- Sure, many women cannot pass the physical requirements necessary for effectively performing the duties required by combat.
- Neither can many men.
- To people who use #1 as a reason for why all women should be barred from even trying: If you are correct, then why are you objecting to demonstrable proof that you are correct?
- That's a rhetorical question, obviously.
- Any human who can pass the physical standards for entry into combat positions should be allowed to operate in combat.
- At the same time, such standards should be evaluated as to whether they represent realistic requirements of the job. To put it (very) simplistically, if a requirement is "completing [this number] of pull-ups," where have we determined that the ability to complete [this number] of pull-ups is necessary?
- Having never served in the military, or been to boot camp, I am torn on the issue of "lowering" standards for women. On one hand, men, military and not, are typically (and openly) derisive of the fact that women's physical requirements are "lower" (a much more poisonous word than "different") than men. But on the other hand, as women's bodies have different physical capabilities, why should the requirements be exactly the same as they are for men?
- The military overall has a huge problem with language and framing. From the general manner of speaking about female service members, to tones used in speaking about the problems faced specifically by female service members, to entire policies and names for things. Everything about the language is geared toward undermining equal respect for women service members.
- Anyway, bravo to Leon Panetta.
- Although, if there's no reason to exclude women from regular combat, why add the caveat that there ought to be certain special forces that will remain men-only? A person can either pass the tests or not! For fuck's sake.
- Women have already been serving in combat zones.
- But since they have been officially excluded from combat jobs, they face limitations to promotion.
- Finally, most important, is that opening up these jobs to women signifies progress for women in terms of how they are perceived by the military. (Wherein women who get promoted are viewed as either exceptional, or as the beneficiaries of affirmative action policies.) In general, women will never be perceived as fully equal - as equally desired for service as male service members - until they can potentially access ANY job in the United States military.
25 January 2013
Of course women should be allowed to hold jobs in military combat. Obviously.
Since this is all anyone has talked about for the last 48 hours:
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12 comments:
that settles it. all girls need to register for selective service when they turn 18 to make it fair.
I agree with that.
and you are beyond draft age.
would you feel the same at 18? would most 18yr old women?
i think not.
as a high school dude, registering was an act of manhood. it was my way of publically sayin: yes, I will defend my nation, my family, put my life on the line because that is what men do.
this is not the sentiment shared by most gals of the same age, who still expected a man to lay down his life for her.
sure, i know, 1982 was the Cold War... things are different now, politically.
but are they different socially?
do gals still expect the man to pay for dinner and fight the bad guy?
i dont know.
i'm of a different generation. things may be different today.
i was taught to/expected to/wanted to be the protector and defender of women.
my son is 26, and has the same ideals.
so maybe not much has changed except the politics.
I can't help being beyond the draft age, although when my male friends were turning 18, it was a topic of discussion, and I know that I acknowledged it as unfair back then, as well. For the record, though, I can't see there ever being a need for the draft again, because of the way war has changed. Logically though, I can't argue that women should be just as desired for military service as men, and argue at the same time, that they shouldn't have to register for the draft.
(Why would we leave it up to 18-year old women to decide? We didn't leave it up to 18-year old men.)
I cannot speak for women you personally knew/know, but your generation helped usher in the greatest strives that women have made, in terms of achieving greater equality, in the past few decades. I doubt many of the women who fought for these advancements would say that they believe men should lay down their lives for them only on the merit of them being men.
And I don't really get what that means, anyway. I would fight to protect and defend my loved ones, and I would hope they would do they same for me. Even if I was in a position to help strangers, just because they are people in need - why would I not feel an urge to do so, just because I am a woman? Of course I have/would feel it.
i guess i mean it this way: who is more likely to attack an intruder in your home if you and marty both awake at the same time?
i just cant see you yelling to marty to 'run and hide' while you grapple with the badguy... and marty actually doing that.
as for what combat jobs women should be allowed to do: i'll leave that up to the military. i'm unqualified to make that call.
Amanda, the rationale for the physical standards is pretty simple. Will GI Jane be periodically expected to pull herself out of a foxhole or damaged vehicle without being able to use her legs, and will she be periodically called upon to pull another GI out of the line of fire? Will she need to walk many miles with full pack and help with the squad machine gun and antitank weapons?
If so--and the news suggests it is--then any GI Jane needs to be able to do this, and there needs to be one set of physical standards. Interestingly, the current standards have changed little since Roman times, when Roman soldiers carried about half their weight on 20 mile marches.
Mess physical standards--or unit cohesion--up to a certain degree, and the draft becomes far more likely because the standing army won't fight as well.
Count me in the camp that firmly believes Panetta is making more of a political decision than a military one, at least as far as the infantry is concerned, and it's one that could fill a lot of body bags.
BTW, the historic upper limit to the draft age is 35 years. I think you just might still qualify. And it's just a matter of time before someone sues to get women entered into the Selective Service system.
Gino - Who is more likely? MB, certainly. But IMO, that's (of course all of this depends on the situation) foolhardy Man Stuff. If there is an intruder in my home, I'm more interested in barricading/hiding and calling the cops, than I am in ANYONE in the house trying to attack them. Especially if they have a gun. If someone was actually being assaulted, that would be a different story.
