Women in Military Service & Combat (not just USA)

[Compost]

It is interesting that those proposing women as suitable for service throughout the military and especially in combat elements such as infantry are not also proposing women compete against men in gridiron and ice hockey.

Women are certainly capable of learning and employing the infantry skills needed for short duration security and clearing patrols in the vicinity of basecamps. But operations outside the wire in front-line infantry units include periods of fatique, hardship and rugged labour that are just as demanding and brutishly intense as contact sport. The typical workloads in armour, artillery and engineers are less in the face but pulling tracks, humping shells and earth moving are – despite what politicians may suppose – sufficiently heavy and sustained to stretch the 95 percentile of women beyond their capacity and endurance.

However, political correctness is one hell of a weapon and its advocates are keen to change camouflage cream to pink. One current campaign is to renovate US Army and USMC training into a modern syllabus for touch football and cheerleading where many women could succeed. Of course the PC advocates are not game to suggest contact sports or armed conflict can be gentled down. But that is their basic and fatally incorrect assumption.

[AmericanPride]

It is interesting that those proposing women as suitable for service throughout the military and especially in combat elements such as infantry are not also proposing women compete against men in gridiron and ice hockey.

The assumption here is that women, if given equal training and resourcing, could not compete with men in gridiron and hockey. From a very young age, boys and girls are segregated in athletics, and this has compounding effects over the years as boys on the whole receive more training than girls. This is also true for the military.

There is also another assumption in your comment: that whatever abstract level of proficiency required for 'combat' is somehow inherently gendered. There exists somewhere and by some measurement a minimum standard necessary for 'combat', however defined, regardless of one's sex. There are many men who fail to meet this standard and by your arbitrary formulation here, men should be as equally disqualified as women from combat arms. Military standards are not looking for "the best" like in profit-driven professional sports, but for 'good enough' among those who volunteer for service.

But operations outside the wire in front-line infantry units include periods of fatique, hardship and rugged labour that are just as demanding and brutishly intense as contact sport

What does this have to do with anyone's gender? Were Soviet women less capable of killing German invaders than their male comrades? Did women not share with men the hardship of the Indian frontier? How about the hard labor in factories or mines?

The opposition to women in combat arms is based on an antiquated, patriarchal, and romantic view of the 'right place' for the sexes - a view that is quickly being dismantled by the necessities of the modern era's demands on society. Wars are no longer won by personal courage and individual strength (ah blasphemy!) but by the cold calculation of the massing of combat power on the enemy. What about the genders makes one better than the other at pulling the trigger of an assault right, flying a drone, or driving a tank? And as technology continues to find new means of automation and miniaturization, like exoskeletons, the 'justifications' for excluding women from combat arms become increasingly irrelevant to modern warfare. The military - given its importance for the national security - is no place to stake the last stand of dying male machismo in American society.

[Red Rat]

The opposition to women in combat arms is based on an antiquated, patriarchal, and romantic view of the 'right place' for the sexes - a view that is quickly being dismantled by the necessities of the modern era's demands on society.

That's one hell of an assertion. Would you like to back that up with evidence? I have not seen any significant moral or philosophical contributions to the debate, nor have I seen any serious sociological or anthropological studies of the wide-ranging implications of this move. This is bemusing as primarily this debate should not be about combat effectiveness, but about the wider ramifications of treating men and women as not just equal, but the same.

[Granite_State]

The opposition to women in combat arms is based on an antiquated, patriarchal, and romantic view of the 'right place' for the sexes - a view that is quickly being dismantled by the necessities of the modern era's demands on society. Wars are no longer won by personal courage and individual strength (ah blasphemy!) but by the cold calculation of the massing of combat power on the enemy. What about the genders makes one better than the other at pulling the trigger of an assault right, flying a drone, or driving a tank? And as technology continues to find new means of automation and miniaturization, like exoskeletons, the 'justifications' for excluding women from combat arms become increasingly irrelevant to modern warfare. The military - given its importance for the national security - is no place to stake the last stand of dying male machismo in American society.

Never mind that the physical concerns with integration pale in comparison to those of cohesion, fraternization, pregnancy, and injury. Tell your tale of exoskeletons and miniaturization to:
-A soldier from the 101st Airborne in the Korengal.
-A Marine from 3/1 in Fallujah.
-Any soldier or Marine jumping or climbing up a canal with a 25 pound ECM on his back.

This revolt against reality will end about one week in to a real war.

[120mm]

Never mind that the physical concerns with integration pale in comparison to those of cohesion, fraternization, pregnancy, and injury. Tell your tale of exoskeletons and miniaturization to:
-A soldier from the 101st Airborne in the Korengal.
-A Marine from 3/1 in Fallujah.
-Any soldier or Marine jumping or climbing up a canal with a 25 pound ECM on his back.

