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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Dilmah G on January 23, 2013, 08:11:00 pm
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A historic day for the US Armed Forces. (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/us/pentagon-says-it-is-lifting-ban-on-women-in-combat.html?hp&_r=1&)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is lifting the military’s ban on women in combat, which will open up hundreds of thousands of additional front-line jobs to them, senior defense officials said on Wednesday.
The groundbreaking decision overturns a 1994 Pentagon rule that restricts women from artillery, armor, infantry and other such combat roles, even though in reality women have found themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than 20,000 have served. As of last year, more than 800 women had been wounded in the two wars and more than 130 had died.
Defense officials offered few details about Mr. Panetta’s decision but described it as the beginning of a process to allow the branches of the military to put it into effect. Defense officials said Mr. Panetta had made the decision on the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Women have long chafed under the combat restrictions and have increasingly pressured the Pentagon to catch up with the reality on the battlefield. The move comes as Mr. Panetta is about to step down from his post and would leave him with a substantial legacy after only 18 months in the job.
Mr. Panetta’s decision came after he received a Jan. 9 letter from Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stated in strong terms that the armed service chiefs all agreed that “the time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service.”
But there was a note of caution. “To implement these initiatives successfully and without sacrificing our war fighting capability or the trust of the American people, we will need time to get it right,” General Dempsey wrote.
A copy of General Dempsey’s letter was provided by a Pentagon official under the condition of anonymity.
The letter noted that this action was meant to ensure that women as well as men “are given the opportunity to succeed.”
As recently as two months ago, four servicewomen filed a federal lawsuit against the Pentagon challenging its combat restriction, saying they had all served in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan but had not been officially recognized for it. One of the women, Maj. Mary Jennings Hegar, an Air National Guard helicopter pilot, was shot down, returned fire and was wounded while on the ground in Afghanistan, but said she could not seek combat leadership positions because the Defense Department did not officially acknowledge her experience as combat.
Serving in combat positions like the infantry remains crucial to career advancement in the military, and women have long said that by not recognizing their real service the military has unfairly held them back.
It is unclear to what degree Congress will review the decision, although in the past some Republican members of the House have balked at allowing women in combat. In recent years they have asked the Pentagon sometimes sharp questions when it became clear from news reports that women were in fact serving in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But as of Wednesday afternoon, there appeared to be bipartisan support for the decision on Capitol Hill.
“I support it,'’ Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “It reflects the reality of 21st century military operations.'’
Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and the chairwoman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, called it a “historic step for recognizing the role women have, and will continue to play, in the defense of our nation.'’ She added that “in recent wars that lacked any true front lines, thousands of women already spent their days in combat situations serving side-by-side with their fellow male service members.'’
Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that she was pleased by the decision and that it “reflects the increasing role that female service members play in securing our country.'’
In his letter, General Dempsey said that work remained to set the proper performance standards, both physical and mental, for the new military roles now opening to women. He also set a number of “goals and milestones,” with quarterly progress updates required from the services.
In particular, the Navy will continue to assign more women to warships as privacy and berthing changes are completed.
Now, this (http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal), this (http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-23/news/vw-402_1_women-recruits), and this (http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA465910), is why I don't think we'll ever see women in large numbers, if even at all in some Corps until we possess the ability to do some Mass Effect-style engineering of the human body, but I'm interested and happy to see women now being allowed to apply for these roles. As well as being recognised for the good work that they're already doing. Hopefully we'll have some Captain Nichola Goddard-esque thrusters (RIP) come through at least some of the Combat Arms Corps.
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Cool. :yes:
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It's funny, I didn't think there was a ban. Like it says in the opening, women are basically fighting on the front line anyway.
Then I thought Surely we (In the UK) have no such restrictions, right?
Wrong:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9709076/British-army-women-should-fight-their-way-to-the-front-line.html
It's quite an interesting topic. There must surely be militaries in the World with women in the front line, I wonder how they do.
Here's a super female soldier from WWII:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko
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It's interesting to read the comments section in my first link. It's basically 100% against the idea of women being given combat roles. Get past the sexists on the first page or so, and you find a lot of good arguments as to why it shouldn't happen. It sounds good on principle, if they're good enough they should be allowed to fight the same as the men, but it probably wouldn't be so simple and clean in reality if it went through. It will be interesting to see how this develops for America.
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Yeah, it's appalling that they weren't getting recognition for fighting on the frontline. As for militaries with women on the frontline, both the Kiwis and the Canadians have had a handful of women in Combat Arms Corps like Artillery and Infantry (like Cpt. Goddard, whom I mentioned in the OP). The articles in the OP that I've linked at the bottom illustrate why there'll only ever be a very, very small number.
For a lot of militaries it's simply a high cost for not a lot of gain, since women are injured and fail infantry training at a disproportionately high rate to men. This would probably be mitigated by a specialist physical training program before the commencement of Infantry training, but again, this is a large cost for little gain until we can change the structure of the female body.
Pavlichenko was no doubt a good sniper, but she's useful for highlighting the issues with the female body in combat. And that is that there's no doubt women can function in combat (the psychological arguments are bull****, women are in combat every day outside the wire in the Middle East and there's no 'oh god save the wimminz' going on there). The issue is with the female body's ability to bear a load for long periods at a time, move at a combat pace with her load, and maintain enough of a physical capability to do her job whilst on operations, which are things Pavlichenko would not have been doing as a sniper, or at least, not with the kind of loads that our people are carrying today.
