and idiots on the civilian side who are the problem. I've talked to some of the people making these decisions, and they're utterly blind to the problems their idealized visions have in the real world.

 

Please support this assertion with actual references. Or even better yet, simply list exactly what these differences are.

 

This should be good, I'll even pre-make the popcorn.

 

Another delusional self-identifies... If you need me to explicate the differences between men and women, I'm afraid you're far more out of tune from reality than I am.

 

Oh, and by the way--Get back with me when you have some real-world experience running male and female troops, and of accomplishing military missions with both. Until then, keep to the peanut gallery. You sound less ridiculous there.

 

Riiight.....how many failed marriages have you racked up exactly?

 

Most. Cop. Out. Reply. Ever.

 

Canadians manage just fine with women in combat duties. As do several other countries. If you've had problems leading women and men, maybe its a personal one. Or american just sucks at the whole social thing.

 

Politely, shut the fuck up about matters you know nothing about, you delittante little twit. Until you've had to deal with leading personnel who are inherently physically incapable of doing the mission you've been assigned, that drag down your unit efficiency at performing life and death missions, and have had to cope with the immediate and follow-on after-effects of those physically incapable people literally breaking under stress in positions dumbass idealists like yourself placed them into, you have no right whatsoever to pontificate on what is or is not right in a military setting.

 

Better women than you'll ever be a man have broken themselves for life under my authority, doing things I ordered them to do, because fools with your idealistic mindset of mindless equality forced me to try to accomplish military missions with them. Unlike you, I actually give a damn what's best for people I'm put in authority over, and have had to personally live with the consequences of this bullshit idea that a 90lb woman is the equivalent of a 190lb male. They aren't and they won't ever be, no matter how many tons of delusional fairy dust you sprinkle over the issue. Women are emphatically not physically comparable with men on a one-for-one generalized basis, and any policy that visualizes that as a reality is solidly delusional. I have lived the life, and dealt with the consequences of your foolish ilk's social engineering for the majority of my military career. I'm still outraged at some of the things I had to do in this area, and shamed that I was a part of ruining many young women's health and well-being because some fool who never served a day in their lives thought they knew what was best. Let's not even get into the area of the young men who've been damaged for life trying to compensate for physically inadequate teammates who were women--That's a whole other issue, and one of which you're clearly ignorant.

 

And, I note, you're not about to wander into an enlistment office and try it out for yourself. If you had the balls, you'd have done that a long time ago. If you had integrity, you'd avoid commenting on issues of which you have no personal experience or knowledge. Unfortunately, you do not possess any identifiable characteristics of manhood, or integrity, and likely never will. From what I've seen of you on this board, rude innuendo and commentary from the sidelines which is based on fantasy instead of actual experience is more to your liking. I do not normally reduce myself to personal invective, but you are the most insipid little smartassed coward I've ever encountered on this board, and the content of your commentary here speaks for itself. I really cannot express my contempt for you as a man and a human being any more clearly. I doubt you'd have the moral fortitude to speak as insultingly in person, but behind a keyboard, you're a man. Probably the only area of your life where that is true, sadly.

 

I would suggest you wander back out of this thread, and keep to the inconsequential things you know of. Frankly, I'm about fucking tired of your snide little attitude, and would suggest you find something you actually have some real knowledge of before you go making asinine responses to discussions between people who have real experience in the area being discussed.

 

And, as an aside, lackwit--I have few issues with women in my personal life, have never been divorced, and would submit that I've done better by the women I've led than your ilk ever will. I certainly didn't put them into the positions they were in when they achieved lifelong crippling and debilitating injuries, nor would I have done so, had it been my decision. Unfortunately, I was the poor schmuck who was put into the impossible moral position of having to accomplish the mission with physically inadequate human material, and all of us paid the price--Me, for having to issue the orders, the women for following them, and the men who had to try to fill the gap created by having three women and two men on a mission that called for five men.

 

The math on that, in the real world, is that two men wind up doing the work of five, while the three women mostly get in the way. I lost a damn good NCO to a back injury (five fused vertebrae and the rest of his civilian life in debilitating pain sort of back injury) in just such a situation, and I likely would not have, if the team I'd sent out to recover that truck had been five men who could work together. When the other people helping you lift a flat tire into the cargo bed of a military truck collapse under the weight, and you try to keep the tire from landing on them, that's what happens. It's probably escaped your ivory-tower ideology, but cargo truck tires don't get magically lighter when a woman goes to pick one up. That's a real-world consequence to your idealistic blathering, with real people. Until you've dealt with it personally, shut the fuck up. Your thoughts on this issue are literally as worthless as you are.

