Women In Combat

[Bocefish]

I have mixed feelings about it, but if they can physically and mentally qualify in their selected areas I say yes PROVIDED the standards aren't lowered.

What say you?

 

[mynameisbob84]

So long as they can meet the physical requirements and its their choice, then sure.

 

[jblackbean2]

Dont lower the standards. but hey if they pass all physical and mental tests then why not.


Jblackbean2

 

[Jessi]

If someone is physically and mentally capable of something, then why shouldnt they be allowed to do it? Lots of female military in other roles (tech, artillery, etc) DO end up seeing combat. Its long past time to make it official. I was really surprised when I found out the US didnt.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

It is about time. In talking to retired female officers, there is a distinct frustration from being shut out of combat roles during their careers. It doesn't take upper body strength to launch a missile, drive or aim tank gun, fly a jet, or call in an artillery strike. Frankly other than things like Navy SEALs and other Special Forces and to a less extent combat infantrymen, being strong isn't a big advantage. However, having woman integrated combat roles makes tons of sense in places like Afghanistan and the Middle East, where woman aren't allowed to interact with men outside their family/village. Because of this woman have been part of combat patrols in Afghanistan for most of the war and having them as part of a campaign to win hearts and minds is huge advantage.

My friend a retired submariner officer, and his wife a retired commander (Lt. Col.) are just delighted that their daughter currently a senior in Naval ROTC program is going to be able to do anything she wants in the Navy.

 

[Rose]

Two of my very good friends, that I've known since birth and are sisters, have both graduated from West Point with honors and are highly capable in hand to hand combat and military warfare. They specialize in different fields, but they both hold high ranks in those fields and have proven they can keep up with and outlast most of the men who are their peers.

In their case, I most definitely think they should be allowed in combat situations. They want to serve their country and are very good at handling high stress situations.

I think those standards, proving that you're mentally and physically capable, should hold for everyone wanting to join the military, regardless of gender. There are some women very capable of serving in combat and there are some men absolutely not capable of serving. :twocents-02cents:

 

[Just Me]

Rather than starting a new thread and poll, I will ask here.

Now that that last barrier has been dropped. Time for women to have to sign up for Selective Service now?

Personally I have always thought it was dumb that they did not have to, since there were many support roles they could still fill in the event a draft was needed.

 

[southsamurai]

i know several women that would make far better soldiers than i ever would have, my physical size being completely irrelevant for most of modern warfare ( other than humping in the gear). and considering that active combat duty is a major plus in gaining rank its sorta silly to put a glass ceiling on otherwise capable military personnel. selective service? hell yeah. even if you get drafted you can go objector status and not have to do combat, so wtf? why not?

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Rather than starting a new thread and poll, I will ask here.

Now that that last barrier has been dropped. Time for women to have to sign up for Selective Service now?

Personally I have always thought it was dumb that they did not have to, since there were many support roles they could still fill in the event a draft was needed.

First off all bringing back the draft would be an awful idea that would only result in more American deaths, as well as more civilian deaths by whomever we are fighting.

That said there is no reason now that woman should be exempt from the draft.

Now with this barrier gone, I wonder when Amber will let male camguys join the model only section on the forum :lol: :mrgreen: j/k Amber

 

[SweepTheLeg]

If someone is qualified to do anything, they should be allowed to do anything.

 

[morment]

If they want to and are qualified for it, I don't see any reason to not let them.

 

[Bocefish]

This is exactly what I was concerned about, lowering the standards...

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that with women now eligible to fill combat roles in the military, commanders must justify why any woman might be excluded – and, if women can’t meet any unit’s standard, the Pentagon will ask: “Does it really have to be that high?”

He added: “Importantly, though, if we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldn't make it, the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the secretary, why is it that high? Does it really have to be that high? With the direct combat exclusion provision in place, we never had to have that conversation.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/gen-dem ... eally-have

 

[Red7227]

This is exactly what I was concerned about, lowering the standards...

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that with women now eligible to fill combat roles in the military, commanders must justify why any woman might be excluded – and, if women can’t meet any unit’s standard, the Pentagon will ask: “Does it really have to be that high?”