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Yeah, it's appalling that they weren't getting recognition for fighting on the frontline. As for militaries with women on the frontline, both the Kiwis and the Canadians have had a handful of women in Combat Arms Corps like Artillery and Infantry (like Cpt. Goddard, whom I mentioned in the OP). The articles in the OP that I've linked at the bottom illustrate why there'll only ever be a very, very small number.
For a lot of militaries it's simply a high cost for not a lot of gain, since women are injured and fail infantry training at a disproportionately high rate to men. This would probably be mitigated by a specialist physical training program before the commencement of Infantry training, but again, this is a large cost for little gain until we can change the structure of the female body.
Pavlichenko was no doubt a good sniper, but she's useful for highlighting the issues with the female body in combat. And that is that there's no doubt women can function in combat (the psychological arguments are bull****, women are in combat every day outside the wire in the Middle East and there's no 'oh god save the wimminz' going on there). The issue is with the female body's ability to bear a load for long periods at a time, move at a combat pace with her load, and maintain enough of a physical capability to do her job whilst on operations, which are things Pavlichenko would not have been doing as a sniper, or at least, not with the kind of loads that our people are carrying today.
I think pretty much everything you said and more popped up in the comments section. Apart from stuff about the specific female soldiers (like Pavlichenko.)
I guess they're issues the general population won't think of, it seems so simple and seemed that way to me, that there would be few good enough but why waste the talents of the few that are, but it's just not that simple. It's regrettable for those few, but the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few.
However, anyone who does end up in combat should certainly be acknowledged, as that's stupid not to. The enemy doesn't care who you are, and sometimes you'll get sucked in even if your role isn't to fight.
I wonder if females can end up as snipers. I certainly don't see why not, snipers are certainly not supposed to be on the front line, they are combat soldiers, but the idea is they don't end up having to fight ideally. Ideally, they'll pick someone off and no one will know. Females should be just as capable as males of performing this task. Also, you think of snipers as operating alone, which eliminates all the psychological problems of males integrating with females in a combat scenario.
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Hopefully with the eventual introduction of exoskeletons, we can trivialize the issue of differences in physical strength. I like to see things like this, and I'm glad women will get a shot (no pun intended) at frontline combat, if that's what they want.
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I hope so too. Although I'm yet to see a prototype of a combat exoskeleton.
I wonder if females can end up as snipers. I certainly don't see why not, snipers are certainly not supposed to be on the front line, they are combat soldiers, but the idea is they don't end up having to fight ideally. Ideally, they'll pick someone off and no one will know. Females should be just as capable as males of performing this task. Also, you think of snipers as operating alone, which eliminates all the psychological problems of males integrating with females in a combat scenario.
I'm not sure of the way it works in the US, but I know in Australia, and probably also in the UK, the people who become snipers are generally the people who are doing very, very well in an Infantry battalion. I have no doubt that women can be as good shots as men, but again, the issue is with the female soldier being able to get to her lie-up point somewhere behind enemy lines without severely injuring herself due to her load or landing from a jump (I believe the 'q-angle' that women possess makes them far more susceptible to being injured when they land with a load), suffering large amounts of muscle atrophy, and at a combat pace. It will take a very capable woman to achieve that.
But yes, this is a bit more complex than it looks, and unfortunately for women, very much stacked against them through no fault of their own.
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It's gonna be a tough road. Women in front line combat will get hit three times as hard for every mistake and they'll know it. Every incident of misconduct or slip-up will be taken as a sign of essential failure in their sex. There'll be scandal, rape, and politics.
But at least the door's open now.
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Hopefully with the eventual introduction of exoskeletons, we can trivialize the issue of differences in physical strength. I like to see things like this, and I'm glad women will get a shot (no pun intended) at frontline combat, if that's what they want.
If they weren't so expensive. The cost of outfitting every 11B with one of those would be astronomical. Here's hoping that the future will make this stuff less expensive to produce.
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It's gonna be a tough road. Women in front line combat will get hit three times as hard for every mistake and they'll know it. Every incident of misconduct or slip-up will be taken as a sign of essential failure in their sex. There'll be scandal, rape, and politics.
But at least the door's open now.
Indeed, it'll probably have its own Tailhook Scandal, unfortunately, but if the US can integrate the Fighter Corps, they can do it in Infantry. I think it may be some time though until we do see a woman in a combat unit.
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There's also a factor that women not necessarily want to sign up for combat roles. Some time ago, USMC opened up infantry officer training to women. There were two female recruits, both dropped out along with more than 30 men (I can't recall precise numbers now, but it was all in Marine Corps Times). Given those numbers, it might take a lot of time before women make up a statistically significant part of infantry. That said, this decision is a very good sign. Excluding half of the population from service was a huge waste of potential.
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I wonder if females can end up as snipers. I certainly don't see why not, snipers are certainly not supposed to be on the front line, they are combat soldiers, but the idea is they don't end up having to fight ideally. Ideally, they'll pick someone off and no one will know. Females should be just as capable as males of performing this task. Also, you think of snipers as operating alone, which eliminates all the psychological problems of males integrating with females in a combat scenario.
Snipers typically work in pairs, but the psychological problems are pretty much bunk anyways.
So long as the physical aptitude tests accurately measure whether a candidate is physically capable of performing all the duties that go with the job (i.e., hold men and women to the exact same standards), physical weakness shouldn't be an issue, either.* Such tests will probably disqualify women at a much higher rate than men, but with modern technology and combat being what they are, I can't really see an alternative that's not going to leave somebody dead.
