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[Strife26]

Women shouldn't serve in combat if at all possible (hot soviet sniper chicks, maybe). It hurts morale and can easily lead to additional logistic problems. Not to mention fact that, on the whole, men are better suited for combat than women.

From an American standpoint, women getting killed hurts public support much more than men dieing, and America doesn't lose war because of her troops, it's always public support.

[Sowelu]

It would be nice to advance, as a society, to a point at which it didn't hurt morale any more or less.

Still, it's going to be unavoidable that some terrible things will happen, like "We found out after we brought her body back home that she had been a month pregnant when she was KIA".

[Creamcorn]

It would be nice to advance, as a society, to a point at which it didn't hurt morale any more or less.

Still, it's going to be unavoidable that some terrible things will happen, like "We found out after we brought her body back home that she had been a month pregnant when she was KIA".

That would indeed be a huge downer.

[Duke 2.0]

>:X

My ex-military landlord told me a story about a woman who'd been in his unit and who got some great commendation (first woman to get that one apparently) for bravery when her convoy got hit, something along the lines of shooting down the oncoming horde of insurgents and then, when she ran out of ammo, climbing onto the vehicle-mounted machine gun and then continuing to mow them down until she passed out from blood loss.

I always thought that was the most awesome thing ever, but now I can't find any information about it.  Closest I can come to is one woman who got a silver star for being a medic, not supposed to be in combat, vehicle got hit by an IED and dodged bullets to drag guys off the field to safety.  Then got promptly pulled from duty because women aren't supposed to serve in combat zones.

Did I just fall from an awesome universe to a less-awesome one by mistake?

 I think I may have seen the same story. Badass either way.

[Granite26]

From an American standpoint, women getting killed hurts public support much more than men dieing, and America doesn't lose war because of her troops, it's always public support.

This statement is 100% true, and the fact that you use this as an argument AGAINST women in the military is very telling

[Sowelu]

Ah, Duke, that is a better telling of that story than the one I'd seen for her on Wikipedia.  That might actually be her.

Still, when I -originally- heard it, she took out like 25 guys with her rifle and then another 25 with a roof mounted gun, while ALL of her comrades were busy bleeding out in the vehicle.

So she's badass, but not movie-style badass.  That's okay with me.  Rather have a real badass.

[Granite26]

That whole site is pretty cool.  Thanks for the link.

Oh, and bears

[woose1]

Figures that bears get military rights before women do. 

[Hawkfrost]

That whole site is pretty cool.  Thanks for the link.

Oh, and bears

That is one of the greatest things I have ever heard of.
The Canadian military should enlist bears raised from cubs, there are enough of them around.
I think nobody would talk shit about us then.

[woose1]

Hawkfrost....


That. IS. BRILLIANT!

[Goron]

Didn't know about that, but that brings up another interesting point.  The female pilot.  She's everywhere isn't she?  What's up with that?  Did it start with Aliens?

No, it started with the fact that women were originally not allowed in the US military at all... and now only in non-combat roles(*see exception below)

Heh, I'd assumed it was a way for game developers to put a female character in the game in a non-combat role so that they wouldn't alienate anyone.

Or because that's how it is in real life in the US (*see exception below)

I wouldn't exactly say that pilot is a non-combat role.

Correct, combat pilots are combat roles. *Asterisk: this is the exception to women in US armed forces combat roles... women can be combat pilots.

I wouldn't exactly say that pilot is a non-combat role.

According to the US military it is.

not true. Women in pilot combat roles is an exception to the rule of no women in combat roles.


And, the winner post:

look... if you're going to go to the trouble to put a chick into media dominated by pre-pubescent boys, why would you then waste the opportunity to sex them up?

On a more serious note, consider the needs of the story.  Females are rare in the military, so once you fill out your cast of core story roles, there's not much room for 'generic chick in the army'  Hence all the females are sexualized into their story roles.  This also goes a good distance to explaining the pilots.

Check the Starship Troopers book.  I imagine it's a good source.

Finally:
Most military games are either JRPGs with all their prejudices built in, WWII games where there weren't females, or else futuristic space marine games where you are the lone hero. 

Check Mass Effect though... Half it's cast is female.

[Sowelu]

I've been watching through Battlestar Galactica, on the next-to-last season now, and while the majority of the bridge crew and security forces are male, a large part of the fighter pilots (and maybe even a majority of the important fighter-pilot characters, including the stereotypical hotshot) are female.  And considering that most combat that ever happens involves the pilots...  Women aren't sexualized in the show--merely a couple specific characters, many non-com males are just as weak and defenseless as your average woman civilian, etc.

I don't think I've ever seen sexism come up as a theme in the show.

Okay, it's at least somewhat off-topic, but sci-fi at least keeps moving forward.

[Virex]

Oh, remember Homeworld 2? That girl on the box cover, she's the captain of your mothership. Remember Kohan and it's succesor? Heriones were rife there, although there were no real female soldiers to speek off (which would be pretty close to medieval and ancient reality, thinking of Joan of Arc and Budica)

[Cthulhu]

Has anyone else noticed that there are four Source engine games that have a female companion who is incapable of doing anything but dying and showering you with praise for every lame thing you do?

[Goron]

Has anyone else noticed that there are four Source engine games that have a female companion who is incapable of doing anything but dying and showering you with praise for every lame thing you do?

hl2 and...?
That's the only source game i can think of that i played single player...