He added: “Importantly, though, if we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldn't make it, the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the secretary, why is it that high? Does it really have to be that high? With the direct combat exclusion provision in place, we never had to have that conversation.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/gen-dem ... eally-have

Point has been made that if a woman cannot drag a 100 kg buddy in full kit, she has no place in the infantry. Other roles like vehicle crews and artillery are less of an issue. All female crews/units are the obvious technical solution. Women can serve in combat branches, the mechanics are now the issue.

 

[Bocefish]

Female paratroopers talk about DOD policy change on woman in combat http://www.army.mil/article/95220/Femal ... cy_change/

 

[curvyredhead]

Dont lower the standards. but hey if they pass all physical and mental tests then why not.


Jblackbean2

Word


Standards met then fuck yeah

As long as they are not lowered...

 

[Keithy]

From what I've heard, a lot of women are already in the same roles, but because of this purely technical barrier, their service gets ignored at times. Even if you're on patrol being shot at and doing the same work as direct combat, they wouldn't get the same advantages as someone in actually in "direct combat." So even if nothing else changes, this will allow the military to award and recognize women for actual achievements and not blind themselves to reality.

 

[JerryBoBerry]

From what I've heard, a lot of women are already in the same roles, but because of this purely technical barrier, their service gets ignored at times. Even if you're on patrol being shot at and doing the same work as direct combat, they wouldn't get the same advantages as someone in actually in "direct combat." So even if nothing else changes, this will allow the military to award and recognize women for actual achievements and not blind themselves to reality.

Yes they are and have been for quite some time. An Independent Lens documentary called Lioness followed some women who were assigned regular duties like mechanic and supply clerk. But because squads needed women along to search potential women hostiles they've been going out with those troops in regular combat missions.
If you can watch that documentary it is very interesting. They were right in the middle of firefights just the same as every other guy. One of the ladies even used the 'big gun.' Cause she could handle it better than the rest of the guys.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lioness/film.html
and it can be rented on amazon streaming http://www.amazon.com/Lioness/dp/B002ZS ... ness+movie I haven't checked netflix.

 

[AllisonWilder]

I checked no before I read the first post because my initial thought was about the standards being lowered, but I'm another that says yes as long as they can meet the physical/mental requirements that men have to.

 

[Red7227]

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has lifted the military's official ban on women in combat. This overrides a 1994 Pentagon ruling that excluded women from artillery, armour, infantry and other combat. For the women in the US military who have fought and wanted access to these realms, it is a victory. It allows them full citizenship, and opportunity without arbitrary barriers. If they can qualify physically, they can no longer be excluded from "frontline combat", however, wherever that is located in today's wars.

These women say they are already in harm's way and doing the "heavy lifting" but fail to get the recognition. Despite the official ban, 800 US women were wounded and 130 have died in these wars while being "excluded" from combat. And, multiple thousands of Afghan and Iraqi women have died with even less recognition. The new ruling simply recognises some of this reality legally, formally, and structurally for US women. They will now be able to claim their rightful pay grade and be in route for promotions that require combat experience.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 58644.html

 

[Bocefish]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11 ... y-training

Three female Marines march into history by completing infantry training.

The first three women ever to endure and pass the Marine Corps’ combat training course — nine grinding weeks that include “live fire events” and a furious, 20-kilometer, full-pack hike — graduate Thursday from infantry school in North Carolina.

They made history, say some observers, by equaling the performance of 221 males, and all will graduate from the same company, Delta.

But to the Marine Corps, the women are something a tad more abstract: test subjects in a pilot program, small parts of Pentagon-wide study exploring how to integrate women into combat roles by 2016.

"They are just a couple of data points in the overall research process,” said Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine Corps spokeswoman.