But I'm sure the Pentagon has thought about all this, so I'll just say that this is long overdue and I wish the women in our military the best of luck. God knows they need it, considering that most of the job is going to be just as miserable for them as it is for men, and the rest is going to be worse.**
*The only military physical standards I'm familiar with are the ones for U.S. Navy officers. These hold women to a significantly lower standard than men, which is completely appropriate considering the nature of the job. Not so here.
**The part that's going to be worse is the part that relates to interacting with a certain segment of men in our military that is now pretty small, but is still entirely too large.
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From my experience in a Combat Support Arm (Royal Engineers for 14 years in April coming) I can say without fault, that I've met women who are tough as nails, and can out-do most men in their role. Like wise and as a counter-point, i've met men who were so embarrassingly slack that they got carted off with their heads hung low and brandished with shame for life due to the ****-uppery they achieved due to lack of effort or maintaining themselves physically.
I think there was one count (that i directly came into contact with) of a woman getting 'emotional', she passed the physical training demands for Afghanistan deployment, made it out there, and got a bit of stick more for being a reservist than anything else. But it was from other women in the regiment, full timers who (according to unbiased sources i have still out there, of both sexes) felt threateneed by her hotness, and youth. She got *****ed about and made to do **** jobs for the first month and wasn't having much fun...
Back now though, due to lack of work for the Brimstone teams. Which is actually a bloody good reason and i'm genuinely happy for it.
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There's also a factor that women not necessarily want to sign up for combat roles.
This is improbable if not downright impossible. The Army alone comprises over 1.1 million personnel split roughly equally between active-duty and reserve. I can't find a good demographic breakdown at the moment, but even if we assume it's around five percent then it's deeply unlikely nobody would volunteer for a combat arm previously denied to them. This does not, after all, mean purely foot infantry: previously it was anyone who in some fashion directly attacks the enemy, whether that means cocking a cannon or driving a tank.
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I hope so too. Although I'm yet to see a prototype of a combat exoskeleton.
They're getting there, but I believe batteries and battery life are the big hold-ups.
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It'll be interesting. More impetus than ever before for the US Armed forces to take a meaningful stand on sexual assaults, which they have traditionally dropped the ball on.
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This is improbable if not downright impossible. The Army alone comprises over 1.1 million personnel split roughly equally between active-duty and reserve. I can't find a good demographic breakdown at the moment, but even if we assume it's around five percent then it's deeply unlikely nobody would volunteer for a combat arm previously denied to them. This does not, after all, mean purely foot infantry: previously it was anyone who in some fashion directly attacks the enemy, whether that means cocking a cannon or driving a tank.
I was speaking generally. Of course there are some women that want and now will enlist into a combat role. But there isn't a lot of them. But considering everything, a very small number will actually make it. A 1% out of 5% is hardly statistically significant.
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Women that join the army are just men who have breasts. This is a fact (in the UK speaking from experience) some look rougher than a stuntmans knee, some can scrub up and look hotter than most (google combat barbie for reference) .
They are just people, and they're as likely to volunteer for deployment, case in point being my good friend Victoria Swain (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8082617/TA-Bomb-hunter-returns-to-desk-after-six-months-in-Helmand.html) was/always will be, til the end of time, the first female qaulified REST (http://www.army.mod.uk/rolefinder/role/127/search-specialist/) member, I'd let her work with me any day of the week and to be fair she's a lot LOT better at it than some blokes.
There are women in the army toomuch like blokes who will try and swerve (avoid) anything resembling work that requires either backbone, graft, or balls (figuratively) and that will never change. There may even be some who will play on their gender to try and get out of it, on both sides. Men play the buddy card/old boys club card to avoid less preferable duties when they can get a recruit to do it instead (and why not :lol:).
What i'm saying is, both genders are guildty of being good, and exceptional sometimes, but likewise we both love a skive too. So why bother differentiating between the two and just give everyone a pay-rise or slap depending on who needs what.
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This is improbable if not downright impossible. The Army alone comprises over 1.1 million personnel split roughly equally between active-duty and reserve. I can't find a good demographic breakdown at the moment, but even if we assume it's around five percent then it's deeply unlikely nobody would volunteer for a combat arm previously denied to them. This does not, after all, mean purely foot infantry: previously it was anyone who in some fashion directly attacks the enemy, whether that means cocking a cannon or driving a tank.
I was speaking generally. Of course there are some women that want and now will enlist into a combat role. But there isn't a lot of them. But considering everything, a very small number will actually make it. A 1% out of 5% is hardly statistically significant.
Please provide source or get out. Being pessimistic about women's chances does not count.
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Please provide source or get out. Being pessimistic about women's chances does not count.
My own experience, experience of people I met and some psychology. Maybe it's different in America, but I've only met a few women (less than 10) in my entire life that would be interested in the military. Most girls consider my interest in military strange. This isn't about chances, this is about psychology. Also, there's a matter of combat being traditionally a man's role. Say what you will, but everybody has trouble breaking such stupid stereotypes. Of course, plenty of people try (and I have a feeling that America is more accepting towards such behavior than Poland), but at first, it's a handful of people somehow different from the rest. Add rejection rates to that (as combat requires physical fitness, regardless of gender) and you end up with a small number. I'm pretty sure I've read an article on that subject somewhere, but it was in a Polish paperback newspaper, so I'm afraid it wouldn't do us much good.
That said, I haven't met a lot of Americans. In Poland, a girl interested in military (for example) and open about it would have trouble finding friends. Same goes for boys with "unmanly" interests. Polish people in general have a hard time accepting somebody being different. I've heard it's not that bad in America, so maybe I'm mistaken and this process will be quicker than I though.