This revolt against reality will end about one week in to a real war.

You mean, a "real war" like the Eastern Front in WWII?

Yeah. Gotta have a dick to kill Germans with an 11 pound rifle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

Your apocryphal soldier and Marine were handicapped by a system where their physical size and strength were more important than their war fighting ability. It astonishes me how people who've served can work up the motivation to oppose females being "allowed" to serve in combat units, yet cannot get worked up about the chain of leadership failures that led to the above mentioned scenarios.

Note that the NVA didn't burden it's infantry with crap. Neither did the Japanese in WWII. Nor do the guys killing our guys in Korengal or in Fallujah.

[Red Rat]

Note that the NVA didn't burden it's infantry with crap. Neither did the Japanese in WWII. Nor do the guys killing our guys in Korengal or in Fallujah.

Because societies go to war in a manner which reflects both the society and their aims in the conflict. You cannot expect a society to fight in a way that is foreign to that society. At the very least the former delineates in part what they regard as risk, the latter how much risk they are prepared to accept. Comparing apples and Volkswagens therefore seems a strange way to make a point about supposed leadership failures.

[davidbfpo]

Found this on an email round-up from 'The Conversation', a commentary blogsite based on UK university writers and the article maybe of interest. I have no position on the issues.

It starts with:

Many myths, based on stereotype and perpetuated by a minority of “old and bold” military personnel, are historically unfounded. However, the findings do not seem to be filtering though – and popular opinion still believes that women are incapable of serving in ground close combat roles. It is time to put these myths to bed once and for all:

Link:https://theconversation.com/eight-myths-about-women-on-the-military-frontline-and-why-we-shouldnt-believe-them-55594?

[Red Rat]

They might be arguments, but they certainly do not reflect my concerns.

1) Women are physically inferior to men. Not a serious argument that I have heard put forward. Women are however different to men, and no consideration has been given therefore to the impacts and effectiveness of either allowing for these differences or incorporating them. The argument about exoskeletons is surreal, presumably because exoskeletons allow children to fight we should therefore let them fight?

2) Women lack violent tendencies. Just because some women are capable of violence neither means that all women are as violent as men nor that we should encourage women to be as violent as men.

3) Women lack the self-discipline required. If anything, everyone I know would say that women on average brings an advantage in this area. One only needs to look at the roles where women in the military are carving out the greatest successes at the moment to see this.

4) Women are not as emotionally stable as men. Really? I do wonder where the author gets this from? It is like a parody of misogyny.

5) Women will be sexually assaulted by male peers. The author proves the point here in her own findings (the argument was never that this was a woman only issue). This is not an exclusively female problem, but it is much more of a problem for women than it is for men. here I caveat with the fact that sexual assault is not a reason to stop women taking up more roles in the military - it is simply a discipline problem to be addressed.

6) Women will jeopardise unit cohesion. I've heard it said and I don't believe it. They do however change the dynamics of a unit and I do not think the ramifications of this are fully understood. It could be good, it could be bad.

7) Female military units will not work. Really? As far as I know no western militaries are considering introducing all female combat units. I am not quite sure why this issue is raised.

8) Women can't perform as well as men in the special forces. Again, not an argument that I am familiar with. I personally know of UK Special Forces operators (female). In fact this whole paragraph highlighted a distressing amount of ignorance about SF selection, roles, the current operating environment and the difference between being 'badged' and operating with. It summed up the whole piece for me: it was pseudo-academic.

[Compost]

The opposition to women in combat arms is based on an antiquated, patriarchal, and romantic view of the 'right place' for the sexes - a view that is quickly being dismantled by the necessities of the modern era's demands on society. Wars are no longer won by personal courage and individual strength (ah blasphemy!) but by the cold calculation of the massing of combat power on the enemy. What about the genders makes one better than the other at pulling the trigger of an assault right, flying a drone, or driving a tank? And as technology continues to find new means of automation and miniaturization, like exoskeletons, the 'justifications' for excluding women from combat arms become increasingly irrelevant to modern warfare. The military - given its importance for the national security - is no place to stake the last stand of dying male machismo in American society.

Evangelism can be emotionally and socially rewarding and the current politically correct view is that US infantry units should be promptly changed from all-male to mixed male-and-female. That would yield a lot of empirical data when those light infantry platoons and companies are inevitably committed to close quarter combat against adversary platoons and companies that are likely to be all-male. But if the empirical data is unfavourable, what costs will have been incurred and how long will it take to save face and then revert to ‘all-male’ light infantry ?