I still have some reservations about women in combat and they're all included in the following:


The Problems of Women in Combat – From a Female Combat Vet


It’s not all about qualification. I’m speaking as a female Marine Iraq war vet who did serve in the combat zone doing entry checkpoint duty in Fallujah, and we worked with the grunts daily for that time. All the branches still have different standards for females and males. Why? Because most women wouldn’t even qualify to be in the military if they didn’t have separate standards. Men and women are different, but those pushing women into combat don’t want to admit that truth. They huff and puff about how women can do whatever men can do, but it just ain’t so. We’re built differently, and it doesn’t matter that one particular woman could best one particular man. The best woman is still no match for the best man, and most of the men she’d be fireman-carrying off the battlefield will be at least 100 lbs heavier than her with their gear on.

Women are often great shooters but can’t run in 50-80 lbs of gear as long, hard, or fast as men. Military training is hard enough on men’s bodies; it’s harder on women’s. And until women stop menstruating, there will always be an uphill battle for staying level and strong at all times. No one wants to talk about the fact that in the days before a woman’s cycle, she loses half her strength, to say nothing of the emotional ups and downs that affect judgment. And how would you like fighting through PMS symptoms while clearing a town or going through a firefight? Then there are the logistics of making all the accommodations for women in the field, from stopping the convoy to pee or because her cycle started to stripping down to get hosed off after having to go into combat with full MOP gear when there’s a biological threat.

This is to say nothing of unit cohesion, which is imperative and paramount, especially in the combat fields. When preparing for battle, the last thing on your mind should be sex; but you put men and women in close quarters together, and human nature is what it is (this is also why the repeal of DADT is so damaging). It doesn’t matter what the rules are. The Navy proved that when they started allowing women on ship. What happened? They were having sex and getting pregnant, ruining unit cohesion (not to mention derailing the operations because they’d have to change course to get them off ship.)

When I deployed, we’d hardly been in the country a few weeks before one of our females had to be sent home because she’d gotten pregnant (nice waste of training, not to mention taxpayer money that paid for it). That’s your military readiness? Our enemies are laughing – “Thanks for giving us another vulnerability, USA!”

Then there are relationships. Whether it’s a consensual relationship, unwanted advances, or sexual assault, they all destroy unit cohesion. No one is talking about the physical and emotional stuff that goes along with men and women together. A good relationship can foment jealousy and the perception of favoritism. A relationship goes sour, and suddenly one loses faith in the very person who may need to drag one off the field of battle. A sexual assault happens, and a woman not only loses faith in her fellows, but may fear them. A vindictive man paints a woman as easy, and she loses the respect of her peers. A vindictive woman wants to destroy a man’s career with a false accusation (yes, folks, this happens too); and it’s poison to the unit. All this happens before the fighting even begins.

Yet another little-discussed issue is that some female military members are leaving their kids behind to advance their careers by deploying. I know of one divorced Marine who left her two sons, one of them autistic, with their grandparents while she deployed. She was wounded on base (not on the front lines) and is a purple heart recipient. What if she’d been killed, leaving behind her special needs child? Glory was more important than motherhood. Another case in my own unit was a married female who became angry when they wouldn’t let both her and her husband deploy at the same time. Career advancement was the greater concern.

I understand the will to fight. I joined the Marines in the hopes of deploying because I believe that fighting jihadists is right. And I care about the women and children in Islamic countries where they are denied their rights, subjugated, mutilated, and murdered with impunity; and where children are molested and raped with impunity (not to mention defending our own freedom against these hate-filled terrorists who want to destroy freedom-loving countries like America.) Joining the Marines was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life, and I’m glad I got to deploy. It not only allowed me to witness the war, but to witness the problems with women in combat.

Women have many wonderful strengths, and there is certainly a lot of work for women to do in the military. But all the problems that come with men and women working together are compounded in the war zone, destroying the cohesion necessary to fight bloody, hellish war. We are at war; and if we want to win, we have to separate the wheat from the chaff. And the top priority should be military readiness and WINNING wars, not political correctness and artificially imposed “equality” on the military.