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Dragon, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
Also, what point are you making, exactly? Just because a proportionately smaller number of women think of the military as a good career does not mean that there should be arbitrary barriers for those who do want to serve; After all, we do not discriminate against men who want to be Nurses, Teachers, or social workers to the same extent.
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There are a couple of things that I'd like to mention here.
From physiology point of view, women will always have a much harder catch-up job to do when it comes to tasks that simply require strength. I do recall seeing numbers like 40-50 % of raw physical strength advantage for equally trained men which is very difficult to reach no matter what you do. For this reason only, the women that enter service are more likely to have exercised a lot, and represent the average male. Endurance wise, I don't know, what I recall from Reserve Officer School was that we did not want to give any extra weight (like mines, machine guns or RPGs) for women since while they were able to sustain rather well with normal combat load, the effect of the additional 10 kgs was more visible on them than on men.
There were some additional things as well. I do recall that women shouting orders had difficulty in having reach due to higher pitch of the voice. For some reason, gun shots and other middle-in- there noise tended to cancel out theirs more effectively than men.
Then you have a couple of psychological effects here that are really hard to overcome. Men will react more quickly on requests of a woman, which is a bad thing if the woman is wounded, or looks to be in other sort of trouble. I did not see this in actuality since I did not participate in combat, but I do recall men taking gear from women more eagerly than from men in the exercises and believe that this is still well grounded.
Lastly, my grandfather seemingly had a great trauma of witnessing a woman sniper being executed by close range head shot. He later said something like "She was so beautiful, why she had to die?". Apparently, seeing men die did not leave such a trace.
Personally, I wouldn't like having women in heavy assault roles, but support roles, why not?
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About half of your post consists of problems with men that they need to get over, the other half is stuff already covered - extensively, and with citations! - on the first page of the thread.
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Personally, I wouldn't like having women in heavy assault roles, but support roles, why not?
Yeah, let me just go ahead and say that I think that's bull****. Complete and utter bull**** of the finest caliber.
Point 1: What you would or wouldn't like is completely irrelevant.
Point 2: Prior to the policy change under discussion here, a female soldier with the same training marks, the same aptitudes, the same skills as a male soldier would have been barred from being deployed into the same situations purely because someone "doesn't like women in assault roles". Not because she was fundamentally incapable of functioning in the role, but just because someone somewhere thought that that job needs to be done by a man.
Now, will we suddenly see a big influx of female soldiers into front-line operations? No. Partially because there aren't that many female soldiers to begin with, partially because they have to pass the same training (which is more difficult due to the old "in order to be accepted, a woman has to be twice as good" thing than any physiological differences).
There aren't that many people who can go into modern combat again and again. A country would do well to get as many of these people into the right places. If a country deprives itself of a pool of candidates for some bull**** reason like the ones you cited, they are weakening their military.
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Dragon, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
I know, but unless you can read Polish, the particular piece of data I theoretically could give you (assuming nobody threw this particular issue of this magazine into trash or the fireplace...) isn't going to help much. You could look at men to women ratios in other branches. See below though.
Also, what point are you making, exactly?
This and not much more:
...a proportionately smaller number of women think of the military as a good career...
Now, will we suddenly see a big influx of female soldiers into front-line operations? No. Partially because there aren't that many female soldiers to begin with, partially because they have to pass the same training (which is more difficult due to the old "in order to be accepted, a woman has to be twice as good" thing than any physiological differences).
You managed to state my point, and better, before I even had a chance to respond. :)
I'm not saying whether this is good or bad, but pointing out that Pentagon's decision alone isn't going to make women in combat units common, at least not quickly. Hopefully we'll get there eventually, but for the reasons you mentioned, it isn't going to be a fast process. Note that in no place did I argue against this decision, quite the contrary. Note that I was talking about how it is, not about how it should be. Arbitrary restrictions pretty much lead to some degree of inefficiency. It would be the best if the only things that counted in all occupations were one's capabilities. I think "how it should be" is a matter for another thread though.
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Don't you suppose why many women do not have interest in serving in the military might be because of the prejudices they may face?
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Well well, this seems to be then about women who have the same physical capability as men. The thing is, I haven't met a lot of women who actually could approach an average man in the strength or endurance department (and I was in assault riflemen). All your argumentation starts from "equal capability". Stop right there; that's the thing I was saying. There simply aren't many women on "equal capability", even in the army. Which is why I said I personally wouldn't like to have women in my squadron - you open up a bit too many unknowns by that. If I was leading a squadron that works in a combat support role, it would be different, but for heavy assault, no.
And given there are such a small number of women who could take part in such a role, one is left to wonder what's all the fuzz about this then? However, if I get assigned a woman in my squadron, I can live with the fact. If a woman becomes the commander of the battalion I'm stationed in, I can live with that fact as well.
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Mika, I think you do not understand the issue under discussion. If you want to deploy Soldiers into combat, you need to make sure they're all trained to the same standard, both in terms of physical ability and mental skills. Doing anything else endangers the unit as a whole, because that's what introduces those unknowns you're talking about.
That being the case, we're not talking about holding women who want into frontline assignments to a different standard than the Soldiers we're deploying there now. In other words, the only people that are affected by this are the women who are already capable of operating at the same level as the men.
If you have people available who can do the job and are motivated to do it, would it not be better to train them and give them the jobs they want, rather than barring them from doing the job because they lack dangly bits between their legs?
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Mika, I think you do not understand the issue under discussion. If you want to deploy Soldiers into combat, you need to make sure they're all trained to the same standard, both in terms of physical ability and mental skills. Doing anything else endangers the unit as a whole, because that's what introduces those unknowns you're talking about.
