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Total Members Voted: 13

[Neonivek]

Personally, I'd put shooting straight over physical fitness, though they are both important.

Well we know that when it comes to shooting women do not have a significant weakness (I think men have better spatial sense on average, but isn't significant)

The question is if needing to do 20 less pushups during a fitness test is a life or death make or break for a female soldier.

[Max White]

Well I know there is a standard kit they are given. I'm guessing a pretty good base line would be proving you are fit enough that you can carry this kit an extended distance over the measure of multiple days. Being able to carry a large human would also be useful.

As for shooting, that would clearly be important, but I don't see how women are in any way disadvantaged in this regard. Do females generally suffer worse eyesight?

[Neonivek]

Remember that the standard kit's weight is based on what the average fit male (the kind that passes the test) could carry without hindering performance to such a degree.

The Kit wasn't created first to my knowledge.

Do females generally suffer worse eyesight?

Yes but not to the extent where it would be significant or worth noting. It wouldn't disqualify a trained female soldier.

[Vector]

(I think men have better spatial sense on average, but isn't significant)

This can be completely removed by giving baby girls blocks to play with.  I'm not even kidding.

(Another one of those things I last read years ago--sorry about that)

[Gotdamnmiracle]

Personally, I'd put shooting straight over physical fitness, though they are both important.

Can't fight the good fight if you never make it there. Trust me, they are equally as important. A guy in my platoon suffers from that problem, he doesn't get to much slack, for good reason. It would piss you off too in the same shoes, when you think about the fact that your life is on the line because the guy is panting and sweating his way up to the line while you are taking direct fire because he isn't laying any down. (the worst part is he is our IAR (infantry automatic rifle) gunner, because he is such a good shot, thus he is a huge asset, but when you can't count on him, then he becomes just as much of a deficit.)

[Solifuge]

SCIENCE ALERT! BIG-OLD BLOCK OF TEXT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I thought this one was pretty much understood. Humans are sexually dimorphic, and greater strength is more prevalent in males.

Humans are mildly sexually dimorphic. In animals, sexual dimorphism is related to the amount of required parental involvement in child rearing. Animals that are not parentally involved, or that distribute child-rearing among social groups are less-to-non dimorphic, compared to animals with extensive parental involvement, or with young that are exclusively raised by one parent. Human children require an incredibly high-degree of parental involvement (one of the highest of all animal species, thanks to the Obstetrical Dilemma), but this has been a relatively recent change in our genetic history. We haven't had the evolutionary time to make our species heavily dimorphic yet, and with the decreasing prevalence of natural selection on human evolution, we may never be.

Humans are not as dimorphic as similar animals are, but male humans tend to have slightly larger bodies than females. Males also store slightly more of their food-energy as muscle tissue instead of fat, producing muscle tissue even when not exercising, whereas Women produce muscle primarily when physical activity encourages it. In a natural setting where Men and Women hunted to survive, or in cultures where both Men and Women do physically demanding work, this difference is not a very significant one. However, when there are strong societal pressures for Men to be strong and do physically-demanding work, and for women to do the exact opposite, this difference is greatly exacerbated, and gives us test results like those seen here.

Let's take a step back, and consider it this way:
Given equally rigorous physical training, Men and Women would have the same proportional muscle mass, leaving only the size difference between male and female soldiers. In an age where a soldier's health, awareness, and equipment are far more important than their raw strength, the larger size of the average Man can be seen as a detriment to the Military. Men make for larger targets, are harder to accommodate in vehicles/barracks, require more food and supplies per soldier, and are significantly heavier to carry/transport when wounded, as compared to Women. A given military force composed of Women could be larger than the same force composed of Men, due to requiring less resources and logistical support. Also, as each soldier represents a military asset, the relatively smaller female soldier would be easier to carry from the battlefield when incapacitated, and thus would be easier to preserve, making an all-female military a wiser investment.

[penguinofhonor]

I was going to say something along the lines of "Yes, there is a genetic difference, but there may be social factors that exaggerate that difference" but you know, just read Solifuge's post.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Let's take a step back, and consider it this way:
Given equally rigorous physical training, Men and Women would have the same proportional muscle mass, leaving only the size difference between male and female soldiers. In an age where a soldier's health, awareness, and equipment are far more important than their raw strength, the larger size of the average Man can be seen as a detriment to the Military. Men make for larger targets, are harder to accommodate in vehicles/barracks, require more food and supplies per soldier, and are significantly heavier to carry/transport when wounded, as compared to Women. A given military force composed of Women could be larger than the same force composed of Men, due to requiring less resources and logistical support. Also, as each soldier represents a military asset, the relatively smaller female soldier would be easier to carry from the battlefield when incapacitated, and thus would be easier to preserve, making an all-female military a wiser investment.

Don't mind if I steal this from now on.

[Max White]

In a natural setting where Men and Women hunted to survive, or in cultures where both Men and Women do physically demanding work, this difference is not a very significant one.

What about an artificial setting where high physical fitness is demanded of both men and women, and they are exposed to as much physical training as possible, such as professional athletics? You will notice there is a significant difference in Olympic records, so I am very skeptical about the idea that when physically demanding work is a constant, the physical difference is mitigated.