Wasted: Valuable Time, Training, and Resources

I talk about several of the female-only issues for which extra accommodations have to be made in my previous article. We are not equal except in our rights under Constitutional Law. Nature has no regard for equality, and each one of us is born differently from each other. We are diverse and dissimilar in our talents, physical aspects, intellect, and emotions; and the sexes are inherently different. We know, for example, that women are much more prone to certain types of infections. For a woman on patrol, setting up an ambush (or, as the infantry do, living in abandoned buildings with no running water), hygiene is a constant problem. A urinary tract infection can quickly become a kidney infection (debilitating in itself) and then kidney failure if left unchecked. Suddenly, a woman needs to be evacuated for a problem that has nothing to do with combat and to which men are not susceptible.

Then there’s pregnancy. Margaret Wente writes: “One study of a brigade operating in Iraq found that female soldiers were evacuated at three times the rate of male soldiers – and that 74 percent of them were evacuated for pregnancy-related issues.”

It costs approximately a million dollars per individual to get trained through bootcamp and to be made ready for deployment. Those are taxpayer dollars spent on someone who has to turn around and leave the combat zone to have a baby (for which our tax dollars also pay), having nothing to do with combat.

Changing Our Best Instincts: Protecting Women, Mothering Children

We know that rape is a tool of torture for the already savage enemy we’re fighting. In one TV interview, a woman suggested that if women are willing to take that risk, we should let them. She also absurdly claimed that men are raped as much as women when captured, which is patently false. But the idea that men shouldn’t worry any more about women in battle goes against the very best primal male instinct. In every country from Canada to Israel where women are in combat (and in American units where women are in theater), the men will tell you they are more protective of the women. It’s different from men’s protection of each other, and it distracts from mission completion. The pro-WICs would have men thwart this wonderful and thoroughly ingrained instinct. A world in which men don’t feel a strong need to protect women when they’re in the most dangerous and hostile of environments would be a nightmare. We would rightly call those men brutes.

We’re also thwarting mothers’ nurturing instincts. Women are already training to kill and leaving their children to deploy, even when they are the sole caregiver (turning care over namely to grandparents). This sets a bad precedent and hurts children. There will always be war, and it’s bad enough for fathers to leave their children to fight necessarily; but to allow mothers to choose this path over motherhood is bad for everyone. There are many noble capacities in which women with children can fight for this country, such as administrative jobs stateside. We don’t need to deploy mothers to battle; we shouldn’t.

The Career-Hungry

A small handful of high-ranking females have instigated this policy change in order to advance their own careers. In this interview, Anu Bhagwati, a former Captain, complains about women not being able to be promoted to certain ranks, claims that women aren’t getting proper recognition for action in combat (a claim also made here), and claims that it’s harder for them to get combat-injury-related benefits from the VA. Regarding the latter, I know females who are receiving combat-injury-related benefits; so if there are some who are not receiving them but should, the bureaucratic, inefficient, fraud-riddled VA should be confronted. Administrative changes could certainly be considered to take care of veterans as we should – regardless of sex – for injuries sustained in battle thus far. As for recognition of action, this is also a bureaucratic aspect that can be addressed through the chain of command without changing the policies on women in combat units. And finally, as to rank, cry me a river. The military is about preparing for and executing war, not advancing your career at the cost of readiness for war.

The careerists are also on the hook for the double standard that we currently have for the sexes, which inherently lowers the standards overall. Even if one standard is imposed, it’s likely it will be an overall lower standard. As the Center for Military Readiness points out, “The same advocates who demand ‘equal opportunities’ in combat are the first to demand unequal, gender-normed standards to make it ‘fair.’” Enormous pressure from Washington is already on the military brass to fill quotas of race and sex; and the higher they get, the more politically motivated the brass’ decisions. Whereas imposing one higher standard would in fact result in fewer women serving in these roles, the political pressure to prove diversity will result in more unqualified women (and men) attaining positions for which men are more qualified. But go against the diversity status quo dictated by Washington, and you can kiss your rank and career goodbye. The purges have already begun.