That being the case, we're not talking about holding women who want into frontline assignments to a different standard than the Soldiers we're deploying there now. In other words, the only people that are affected by this are the women who are already capable of operating at the same level as the men.
If you have people available who can do the job and are motivated to do it, would it not be better to train them and give them the jobs they want, rather than barring them from doing the job because they lack dangly bits between their legs?
"Already capable of operating at the same level as the men"? And how do you know that? How do you exactly close the possibility that their squaddies did not help them with their assignments? This is exactly what I witnessed, and the reason is pretty simple: you don't typically screw up as a single person in the army (it's nowadays almost forbidden to single out personnel), but you screw up as a squad. And since most of the squad members don't want to be punished for something they didn't do, they'll opt to help instead! And of course, this happens equally with men, but the point is, this happened routinely with the women candidates that I saw and served with.
I'm not saying there aren't women who are not fit to front line duty. I know a couple of one that are and one who was more than capable. But they never went through the army, and that's my point. As a squadron leader, I don't want to think the possibility that this woman under my command might or might not be capable.
For some reason, I think this Pentagon decision has more to do with running out of soldiers - or preparing towards it. Remember that we still have mandatory military service here, and we have enough of candidates to select from. Why we should enlist women who with massive amount of training can barely match men with a reasonable amount of training? That's the thing where I'm coming from.
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How do you exactly close the possibility that their squaddies did not help them with their assignments? This is exactly what I witnessed, and the reason is pretty simple: you don't typically screw up as a single person in the army (it's nowadays almost forbidden to single out personnel), but you screw up as a squad.
Why are men magically exempt from this possibility, why can the same measures taken for this sort of thing for them not work for women, and why did you not bother to consider your argument at all?
For some reason, I think this Pentagon decision has more to do with running out of soldiers - or preparing towards it.
This is an excellent indicator of how painfully out of touch you are with current issues in the US armed forces.
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For some reason, I think this Pentagon decision has more to do with running out of soldiers - or preparing towards it.
This is an excellent indicator of how painfully out of touch you are with current issues in the US armed forces.
Yeah, the US has plenty of soldiers.
http://www.usa.gov/Federal-Employees/Active-Military-Records.shtml#Data_and_Statistics (http://www.usa.gov/Federal-Employees/Active-Military-Records.shtml#Data_and_Statistics)
http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/miltop.htm (http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/miltop.htm)
"Already capable of operating at the same level as the men"? And how do you know that? How do you exactly close the possibility that their squaddies did not help them with their assignments? This is exactly what I witnessed, and the reason is pretty simple: you don't typically screw up as a single person in the army (it's nowadays almost forbidden to single out personnel), but you screw up as a squad. And since most of the squad members don't want to be punished for something they didn't do, they'll opt to help instead! And of course, this happens equally with men, but the point is, this happened routinely with the women candidates that I saw and served with.
I'm not saying there aren't women who are not fit to front line duty. I know a couple of one that are and one who was more than capable. But they never went through the army, and that's my point. As a squadron leader, I don't want to think the possibility that this woman under my command might or might not be capable.
For some reason, I think this Pentagon decision has more to do with running out of soldiers - or preparing towards it. Remember that we still have mandatory military service here, and we have enough of candidates to select from. Why we should enlist women who with massive amount of training can barely match men with a reasonable amount of training? That's the thing where I'm coming from.
"Why we should enlist women who with massive amount of training can barely match men with a reasonable amount of training?" Because equality is important, that's why. Anyway, you're seriously underestimating what woman are capable of. Most women don't care about their physical strength as much as men, which leads to less effort and lower ability. A woman who tries hard enough could be stronger than most men.
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Do you have some kind of an individual Combat Fitness Assessment to be undertaken by all those in an Arms Corps in Finland, Mika? I don't think any military would be caught letting a woman who could not pass the male standard (which should be the single standard) into a Battalion. In some senses I totally agree with you, men and women are not physically equal, not by a long shot when it comes their physiology and composition of testosterone in the body, etc, which I'm led to believe contributes to a large part of the physical disparities between them. But if you take a look at the OP, like Battuta hinted, militaries including my native Australian Defence Force have invested time and money into studying the ability of women to complete things like an Arms Corps CFA and found that there are women who can. They are not numerous, and will never be numerous, until, as I've said umpteen times this thread, we can re-engineer the human body, but they are there.
I have my doubts as to whether they could fill roles in units like yours (I assume it would be the equivalent of our Light Infantry?), but I believe Officers in New Zealand and Canada who've been female have filled billets in Mechanised Infantry units, and the late-Captain Nichola Goddard, whom I like to mention was a Field Artillery Officer, I believe. Dekker's posts were also good reads on women in Combat Engineers.
I think the onus should be on the training structure to ensure that capable women are adequately prepared. Unless we institute more hardcore minimum standards, women are going to need a supplementary training program before the commencement of Infantry specific training and after Basic training because of what we know about the differences between the average male or female when they rock up, and how long it will take a female to reach an acceptable physical standard for the duration of Infantry training.
"Why we should enlist women who with massive amount of training can barely match men with a reasonable amount of training?" Because equality is important, that's why. Anyway, you're seriously underestimating what woman are capable of. Most women don't care about their physical strength as much as men, which leads to less effort and lower ability. A woman who tries hard enough could be stronger than most men.
