|
|
 |
|
Getting On : All My Politics
Women in the Military | from Baxter - Friday, November 12, 2004
accessed 2873 times I am bored, and a little controversy would stir my soul, SO BRING IT ON! I'm not sure whether anyone has covered this question, so here goes anyway.
We've discussed issues of female emancipation, gender equality, blah blah blah. Still I can't recall a fair discussion of this question until someone brought it up in another article (one of mine, no less) that women do not complete the same level of rigorous training in the US as do the men. Now, in good old Blighty, I remember this very same double standard; I remember it well. It was a farce. Women’s basic fitness levels in the military were so low that the concept of training seemed almost redundant. So I'm asking the question I asked myself then:
Why do women want to serve in the military?
At the risk of appearing like the undeniable chauvinist that certainly I am, I ask all women who read this crap, why would a woman want to join a predominantly male fraternal society, and then undermine her position by not adhering to the same standards of basic military fitness as those male counterparts with whom she will inevitably compete for recognition, status, and rank. How does a woman in this environment expect to earn any respect?
Which leads on to the second issue. Most military doctors (yes, mostly male) seem to agree that woman's bodies are simply not designed to bear the strain requisite to working in a field environment. Now, for those of you who don't know what that is, this is not an analogy of the female ability to 'pull the trigger' (every psycho husband-murdering housewife has demonstrated that one); the average weight load of a basic infantryman the world over is about 30kg. Now that goes up depending on deployment.
Where is all that aggression women are supposed to have, that they keep threatening me with? Have you ever seen a girl on a bayonet range?
Finally, the issues of sexual harassment. Now, in a civilian job, basic human contact can constitute unwanted behavior, but as is blatantly obvious this is not sensible or appropriate in the military. If someone gets hypothermia the standard emergency procedure is to get'em in two gonk bags, get another person in the bags for warmth, and have the one healthy person rub the other person until their body temp. returns to normal. Shall we guess what would happen in the instance that a lone woman in the midst of a male unit suffers hypothermia?
PLEASE I FUCKING BEG YOU!!!!
Call me a no-good waste of space stupid myopic idiotic sexist chauvinistic pig. INSULT MY FAMILY, THREATEN TO KILL MY CAT!
(Ps. don't take me too seriously; a little seriously is okay, but not too much) |
|
|
|
|
Reader's comments on this article Add a new comment on this article |  from Ralph Crayon
Friday, October 14, 2005 - 11:45
(Agree/Disagree?)
Nancy Wake
"She coordinated resistance activity prior to Normandy Invasion and recruited more members. She also led attacks on German installations and local Gestapo HQ in Montucon. In April 1944 her 7,000 maqui fought 22,000 SS soldiers, causing 1,400 casualties. Her compatriots, especially Henri Tardivat, praised her fighting spirit - amply demonstrated when she killed a SS sentry with her bare hands to prevent him raising the alarm during an Allied raid"
(reply to this comment)
| | | |  From Fist
Saturday, October 15, 2005, 15:34
(Agree/Disagree?)
She was one of kind though. How many great women soldiers can you name in a ratio comparison with the many great men? There arent very many... Oh wait Boudicea... Nancy Wake was hard as fuck though.. I have read speculative articles that suggest she was Lesbian...
I think she did work work with both.. I think OSS mainly.. i may be wrong..(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | from Baxter
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 02:21
(Agree/Disagree?)
Well, what a failure this is!
Truth be told, I wrote this while feeling a little stressed by being snowed under with coursework; I had a theory that if you make a really wacky ignorant statement, you can spark up a controversial debate, and the angry remarks will fly. Why I wanted to do this is not entirely clear to even me. In any case, all I did was rehash a bunch of recycled crap off the media and what I heard repeated by reactionary officers while still in, and then added a personal twist.
As has been demonstrated, I am pretty crap at this. The generally polite and intelligent manner of comments proves that a) I did not really succeed in hitting anyone's nerve & b) you people are far smarter than i gave you credit. Perhaps I might have compounded my ridiculous article by degrading into a verbal slogging match with a couple of you, but I can't be arsed.
I realise if I want to rile people up I should just resort to insulting people personally ( and find my work in the trailer park). hmmmm............!
Maybe I didn't really take enough of an obtuse angle. Just a thought.