The word “discriminate” has several meanings, including “to distinguish particular features, to be discerning; showing insight and understanding.” We should absolutely be discriminating in our criteria for war preparation, and the lives of our men in uniform depend on us taking an honest, discerning look at who adds to military readiness and who detracts from it. We should absolutely not open the combat units to the myriad problems we face already with women deploying to the theatre of war.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/the-pr ... ombat-vet/
_________________

 

[Shaun__]

 

[JerryBoBerry]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/w...israel-for-clues-on-women-in-combat.html?_r=0

Looking to Israel for Clues on Women in Combat

JERUSALEM — One of her fellow soldiers lay dead, and her Humvee was being fired upon. She saw one of the attackers — three armed men who had penetrated Israel’s border with Egypt — reach toward his waist. Fearing he was about to detonate a suicide belt, she fired two shots at his head.

“Once you come face to face, at that very moment, you don’t think twice,” the soldier, who can be identified under military rules only as S., told the Israeli news site Ynet when she received a citation for her performance in the skirmish. “There is no room for hesitation, and there is no room for mistakes.”

The Israeli news media heralded S. as proof that integrating women into combat roles had been a success. But the next day, the story shifted: Another woman in the unit, the one who radioed in the attack, had cowered behind a bush for an hour and a half, as her comrades feared she had been kidnapped or killed.

As the United States moves to integrate more women into combat roles, some have looked to Israel, which on paper has one of the most gender-neutral militaries in the world, starting with a universal draft (although, since many do civilian service instead, only half of women enlist, compared with 70 percent of the nation’s men). But the episode near Mount Harif in September highlighted some of the complex realities behind the policies of the Israel Defense Forces, where it remains rare for women to kill or be killed, and questions persist about their fitness.

While more than 92 percent of I.D.F. jobs are now open to women — they are fighter pilots, infantry officers, naval captains and Humvee drivers — just 3 percent serve in combat roles.

“It’s not really open,” said Yehuda Segev, a retired businessman and a general in the Army reserves who in 2007 headed a committee on women in the military. “They don’t make the right path for women that they can volunteer and join the combat units.”

Mr. Segev said the military’s chief of staff rejected his committee’s recommendation that all jobs — including paratrooper and other elite units like Golani and Nahal — be integrated, adding: “The Army has a lot of excuses.”

Still, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich said “the military really did a revolution” since she joined up more than 20 years ago, when the vast majority of female soldiers served in human resources or educational posts. Today, about half the I.D.F.’s lieutenants are women, as are 13 percent of those at or above the rank of lieutenant colonel. “You see more and more women in the battalions and the brigades,” said Colonel Leibovich, an I.D.F. spokeswoman.

Women served alongside men in ground forces in the paramilitary groups that predated Israel’s foundation as a state in 1948. For the next 25 years, they were mostly relegated to roles as administrators, medical assistants or trainers, but after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, they began serving as combat instructors and officers.

A major turning point came in 1995, when a woman named Alice Miller petitioned the Supreme Court for access to pilot training school. The first woman graduated from the school in 1998.

During war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, a female air force mechanic was killed in a chopper crash. In 2011, in a widely noted episode, a medic used her bra as a tourniquet after a terrorist attack on a bus near the Egyptian border.

The main combat unit for women is Caracal, named for a desert cat that looks similar whether male or female. Since its founding in 2000, the unit, which has been up to two-thirds female, has guarded the borders with Jordan and Egypt, and was the one involved in the Mount Harif episode. While most female soldiers serve two years, women in Caracal are required to serve three, like the unit’s men.

Arielle Werner, 21, who grew up in Minnesota and immigrated to Israel in order to join the combat unit, said female recruits underwent the same training regimen as the men, except for occasionally shorter runs or treks with full regalia. “Once in a while we can guilt the guys into doing the heavy lifting” of huge water bottles or stretchers, she said, “but girls do the same as guys; it’s pretty equal.”

Still, Ms. Werner said she found herself running faster when in a coed group. “There’s a lot of pressure on the women to be just as good as the men because we have a lot to prove,” she explained. “There’s always a question of could they shut down the unit if we don’t do as well. You don’t see them threatening to shut down the paratroopers.”

 

[Red7227]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/w...israel-for-clues-on-women-in-combat.html?_r=0

Looking to Israel for Clues on Women in Combat

The only thing is that they are generally smaller and weaker. In roles where that has been accounted for there is no reason not to use them.