Males produce testosterone a lot more than females, both with and without a work load. This is the same for most mammals, and in most mammals, where survival is highly dependent on physical fitness, the males are stronger.

As for if this is beneficial to a soldier or not, I don't know, I'm not an expert on military operations, but from what I understand those who are tend to favor strength.

[Neonivek]

Given equally rigorous physical training, Men and Women would have the same proportional muscle mass, leaving only the size difference between male and female soldiers

Well that isn't true either. Even something as simple as where your fat is stored has a difference. As well some physical traits (like water weight, to a certain extent, or even certain ways your muscles develop) cannot be trained out or in.

As well we have studies that involve similarly trained Men and Women and even trained women versus untrained men and the differences in their athletic ability still differ.

The one thing you didn't realize with "In a state of nature" is that in a state of nature diet changes... which indeed when depraved of nutrition there is a limit to how athletic you can be.

Yes we are slightly sexually dimorphic compared to other animals... but with other animals the difference could mean the female is twice or three times larger then the male. In humans we don't get anywhere near that but it is still significant.

You will notice there is a significant difference in Olympic records

The usual explanation for people who believe in little-no difference between male and female athletic ability is that either
A) There isn't a large enough pool of female athletes to get significantly athletic females
and
B) That when we are talking about absolute peak even a 1% difference can be what makes someone first or last.

"As for if this is beneficial to a soldier or not, I don't know, I'm not an expert on military operations, but from what I understand those who are tend to favor strength."

One stereotype is that marines are huge buff soldiers. In truth they are somewhat short with springy muscles more fit for endurance and sprinting.

[Andrew425]

Their is quite a difference between men and women physically. I remember back in high school my rowing team would all be able to pull times consistent with a women's Olympic team.

I think the evidence is fairly clear that on average women aren't as strong as men. Look at any elite sports team. If women could compete at the level men could then they would at least be present in the leagues. Now i'm not saying women need to be Olympic athletes but most soldiers should be capable of varsity level intensities (in terms of their workouts) or maybe a bit higher. Simply put, if you take an average man and an average women of the same size and weight and put them through boot camp and intense training for 3 months the man at the end will be able to outperform the women in the physical abilities.

That being said, i'm sure their are plenty of women who are capable of exceeding the physical standards, the real question should be whether or not women make the military a more effective fighting force, which is all that matters.

As for having small soldiers? That would be a no. The main job of soldiers is to carry things around and do manual labour. The Army generally likes bigger people as they are more useful in day to day activities. Though they do need small people to be fighter pilots.

[penguinofhonor]

I remember back in high school my rowing team would all be able to pull times consistent with a women's Olympic team.

I find it hard to believe we'd even have female olympic athletes if they were only capable of performing at the level of amateur male high schoolers.

[Solifuge]

I remember back in high school my rowing team would all be able to pull times consistent with a women's Olympic team.

• 1 High School Rowing Team (Adolescent Males) were able to match the times of 1 Olympic Rowing Team (Adult Females).
  ∴ (therefore) All Men are naturally predisposed to being stronger than all Women.
  ∴ (also therefore) Women don't have anything to bring to the Military.

I know this probably isn't the only reason for your beliefs, but I find the leap in logic entertaining and absurd.

But even though you probably have other reasons for feeling this way, I still feel like you're ignoring my point. You can't make a clear judgement on whether Men are inherently and significantly stronger than Women, while ignoring cultural pressures put on Women during their formative years. If you approach a young girl on the street and ask her what trait she wants to have when she grows up, she's almost guaranteed not to respond with "I want to be strong!" because if that girl ever had that goal, it's been beaten out of her head by cultural pressure, and usually replaced with more "appropriate" virtues such as "I want to be beautiful!" or "I want to be smart!" or "I want to be graceful!".

There are phenotypic differences between the bodies of Men and Women, but as far as strength is concerned, our culture greatly exacerbates them. That said, they are still not significant enough that establishing a fair baseline of Strength and Fitness for the average Human (rather than the average Man or Woman) is impossible. And if they can meet that baseline, what's the problem?

Perhaps more importantly, though... in modern combat situations, reaction time, endurance, perceptiveness, tactical intelligence, and accuracy with a gun are more important than strength. Definitely, a certain baseline of physical strength is necessary to be effective on the battlefield, or in a peacekeeping or military occupation situation... but making that the centerpiece of the argument over whether Women should be able to serve is pretty ridiculous.

[Loud Whispers]

But we are short on Type A Best-of-the-Best soldiers.  So we need some Type B Get-Er-Done soldiers.  Some of those happen to be women.  Why call them mediocre, just because they happen to have tits?

No, it'd be more akin to having type A, B and C.
Type A probably attended some sort of military college or similar program and will likely pass regardless. Includes men and women, though some move on to join branches that are men-only.
Type B could pass and get training. Includes men and women.
Type C could pass while also having 18% more time to do a 2.4km run than type B and A,  because they happen to have tits.

[DJ]

Testosterone is a steroid. Given equal exercise, the person with more testosterone will put on more muscle. Or do you guys disbelieve that steroids do anything, and all those people in sports are abusing them just for laughs?