I think to some extent Mika has a legitimate point. There was an article written by a Marine Corps Infantry Officer (may have been recently retired) that I'm struggling to find that was in favour of women in combat units, but even he conceded that women would be taking the spots of the weaker males in the Platoon. Simply due to the way the female body is, they won't be your superstar soldiers who are running rings around the rest of the Platoon and it does seem counter-intuitive to introduce a whole population to Infantry that will never be able to rise as far as the existing population. But conversely, if a woman can earn her spot in a combat unit, I believe she should be able to serve in one. Especially if she's taking the place of some dropkick who doesn't want to be there.
Your last point though, I think needs some clarification. Yes, absolutely, men are not stronger than women when you compare the two populations because there are women who are stronger than some men. Even women who are stronger than a large number of untrained men. But it will in the vast majority of cases take a woman far longer than a comparable man to reach the same levels of physical strength. Just looking at the Olympics at which sports men and women can compete in at the same level, and in things like lifting competitions is a good illustration of just how big the disparity can get. A lot of people don't realise just how physical a job being in an Arms Corps is.
All this aside, there's enough evidence to suggest that women can at least hack the standards in things like the CFA. What I'm more concerned about is what the Marine Corps CPT in the article I've linked in the OP talks about, regarding the price of combat on her body, and whether female soldiers will be able to maintain their fitness in the field as long as men without compromising both their own and their unit's ability to function.
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Why are men magically exempt from this possibility, why can the same measures taken for this sort of thing for them not work for women, and why did you not bother to consider your argument at all?
I think you missed it. It was on the next sentence. That happens with men as well, but for some reason, that also happened with ALL women candidates that I saw.
This is an excellent indicator of how painfully out of touch you are with current issues in the US armed forces.
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"Why we should enlist women who with massive amount of training can barely match men with a reasonable amount of training?" Because equality is important, that's why. Anyway, you're seriously underestimating what woman are capable of. Most women don't care about their physical strength as much as men, which leads to less effort and lower ability. A woman who tries hard enough could be stronger than most men.
Equality between genders does not mean that. True equality takes account also the differences when they really exist and lives with it. Of the record, I have done also martial arts for 15 years and dated a European Champion of a certain punch & kick art. I'm pretty well aware of the differences in a human body at this point, and do remember the massive amount of training she had to do which barely allowed her to go head to head with an average men. Wrestling then, well, that's another thing... I actually never did any wrestling when trying this with a female judoka who had been training a lot (not a black belt though). Surprisingly, I was able to hold my own. Yes, by training, a woman can get stronger than average men. But had that average man been training with the same rate, the woman simply does not stand a chance, and that is the reason why the genders are separated in sports. You want to try this kind of "equality"? Call for genderless sports first and see how far that goes.
For Dilmah G, I think the Battalions have their own standards that you need to fulfill. I do recall our running standard was around 2700 metres in 12 minutes, a comparatively easy target - most of us went over 2900 m. Other battalions had different limits IIRC. I do recall that it was a disgrace if you could not go over 3000 metres in the Reconnaissance company :lol: The requested amounts depended on what was perceived to be necessary - so it's no wonder that the Reconnaissance company required much faster people - they tended to run a lot :lol:. Air Force pilot screening was completely different of those, and wasn't that interested on how quick you can run...
We already do have women (in small numbers) serving in the combat support roles like Artillery, AAA, Engineering, Communications, and Air Force. And as I said, there's no problem filling these roles, as the stress factors there are different.
If you can find the Marine Corps Officer interview, I'm interested to read that to see whether it reflects mine. The long term endurance when physically tired is one of those key things, and the resistance against cold is another one specific to here.
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"Why we should enlist women who with massive amount of training can barely match men with a reasonable amount of training?" Because equality is important, that's why. Anyway, you're seriously underestimating what woman are capable of. Most women don't care about their physical strength as much as men, which leads to less effort and lower ability. A woman who tries hard enough could be stronger than most men.
Equality between genders does not mean that. True equality takes account also the differences when they really exist and lives with it. Of the record, I have done also martial arts for 15 years and dated a European Champion of a certain punch & kick art. I'm pretty well aware of the differences in a human body at this point, and do remember the massive amount of training she had to do which barely allowed her to go head to head with an average men. Wrestling then, well, that's another thing... I actually never did any wrestling when trying this with a female judoka who had been training a lot (not a black belt though). Surprisingly, I was able to hold my own. Yes, by training, a woman can get stronger than average men. But had that average man been training with the same rate, the woman simply does not stand a chance, and that is the reason why the genders are separated in sports. You want to try this kind of "equality"? Call for genderless sports first and see how far that goes.
For Dilmah G, I think the Battalions have their own standards that you need to fulfill. I do recall our running standard was around 2700 metres in 12 minutes, a comparatively easy target - most of us went over 2900 m. Other battalions had different limits IIRC. I do recall that it was a disgrace if you could not go over 3000 metres in the Reconnaissance company :lol: The requested amounts depended on what was perceived to be necessary - so it's no wonder that the Reconnaissance company required much faster people - they tended to run a lot :lol:. Air Force pilot screening was completely different of those, and wasn't that interested on how quick you can run...
We already do have women (in small numbers) serving in the combat support roles like Artillery, AAA, Engineering, Communications, and Air Force. And as I said, there's no problem filling these roles, as the stress factors there are different.
If you can find the Marine Corps Officer interview, I'm interested to read that to see whether it reflects mine. The long term endurance when physically tired is one of those key things, and the resistance against cold is another one specific to here.
Perhaps I was viewing this too simplistically. I still think women who can pass the standards designed for men should be allowed, though.