 

What really pisses me off about people like you? You'll never, ever have to live with the consequences of your ill-conceived idealism, because you'll never, ever put yourself on the line to be in a position to do so. That's for lesser beings than yourself, who you'll gladly criticize from the sidelines of life. Meanwhile, your actual betters are doing hard things you'll never do, in unpleasant places you'll never go. Live well with that thought, little man. I hope it comforts you in your old age, if you ever attain the wisdom to recognize your inadequacies as man. I doubt you ever will, though.

Guest Jason L
Posted (edited)

You seriously, honestly, really are pulling that whole "Ra, Ra, Ra, you don't know what you're talking about you coward shtick" and the best, most stirring military example of bravery and the failings of women in the military is changing a truck tire and loading it onto a flatbed? Really? I mean that's genuinely vapid.

 

You know, they've invited all sorts of amazing simple machines like levers and tackle blocks so that you don't have to walk up hill both ways and whatnot. But far be it from to suggest intelligence is a compensation for strength a good part of the time, and the tales of women failing under fire seem very, very thin on the ground. There are also things they seem to do better than men......like dealing with female civilians while on patrol in highly misogynistic, conservative cultures where women generally don't respond well to groups of men in their homes under the best of circumstances. But I'm sure your combat/whatever experiences outweigh those marine battalions that started using specialized, all-female units out of what evidently considered military necessity.

 

Incidentally, the whole strength thing is somewhat bunk, since men and women can exert similar strength after military specific training commiserate with their frames. So really the issue is that you shouldn't allow small/skinny women and small/skinny men (or ones who can't build lots of muscle mass, of which there are plenty) into the military, or really if you just had a sane PT test it wouldn't be a problem for either gender: http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/7469950

 

But after yet another nearly 1000 word essay (987 to be precise), you've provided exactly 1 point for your list, which isn't even really true (see paper above).

Edited by Jason L
Posted

Another issue driving greater involvement by women is simple bodies present; there aren't enough men signing up.

Posted (edited)

You seriously, honestly, really are pulling that whole "Ra, Ra, Ra, you don't know what you're talking about you coward shtick" and the best, most stirring military example of bravery and the failings of women in the military is changing a truck tire and loading it onto a flatbed? Really? I mean that's genuinely vapid.

 

You know, they've invited all sorts of amazing simple machines like levers and tackle blocks so that you don't have to walk up hill both ways and whatnot. But far be it from to suggest intelligence is a compensation for strength a good part of the time, and the tales of women failing under fire seem very, very thin on the ground. There are also things they seem to do better than men......like dealing with female civilians while on patrol in highly misogynistic, conservative cultures where women generally don't respond well to groups of men in their homes under the best of circumstances. But I'm sure your combat/whatever experiences outweigh those marine battalions that started using specialized, all-female units out of what evidently considered military necessity.

 

Incidentally, the whole strength thing is somewhat bunk, since men and women can exert similar strength after military specific training commiserate with their frames. So really the issue is that you shouldn't allow small/skinny women and small/skinny men (or ones who can't build lots of muscle mass, of which there are plenty) into the military, or really if you just had a sane PT test it wouldn't be a problem for either gender: http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/7469950

 

But after yet another nearly 1000 word essay (987 to be precise), you've provided exactly 1 point for your list, which isn't even really true (see paper above).

 

In all fairness, Jason, he's dealt with it first-hand and you have not, as you depend upon everything but first-hand experience for your argument here.

 

I cannot comment one way or the other because I was always a tanker an no females were allowed to be such. The issue was brought up when I first got in (in the mid-70s) that women soldiers wanted to tank or be a grunt humping a ruck. My answer then is the same as my answer is now - if they adhere to the same standards as men 100% of the time, then fine . . . bring it on. If not, don't lower the standards just to gain some sort of sociological brownie-point. Back then, not only did we have the universal Army Physical Fitness Test, there was also a "Tanker's Fitness Test" which involved things like carrying a tank roadwheel, breaking track etc.

 

I've never had my life on the line in the combat zone. But, I always hoped that if I did, I would be surrounded by people I could depend upon 100% of the time. Nobody (no man or no woman) is ever 100%. But I do know math and I do know a little about physiology and I do know a little about statistics. And the statistics show that, if I were wounded, my life would most likley be in better hands with a man hoisting me over his shoulders and carrying me to safety than it would be for a woman (or women) trying to do the same. If you have ever tried lifting dead weight (like a 200 pound soldier of either sex wearing combat gear), you would know how difficult this is.