Also, when this idea is applied to MB and I specifically, we're talking about an active duty officer who's received VBSS training, and who was actually a pretty tough athlete even before he joined the military. Whereas not only am I not in the military, I don't do Cross Fit, or actually work out AT ALL, except for running. (I should, but that is beside the point.) If I was in the military, or more athletic, or had more strength training, or if he wasn't, or if he was smaller, or if any number of characteristics, things might be different. The point is that capabilities aren't limited by what genitalia a person has, and the urge to protect and defend isn't the sole provenance of men.
Bike Bubba - I completely agree that women who cannot handle the minimum basic requirements for combat should not allowed to work in combat zones. If women need to be able to do all the things you list, then it would be wrong to compromise troops by allowing in women (and men!) who cannot do those things. But the fact is, women have already been serving in combat zones - American women soldiers - out of necessity. They just haven't been getting the credit - or the financial compensation - for it. So we already know that women can do it. Will more men than women be able to do it, overall? Yes. But that's not a reason to purposely exclude all women.
There's no reason in the world why women and men shouldn't be able to consider each other compatriots and equals. The unit conhesion argument assumes that women and men can't be friends - a notion that defies the reality of MY personal and professional life. It argues that women and men can't belong to the same team. And even if other people don't feel the same way - that's not an OK thing to feel! It's a wrong thing to feel, and we shouldn't be allowed to make policies about wrong things.
*Ooh, that's right - about the draft age. I forgot about that. And yes, I have a year and a half to go. Obviously this validates my opinion even more. :D
Amanda--agreed 100% that women are serving in combat zones. I'm not persuaded, however, that they're actually pulling the weight of an infantryman--and the reports I've seen indicate that when they come close, their bodies tend to say "no way" pretty quickly.
Put differently, assume an average infantryman at about 5'10" and 170-180 lbs, add some weight for hips and breasts, and keep overall body fat between 15-20%.
You can flex that a little bit, but (scaling for average heights) that's effectively what the rule for infantry has been for at least 2000 years. How many women do we know who meet this description?
So Panetta's move fails the "likelihood" test.
Moreover, your analogy to civilian friendships to the issue of unit cohesion is flawed because you're free to develop new friendships outside your ordinary "platoon." Not so when deployed, and the military is already seeing sky-high rates of promiscuity, sexual assault, and unplanned pregnancy.
Insert that dynamic into combat, and you are asking for trouble.
On other blogs, I don't feel as great a need to keep coming back. But on my own, it's important that I keep pressing my argument. (At least there are a couple of points on which we do agree!)
Putting aside the fact that methods of the past aren't exactly applicable to modern warfare, the 5'10"/180 lb body type doesn't take into account wars perpetuated by non-Europeans. And what of countries and empires throughout history that have relied on child and teen-aged soldiers, who couldn't have all fit that body type? What of the women soldiers of the Viet Cong? We didn't win that war either, as you will recall.
(There have been times in my life when my social circle has been extremely limited, and I was forced to get along with the other people in it. But I'm not going to argue that I know what it's like to be in the military.)
The unit cohesion argument itself is flawed, because where is it written than mixing the sexes undermines cohesion? And where is it written that every man is always BFFs with all the other men in their unit? This is the same argument that was employed against overturning DADT, and according to all reports so far, the argument has proven to be completely invalid.
Sexual assault is a symptom of the same kind of sexism that prevents women from accessing certain jobs in the military, not the result of their inclusion. I already referenced how viewing women as equals will decrease the rate of sexual assault (to be clear, I'm not saying that is the only solution, because that is a HUGE topic, and other processes need to be implemented and enforced to get the problem under control). The fact is, sexual assault is less frequent in societies that enjoy greater egalitarianism. Period.
Unplanned pregnancy is a problem in the military because servicewomen don't have the same amount of privacy enjoyed by civilian women in regard to their medical conditions and treatment. So this inhibits them from seeking care for issues (ie. sexual health, gynecological health) that are considered more embarrassing. Also, it's a problem because servicewomen are getting raped.
At any rate, neither of those are valid reasons for keeping women out of combat. That would be like fixing a crack in the wall by bulldozing the wall, when really all you need is some filler and plaster.
As far as "promiscuity" is concerned, I fail to see how having sex in the off-hours prevents people from shooting guns and patrolling, etc. Not that I'm condoning it; I just haven't read anything about how it's a problem (other than how it contributes to STDs/pregnancy, which I've already mentioned can be solved in other ways).
The 'fact of the existence of something,' in of itself, is not an argument that this something is a problem.
Note that I said "scaled for height." More or less, you take an average sized man--yes, that's smaller in Asia and in the past--and load him with about half his weight in equipment, and that's what standing armies have typically done around the world for millenia.
There are certain aberrations like child soldiers, but the results of that are judged to be unacceptably brutal--child abuse, really. The end result is that Mr. Panetta and Mr. Obama are saying that they're going to try something out without designing a system where women can actually succeed in this role.
I would hope that objecting to this is something where feminists and traditionalists can wholeheartedly agree. No?
Do I agree that the system should be designed so that women can actually succeed in this role? Yes. (I just don't believe the design should involve exclusion.) From everything I've read and heard so far, the details haven't exactly been worked out. It will be half-empty victory if women are merely being set up to fail.
(Reposted comment to correct typo.)
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