[Thaeris]

Right, sorry about that one...

[Aardwolf]

As I understand it...

The (stated) reason women can't be 'basic infantry' is because a man will do anything to protect the gal, up to and including disobeying orders / compromising objectives. Chivalry for the lose.

[Thaeris]

Don't go off and dismiss chivalry, Aardwolf. That in itself is fail...

[Rian]

Chivalry is fail. You want to be polite and considerate, be polite and considerate to everyone. Singling women out for special coddling itself implies a lack of respect.

edit: In particular, chivalry has no place whatsoever in a military context. If a woman is fighting alongside you, she is your comrade and should be treated as such. Anything else is highly inappropriate, disrespectful, and stands a reasonable chance of getting you both killed.

[General Battuta]

As I understand it...

The (stated) reason women can't be 'basic infantry' is because a man will do anything to protect the gal, up to and including disobeying orders / compromising objectives. Chivalry for the lose.

Sounds like a problem with the male soldiers in need of correction.

If it were true it would mean our soldiers suck pretty hard compared to, say, Israelis. Running around with an obsolete and sexist code of honor that impairs tactical performance? Better tighten them up.

[iamzack]

Yeah, we already had this discussion here. Every reason for keeping women out of ______ is actually a male-specific problem, not a female-specific one.

[TrashMan]

Ummm... You know that there's female combat pilots all over the place, right? That's not really a "support" role, but rather a "direct combat" role. 

Also, unless I'm mistaken, the IDF uses women as front-line troops along with the men. Be more careful with the generalizations here, people...

Functions that serve to support the front line troops are referred to as suppoert roles. This includes logistic, survailance, communications, and air support.

[TrashMan]

Yeah, we already had this discussion here. Every reason for keeping women out of ______ is actually a male-specific problem, not a female-specific one.

No.

[NGTM-1R]

There is, mind you, a fundemental biological reason for our bias. It's no longer valid, but it exists. You only need one male to repopulate. But you need a lot of females.

Being admittedly no longer valid, however...

To second Nuclear1's comment about SFs, there is at least one female Air Force Security sniper "ace".

[TrashMan]

According to hte Combat Readyness Cetner, males have a 40% great uppr body strength and 30% greater lower body strength and endurance (IIRC, can't recall if those were the exact numbers).
Female soldiers that were subject to the same training regime as males showed a 50% increse in injuries, mostly back related.

Strength, endurance and carry capacity play a role in modern warfare too. If you think otherwise, you're sorely mistaken.
Sure, with a sniper rifle a woman is as deadly as any man. But being a sniper is more than jsut sitting in a tower. When the time comes you have to run with that heavy rifle to avoid enemy patrols, endurance and strenght suddenly matter a lot.

In the old days of melee combat women were severely outclassed by men. Today, thanks to ranged combat, this is not the case anymore. But the differences still exist.

I can guarantee you won't see a woman in the SEALS, SAS or  (especially) Delta Force. Well, not unless they reduce the joining criteria

[Nuclear1]

Ummm... You know that there's female combat pilots all over the place, right? That's not really a "support" role, but rather a "direct combat" role.  

Also, unless I'm mistaken, the IDF uses women as front-line troops along with the men. Be more careful with the generalizations here, people...

Functions that serve to support the front line troops are referred to as suppoert roles. This includes logistic, survailance, communications, and air support.

Thanks for the generalizations.  You've never served in the military have you?

Combat pilots aren't a support role, whether their aircraft is designed for CAS or not.  They're in combat just as thick as infantry.  Surveillance, if you're not an analyst back behind the wire or stateside, is nearly as dangerous.  If an RC-135 is going down, the 35 people onboard are going down with it--we're not issued parachutes.

Logistics, again, if you're not stateside, are damn near combat roles these days.  I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself about convoy duty.

Yeah, we already had this discussion here. Every reason for keeping women out of ______ is actually a male-specific problem, not a female-specific one.

No.

Goddammit, are you just going to ****ing troll, or actually argue her point?

Keeping women out of the workforce was a problem with men because they wanted someone to watch the kids and have dinner ready when they came home from work.

Keeping women out of politics was a problem with men because they thought the political process would "pervert the purity of women."

Keeping women out of education was a problem with men because, hell, men don't like to be outdone by those people with lesser intellects.

Keeping women out of the military was a problem with men because some rear echelon general thought men couldn't keep it in their pants even while they're being shot at.

*snip*

That's funny, because when their lives are in danger, women have performed just as well in combat as their male counterparts.  If you think otherwise, Sergeant Hester, Specialist Piestewa (RIP), Specialist Johnson, and Sergeant Brown would be happy to kick your ass.

So, what's that?  The misogynist armchair general and his statistics are proven wrong by real world examples of women displaying excellence and courage under fire?  Whoulda thunk it!

[karajorma]

Yeah, we already had this discussion here. Every reason for keeping women out of ______ is actually a male-specific problem, not a female-specific one.

No.

That post just permanently lost you the right to post in General Discussion as it pretty much proves you are actually incapable of having a discussion.

You've been warned time and time again that your particular brand of trolling is not appreciated yet you continue to do it. Well, you won't be doing it on here any more.

[General Battuta]

I'm glad this is the topic that finally got TrashMan banned from GenDisc.

We've explained to him more than once that the relative physical weakness of women is not an argument for keeping women out of front-line combat roles. It's an argument for keeping weak people out of combat roles. Any female who can pass the physical tests should be able to fight - and such women do exist.

He was also clearly ignoring most of the posts that conflicted with him. I've never seen one-man groupthink before.

[Dilmah G]

Any female who can pass the physical tests should be able to fight - and such women do exist.

+1.

Well, not just the physical tests, but along those lines, yes.

If there are women on this Earth who can function as an effective part of a Fire-Team, both gender's behaviour being in check, then why the hell not?

[Thaeris]

We've explained to him more than once that the relative physical weakness of women is not an argument for keeping women out of front-line combat roles. It's an argument for keeping weak people out of combat roles. Any female who can pass the physical tests should be able to fight - and such women do exist.

DAMN. STRAIGHT.

I can't tell you how many tough female cadets I've been friends with. These ladies were nothing to scoff at in the slightest.

Furthermore, it's interesting to note that many soldiers in general aren't necessarily all brute and muscle. In fact, I'd say the majority probably aren't. Rather, you have what amounts to fairly light and agile people - this type of build is suited for endurance, which is far more important than quick feats of strength on the field. In many ways, that bulk is just extra weight to carry around...

That said, there's many female combatants that fit that criteria. Ideally, there's no reason for those troops not to be employed as standard infantry...

[General Battuta]

Aye, fair points all.