Carl,
Had you read the entire article, first you would know that "the lawyer" is also a former Surface Warfare Officer, and this is what the author has to say about your claims:
Originally Posted by carl
This is great in theory but military organizations have to deal with people in the tens of thousands and in times of big wars, in the millions. Assumptions have to be made especially ones based on past experience and history. For example, it may not be fair but it is practical to assume that it wouldn't be worthwhile to take people into pilot training who only have one eye.Your second point:Even if this study shows some differences in men’s and women’s abilities to accomplish particular tasks, it does not explain a decision to use de jure exclusions for women alone rather than individual evaluations for the exclusion of both men and women.123 Both women and men qualified, and both men and women failed to qualify in most tests⎯what purpose is served in excluding all and only women? For example, in the P250 carry, 90% of the women failed, but 10% passed. Moreover, 36% of the men failed. Certain physical tests, such as an arm pull, were relatively well-correlated to the ability to do static muscularly demanding tasks.124 The military has the advantage of a basic-training period in which to evaluate potential recruits; it could administer tests like those validated in this study and avoid de jure discrimination...
For now, the cost rebuttal to the stereotyping analysis tells us something about the contours of the strength argument. The claim must be that the differences are large enough that it is possible to measure strength traits with a single cutoff that will include most men and exclude almost all women. The claim must further be that this cutoff exactly corresponds with the military’s needs. As a “statutory scheme which draws a sharp line between the sexes,” this argument seems suspicious. Drawing such a line “solely for the purpose of achieving administrative convenience,” is arguably a purpose
“forbidden by the Constitution.”
This is special pleading. It is acknowledging that women are weaker but they might be able to get stronger if they get special training. If they had less prior physical activity and can't make the standard that's their fault. As far as I know the standards aren't a secret and the streets are free to walk and run in.Your third point:Such a conclusion is not supported by research; to the contrary, a substantial body of research shows that women are systematically discouraged from physical activities and sports from the day they are born.130 Therefore, it is not surprising if women show less physical prowess when they arrive at the military as young adults...
Differences in physical training are profound and go well beyond a few hours on a sports field or at a gym...Reversing a lifetime of training is no small task, but there is evidence that training women intensively can close the gap. A four-month, three-times-a-week training program for female civilian firefighting candidates produced 25% of approximately thirty-six participants in the program who passed a physical test to compete for the job as New York City firefighters.136 This result was still worse than men’s 57% passage rate,but substantially better than the overall women’s passage rate of 9.5% for the 105 women who took the test.
This is asking that war be redefined because it isn't fair. The loader in an M-1 has to sling those rounds and do it fast or people die. The rounds weigh so much. To go back a little further, a Legionary had to throw that pilum with force a certain distance or else. He had to be strong enough to wield that 20 pound shield and punch it forward with enough force to throw the opponent off balance or else. He had to push that sword hard enough to perhaps penetrate chain mail, or else. Things like that need to be done, or else. Those things, those particular things.And your last point:Critics often invoke women’s lower scores on the general physicalfitness tests as proof of women’s lower ability to perform in particular military positions. The military disagrees; it does not hold the general physical-fitness requirements to map onto job-specific requirements.157 In fact, the military has different requirements based on age group and sex. For example, as of 2000, in the Navy’s general Physical Readiness Test, men over 50 needed to complete 42% fewer curl-ups and had 12% more time to complete a 1.5 mile run than women 17−19 years old; the push-up requirements were the same.158 Standards were set similarly for the Army and Marine Corps fitness assessments.159 Older men are likely to be less physically capable by these measures than the women the critics claim are an intolerable liability, yet the critics do not argue that the test results should be used to exclude those men...
That study and others show that physical ability is a complex phenomenon and that men and women may have very divergent scores on some tests, but substantially overlap on others. There is not a uniform distance across men’s and women’s scores, so the scores do not justify a static line drawn precisely where it will include most men and exclude most women. For example, women were significantly closer to men in a task that involved carrying the P250 fire pump both up and down ladders in a longer time frame; 38% of women and 14% of men failed.163 Similarly, the larger rating-specific study analyzes the difference in women’s and men’s scores and finds statistical overlaps vary enormously.164 For example, the overlap between men’s and women’s scores was 90% in a task that simulated carrying molten metal between 99 and 168 pounds and moving sideways and pouring it into molds; it was 7% in a task that simulated pulling an airplane tow bar, bearing about 62 pounds of weight, for 300 feet.
This is a development of #2 and #3, asking that war be redefined in response to special pleading. There may indeed be other ways to get the job done, or not. We could, I suppose, make it our No.1 research priority to develop and field a Tantulus Device so we can field flocks of woman warriors as lethal as anybody. But Tantulus Devices may be impossible to make and besides, we have to deal with the right here and the right now.It seems as if you have not done your homework. You are welcome to rely on your speculations, but I only ask that you don't expect the rest of us to do the same.Technological advancement is one of the major ways that the United States remains a world military leader.190 For example, the P250 fire pump used in the Navy study has since been redesigned to run on jet fuel instead of gasoline, to eliminate the need to store highly flammable gasoline on ships; the new model is also smaller.191 As Martha Minow has noted, redesigning the status quo for those who have been left out can result in advantages for everyone.192 “[L]ighter firefighters’ helmets” 193 would probably benefit not only women but also men who must wear them for long hours during disasters in Navy ships...
The military evidently does not turn away the men who do not meet the physical requirements that the critics advocate, because men as well as women failed each one of the tests in the studies discussed above.201 It is more likely to be cost effective to use a second alternative, based on a less partial view of the job: Select the best people for the other 99% of the job description.
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