Ya know if a woman can do the job, cool, job’s hers.
If a guy can do the job, cool, job’s his.
If a woman can’t do the job, she gets another job.
If a man can’t do the job, he gets another job.
Easy-peasy.
Now this only works if both the man and the woman get the same opportunities and are held to the same criteria.
I know that’s a lot to ask, but I guess I’m dreaming of a perfect world.
I think Number Six’s point is a real important one. It is always a good idea to look at training requirements and see if they really apply to the situations that soldiers or firefighters or police officers will face. As long as the requirements make sense, all people should be held to them. But don’t assume that the requirements are correct just because they’ve always been done that way.
I remember during the Gulf War, Cokie Roberts saying that instead of the soldiers being refered to as “our boys” they are now being refered to as “our fighting men and women”. She remarked that once again it took women to turn boys into men.
I (and many other feminists) want equality.
Higher pay for men is not equality.
Lower standards for women is not equality.
Simple as that.
One by product of this should be an examination of the ‘standards’ being used. For example, the number of sit ups/push ups etc being required. Well, if situps and push ups are actually similar to necessary job functions I can see the point in them. However, if the issue is ‘will this person be able to carry a 50 pound pack over rough terrain’, devise a test that would assess that.
could be that lots of those ‘standards’ were there 'cause that’s how they’ve always been done, vs. is this a valid testing mechanism.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by arisu *
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Does she play for the XFL?
I tend to begin with a presumtion that existing standards make sense. The peole who designed them are just as smart as I am. They’ve been used for some time, so problems have had a chance to be discovered and fixed.
Wring’s suggeston sounds reasonable. However, in the real world, that approach tends to lead to the opposite presumption – that the existing standards ought to be changed. (Or, at best, a presuption that we ought to have no confidence in the existing standards.)
Setting standards is not a mathematcally precise process. Even when it’s done with total good will, bias might affect the new standards. Furthermore, standards aren’t always set with good will. Some standard-setters have a hidden agenda. Or even a conspicuous agenda.
The bottom line is that a review of standards will generally result in lower standards, which the newly accepted group can more easily satisfy. That’s exactly what has happened in the military and in some police and fire departments and in many colleges.
hello again.
can you explain for me, then, what sit ups have to do with a firemans job for example?
Criteria and standards were not necessarily established as a matter of science. lots of stuff happen ‘cause that’s how we’ve always done it’.
I’ve been involved in establishing criteria for assesment of job skills - have you?
I’m thinkin that if you can’t get over the fact that there are some girls out there that can do the job just as well as a man, your sorry ass deserves to burn. What you probably saw was exactly what you wanted to see: a woman trying and failing at something that has historically been a man’s job. I agree that women’s bodies aren’t built for extreme physical jobs. But that’s just mother nature. All I’m saying is, don’t dismiss all women because they are not as strong as you. Grow out of the “I can beat up a girl, look aren’t I strong?” mentality of middle school boys. There are probably plenty of women firefighters that do the job with pride, and they don’t have videos showing how well they do.
Why don’t you all just admit that on average women are smaller, slower, weaker, dumber, and less able to carry out the type activities needed to kill. Sure there might be a few out there that can pass muster, and God bless them, I’d be proud to serve and die with them. But how can we take all the equal oppurtunity garbage seriously when during a time of relative peace, monetary incentives, and the likelihood of choosing a “non combat” position the vast majority of new recruits are male. And the last women I saw with a shaved head, who wasn’t tearing up a picture of the Pope, got paid $1 million dollars to have her precious locks sheared.
Lets face it; most women are quite happy having other people do the dirty work for them and, men, with their brains dangling between their legs, are happy to do it. Females today are not taught to be equals. They are taught and encouraged to seek every oppurtunity to advance themselves with the minimun of effort (and I got billions of dollars of makeup and fashion to back me up). And should anything (including the ability to actually perform the simple tasks required to accomplish the mission) prevent them from doing whatever they feel is their right, they cry foul to the nearest lawyer and demand that the rules be changed.
When push comes to shove, when you work in those rare fields where confrontation is a natural element, only the strong will survive. To allow anyone, male or female, to enter that theatre in anything less than the absolute best condition, is to condemn them to a most terrible fae
ladyfoxfyre:
I don’t know about you, but when I read that line from SPOOFE’s post, the first thing I noticed was “I don’t care WHAT gender you are” - a phrase which was conveniently placed at the beginning of the sentence.
Terrific. Let them be firefighters. But I don’t see anyone saying women shouldn’t be allowed to be firefighters, I see people saying women should be held to the same standards as men.
A firefighter needs to be able to lift and carry a certain amount of weight in order to save lives. If you can’t carry that much, you aren’t a good firefighter, no matter what you have in your pants.
By that rationale what use is anything learnt after elementary school to anyone in the real world? I mean you’re taught to read, write, do simple arithmetic etc… I’ve never used any of the maths skills acquired in high school in real world situations, so why have them? The simple answer is to prepare you in the unlikely event you do need to use them. Same here, sit ups help a fireman get as strong as he can for the day when he might have to carry an 18 stone heart attack victim out of a towering inferno. It might never happen, chances are it won’t happen. But better safe than sorry.
The same is true for the army. The army is the first, last and only line of defence. If you start to lower standards for recruits, if you start offering ‘confidence courses’ which are easier than ‘assault courses’ then you lessen not only the strength of the recruits but their idea of what they may have to face on the battlefield. The enemy isn’t going to give you a second chance because you’re weak regardless of what sex you are. I think Spoofe said it best when he said that the army’s standards are set for soldiers, not men or women. If you’re tough enough and dedicated enough you should get in. If you’re not then you’re just not cut out for the army, plain and simple. Why should they let you in?