The proven path for military force development is to test before implementing. Statistical gaming is an alternative but in this case there is already so much PC and anti-PC opinion that computer models and their results would be suspect. In my opinion the viability of having females in light infantry units - operating without or with niceties such as exoskeletons - could be cheaply and appropriately tested in several series of ‘round-robin’ gridiron or ice hockey matches: each matching an all-male team against a male-female team with all teams in a ‘round-robin’ composed of all members from a pool of goodmale light infantry and all members of a somewhat smaller pool of pool of comprehensively trained females. For example, four series with six teams in each would require 60 matches which played at the rate of two per week would usefully test powers of endurance and recovery.

Is there an alternative way of testing human suitability for the basic all-purpose combat arm which has been on the winning and loosing sides throughout human history ? And seriously is it even necessary ? Recent history has shown that technological advances continue to be a sometime substitute for the aggressive, other instinctive and physiological capabilities of human light infantry. That history indicates also that females continue to coldly calculate that it is adviseable to avoid face-to-face combat against males. Females also somewhat similarly avoid integration into intensely male units.

[AmericanPride]

That's one hell of an assertion. Would you like to back that up with evidence? I have not seen any significant moral or philosophical contributions to the debate, nor have I seen any serious sociological or anthropological studies of the wide-ranging implications of this move. This is bemusing as primarily this debate should not be about combat effectiveness, but about the wider ramifications of treating men and women as not just equal, but the same.

It's not only the change character of modern warfare, but also the ways in which society has changed the relationship between genders. The old views about genders are increasingly irrelevant - and, to some extent, destructive and obstructionist. The underlying structures of capitalism and democracy - as they exist today, and which, ultimately, inform the construction of the security apparatus around them - do not require any sort of differentiation. In fact, given the trends in finance, labor, public health, technology, and trade, they are positively harmed by any kind of exclusionary policies which reduce one segment's participation in this system. The last few decades have witnessed this dismantling with a few holdouts in the 'cultural wars'. Likewise, the all-volunteer military, with its high demands for an educated and moral work-force, is also harmed by policies of exclusion, given the ever-decreasing pool of viable candidates and the increasing per-servicemember cost of maintaining them.

So this isn't just about combat effectiveness, which really is only an indicator of the state of things underneath, or just equality, which is also important, but instead the continued evolution of our political-economic system which requires an all-volunteer service. With a country of 300+ million people, we could easily find enough men to fill our requirements - but only if we removed barriers like social stigma of the draft and physical/moral requirements. But we can't - and the national security cannot afford to exclude ~150+ million people from the potential labor pool because some men hold sexist views about women.

Never mind that the physical concerns with integration pale in comparison to those of cohesion, fraternization, pregnancy, and injury.

When faced with the common threat of death and serious injury, I'm confident that men and women will be just fine working together.

This revolt against reality will end about one week in to a real war.

The reality is that the only political correctness occurring here is futilely defending the last bastion of masochism in American society against its inevitable destruction in the face of a changing world. Here's a thought: if you were to replace all of the men in the armed forces with women, how would the outcomes of our wars be any different? Has the U.S. lost any conflict on the basis of the physical prowess or personal courage of its members?

But if the empirical data is unfavourable, what costs will have been incurred and how long will it take to save face and then revert to ‘all-male’ light infantry ?

This assumes that the 'unfavorable' data is because women's presence is detrimental to unit integrity rather than that male machisoism is detrimental to unit integrity in mixed units.

[Compost]

Never mind that the physical concerns with integration pale in comparison to those of cohesion, fraternization, pregnancy, and injury.

This revolt against reality will end about one week in to a real war.

Would be pleased to have made these delightfully concise remarks,
but the credit belongs to Granite State.

[Granite_State]

The US services' implementation plans are out:

http://weaponsman.com/?p=30437

[Red Rat]

It's not only the change character of modern warfare, but also the ways in which society has changed the relationship between genders. The old views about genders are increasingly irrelevant - and, to some extent, destructive and obstructionist. The underlying structures of capitalism and democracy - as they exist today, and which, ultimately, inform the construction of the security apparatus around them - do not require any sort of differentiation. In fact, given the trends in finance, labor, public health, technology, and trade, they are positively harmed by any kind of exclusionary policies which reduce one segment's participation in this system. The last few decades have witnessed this dismantling with a few holdouts in the 'cultural wars'.

So this isn't just about combat effectiveness...

I quite agree that this is not just about combat effectiveness. The way a military fights reflects the society it comes from and what that society aspires to be. I just see no hard evidence that the change is for the better. It seems to be both inconsistent in application, inefficient in costs and ill-considered in thinking through the second and third order consequences. In saying this I am looking across society as a whole, but the military is a good microcosm of this.

I remain bemused by the modern insistence that men and women are not just equal but should be regarded as the same, when patently they are not.