This standard would be varied because of the differing physical demands of the various work requirements or to accommodate females?Originally Posted by Adam L
This standard would be varied because of the differing physical demands of the various work requirements or to accommodate females?
Forget about the two standards thing. Make one standard and waiver in anyone we really nead. (For example: Mathematicians who just don't cut it physically, but it doesn't matter because the closest they will get to the frontlines will be a computer several thousand miles away.) All I was trying to say is that absolute minimum standards for waiverability for men and women should be different. That was kind of stupid now that I think about it. If we suddenly need a brilliant computer programer who hasn't left his mother's basement in 35 years and is 2 cheeseburgers away from a heart attack we probably won't give a damn.)
Adam L
The issue of women in combat is, as usual, obscured by the traditional Western prejudice, romanticism and chivalry. Therefore, some obvious facts:
1) Women, on average, make much worse soldiers than men.
2) It makes no sense to require women to possess physical standards identical to men. You will not make women men, anyway. I hope I will offend nobody by observing that women differ physically from men, and this has consequences for various tests. If someone doubts it, I suggest to watch some sports on TV. A woman in a good physical condition will have different physical capabilities from a man.
3) This is no reason not to allow female citizens to die for their country. Al-Qaida does it, despite the notorious Arab sexism. Why shouldn't America do the same? The main problem in Afghanistan is not enough soldiers on patrols. Any soldier helps. Even if women are not as good as men, they can still fight, die, and kill. They will suffer perhaps more casualties - but even so, if we send 1000 women to Afghanistan, and 200 are eliminated, we have still 800 soldiers more than we would have otherwise. Anyone, Taliban are a fairly weak opponent, and women should manage to kill them.
4) It is well known that young women and men tend to engage in sex when placed in close proximity; and even if they do not, thanks to the well-known American self-discipline, you still get some feelings, which are impossible to eliminate. This is bad for unit cohesion. Moreover, women are, as I wrote above, different physically from men (on average smaller, weaker, lighter etc) and therefore require different standard kit, etc.
5) For those reasons, women in combat will be most useful if placed in an all-female unit. This has been the usual practice in all armies that used female soldiers. I think that as a minimum, an all-female battalion would be required to function effectively. Such a unit could help to offset inadequate number of troops in Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons
6) Such a unit would also have wide ranging public relations possibilities. It would serve to showcase the oppression of women by Taliban, esp. if there was a widespread volunteer movement amongst feminists.
We don't have a great track record with "separate but equal" through myriad flavors of segregation, and "separate + unequal" has all kinds of problems, too. Your idea addresses one issue (intramural sex) but is rife with many others.
Really? The usual practice? You say that like it is obvious and I honestly don't know -- can you provide more examples than one obscure Benin group? Of legitimate employment of all-female units, rather than some training / sourcing process.
The Soviet female units in WWII come to mind.
Please, be all means explain to me how this is a FACT and not an OPINION that you ASSUMED to be true.
Reed
The topic of women in combat used to be unusually divisive, and this in general causes the discussion to devolve into senseless name-calling. In this thread, however, there was a number of eminently insightful comments which together caused me to change my view on the "women in combat" problem.
Exactly so. All historical armies -except the West - kept different social or ethnic groups as separate units in the army. The Western tradition always demanded full equality, and any instance of different treatment was an aberration which had finally to give way (even if sometimes it took centuries). Female-only military units in the modern West are unimaginable.
Generally, the distinction between FACT and OPINION is that facts are external reality, which is accessible to other men (eg when I say that grass is blue, one can walk outside and check it oneself). Opinions are individual mental states which are inaccessible to other people, (when I say that I think that there are too many Jews in ruling elites, you can believe me or not, but it is generally assumed that there is no way to check whether I really think this or not).
In addition, at present it is assumed that all FACTs must be provable scientifically - ie when I say that God exists, it is an opinion, not a fact.
Facts can be divided into true or false. Opinions, as my first example shows, are divided into commendable, neutral and distateful and forbidden. For example, if I express an opinion that Jews, non-white races, women etc are inferior, should not be allowed to vote etc, I will not be accepted in polite society, I can be fired from work or appropriately punished as a member of armed forces.
Now, there is NO SCIENTIFIC PROOF that women are worse soldiers than men. There were no proper experiments etc. The lack of historical examples makes any statistic reasearch impossible, and anyway it would be tainted by the issue of misogyny amongst the commanders, other units and the enemy.
Therefore it necessarily follows that the idea that women on average make worse soldiers is an OPINION. It remains to consider whether such an opinion is commendable or otherwise.
Precisely so! The opinion that women are worse soldiers is a misogynist and hateful opinion which is not to be allowed in polite society. All who express such an opinion should be properly punished.
In addition, all apparent instances when women underperfom in combat (I know of no such examples, of course, and consider only hypothetical accusations) will be and must be caused by misogyny in male soldiers. For that reason the fact there there will be no all-female units is against very advantageous.
Because of those considerations women must and will be part of all military specialities, including combat ones. In fact, in many Western European armies, which generally are not expected to fight often or against dangerous opponents, women are already allowed to serve in combat. American armed forces managed to avoid that natural development since they fight more frequently. It is, however, not a real obstacle.
