Women in Military Service & Combat (not just USA)

[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.