US to allow women in combat roles - Good idea or bad?
- Thread starter G-VilleTider
- Start date
I would guess you might want to change your approach...
Maybe next time start off with, "Hi my name is RV and I would like to get on you at some point in the next few hours or sooner if you are free..."
Very simple: if they can handle the same rigors as the men, so be it. However, everyone knows that as soon as some one notices the discrepancy in the number of women versus men, there will be pressure to allow women even if they don't meet the standard to close the gap.
Not in this country. We don't lower standards to simply meet quota's. We care about quality here in 'Murica.
Exactly. I would be less opposed if the same standards had to be met. But that is not how this is going to work. The military is all about quotas, and there will be a quota of women that will have to be accepted to infantry, armor, artillery, cav scout,, ranger, etc schools and a percentage of these will have to pass. This percentage will probably grow as time goes on. Ideally there would be one standard that had to be met, but this standard is too high for most women to meet so you either have to use separate standards or lower the entire standard. Either way your combat effectiveness is lowered, imo. It will be interesting to see women loading 155 rounds in sustained combat...
It seems to me that the military (read-politicians) is hellbent on making policy based on the exception instead of the rule. I guess time will tell. I think it is an idiotic idea driven by a social agenda.
Supposedly this was done at the behest of the military. I would love to see a poll of combat troops on this issue.
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It's just one person, but a good friend who was a combat marine in Iraq was all for it.
I'm not opposed, but I would not gender norm standards. If you can't do the job, you can't do the job.
I have very little faith that the military will be able to withstand the pressure to get numbers. When 99% of the first female infantry soldiers fail AIT, then the National Organization for Women, Diane Feinstein, etc. etc. will be complaining up a storm that the school is deliberately failing females to keep them out.
Then the Congress will put a rider in the appropriations bill that X% of infantrymen must be female whether those women meet the standards or not.
The gender integration of airborne school is an good case study. If women can't meet the standard, drop the standard until they can meet it.
The only woman to apply for Special Forces training was even worse. She failed every physical event, and when the school was going to do what the school always did to applicants who did not meet the standard (out-process them and send them back where they came from), Congress put the screws to the commanders of the school and the Army relieved a bunch of them until they found one commander who valued his career more than his ethics, who passed the woman despite the repeated catastrophic failures.
I am opposed for two reasons. One is physical ability and the double-standards that introduces. The other is unit cohesion. Everyone will whistle and look the other way, but cohesion will not be the same with female infantrymen (or infantryperson) in the platoon. You are just asking for trouble, everyone will have to watch their language and cover their rears to avoid harassment, etc. The double standards effect this as well. Just more harm than good imo. I am curious how NCOs and officers would work out.
When I was a young buck, my unit had just sent a group to West Point to train cadets.
One of the NCOs gave a class on the TA-312 field telephone. He told the cadets that you power the phone with two D-cell batteries. You insert one battery nipple up, and the other nipple down.
A female cadet filed a sexual harassment complaint against the sergeant, who got busted for his heinous misdeed of using the word "nipple" in front of a female cadet.
I had two observations.
1. "Nipple" is a gender-neutral term. I, for example, have two of them.
2. Additionally, I dare say she may hear harsher language than that from the NCOs she'll soon be working with and if an aspiring officer cannot stand hearing the word "nipple,"and may not be going into the right line of work. One of the adults at West Point probably should have told her as much.
Back to the question at hand, a colleague of mine asked an interesting question. If restrictions on females in combat units are lifted, why not lift the ban on females registering for the draft? Right now, only men have to register for Selective Service. If we are going to be about gender equality, then shouldn't women register and be eligible for a draft if one is reinstated?
More to it than "hanging with the men". If this proposal means to allow females in ground combat roles then it is simply insane.
There are already female pilots who engage in combat at times but anything beyond that is nothing more than political garbage.
So you have been in close quarter combat and would have no problem with a female pulling you out of harms way or going hand to hand with the enemy?
Do you know any females that can hump 20 miles carrying 100lbs of equipment in say the deserts of Afghanistan and fight at a moments notice?
Would the male soldiers-Marines be made to turn their heads when she has to pee or poop or maybe change her feminine napkin while in battle? Will the enemy behave and not gang rape her if captured?
I'm sure there are some who are good shots or can run a obstacle course but actual infantry combat? I just don't see it working.
In general, that may be true. All I know is the first time I saw Mrs. Catfish throw a softball from deep left to home on the fly, I was a goner.
DT_wan:
Are you suggesting that a lot of males in infantry combat roles today are unable to "hump 20 miles carrying 100lbs of equipment in say the deserts of Afghanistan and fight at a moments notice?"
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Anderson Cooper had a Canadian general on last night who was extolling the virtues of their 1989 decision to allow women in combat. When asked whether physical standards had been lowered or not, he claimed that they had, in fact, been raised.
However, upon further questioning he let it slip that the standards had been updated, specifically mentioning the exclusion of the push-up as a measuring stick for women because they "don't do push-ups as well as men." According to him, the push-up was simply outdated, but when he was pressed about the new standards he became rather vague.
However, upon further questioning he let it slip that the standards had been updated, specifically mentioning the exclusion of the push-up as a measuring stick for women because they "don't do push-ups as well as men." According to him, the push-up was simply outdated, but when he was pressed about the new standards he became rather vague.
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