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[Duuvian]

Mindmaker, the magic of forums is that someone two years from now could do a search and stumble on the thread and reply and it would still be relevant but the old stuff isn't

[Mindmaker]

Sure, if you enjoy being redundant and not adding anything meaningful to the discussion.

(Don't bother pointing out that I'm doing that right now)

[Duuvian]

Man, cutting into limited sleep time on my limited R&R to talk about this kinda stuff. Oh well.


My base in Iraq is all male, when I first got there, there were a few female cooks. Because of the presence of females (it's a army tendency to refer to women only a females for some reason), we had to take steps for gender segregation. That means that one or both of the shower trailers was closed to men some of the time (I never actually found out when, it was really confusing and had about five different interpretations).  There had to be a designated female tent, and because of a designated female tent, there had to be a protocol involved if a male wanted to get inside (which required getting a specific person, which then required another protocol for finding said person). Until we're accepting enough to have Star ship Troopers style shared facilities, it means that there's a lot of extra stuff to have put in. In a big base (like a COB), this isn't a big deal, but in a small facility (patrol bases or small forward operating base) it can get to be a hassle. Combat Arms types are in small facilities a lot and we don't really want to deal with it.

Secondly, females can get to be damaging for morale. Guys are guys, and while the vast majority of guys I serve with are upright, upstanding people, remember that a lot of us are teenage/young men -> idiots. Moreso, we're away from home for a heckuva long time when we're deployed (even for a loner with a tendency to wander like me, it gets bad after awhile, and I consider my home to be these damn boards as much as I do Fargo). This doesn't just apply to privates like me. It's a saying that more E-9 and O-5 careers have been ruined by a female E-4 than anything else.


In rear echelon type jobs, these things aren't that big of a deal, but when it's a combat arms job, I know that I don't want to deal with this kind of problem. Infantry and Armor aren't hurting for people right now, why deal with the problem? Fuck political correctness.


As a tanker, all of my drill sergeants were male, but there was this one female drill sergeant (I'd assume it was for general basic) who *hated* us. She'd make it her fucking mission to chase down our company whenever we got a four hour pass and try to ruin it. It was an especially awesome day when DS Grider (after she accused us of "running to the px and going past the people in line for haircut" both the standard operating procedure. We ran everywhere, and no one was getting a haircut) gave us a long speech about the difference between a good NCO and a bad one. Then he finished by telling us all that we were going to take shit like that, because we're 19kilos, super-soldiers who have to be able to do any job, even take shit from a female DS who didn't have a clue (his terminology was different, but I've changed it. Sue me).

Posting to watch.

Incidentally, I think this is a good thing, so long as the army gets off its ass about the rape issues.  I've read elsewhere that women in the US army are more likely to be raped by fellow soldiers than to be killed in combat >_>

I have taken about ten goddamn hours of classes about that. The Army is very-much off it's ass about it. Like most of the problems that the army faces, I think that my guiding principle of "don't get totally off my feet drunk" solves about 99% of them (and we try to keep females inside the wire as much as possible).



Didn't Betsy Ross sew the flag? That's not exactly combat-arms type work . . .


9 new replies? Do I have to start posting a sentence at a time again!?

Do you think an army that could choose it's own units would be better as far as integrating willing women? By that I mean, you go through your trainings at a camp and make friends and choose/make your own units? It seems like that would help morale a lot, although I know any army may fear that any sort of downward organization would lead to an organization other than it's own, but I don't think that would be the case if the current structure were modified.

[GamerKnight]

Doesn't Indonesia have a female and male army?

[de5me7]

the UK trialed female frontline combatants a few years ago. Women were found to be combat capable, but similar to the isrealie example mentioned a few pages back there were issues. If a female solider got injured all the men would stop to help, and it couldnt be drilled out of them, so they found over all combat effectivness was reduced. Essentially British line infantry were considered too gentlemanly.

[ed boy]

Now I am also of the belief that women are indeed the weaker sex and are to be both treated and respected as such.

Am I?  Now, whatever gave you that opinion?

Urist you are treading a fine line now. Women are equal to men, and in no way are they weaker. Men and Women are equal, and so, humans should be respected as such, not just men or ladies.

They are equal, but not equivalent. That is an important difference.

Because it would make the men feel bad?

... Yes, and that's an issue with entrenched sexism, where being equal to a woman is considered a negative    Whoo whoo.

That's because all these men spend years outside of the military interacting with females. In these many years, most if not all of the females that they encounter will be a lot less physically capable and would be a lot more unsuitable for military situations than them. When they join the military, even if they encounter some capable females, they would not encounter many, and thus the average woman would be considered a worse soldier than the average man.

[Sheb]

Well, if there is problems arising from mixed-genre platoon, the obvious solution is to make female-only platoon, not to forbid female from joining the army altogether.

[DJ]

The simple fact is that there's no real reason to prevent women from from being front line soldiers.  On average, women are smaller, and have less muscle mass.  However, on average they are also cooler under stress.

You got something to substantiate that opinion? If it's anecdotal evidence, I got a friend in ER who says his female colleagues are more prone to panicking when they get a patient who's bleeding heavily.

Anyway, I don't really see a problem with letting women enlist, as long as the same standards apply to them. Also, I don't think they should get much special consideration with separate facilities and stuff. It's the military, you're not supposed to be comfortable, you're supposed to crawl through mud in 60°C, wearing a gas mask.