(reply to this comment)
| From stellar
Thursday, October 13, 2005, 12:08
(Agree/Disagree?)
you certianly did not get the response to the issue that you were hoping for. this is probably due to the fact that it is on a message board in other words someonelse out there did not have to agree or atleast think that it was worthy of publishing...
and these are recyled arguments. anyone who knows anything about the issue knows that most of them are easily disputed and that there are a hundred essays and articles that you could read in order to recieve a different perspective.
if the topic still interests you i am currently taking a class in which we have refuted all of these arguments and more.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | from shikaka
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 19:35
(Agree/Disagree?)
Well the answer to the hypothermia dilemma seems plain, Baxter.
Simply have far more women in said combat unit than men. Odds are that a man would be the "warmee".
(reply to this comment)
| from banal_commentator
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 11:04
(Agree/Disagree?)
I would never want to join the army; you get so dirty.
(reply to this comment)
| from geo
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 02:59
 (Agree/Disagree?)
I can only speak for the us army, with over 200 different career fields theres plenty of positions that women can be successful in. Physical fitness test are only a small part of your overall performance in the military, though that can seem unfair when you consider the big difference in standards between males and females in events. Most events the highest score a female could get in an event "maxing it" wouldnt even be good enough for passing the male PT test. But you have to weigh that against actual job requirments, where only a small percentage of those 200 MOS's (military career specialties) are combat arms, which may require a higher fitness level, and females arent allowed in those jobs anyhow.
Still the reasons you dont have females in those jobs have more to do with cultural and social issues then fitness. With conditioning females have been able to carry the same 30 to 50 % body of their body weight on road marches that the males do. You only see a real big physical difference when youre dealing with elite athletes at very high fitness levels, carrying at little 30 kilo rucksack hardly qualifies.
A big problem youll see is attitude and up bringing where females are more used to being babied and dont like getting yelled at etc. maybe more of a toughness issue then anything. But now days you see that same things with the guys you've got a lot of big babies and just as many out of shape males in the army as females. I've also met some females that could easily out do your average infantry soldier not with just physical toughness but mental toughness and attitude as well.
And while females arent technically combat arms in the regular army, there are positions in the special ops community where the work side by side with the male operators not as support but as shooters. Though thats not something your gonna hear about in the news or read in any recruiting brochure.
And as far as getting naked in a sleeping bag together to slow someones rate of hypothermia, they stopped teaching that along time ago because your more likely to have two hypothermic people if you do that instead of just one.
(reply to this comment)
| | | | | | | From an infantry sergeant
Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 03:40
(Agree/Disagree?)
A big reason for females not being in combat jobs is because their bodies would break down often. And if you haven't road marched recently you may have forgotten that 30kg/70lbs can get pretty heavy after 10 or so miles, and there aren't any females on my base that do any kind of road marching. And the closest a female gets to me is to give me a second serving of potatos in the chow hall. There are no females serving along side us in combat environments.
You can't have a double standard when training for combat because the enemy doesn't really care. And current U.S.Army doctrine teaches that in case of hypothermia in a field environment you should remove the casualties clothes and warm him with your body, and it works, I know.(reply to this comment) |
| | From geo
Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 14:25
(Agree/Disagree?)
I agree with you that your average female is not going to be able to handle the same stresses physically as your average male. I did spend time in the infantry and firmly believe that females shouldnt and wouldnt be able to serve side by side with males in that environment. Partly because of physical and health issues but also because of the social factors involved, not to mention that it would be an EO nightmare.
That said, there are females that with the right conditioning certainly could out perform your average male and even guys that are in good shape. But im not trying to start a boys vs girls argument I just believe, based on experience, that its not as cut and dry as "girls arent as tough as guys".
I think if your not used to the weight 70lbs seems like a lot, but with conditioning you can get used to carrying a lot more then that. Though its probably not good on your body in the long run I know from experience that you can carry over 80 to 90 percent of your body weight for long distances, and still be combat effective, with the right conditioning of course.
The army used to teach the spooning in the sleeping bag to slow ones rate of hypothermia, but now the cold weather schools and SERE school dont teach that because in a survival enviornment your likely to bring the other persons temperature too far down trying to warm the hypothermic person.
And speaking of SERE school, SERE C High Risk, its one of the more physically and mentally stressful schools in the military, some of the stuff there makes what happened at Abu garib look soft, special forces and people working close to special forces who are in jobs where theyre at risk of getting captured have to go to the school. Almost only guys but girls in some jobs go there, like Sarafina's sister, being a 97E after language will get to go, she'll probably be the only girl in her class there. But in the 20 plus years its been around they've had plenty of guys quit including special forces soldiers but they've never once had a female quit the school.