 

Anyway, I am not trying to insult you at all. I am merely trying to convey the point that theories and platitudes about what should work or be and what should not work or be are very heavily overweighted by the first-hand opinions of those that have field-tested the options.

Edited by Rocky Davis
Posted

I have several issues with women doing combat roles. Call me quaint and old fashioned, but I just don't want to see the flower of American womanhood, fit for combat or not, splattered all over the inside of a Stryker etc. I know that women have bravely served and have paid the ultimate price and I appreciate that, but I hate it so.

 

As stated before, men and women are different, and tend to celebrate that difference in all sorts of ways in all sorts of places, God bless 'em. ;) I have to wonder if those difference-celebrations and the attachments that form from that could affect unit cohesion and mission orientation.

Guest Jason L
Posted (edited)

You seriously, honestly, really are pulling that whole "Ra, Ra, Ra, you don't know what you're talking about you coward shtick" and the best, most stirring military example of bravery and the failings of women in the military is changing a truck tire and loading it onto a flatbed? Really? I mean that's genuinely vapid.

 

You know, they've invited all sorts of amazing simple machines like levers and tackle blocks so that you don't have to walk up hill both ways and whatnot. But far be it from to suggest intelligence is a compensation for strength a good part of the time, and the tales of women failing under fire seem very, very thin on the ground. There are also things they seem to do better than men......like dealing with female civilians while on patrol in highly misogynistic, conservative cultures where women generally don't respond well to groups of men in their homes under the best of circumstances. But I'm sure your combat/whatever experiences outweigh those marine battalions that started using specialized, all-female units out of what evidently considered military necessity.

 

Incidentally, the whole strength thing is somewhat bunk, since men and women can exert similar strength after military specific training commiserate with their frames. So really the issue is that you shouldn't allow small/skinny women and small/skinny men (or ones who can't build lots of muscle mass, of which there are plenty) into the military, or really if you just had a sane PT test it wouldn't be a problem for either gender: http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/7469950

 

But after yet another nearly 1000 word essay (987 to be precise), you've provided exactly 1 point for your list, which isn't even really true (see paper above).

 

In all fairness, Jason, he's dealt with it first-hand and you have not, as you depend upon everything but first-hand experience for your argument here.

 

I cannot comment one way or the other because I was always a tanker an no females were allowed to be such. The issue was brought up when I first got in (in the mid-70s) that women soldiers wanted to tank or be a grunt humping a ruck. My answer then is the same as my answer is now - if they adhere to the same standards as men 100% of the time, then fine . . . bring it on. If not, don't lower the standards just to gain some sort of sociological brownie-point. Back then, not only did we have the universal Army Physical Fitness Test, there was also a "Tanker's Fitness Test" which involved things like carrying a tank roadwheel, breaking track etc.

 

I've never had my life on the line in the combat zone. But, I always hoped that if I did, I would be surrounded by people I could depend upon 100% of the time. Nobody (no man or no woman) is ever 100%. But I do know math and I do know a little about physiology and I do know a little about statistics. And the statistics show that, if I were wounded, my life would most likley be in better hands with a man hoisting me over his shoulders and carrying me to safety than it would be for a woman (or women) trying to do the same. If you have ever tried lifting dead weight (like a 200 pound soldier of either sex wearing combat gear), you would know how difficult this is.

 

Anyway, I am not trying to insult you at all. I am merely trying to convey the point that theories and platitudes about what should work or be and what should not work or be are very heavily overweighted by the first-hand opinions of those that have field-tested the options.

 

Except that the data shows that unless the women are very small, they aren't dramatically weaker than men (see above paper). The standards are only a few less pushups and a slightly longer run time, neither of which exceptionally correlate with humping heavy things around. If anything elite running is actually detrimental to the latter. And if you're lifting something with your chest, you're doing it wrong

 

Single person carrying techniques (firemans carry), and really any lifting period, focuses on lower body strength, not upper body strength anyway and the discrepancy between men and women is even less significant there.

 

Also what is credible first hand experience here? Heavy lifting isn't exclusively a purview of the military. I've done a bunch of single track building and the women helping out have never been found wanting. Incidentally it involves carrying large, very heavy loads of timber cross country. The girls I usually camp with (fun stuff like winter camping) routinely carry heavier loads than I do and I'm in pretty good shape. I'd trust those girls more than any other person I know to drag my ass out of the bush if I broke something.

 

Airforce studies of civilian personnel having accidents shows that men are dramatically more likely to injure themselves too.

http://phc.amedd.arm...JPM%20Jan10.pdf

 

Either way, with plummeting fitness and general health standards in the US, it's not the women I'd be worried about. ;)

Edited by Jason L

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