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I'm not saying whether this is good or bad, but pointing out that Pentagon's decision alone isn't going to make women in combat units common, at least not quickly. Hopefully we'll get there eventually, but for the reasons you mentioned, it isn't going to be a fast process.
That's kind of irrelevant, though. The point isn't to raise the number of women in combat roles; the point is to allow any person who wants to serve their country in that capacity to do so without stopping them because of gender or any other issues that have nothing to do with them being physically fit for those roles. If they can pass the physical aptitude tests and want to serve, gender or race should be completely irrelevant. This has absolutely nothing to do with some bull**** notion of artificially inflating the number of women in combat roles and everything to do with finally leaving the dark ages once and for all.
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The point isn't to raise the number of women in combat roles; the point is to allow any person who wants to serve their country in that capacity to do so without stopping them because of gender or any other issues that have nothing to do with them being physically fit for those roles. If they can pass the physical aptitude tests and want to serve, gender or race should be completely irrelevant. This has absolutely nothing to do with some bull**** notion of artificially inflating the number of women in combat roles and everything to do with finally leaving the dark ages once and for all.
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MIKA: "I have done also martial arts for 15 years and dated a European Champion of a certain punch & kick art. I'm pretty well aware of the differences in a human body at this point, and do remember the massive amount of training she had to do which barely allowed her to go head to head with an average men."
Surely this can't be true, unless you either mean average martial arts men or she was in one of the lighter weight classes. Surely a European martial arts champion should be able to wipe the floor up with your average Joe strolling down the street and barely even break a sweat?
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I'm fairly sure he meant the average male martial arts contestant. A female martial arts champion could indeed wipe the floor with your average beer-gut joe.
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I'm fairly sure he meant the average male martial arts contestant. A female martial arts champion could indeed wipe the floor with your average beer-gut joe.
If so I certainly agree with that.
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Of the record, I have done also martial arts for 15 years and dated a European Champion of a certain punch & kick art. I'm pretty well aware of the differences in a human body at this point, and do remember the massive amount of training she had to do which barely allowed her to go head to head with an average men. Wrestling then, well, that's another thing... I actually never did any wrestling when trying this with a female judoka who had been training a lot (not a black belt though). Surprisingly, I was able to hold my own. Yes, by training, a woman can get stronger than average men. But had that average man been training with the same rate, the woman simply does not stand a chance, and that is the reason why the genders are separated in sports. You want to try this kind of "equality"? Call for genderless sports first and see how far that goes.
What martial art did you train in? Wrestling and some other martial arts depend heavily on physical strength. I've once sparred with a girl who was trained in Judo (I have very minimal "hand to hand" training) and I was able to hold her off until she locked me up "mechanically". I'd literally have to be a body builder to break out of that hold by brute force, and even then, it'd most likely hurt me. There are martial arts which depend entirely on such "mechanical" moves and require little strength. I was amazed when training some basic moves that worked like that form Ju-justu, how easily I could flip a very large, heavy and muscular man who was holding me by my shirt to the floor by applying force the right way.
Genderless sports do exist, though they're rare. The division is there for a similar reason weight classes are used. The point of sport is having a fair contest according to the rules. A featherweight boxer is not in any way an inferior fighter to a heavyweight boxer, but under the rules of box, the latter would have an unfair advantage. Same goes for male and female boxers, especially since the latter have an sensitive area which might be protected in a similar way the area "below the belt" is for everybody. In combat, on the other hand, the point is for the fight to be as unfair as possible and there are very few rules (and even they go out of window once the shooting starts). Also, not even Marines usually push themselves to such limits of their physical capabilities as sportsmen/women. Special forces may, but even then, it's quite different.
A trooper needs to be fit and sustain his/her performance for a long period of time. They only rarely need to push themselves to the limits. On the other hand, a sportsman/woman needs to give everything in a very short period of time. This causes physical limits, also those caused by gender, to be a much more significant factor. You can't really compare sports with combat and military life in general.
Oh, and don't forget that nobody stops women from participating in sports or sparring against men. The fact that they have different rules applied to them in official competitions is because of the aforementioned differences in physical limits and the fact that rules for such competitions are very carefully tailored to make the contest fair.
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I meant that she did sparring with her students and equals, not street brawling. One of the biggest issues she said was that in order to get an effective punch against men, she had to put considerably more power behind it and even then that might not cut it - your average family father can produce a surprising amount of power. Additionally, men could routinely trust on just being built tougher and start to trade blows with her, i.e. sacrifice protection and take a hit on some area intentionally to open her guard. Yes, it is a valid tactic, if you can take the hit.
I mainly did traditional kicking and punching arts, mainly a style of kung-fu, but earlier I had three years in a karate derivative. None of this matters though, since I wrestled with judokas before any martial arts training. Wrestling against men was harder, since they really did have more power to move something when they wanted something to be moved. Mechanical locks sort of depend on the adversary not realizing what you are doing, be it due to pain, for the surprise or due to unstable position. If they do, the reversals tend to be a Bad Thing. If somebody really doesn't want to get locked or go in the control position, it is difficult as hell to do that alone assuming you don't want to hurt him much. Police often need two constables to pin an enraged person down to ground, and occasionally even that is not enough.
What it comes to sports giving meaningful comparison on combat, I think you are partially mistaken. The sort of strength you get in wrestling is actually somewhat related to army, since you need to crawl, occasionally quite a bit :D Also important is to be very very quick in short distances, meaning start from lying down and run about 7-10 metres and get back on the ground as soon as you possibly can - keeping in mind the combat gear weighs about 13 kgs extra, more if you happen to have the RPG. That dash shouldn't take more than 2 seconds. I do recall women having trouble with this since the start stresses upper body strength. Then again, I don't know what my classification would be in other militaries. I could be a specialist for all I know.