(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | from roughneck
Monday, November 15, 2004 - 19:40
(Agree/Disagree?)
This is controversy? I propose that we discuss instead the notion of women being included in mandatory conscription (The Draft/Selective Service) as is practiced (for example) in the Israeli Defence Forces.
I say what's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose - figuratively speaking of course.
(reply to this comment)
| | | | from frmrjoyish
Monday, November 15, 2004 - 15:36
(Agree/Disagree?)
Fortunately there are many different jobs in the military. I agree with you in that I cannot understand why a woman would sign up to be in the infantry. Any idiot can crawl through mud, obey orders to the tee, and eagerly line up to be the first poor soul shot in the head in any kind of conflict. These types of jobs require nothing more than followers who can't or don't want to think for themselves. No, I think most women are more suited to the military jobs that actually require thinking and the use of a brain over brawn and hormonal bravado! It's amazing what can be accomplished when you actually use what's sitting on those beefy shoulders! You boys should try it sometime!
(Don't take me too seriously, a little, but not too much! ; P)
(reply to this comment)
| | | | | | | | | | from shikaka
Monday, November 15, 2004 - 14:42
(Agree/Disagree?)
I an undecided upon the issue of women in the military. In the same breath allow me to bare my soul, and reveal the unbridled hatred and despair I experienced for 3 months in basic training, as an unfortunate victim of an integrated division. (Integrated=half of the "soliders" were on the rag, or PMSing.)
Im late for work, so the saga will continue in another post. Thank you for your time.
(reply to this comment)
| From Baxter
Wednesday, November 17, 2004, 02:40
(Agree/Disagree?)
Okey, this might be pushing it to say this, but in my personal experience the only enlisted women I ever ran into or had the priviledge to work with fell into two categories: 1) bikes 2) dikes. Personally , I preferred the dikes. They drank, they swore, they scrapped, and surprisingly they got a relative amount of respect because there was no hope of getting laid. When they changed that rule almost no men came out (a fractional number), but fems came out in droves (which might say something about the state of the british male!?)
On the other hand, The sheer amount of sanger graffiti regarding certain women's internal organs got a bit much. My old Battalion had 18 year old clerks who had slept with (literally) 80% of the unit. I have no idea why they did it, and I have never figured it out. Even the ones who were more selective just tried to lord it over you, like it was just expected that you, like everyone else, would sleep with them. It was either power-politics or just plain dirty (again, it might be somewhat of an endightment of the state of the British male, but these are not children, these were adults). (reply to this comment) |
| | from sarafina
Monday, November 15, 2004 - 10:30
(Agree/Disagree?)
Well I don't know about why the majority of women join but I can tell you why my sister joined. She joined because they would pay back most of her college loans and pay for her to continue school. She gets no special treatment she is a MI (military intelligence) Her position is an interrogation officer and she works and studies her butt off. She just won a German physical Achievement award (or whatever you call it) Where anyone in any branch in the military can try out for it. Its a test of your strength and physical and mental endurance. Out of the 250 that qualified to enter only three finished it to the end, two guys and her. The last part of the competition is a 18 mile in about 5hrs (I forget the exact time allotted sorry) in which she lost all her toenails.Poor girl.
I'm very proud of her as even though she joined just to get more schooling she's mastered everything she's done there and keeps up with the best. Constantly pushing her own limits. Oh, and she's not a butch feminist either (like I'm sure most of you picture the women in the army) she's an intelligent beautiful tall,thin, blue eyed hottie with long blonde hair who kicks ass. Sorry sis had to do a little bragging, I hope you don't mind. ;)
(reply to this comment)
| | | | From sarafina
Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 10:24
(Agree/Disagree?)
Actually you’re wrong, that is not the award she got. It’s called the “German Armed forces Proficiency Badge” It could only be taken at the base she was at as they have a liaison with Germany and have German Officers. Also it was not my sister bragging, it was her fellow comrades who have the utter most respect of her. Also she was the only one out of her unit to enter it, it is not required. I knew this would happen if I did not have the correct name and details so here you are..
