Women In Combat

[fester30]

I'm in the military and I'm an avid student in everything from broad military strategy to squad-level tactics.  For one thing, hand-to-hand combat is not nearly as prevalent as it was in WWII, Korea, or Vietnam.  We are very team-oriented, and believe in overwhelming our opponents with weapons and tactics.  While I'm certain that fewer women would qualify for elite units like the Seals or the Deltas, I'm also certain there are some women out there that could do it, especially since every team has different roles.  However, front lines like Army and Marine infantry could certainly employ women in their units with only the same initial pains that come along with any new recruits.  It would have to be case-by-case.  As long as the woman in question can function at the basic, minimal level necessary, there is no reason to believe they couldn't be an asset.  The emotional argument is ridiculous.  If anything, women are naturally able to better handle stress than men.  One theory a college professor told me about with women living longer than men involves the chemistry in their bodies that react to stress naturally, because of the stress of child-birth.  They have an advantage in this area.  I also know that women can compartmentalize their emotions for the appropriate times.  I would imagine from my studies on the path to my psychology degree that because of their emotional nature, they would be less prone to the psychological difficulties that plague combat veterans with PTSD.

[Asmodean]

I think they should work is that they should set some physical and emotional and educational requirements for the job, and whoever can meet them, regardless of sex, should be eligible.  So if you require that I be able to carry 100 lbs and run a 6 minute mile, and I can do so, and a man can't, I get the job and he doesn't, no matter how much bigger than me he is

Yes, I sort of already made that point. 

And yes, Firebird,  my generalization was intended to be broad, as emphasized by "generally" here and "usually" there.

I am all for equality. What I am not, however, is one of them hysterical "liberation of *insert the generalized group that "needs" liberating* NOW!!!" types. On an individual basis, everyone should have equal opportunities to learn a skill, get a job, have a family, have a hole in the tooth filled, etc, etc. When looking at a large enough sample, however, it may not hold. Do I, for instane, think that fifteen year olds should have the right to vote? No. However, that's not saying that an individual politically-minded fifteen year old would not make a better informed voter than I would.

[Guardian85]

Women are generally at a disadvantage vs. men in in melee combat because usually, men are physically stronger and larger, something for which the women have to compensate with superior skill, and getting there costs time and money. If they want to play with ranged weapons, however... Why not?

When I was in the service we had a close combat instructor that no one took seriously when we first met her. She was 1,6m tall and couldn't weigh more then 60kg fully dressed and soaking wet. She asked for three voulenteers who thought themselves badass. Myself, the judo and Ninjutsu student, and two other guys stepped up. And she promptly mopped the floor with us. Didn't even give us the satisfaction of seeing her sweat.

As long as you have the physical and mental abilities neccesary to do your job, it should not matter how the plumbing is wired. I have served with several women and there were not really any problems.

[Asmodean]

Women are generally at a disadvantage vs. men in in melee combat because usually, men are physically stronger and larger, something for which the women have to compensate with superior skill, and getting there costs time and money. If they want to play with ranged weapons, however... Why not?

When I was in the service we had a close combat instructor that no one took seriously when we first met her. She was 1,6m tall and couldn't weigh more then 60kg fully dressed and soaking wet. She asked for three voulenteers who thought themselves badass. Myself, the judo and Ninjutsu student, and two other guys stepped up. And she promptly mopped the floor with us. Didn't even give us the satisfaction of seeing her sweat.

As long as you have the physical and mental abilities neccesary to do your job, it should not matter how the plumbing is wired. I have served with several women and there were not really any problems.

Yes, applying that bolded line does help... As long as getting to that level does not spend significantly more tax-payer coin than getting an average schmuck there does.

[Ali]

Is Santorum's main goal to alienate as many women as possible? If so, he's succeeding admirably. He recently said this: "I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. Rape victims ought to make the best of a bad situation."

Once again, I need a head exploding smilie.

[Davin]

Having said that though, the way I think they should work is that they should set some physical and emotional and educational requirements for the job, and whoever can meet them, regardless of sex, should be eligible.  So if you require that I be able to carry 100 lbs and run a 6 minute mile, and I can do so, and a man can't, I get the job and he doesn't, no matter how much bigger than me he is.  Surely there are some men that are smaller than others in the army as well.

Basic training already exists.

[Traveler]

I have a male friend who is 5'6" tall and weighs 125 pounds. I have a woman friend who is 6' tall and although I don't know her weight she's a heck of a lot stronger than my male friend. It's not gender that's the issue. It's ability.

[Tank]

I have a male friend who is 5'6" tall and weighs 125 pounds. I have a woman friend who is 6' tall and although I don't know her weight she's a heck of a lot stronger than my male friend. It's not gender that's the issue. It's ability.