And it will NOT be necessary, because let us be serious - American army will never fight a high intensity conflict against near-equal opponent. The possibility of heavy losses and even defeat absolutely precludes this from the political point of view in a war of choice. And since USA is situated in America, all its wars are wars of choice.
Therefore, all combat will be against desperately inferior enemy. Therefore it is not a problem to arrange the combat enviroment (eg by using air support, artillery, drones etc), so that any fight can be won comfortably, without any unecessary "superhuman" effort by all members of a unit.
In addition, since America increasingly relies on various mercenary units, all those tasks which for various reasons the regular forces find inconvenient can be performed by mercenaries.
Therefore, it seems to me that there are no reason not to accept women in combat units.
I disagree with 120mm's initial points about physical standards, and your extrapolation of his comments. Despite combat against an "inferior enemy", battles like Fallujah, Blackhawk Down, etc, still happen, and are still the lot of the infantryman. Some interviews of infantry participants in the fight for Fallujah in Nov 04.
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_vi...SOBOX=1&REC=13
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_vi...ISOBOX=1&REC=4
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_vi...ISOBOX=1&REC=9
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_vi...SOBOX=1&REC=10
All these men were members of a single mechanized rifle company, in a single fight. Searching the other oral history interviews and the Sergeants Major Academy Personal Story papers available at CARL's digital library (http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/contentdm/home.htm) should show more examples.
What mercenary units are you talking about? Security contractors? Most of these perform mundane duties (convoy escort and perimeter security) to free up regulars for more demanding missions. The more highly trained minority are employed for a special, limited skill set (VIP protection). Neither of these are particularly physically demanding, and pretty much irrelevant to this discussionIn addition, since America increasingly relies on various mercenary units, all those tasks which for various reasons the regular forces find inconvenient can be performed by mercenaries.
Therefore, it seems to me that there are no reason not to accept women in combat units.
I think there should be certain units with high physical standards, and those units will probably be male dominated. What I am saying that the so-called "load of the infantryman" is largely self-imposed by the cult of the "carry everything on your back" sub-dog IQ light infantry mafia. Seriously, they carry stuff that they have no business carrying on their backs, whether because Army MTOE sucks, or because they think they are "hard" or of uniformity/risk-aversion by commanders. There ARE places in the world that need Lightfighters, but somehow our opponents manage to fight there without wearing 200 pounds of kit.I'm not sure I understand where you are coming from on the matter of PT Standards. Are you saying there should be no minimum standards? I am not saying that the current PT Standards are the best to assess combat fitness (they are probably not) but I am saying that there is a standard necessary.
Why do we hear so much about the modern soldier being overloaded and unable to hump his battle kit? We discussed this issue in another thread and spoke about this fitness. See The Roles and Weapons with the Squad and start at about post #598
I would suggest that first off the load the infantryman is expected to carry should be reassessed. Surely it is this apparent load requirement that would remove 95% of females from contention for the infantry.
I assume that this sort of load is deemed necessary by commanders so how would this load be divided up if there were some females in the squad? The guys carry more?
Then if a female could get upright with such a load can she do 20kms in a day or a week or at all?
Going back to PT (I was trained as a PT Instructor in 1973) the idea of the t-shirt, short pants and running shoes initial PT was to exercise the whole body as the army would not know what the overall physical condition of each recruit was. There was the 10 week build-up programme which covered 2,3 or 5 kms runs and pull-ups, sit-ups, push ups and the like. By the end of basic training one was able to see a difference in the physique of the youngsters and if they past that type of PT test they were deemed fit to move onto training which required them to apply exertion under load. By the end of their training (I think called the MOS in the US) the ability would be tested by a march and shoot exercise where they would march under load (48lbs - 21.7kgs) for maybe 5kms within a certain time and be required to score a minimum on a range shoot at the end.
I would (FWIW) support a review of battle strength/fitness standards if it were done based only on the operational demands of modern combat but not... if the hidden aim is to lower the bar to allow women entry... because with the women will come a whole bunch of male weaklings and that would be the real disaster.
Ironically, I just noticed the 173d patch. Is this the infamous "combat jump behind friendly lines so we can all get a mustard stain?" If so, it proves my point. That troop is carrying the world on his back because his leadership failed him.
I am quite fluent in sarcasm. Having said that, it isn't that women don't underperform in combat, for some most certainly do, it is that men underperform in combat too. It is that the knuckledragging, Peter Pan syndrome women haters who sometimes hide out in the military between date-rape and homoerotic innuendo episodes manage to only fixate on those examples of when women are bad soldiers. And about 90+% of the time that women are bad soldiers, there is a male-dominated chain of command that is deeply involved enabling those bad female soldiers and facilitating their chicanery.
I don't think he is being serious.
But on the Rangers of "Blackhawk Down!", you make a good case for why certain elite units probably won't be a good fit for female soldiers. However... At least in Small Wars and COIN, most Infantry units would benefit from an strong feminine influence.
If nothing else, it might help break the myth that Infantry is a mono-tasker. Prior to WWII, Infantry units were supposed to be capable of more than attack or defend.
Last edited by 120mm; 10-10-2010 at 05:12 PM.
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