 

[lexmark402003]

As a 30-year veteran of the Army (active and reserve), I'll go with yes, but with a huge caveat.

They would need to create ONE set of standards for each Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), especially regarding minimal physical standards. An MOS is basically a job title. Everyone who wanted that MOS would need to pass the SAME standard, not a hard standard for men and a half-assed standard for women (as, unfortunately, the military now uses).

I don't know why they didn't do this decades ago. They already screen for mental ability (if you score low, you won't be in one of the higher intelligence fields like medic or laboratory specialist), so why not do the same for physical ability?

So if you are small and weak and/or have no endurance, you aren't going to be in the infantry or special forces, regardless of your sex. But you can be a clerk or drone operator.

If you aren't especially bright, but physically strong, you can't be a clerk or drone operator, but you can be in the infantry (regardless of sex).

If you are strong and smart, you can be in whatever field you prefer, regardless of sex.

Unfortunately, politics make this unlikely to happen, as some see the military as a social experiment rather than what it really is, and they will push for "equality" for women even if the women can't meet the standards.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

It's funny because if that article had been written by anyone other than a woman it'd probably be discredited as being sexist. Personally I don't give a fuck whether it was a man or a woman who wrote it, though some of the issues brought up are true, I really don't like the article. She's bringing up all these problems as though they're problems that happen solely with women and will always happen with women, and seems to be shaming women who want to build a career and go out into wars above having families, yet apparently it's ok for men to have and leave their families but not a woman.

The menstrual thing, well, that's true, but it's also fixable. There are many pills and forms of birth control which can control or completely stop periods and the issues that go with them, these would also stop women from getting pregnant during their time away.

The sex thing, well, them having sex with each other is better than what does happen which is the enemy sends prostitutes into the sites with STI's. This does happen and though I think most men stay away, there are also many men who give in. This is something I know from a long term marine friend.

As for her saying how a woman might have to stop and pee/stop everyone else, well surely that's exactly the same for a man?! I know that I can hold it far better than any man can and that seems to be the case for most women I know. Sure I can't pee standing up, but they have invented that she-wee thing, and swatting really doesn't take long. I'm quicker than a man definitely.
Urinary tract infections are easily treated and really don't happen that well, and again you can take supplements to stop them. Same with any other infections like thrush that can come from poor hygiene, they're really easily treated and prevented, and not every woman is prone to them.

The strength thing, well, chances are most women won't have the same sort of upper body strength as men, but many women pack enormous amounts of power in their legs, more so than a man might. I know that as a woman not working out, I can beat several male friends of mine who do work out at wrestling or other fighting, I won't beat them in an arm wrestle (though if they don't work out then I often do).
Statistically most women will be lighter and weaker than men. But not all women are. If I worked out in the same way as a man did then as my build naturally already makes me as heavy as most men, and naturally I am stronger than most men, I don't see where the issue of me physically being weaker than a man would come in. I can understand not wanting to put a short weak girl into a battle. But a fit, strong woman who's weight and height is the same as a mans? A woman who can take the same tests as the men can? Why not?

I understand the issue of people having sex with each other, but for fucks sake, these are adults we're talking about, adults who have been around the opposite sex before. Have women on birth control to help with periods and the "female weaknesses" that come with them and you won't need to worry about pregnancy's.

Like this article said, women are better are certain things, but these things aren't limited to desk jobs. I think that if women can take the tests, so long as the military makes these places women friendly and takes precautions for some of the issues that could happen then why not? I think it's a sad day when you don't want men and women working together because they somehow can't be trusted together.

 

[Red7227]

Women have been managing periods and peeing for as long as men have been able to pee standing against a wall, all it would take is a minor redesign of uniforms to resolve that. The main prohibition to women in the combat branches of the US and UK are the completely ludicrous loads that troops are expected to carry. These loads are not reduced when a soldier is smaller, and are the primary cause of resistance to women in combat in the US army/marines.



About 10% of the Soviet army at various points in WWII was female, with fighter pilots and snipers being two roles they were famous for.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

The main prohibition to women ion the combat branches of the US and UK are the completely ludicrous loads that troops are expected to carry. These loads are not reduced when a soldier is smaller, and are the primary cause of resistance to women in combat in the US army/marines.

