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Author Topic: Your opinion on women in the military?  (Read 51371 times)

Flying Dice

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #255 on: May 21, 2013, 11:06:36 am »

Are you daft? Or are you intentionally conflating profiling someone on the basis of gender (ethnicity, etc.) with selecting recruits based on their ability to perform the tasks their job requires? There's a key point here: one of those things is bigoted and wrong, the other is a necessary element whenever individuals are selected to do something. It shouldn't be hard to figure out.

You're obviously unaware that profiling does automatically exclude otherwise qualified women from selection on the basis of their gender. It's nice in such an egalitarian society to see such vehement defense of enforcing gender roles.

What are you talking about? No, please explain, how does applying the same standard to everyone equate to discrimination?

By profiling, he means saying stuff like "No women in the military at all, they aren't strong enough to pass the tests." without letting women ever try to take the tests and pass them.
Except that the quote he was responding to wasn't suggesting that at all. Mictlantecuhtli's argument is that requiring a basic level of ability is the same thing as gender profiling. The only way that makes sense is if he genuinely believes that women are inherently weaker than men and are incapable of achieving comparable physical feats. That, or he's setting up a strawman for some inexplicable reason.
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pisskop

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #256 on: May 21, 2013, 11:08:20 am »

I'm confused.  trolls don't often come here.  nobody here was trolling.  And if they were theyre so good nobody detected them.
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tahujdt

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #257 on: May 21, 2013, 11:09:41 am »

I was ironically shitposting, which is shitposting. I was making fun of trolls, ignoring the fact that I was the one trolling.
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kingfisher1112

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #258 on: May 21, 2013, 11:28:20 am »

Edit: Oh yeah, has it been brought up that same sex units might be a good idea because you're more likely to forge a friendship with a same-sex person than an opposite-sex one? Just curious, it's something I don't think has been explored.

I think this exact line of thought was one of the reasons units were originally segregated by race.
Hey, I'm just wondering. I want to actually know, do people of the same sex make friends better than opposite sex ones?

Oh yeah, race segregated units. Like the SS and the 442nd infantry? What other nations did this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
By the way? Total badasses. Fought for a country harder than any other unit, and that country thought of them as enemies.
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DWC

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #259 on: May 21, 2013, 11:30:11 am »

There isn't really any problem with women in the military, it's fine the way it is. I think allowing them in the infantry and such fields will probably turn out to be a silly decision though. Those infantry guys in Afghanistan end up hauling 170+ lb combat loads up and down mountains and that results in plenty of medical discharges and pensions as it is, females are even more prone to to it.

Other then that, most work in the military is not that physically demanding, not even on the level of a full-time manual labor job on the civilian size. While females might not have the upper body strength or musculature or bone density for particularly punishing sustained tasks, there are ways about it with leverage and momentum and do fine with almost anything the military requires them to do. Barring some extreme circumstances, if it's WWIII and they need to drag heavy equipment through the woods during a hasty and disorganized retreat or something.

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tahujdt

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #260 on: May 21, 2013, 11:31:19 am »

Edit: Oh yeah, has it been brought up that same sex units might be a good idea because you're more likely to forge a friendship with a same-sex person than an opposite-sex one? Just curious, it's something I don't think has been explored.

I think this exact line of thought was one of the reasons units were originally segregated by race.
Hey, I'm just wondering. I want to actually know, do people of the same sex make friends better than opposite sex ones?

Oh yeah, race segregated units. Like the SS and the 442nd infantry? What other nations did this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
By the way? Total badasses. Fought for a country harder than any other unit, and that country thought of them as enemies.
I remember a comic series called 'Red, White, and Black', about an all-black combat unit that were the first subjects for the Super Soldier Serum, before Captain America got it.

Really funky artwork.
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Vector

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #261 on: May 21, 2013, 11:48:24 am »

Affirmative action is sometimes called positive discrimination - which in my view, is always a negative.

I think we should discuss this.  Why is this your point of view?
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pisskop

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #262 on: May 21, 2013, 12:34:34 pm »

Why should we give an advantage to another based on any trait?

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Loud Whispers

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #263 on: May 21, 2013, 12:46:01 pm »

Equal opportunities is what you're looking for. Affirmative action is sometimes called positive discrimination - which in my view, is always a negative.
Oxford English Dictionary:
Definition of affirmative action
noun
[mass noun] chiefly North American
action favouring those who tend to suffer from discrimination; positive discrimination.

How do you repeal discrimination with discrimination?

palsch

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #264 on: May 21, 2013, 12:51:42 pm »

Why should we give an advantage to another based on any trait?
When that advantage is countering an institutional, societal or innate disadvantage they are suffering due to that trait?

And a quick note to make this extremely clear, I don't think that affirmative action should be used in the military, or at least not in terms of physical standards for combat infantry or other roles.

How do you repeal discrimination with discrimination?
How do you counter disadvantages without focusing on those who are disadvantaged?

If you look only at intent or the beliefs behind actions then maybe you have more of a case, but frankly I only care about outcomes in this sort of situation.
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Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #265 on: May 21, 2013, 12:53:46 pm »

The only way that makes sense is if he genuinely believes that women are inherently weaker than men and are incapable of achieving comparable physical feats. That, or he's setting up a strawman for some inexplicable reason.
???
It's easy to handwave when you haven't gleaned that women aren't glass dolls, it's hard for me to see such things through a lens like that anymore. Mostly because I've gotten my ass handed to me by plenty of warrior women in my day.