In the competition it’s a combination of high and low jumps, sprints, swims, the last part was actually a 19 mile walk caring a 22 lb rock in 5 hrs. Just to qualify she had to be able to do a14 min 2 mile run, she did it in 12.30 so eat that! Plus she had to do 80 situps,54 pushups and have a pt score of 300. Not only did she max the women’s pt test she also beat out many of the guy on the male pt test.
Oh and I did make one mistake there were others apparently that finished the competition but there were only three that got the Gold Badge and she was one, it was only 40 that qualified to compete for the Gold out of the 250, the rest were competing for the silver. Is that enough info for you to stop insulting my sister for no reason?(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | From an infantry sergeant
Wednesday, November 17, 2004, 03:07
(Agree/Disagree?)
I have no doubt that your sister is among the best in her unit. No one is insulting her. I'm sure she is a great shot, many women are.
And about combat being more mental than physical, nothing could be further from the truth. I am presently located a few miles from downtown Fallujah where we've been fighting for the past week and I assure you that there's plenty of "physical" to it. As a matter of fact no females have taken part in the offensive. The closest they've come is the base camp several miles outside the city.
I also have the badge in question, gold too.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | From sarafina
Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 11:19
(Agree/Disagree?)
One more thing, most of the men were disqualified for not shooting well enough where as my sister qualified as sharp shooter and second best in her unit. As far as women in combat maybe you should have a look on your AKO account at the military stamp one of the main topics on there right now is the subject of abolishing the ban on women in combat. The main argument is that the majority of the wars fought now days in not by physical combat but by weapons and intelligence. Both in which women score high in. In this case my sister says you are partly right, "women may not be able to carry the weight men do in a march which is one of the main reasons we still need men, to do all the grunt work and carry our bags. Leave the shooting and Intel to the women" ;P OK, She was half joking.(reply to this comment) |
| | From oftheroundtable
Saturday, October 15, 2005, 19:32
(Agree/Disagree?)
Shooting on the range is a whole lot different to a live moving target.Although veitcong units did have front line female fighters, but two handfuls of wet rice about 90 rounds of 7.62(if they were lucky) and a liter of water would be what they took to battle give or take but not much more and they lived in 3rd world conditions.Also if they feel behind their treatment was the same, not that many were taken prisoner by allied forces. (reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | From geo
Saturday, January 01, 2005, 11:12
(Agree/Disagree?)
Now more then ever war is being fought by physical combat and this probably wont change for a long time. This especially is the case in our war on terrorism, its an extremely physical war that requires men on the ground fighting building to building and room to room. Of course weapons and intel is a part of that, but intel still relies heavily on HUMINT actual people on the ground involved with intelligence collection, not just processors and analysts. EWD is hardly the weapon of choice, the weapons and ammo are still heavy and physically demanding. Even with equipment getting smaller and lighter the basic load the average infantry soldier carries has continued to get heavier with more equipment, ammo and bigger guns.
"women may not be able to carry the weight men do in a march which is one of the main reasons we still need men, to do all the grunt work and carry our bags. Leave the shooting and Intel to the women" Even as a joke this is exactly the attitude that makes men reluctant to include woman in direct combat jobs. You can never expect someone to carry your weight for you, ever. Shooting and filling reports is the easy part, its the grunt work the heavy down and dirty part of the job that is hard to do. While your sister sounds like she's a hard charger and in good shape, remember that she is competing against other pencil pushers and a very different quality of soldier physically then what you'd have in an infantry type unit e.g qualifying sharpshooter, most infantry units you arent allowed to leave the range until you qualify expert. Because unlike support persons shooting well isnt only a requirement at the range but can be the difference between life and death for the infantry soldier.(reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | from Jedran
Monday, November 15, 2004 - 01:14
(Agree/Disagree?)
I don't know about why a women would want to join (although I suspect they mostly have the same reasons as men) but I don't think that women who join an army get to choose what fitness exercises they do. If it's like everything else in the army then they are told what to do and where to go, so I doubt they have much choice.
(reply to this comment)
| from Jedran
Monday, November 15, 2004 - 01:14
(Agree/Disagree?)
I don't know about why a women would want to join (although I suspect they mostly have the same reasons as men) but I don't think that women who join an army get to choose what fitness exercises they do. If it's like everything else in the army then they are told what to do and where to go, so I doubt they have much choice
(reply to this comment)
|
|
|
|
|
]
[About the Trailer Park] [Who Links Here]