[Leafsnail]

If a soldier can't react well to their own allies... I'm not sure I'd rate their chances at reacting well to, say, civilians in the area.  I mean, we're meant to be in Afghanistan to protect the civilians there, right?  The shocking things we've seen about women's treatment in the US army seems to be a call not to remove women but to tackle the underlying cause.

Putting a woman infantry soldier with a rifle in charge of a blockade checkpoint in a middle eastern country is just begging for dead male middle eastern drivers.  While this might be best for the gene pool in the long term, it won't do us any good in the short term.

What... what.... WHAT??

Actually, the decreased muscle and bone mass is a huge problem. Also women, due to the higher amounts of estrogen would me more emotional, not less.

Sometimes this thread has me convinced that I've gone back in time to 1910 and we're discussing whether women should be allowed to vote or not.

the UK trialed female frontline combatants a few years ago. Women were found to be combat capable, but similar to the isrealie example mentioned a few pages back there were issues. If a female solider got injured all the men would stop to help, and it couldnt be drilled out of them, so they found over all combat effectivness was reduced. Essentially British line infantry were considered too gentlemanly.

Aside from the apparent unfairness of this ("Some else is screwing up, sorry, you'll have to go") this would seem to necessitate the removal of women from any job in which they could conceivably get injured.  No female police officers, firefighters...

Anyway, I don't really see a problem with letting women enlist, as long as the same standards apply to them. Also, I don't think they should get much special consideration with separate facilities and stuff. It's the military, you're not supposed to be comfortable, you're supposed to crawl through mud in 60°C, wearing a gas mask.

And you're supposed to be at constant risk of being raped by your colleagues, I guess?

[Jreengus]

Anyway, I don't really see a problem with letting women enlist, as long as the same standards apply to them. Also, I don't think they should get much special consideration with separate facilities and stuff. It's the military, you're not supposed to be comfortable, you're supposed to crawl through mud in 60°C, wearing a gas mask.

This is my opinion too, it's the military, are you telling me soldiers honestly can't get past the boys have willies girls have boobies mentality of a 10 year old?

And you're supposed to be at constant risk of being raped by your colleagues, I guess?

Because I'd forgotten that men are incapable of not raping a woman when both are naked. How is sharing a shower and tent going to increase rape risk?

[DJ]

And you're supposed to be at constant risk of being raped by your colleagues, I guess?

Death penalty for rape while in service.

[Sheb]

Problem isn't the fact that penalties aren't strong enough, it's that officer tends to cover their men and treat women as shit or career breakers. And my pinky is telling me that treating women as second-rate human (by preventing them from joining fighting units) isn't helping.

I got a better idea: how about kicking heterosexual men from the army and getting an armed force made up of gay and women?

[Heron TSG]

Actually, the decreased muscle and bone mass is a huge problem. Also women, due to the higher amounts of estrogen would me more emotional, not less.

Sometimes this thread has me convinced that I've gone back in time to 1910 and we're discussing whether women should be allowed to vote or not.

I don't see why. There are huge differences. Nobody is arguing about whether or not women are smart enough to be capable of deciding who should run the government. Some people are merely arguing that women in general might not be physically strong enough to do everything a soldier has to. I for one am against that opinion, but there you have it.

I hate to side with the men-only people, but I do see the sense in what the British did. Even if the whole of the population is a fairly even split, far more than half of people who volunteer for army service are going to be men. (At least that's how it is where I live.) Just as the media is in it to make money, the army is in it to be the most effective it can be at the least cost. However, this is not to say I fully support what they did. It pains me to say it, but perhaps separate units for men and women would be best. At least at first. Then people like Strife26 are happy because each base is efficient, most people are happy because both genders can be in the military, and you don't have to deal with the issues that come with full integration. That can't be the end, though. Once people are used to a military with both genders, the units must be gender-integrated, for the same reason black and white divisions had to be integrated. That's going to be a stretch until everyone remembers this, but it's a goal for the future.

This is my opinion too, it's the military, are you telling me soldiers honestly can't get past the boys have willies girls have boobies mentality of a 10 year old?

I got a better idea: how about kicking heterosexual men from the army and getting an armed force made up of gay and women?

Anecdote: I have a country in Nationstates that has a military made up entirely of homosexuals.

[Leafsnail]

Because I'd forgotten that men are incapable of not raping a woman when both are naked. How is sharing a shower and tent going to increase rape risk?

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/01/26/13rd-of-women-in-us-military-raped/

You can't just brush this one off.  It seems that women often are raped when they attempt to go to the latrines and the like in the army.

I don't see why. There are huge differences. Nobody is arguing about whether or not women are smart enough to be capable of deciding who should run the government. Some people are merely arguing that women in general might not be physically strong enough to do everything a soldier has to. I for one am against that opinion, but there you have it.

Except that's exactly what Urist was arguing in that quote.  "Women are too emotional to be allowed in the army" isn't too different from "Women are too emotional to be allowed the vote".

However, this is not to say I fully support what they did. It pains me to say it, but perhaps separate units for men and women would be best.

I'd probably agree, actually.

[Jreengus]

Because I'd forgotten that men are incapable of not raping a woman when both are naked. How is sharing a shower and tent going to increase rape risk?

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/01/26/13rd-of-women-in-us-military-raped/

You can't just brush this one off.  It seems that women often are raped when they attempt to go to the latrines and the like in the army.

And sharing showers/tents will increase that how? I'm not saying women don't get raped or that nothing should be done about it just that men and women in the army should be capable of sharing facilities.