Egalitarian societies cannot enforce gender roles on such basis.

That, or I'm setting up a strawman for some inexplicable reason.


Quite observant.

Gonna attempt to put this simply since your entire basis for arguing always revolves around such hyperbole:

When people assume that women are automatically inferior to men in terms of physical or mental prowess due to limited scope studies and anecdotal evidence, you are doing two things:
A.) Actively discouraging otherwise qualified women from pursuing such activities. Gender role enforcement is a very big and a very real concern to women, and if you buck the trend you're almost always going to get snarky commentary shit about how the girl must've had it easier. Even if one woman is discouraged from joining the military due to someone on the internet throwing studies that have zero scope or relevance and screaming about how they aren't possibly able to be equal to men, no matter how hard they do try, I think that's a travesty.
B.) Assuming such women don't already exist and serve in the military. I honestly don't think I need to expand on this point. It's an insult to each and every one of them who did try and enter into the military.
-- About 203,000 in 2011, or 14.5% of the active-duty force of nearly 1.4 million.
-- That number comprises about 74,000 in the Army, 53,000 in the Navy, 62,000 in the Air Force and 14,000 in the Marine Corps.

Trust me, those female soldiers, especially the marines, [one of my best friends] are definitely more than qualified despite any type of anecdotal preconceived notion supporting factoids people wish to throw out there. The marine tests are not staggered due to gender AFAIK, either.

Be aware: Trained men are susceptible to danger while in the military too, even including things like stress. I think I could easily expand this argument to make the same, about-heel-turn argument with men, since the military is a dangerous fucking job no matter what gender is involved. So that asinine line of thought needs to go away. It's borderline misogyny.

I'll just refer to a very nice graph earlier:

Any profession could use more "Best Of The Best" people. Regarding jobs that require physical strength, most of those Best of the Best types living today are men. However, the majority of people both male and female occupy the middle ground, and would make for "Type B" soldiers at best. Take a look at this chart of raw human strength, measured by each individuals' sex and age: (Source)


(Click to Embiggen)

When looking at the physical strength of people from the A and B trials, there is a larger sample size of Strong Men than there are of Strong Women, and a smaller sample size of Weak Men than of Weak Women. However, take a look at the area between the lines measuring the average strength of Men and Women. These are your "Type B" soldiers; not as strong as the strongest people in the world, but not weak either. You may notice that they're made up of roughly equal parts Men and Women, especially toward the 20-40 years range where most soldiering is done.

If this isn't pretty solid proof of equal service being entirely implementable and possible in physical terms I don't know what is. If we keep running in circles with non facts and preconceived notions this topic may as well get closed. Since folks seem to be wanting to light a tinderbox on fire for no reason.

If we equalize the army tests we'll still have the gender roles being enforced subconsciously [like by people in this topic], which simply needs to stop.
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pisskop

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #266 on: May 21, 2013, 12:58:14 pm »


Why should we give an advantage to another based on any trait?
When that advantage is countering an institutional, societal or innate disadvantage they are suffering due to that trait?

And a quick note to make this extremely clear, I don't think that affirmative action should be used in the military, or at least not in terms of physical standards for combat infantry or other roles.

How do you repeal discrimination with discrimination?
How do you counter disadvantages without focusing on those who are disadvantaged?

If you look only at intent or the beliefs behind actions then maybe you have more of a case, but frankly I only care about outcomes in this sort of situation.

But by giving them an advantage and targeting them you are discriminating.  Good intentions or not you are only continuing the discrimination.

In fact, I'd say that such action only serves to widen any gaps in society.  By giving them advantages you not only create a feeling of helplessness or inferiority for those helped but you also create animosity among their peers.  In basic training, for instance, it is popular to punish somebody by giving them preferential treatment.  Their peers come to dislike them.
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pisskop

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #267 on: May 21, 2013, 01:00:13 pm »

If we equalize the army tests we'll still have the gender roles being enforced subconsciously [like by people in this topic], which simply needs to stop.

How do you stop people from experiencing subconscious emotions or thoughts?  Its impossible.  Unless you get to them when they are children.  Which, in all fairness, is being done.
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Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #268 on: May 21, 2013, 01:01:25 pm »

If we equalize the army tests we'll still have the gender roles being enforced subconsciously [like by people in this topic], which simply needs to stop.

How do you stop people from experiencing subconscious emotions or thoughts?  Its impossible.  Unless you get to them when they are children.

Enforcing gender roles is a conscious decision fed by preconceived notions, even if said notions are subconscious, you can stop yourself from being a misogynist.
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pisskop

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Re: Your opinion on women in the military?
« Reply #269 on: May 21, 2013, 01:04:23 pm »

Gender roles are a collective of the society.  We simply act in accordance to them.  The gender roles are present no matter how one or a small group of people act.

Only by changing the very culture can you change the roles within it by allowing liquidity.

We may choose to act in ways we do, but we are conditioned to impulsively behave in ways as well.
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