I can see this being an issue, but then, are there height restrictions on men? If a man is 5ft 6 and allowed into the marines, why would a woman at 5ft 8 be turned away if she could complete the same trails and had done the same training? Men and women's physical differences are partly because men being built differently, but they are also to do with men statistically being taller and bigger built than women. This often isn't the case though.

It's like all statistics, take penis size versus race for example. According to statistics black men have larger penis's than white men. The difference isn't actually that big, but it's still there. This doesn't mean that every black man will have a larger penis than a white man. It just means that out of a large group the average is just that bit bigger. It's similar with men and women, though men statistically are taller, stronger and faster than women, there are also many women who rival or are equal to strong men. When it comes to women wanting to join the army/forces, it's not really that likely that physically weak/small women will be all that keen on signing up. No, you'll get physically strong women who work very hard on their fitness and strength levels. It will always be a minority of women who'll want to fight, it's not naturally in our natures to want to fight that way, meaning the women who do want to go and fight will probably in nature be not all that different from a man.

If a woman can pass these trials then what's the problem? If she's passing the same tests and trials as men then what's the real issue? Years ago when women were trying to get the vote men argued that women couldn't handle it because we're too emotional, and various other arguments very similar to the ones against women being allowed to fight for their country. Yes women can have high emotions, but we are also naturally more intuitive than men are, we have other assets which can be used very well in battle's. Men and women are different, but that doesn't mean that it means women are less designed for battle's than men are, it just means that we'll be better at different things. If these women can pass the same tests that men can then all the stuff about women being smaller/weaker etc is total bullshit. Trying to go on about all the crap about hormones and emotions and issues with periods and pregnancy is just more things to downgrade women full stop. They are excuses still used in the workplace to pay women less money or not to hire women.

 

[Red7227]

If a woman can pass these trials then what's the problem? If she's passing the same tests and trials as men then what's the real issue?

If you can pass the physical criteria and carry the same loads as the guy in the video then none at all. None of these tests are the same though, and the US army is careful to prevent the unofficial hazing and brutalisation that would normally occur which again skews recruitment rates.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/a ... 10,00.html

Things are certainly better now than 20 years ago, but for a woman in a predominantly male unit it would be really hard.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

Things are certainly better now than 20 years ago, but for a woman in a predominantly male unit it would be really hard.

But that is her decision to make. If a woman wants to do this she will know she'll have to work that bit harder than most men will, and those men will already be working very hard. Is she can do it then she can do it. It is her decision to go through that process though. It's not for us to decide "well it's going to be really difficult for her as the others will be men" and try and stop women from even having the option. If that's what she wants to do and she completes the training and passes the same tests as men pass then why not? Sure there may be men there who can physically do more than her, but there'll be men there who can physically do more than other men. So long as she passes the requirements-which are usually pretty dam high, then I don't see why she should be denied the chance.

Or... if people are really concerned about having men and women together, then maybe have a different type of Army/Marines for women, focusing on things that women are better at.

 

[Red7227]

Things are certainly better now than 20 years ago, but for a woman in a predominantly male unit it would be really hard.

But that is her decision to make. If a woman wants to do this she will know she'll have to work that bit harder than most men will, and those men will already be working very hard. Is she can do it then she can do it. It is her decision to go through that process though. It's not for us to decide "well it's going to be really difficult for her as the others will be men" and try and stop women from even having the option. If that's what she wants to do and she completes the training and passes the same tests as men pass then why not? Sure there may be men there who can physically do more than her, but there'll be men there who can physically do more than other men. So long as she passes the requirements-which are usually pretty dam high, then I don't see why she should be denied the chance.
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It has nothing to do with physical ability. Peacetime volunteer armies are full of the scum of society. People who have been placed in positions of power in a hierarchy that makes the catholic church look open and responsive. Its bad enough when its all male, but being a woman where your expected to give blow jobs and fuck to get what other people are getting just for asking, its going to get pretty old really fast.