Exactly. The forces set the required standards and if you pass you're in; bollocks or tits makes no difference.

[Whitney]

Tactical knowledge can also make up for whenever there is a difference in physical ability.

[Beachdragon]

I think I remember reading a while ago that though women may not have the sheer physical power that men do, they possess better agility, flexibility and snap decision making skills. 

What upsets me is that Santorum can say these kind of stupid things and yet his blinded fan base will never see anything wrong with it.

[Reprobate]

I wasn't sure where to put this since it was inspired by Rick Santorum's comments, but I also wanted a more general than political discussion.  If it needs to be moved to Politics, that's fine too.

http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/02/10/santorum_defends_statement_about_women_in_combat.html?from=rss/&wpisrc=newsletter_slatest

It is men's emotions, not women's, that Rick Santorum is worried about.

The White House hopeful on Friday attempted to clarify his recent remarks that appeared to suggest he believed that female soldiers should not be allowed closer to the frontlines of battle because they are too emotional to carry out their mission.


"I think that could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved," Santorum said in an interview with CNN on Thursday, responding to a question about a Pentagon plan to ease restrictions on women serving in combat zones.


Some observers, including Washington Post conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin, were quick to point out that Santorum couldn't afford to make such a statement with women making up half the workforce and surpassing men in Bachelor's degrees.

In an interview with NBC's Today show on Friday, Santorum insisted that his original comments were taken out of context and that his concerns centered on what he said was a man's natural instinct to come to the aid of a woman.


"When you have men and women together in combat, I think men have the emotions when you see a woman in harm's way. I think that's something that's natural, that's very much in our culture to be protective," Santorum said.

Click the link to see the origianl interview.

So, what do you think?  Do you think that men would be more emotional seeing the women in their troops in danger or injured, and if you do think that, do you think that is a valid reason to keep women out of combat?  In other words, should the men's potential emotional response dictate what women are allowed to do?

I feel very strongly that women should be barred from combat. If we can keep women away from combat, we're half way to what should be the objective.

Population recruitment is the primary idea behind the exclusion of women from combat, in my opinion. This concept goes back to the earliest humans. Basically the reasoning is that a population can lose over 90% of its males and still recover within a few generations, while a large loss of females would doom a group. Another valid reason from that perspective is that in the course of a long conflict, with the women fighting how are battlefield loses of either sex going to be replaced.

[Davin]

We don't have that many people in the military, so even if we lost everyone in the military, it wouldn't be a concern.

There are 1,430,985 currently active people in military service for the U.S., and about 313,024,567Americans. That is about 0.46% of the United States population serving, I don't think we need to worry about this doom, even if we lost all active military.

[Tank]

I feel very strongly that women should be barred from combat. If we can keep women away from combat, we're half way to what should be the objective.

Population recruitment is the primary idea behind the exclusion of women from combat, in my opinion. This concept goes back to the earliest humans. Basically the reasoning is that a population can lose over 90% of its males and still recover within a few generations, while a large loss of females would doom a group. Another valid reason from that perspective is that in the course of a long conflict, with the women fighting how are battlefield loses of either sex going to be replaced.

I think this is a good point but given the growth of population and the nature of modern warfare it is probably now redundant. Technological warfare is about destroying fighting capability not simply killing as many of the enemy as possible. The most effective example of this new warfare was the first Gulf War where Schwarzkopf finished the war in 100 hours. There isn't much possibility of completing a repopulation in that sort of time (although you could make a frantic attempt at starting!   ). Thus you are better off overwhelming the enemy with all the resources available at your disposal as quickly as possible.

[Reprobate]

Davin, I'm not proposing that those conditions still apply or that the logic still makes sense, but that well established preconceptions tend to hold on long after their purpose is forgotten or becomes relevant.

EDIT: to Tank, to clarify. The goal should be to keep men out of combat as well. I know people who served in that conflict and others, some publicized some covert, who still have issues more than 20 years later. The people I know who still have PTSD issues were combat troops. My perspective on this could be skewed though, because my own service limited my contacts primarily to combat arms soldiers for the most part.

I also intended to add to my initial post that many other countries have no restrictions on the capacities in which women can serve in the military. Israel, being a prime example, allows women to serve in any military specialty. Were we in a similar situation, I think that we would quickly rethink our policies as well.

[Davin]

Davin, I'm not proposing that those conditions still apply or that the logic still makes sense, but that well established preconceptions tend to hold on long after their purpose is forgotten or becomes relevant.

Sorry, I'm just trying to reconcile this statement with your previous statement: you're very much against women being in combat for irrational reasons?