One problem today is that everything becomes everybody’s business. I’ve never been a fireman. I don’t know what wring’s experience is in that field. Why should the two of us get any say in setting standards for firemen>
In order for an assessment tool to be a productive, reliable, necessary, valid tool to evaluate a prospective employee for a specific position, there should be some rational for inclusion.
For example, testing new employees on their knowledge of Russian would be an excellent idea if the position required that knowledge. It would be an idiotic idea for, say, a janitor at a video rental store in Phoenix AZ. So, while the owner might be interested to discover that the applicant knows Russian, since the position would not, as an ‘essential job function’ require that knowledge, a testing of that persons knowledge of Russian would be questionable at best.
So, now we come to the field of soldiers and fire fighters et al. In years gone by, certain tests of calisthentics (sit ups et al) were used to ‘measure’ the person’s strength and endurance. Strength and endurance were/are essential job functions, I agree. However, at this point it would be appropriate for these entities to evaluate their assessment tools to discover:
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Is it an efficient test of the quality we’re testing? Is there any correlation to the number of sit ups one can do, for example, and the measurement of strength/endurance?
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Are there better, more efficient tests available? one would suspect that there are very specific tests available at this point.
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Do they relably measure the necessary quality or are they a method of screening out otherwise qualified applicants? (as in - 'persons of this relative size cannot perform this test, but can actually perform the essential job functions)
It is important that we analyze our testing data. For example, my baby bro was almost held back in kindergarten 'cause the teacher thought he was uncoordinated. She used as proof a misshapen circle that he’d cut out of construction paper. Her assessment of ‘coordination’ was to instruct the kids to cut the drawn circle out. He did a sloppy job. She concluded that he was uncoordinated.
However, there were 2 problems with her assesment tool - first was that he’s left handed and needed left handed scissors, second was that her instructions were less than clear to him, he didn’t understand that she wanted him to cut as close to the line as possible.
Tests and assesment tools should not be unquestioned. They are the tools, not the final results.
Women are dumber than men. Huh. How very interesting. I would just love to see some sort of cite for this.
Besides stereotyping women as either crass and horrible or shallow and vain, does this comment serve any purpose in furthering your arguement?
As should be apparent from this thread, there are women who are not happy with situation. Your arguement seems to be that since most women are happy, the ones that aren’t should shut up and get back in the kitchen.
Again with the “all women are shallow and vain” arguement. It’s not true. And I don’t know about the rest of the females, but i certainly was taught to be an equal. And I don’t like having to accept anything less from my government.
I’ve read this over several times and I must ask for clarification. It seems like you’re referring to a specific incident and I would like to know which one.
I don’t think anyone’s disagreeing with you there.
I’m a little surprised that it hasn’t been brought up that in some areas in these fields, women do better than their male counterparts. For instance, we’re better at teamwork than the men are, and at other group skills that you need with your company of soldiers on the front line of battle. Also, we can stand more g-force without passing out, we can divide our attention between many goals more easily (I’ve heard that it makes us better tacticians), we’re smaller (which is nice in a tiny little cockpit), we can be dunked repeatedly into cold water and live longer than the men… Women would make idea submarine crews and fighter pilots for these very reasons, so it seems to me to be not just irrational but in fact counterproductive to exclude them from such jobs.
Wring suggests that “we” analyze our test data. Who is “we”? You’d think the store manager would be trying to get the most accurate test, since the hiring decision actually matters to her. However,in this context, Wring seems to be saying that she and her feminist buddies need to analyze and adjust the employment tests for every occupation, including fire fighter, soldier, janitor, etc. (Luckily for me, they haven’t gotten around to the actuarial exams yet.)
What makes them think they have the competence, experience and qualifications to improve all these tests? The answer is found in wring’s hypothetical example. Current tests are presumed to be “idiotic.” It follows that a feminist can automatically do better.
There are feminists who demand equality, yet request to be excused from the draft? I’d like a cite, please. I’ve been a feminist for 25 years, and have always taken it for granted that equality for women demands that they be required to serve in the military right alongside men if the need arises.
Exclusion from the draft is not a feminist privilege, it is just one more example of discrimination against women.
That said, I do not believe that standards should be lowered for women in any arena. I do believe that standards should be re-examined to ensure that they do not contain bias against women. One result of the inclusion of women in many professions is that the standards have been changed for everyone. In particular, men who would have been excluded from certain occupations, such as police work, solely on the basis of height, can now get those jobs because it has become clear that the height requirements were arbitrary and not a good indicator of fitness to serve.
Let’s say we are at War, and women are excluded from fighting. Millions of the nation’s men go off to fight on foreign soil leaving behind families, jobs, responsiblities, and well, everything needed to keep a country running and to have a successful war.
Now let’s say women and men are drafted. Who is left behind to do the work? Who is left behind to take care of the families? Who stays in the nation to make the supplies needed to win the war?
Like in football, not everybody can be the quarterback. Not everybody can be the wide receiver, or the tight end. Some of the players have to stay back and protect the quarterback. Some players sole responsiblity is not to win the game, but to see that the game is won.
So, I guess what I’m trying to ask is, what’s the practicality of having the draft for men and women?
So, in other words, women have to be protected from criminal men because the Army is incapable of policing its own effectively?
Bullshit. The solution to this problem is to make the penalty for raping a fellow soldier during wartime a capital offense. After a few guys get shot for their jollies, you’ll see guys behaving a whole lot better.
Give them a 50 pound pack and have them try to carry it over rough terrain.