Two of the most tiring exercises that I recall had a lot to do with me carrying an RPG and running quite a bit with it. Since then in civil life, I haven't much sports that could be compared to it. Not even 30 km skiing comes close in exhaustion compared to that.
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What it comes to sports giving meaningful comparison on combat, I think you are partially mistaken. The sort of strength you get in wrestling is actually somewhat related to army, since you need to crawl, occasionally quite a bit :D Also important is to be very very quick in short distances, meaning start from lying down and run about 7-10 metres and get back on the ground as soon as you possibly can - keeping in mind the combat gear weighs about 13 kgs extra, more if you happen to have the RPG. That dash shouldn't take more than 2 seconds. I do recall women having trouble with this since the start stresses upper body strength. Then again, I don't know what my classification would be in other militaries. I could be a specialist for all I know.
The point still stands though. A 2-second "combat dash" with a 13-15kg load is nothing compared to what sportsmen/women have to do. It isn't easy, of course, but well within physical capabilities of an average woman. Maybe she would have to train harder in order to achieve this, but a women willing to do so will be just capable as a man in such a situation. Of course, it's not like sports are completely unrelated to the military (fitness and plain physical strength, if nothing else), but they can't be directly compared. In a hypothetical sports competition involving a sprint in combat gear, women would indeed be at a disadvantage if pitted against men. Of course, this is assuming a professional approach (in which you need to train for years to even rate), not a "boot camp contest" in which the prize is doing a few push-ups less and all the preparation you have is your training so far. In such situation, as well as in actual combat, troopers don't even go near their physical limits. It certainly feels like that sometimes, but it's really little compared to professional sports.
Two of the most tiring exercises that I recall had a lot to do with me carrying an RPG and running quite a bit with it. Since then in civil life, I haven't much sports that could be compared to it. Not even 30 km skiing comes close in exhaustion compared to that.
Try sprinting or running with weights (all Strong Man championships I've seen had this one, and the one Strong Woman I've seen had it, too). In military, you're pretty much forced to do these exercises, which is not the case in amateur sports. You're hardly pushing yourself to the limits on a holiday skiing trip, because you're doing this for fun. Military often forces you to go further than you'd like, but within a reasonable limit. Professional sports are where boundaries of human physical capability are assaulted and that's where you really start seeing any differences between genders that are could not be attributed to different approach to physical strength.
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The said combat dash may go on for 300 metres (so you may have to do it 30 times if the strategy happens to suck big time). And still with the equipment. We actually did that in a swamp when the instructor ordered us to (yeah, that's non-commissioned officer school for you). Yes, I do recall seeing women dropping quite far behind on these cases. Ditto during the time of snow. The infantry sort of strength requires both, be very quick short term while you should be able to sustain slower speed with heavier load for longer periods. What it comes to combat, physical limits are certainly reached - not intentionally exceeded during training (since that would be bad and stupid for Defence Forces to maim people in peace time), but they do get close. Yes, I know a soldier should consider the sustainability of operations, but that's not always possible when certain factors start to work against you.
Some of my squaddies started to hallucinate little green men waving at them from the forest during a certain lengthier marching exercise. Needless to say, nobody even suggested giving certain heavier stuff for women participating in the exercise, nor did they offer for help. Performance enhancing drugs were used in last war here, and if I recall, also in the beginning of the current Iraqi operations. My question is, have you ever gone three days with 45 minutes of sleep during the whole exercise while participating in a combat exercise all the time? The tiredness adds in to the exhaustion, and I don't remember much about women participating in that exercise - actually, the whole exercise is sort of sketchy dream world like occurrence, like the aforementioned march as well. I sort of recall having been in an APC that crashed into forest when we were returning. Yes, endurance is halfway psychological, but the lack of sleep, heavy stuff and the soft ground tends to get you quicker, all of them dangerous for a well-trained sportsman/women.
Oh, and that 30 km skiing, that's without water to drink or stopping to catch the breath. Intentionally so, since I sort of wanted a challenge.
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All the above applies to men just as well as to women. I'm not saying women should be expected to reach top scores in such exercises (or perform incredibly badass feats in combat on a daily basis), but I'm pretty sure they can keep up and in general, not rate too much below the average. Unless some crazy feminist politician starts lowering standards (US not being Poland, this is unlikely to happen) to get more women into military, I don't think it'll do any harm to combat units. Since the standards are the same for both men and women, I wouldn't expect an overall performance drop. In fact, as I said, I think that little will actually change, because there are few women both willing and capable of getting into grunts. I don't expect seeing a lot of female machine gunners or grenadiers (though in a country that big, I'd expect that there will be a few), but "lighter" artillery MOSes should get a couple of female recruits.
And of course, that you shouldn't expect women in general to perform incredible feats of strength, it doesn't mean there won't be women doing them. You wouldn't expect a woman to lift an 80kg iron ball either, yet there are some who do that sort of thing for a living, and with a time limit (the aforementioned professional weightlifters). With enough training, a woman can be capable of pulling a TIR, so I think a 300 meter dash isn't exactly outside absolute physical limits of a female body. While you can't compare weightlifters to grunts (as I previously stated), it shows that such capabilities are possible to achieve. Certainly, women will have to get extra training to keep up with men, but knowing DIs, they'd quickly get that training if they fall behind the men. No self respecting DI would let a recruit of any gender lag behind and get out of this without a lot of extra PT or some exhausting, pointless chore.