"Most of these jobs are closed to women." - why?

Factual Questions
1

I was looking at the different jobs on the GoArmy.com site and noticed that most of the listings under the Combat Operations heading are “closed to women.” I am curious as to what rationale the Army uses to deny these jobs to all women. I could not find any explanation on their site so I sent an email asking them, but don’t know if I’ll ever get a reply.

Google pulls up a bunch of statistics and a few news items, but I still can’t find an explanation of this policy. (Maybe there isn’t one?)

Can any dopers out there help me out?

(Just FTR: No, I am not a woman.)

2

So you’re basically just asking, “Why don’t the Armed Forces permit women in combat?”

Geez, we don’t get it, either. :smiley:

Here’s a summary of the current rationales.

3

They’re afraid the women might “make love, not war”?

4

You know what I don’t get? Why women are exempt from the Draft! Why, its sexist! (seriously)

5

Absolutely. I think this next bout of military conflict will change that in the coming decade.

Women can pull a trigger just as well as a man can!

6

I don’t know whether this is true or just anecdotal or what – if anyone has any concrete information regarding this issue, I’d be very appreciative – I had heard (I don’t remember where, maybe on N.P.R.) that there were many women in many units in the Gulf War that maybe weren’t front-line combat units, but from the point of view of common sense they were essentially engaged in combat. There were stories of women in these units being raped by their own comrades but keeping it quiet for the sake of unit cohesion. There were also cases in which women soldiers (some of whom were married or had a boyfriend back home) consented to sex with one or more of their comrades just for the sake of helping to reduce tension. There apparently were a large number of pregnancies among Gulf War women. Of course, human behaviour in such stressful situations is extremely complex, and it is likely that many of the parties involved couldn’t give the real reasons for doing what they did.

Now I don’t beleive there is any real reason to impose a blanket ban on women in combat, but if any of these stories are ture (and I don’t know if they are) I think it would be imperative to do something about educating or training all soldiers that this kind of behaviour is inappropriate and instituting effective means of policing such behaviour.

7

IIRC, the Israeli army does allow women to participate in combat. But I could be wrong here.

8

I thought they were afraid that the men might “make love, not war”.

9

And IIRC, Israel stopped using women in combat, because Arabs prefered to fight it out with them rather than surrender. Anybody got the SD on that?

10

I googled a couple places and it looks like the Israeli army does not allow woman in front line combat.

IIRC a 23 year-old woman solder was in charge of demolishing Arafat’s compound. :eek:

:eek: because she was 23, not because it was a woman.

11

While I’m all for equal rights, let’s recognize a few very real biological realities here.

Put men and women together in tight quarters in highly stressful situations and you’re going to have sex, sooner or later. It may or may not be consenual, but it will happen. Maybe not to everyone, but we’re dealing in large numbers here.

Women are not permitted on the long-haul sub duty because a mixed gender crew locked in a tin can for months at a time with no way to leave, under tight discipline, is going to cause trouble. There is already concern about all male crews suffering from mental problems and distubances (it’s a highly unnatural environment). Start mixing mating urges into the mess, with the competition and jealousy that results, it’s going to be a REAL mess. And that’s in peace time. Throw in actual combat and all bets are off. I know in WWII German sub captains had a gun and bullets so that if a crew member flipped out and became a threat to everyone else he could be - ahem - dealt with.

In theory, an all female sub crew could work just as well as an all male crew - but are there enough qualified women to fill such a crew? The military is still predominantly male.

Certain other tasks - such as special forces work - require great physical strength. Sorry - men do have the advantage here. Yes, there may be some exceptional women who could meet the requirements, but they are an exception. Already, most male soliders can’t qualify for units like the SEALs. It’s not as much a delibrate shut-out as the simple fact that women just do not have the brute strength as men. Whining about it is like whining that men are incapable of giving birth or very poor at lactating.

Infanty - you know, the guys who carry lots of gear on their backs and march a lot. Now, a women might well meet the strength requirements for these units - BUT - and this if very un-PC - there’s another problem. And it has to do with the men. Whether it’s biological or social imprinting doesn’t really matter from the military point of view, but men DO have a tendency to protect “their” women. One reason the Isrealis gave up on women in front-line positions is that the men kept getting themselves killed trying to protect the women. A woman was taken prisoner during the Gulf War and she survived captivity in much better physical and mental shape than the man captured with her - because he kept trying to protect her in a situation where he just couldn’t, and got the crap beat out of him repeatedly. (By the way - she was NOT raped as a POW. More on that in a minute) You can’t run a war when half the soldiers in your units are getting themselves killed flinging themselves between the bullets and the other half of the unit.

Now, there ARE some combat positions open to women. They are airborne positions - we do have female fighter pilots and they have flown in active combat missions. But look at the differences from other forms of combat troops:

  • brute strength is not required to fly an airplane, finesse is. This is an area where the average woman equals (or maybe exceeds) the average man

  • for unknown reasons, women tolerate g-forces somewhat better than men, which is a definite aid in high-g dogfight manuvers. This is not a huge advantage, but in combat every bit helps.

  • in all other areas of flight, men and women perform equally given the same training. Unlike situations that require physical strength.

  • a woman in an airplane is not visibly female. A lot of the knee-jerk “man-protects-women” sorts of stuff seems to be triggered by visual cues (just like the sex drive, which is might be connected to as far as survival of the species goes). Without those visual cues men are less likely to take unnecessary risks in answer to a drive to protect women.

And let’s lay to rest a certain bug-a-boo that’s been around for ages. This is the idea that we can’t have women in combat because they might get raped. Got news for you folks - women ALWAYS get raped in combat, in EVERY war. It’s just that typically they’re unarmed civilians as opposed to armed soldiers. So what’s the difference, really?

Every women in the military is well aware that if she is taken POW she will, most likely, be raped. Just like every man going into combat is aware that some Bad People torture prisoners and they may face that if captured. It’s like arguing we shouldn’t allow anyone to be a soldier because they might get killed. Guess what - it’s an occupational hazard. Let’s go back to the medic taken prisoner in the Gulf. She had two broken arms when captured, so she just plain couldn’t fight back. She has stated in interviews that she fully expected to be raped, probably multiple times. She figured she could survive rape, just as she could survive other injury. Well, she wasn’t raped. In fact, her captors seemed rather at a loss for what to do with her. One guy did grope her tits but stopped when he jarred her arms and it caused her to scream in pain. Meanwhile, the guy picked up with her is struggling and threatening the guys holding them prisoner every time they went near her and the Iraqis beat the living crap out of him multiple times. Would it turn out this way every time? Probably not. Point is, rape is NOT a sure thing, even when a woman is captured by folks who, quite frankly, don’t have a problem with a little torture and not a lot of respect for women.

And one more thing about rape in combat. Men get raped, too. In fact, raping the male POW’s is a pretty strong way of dominating/torturing them. Some cultures make it a habit to rape ALL POW’s of either gender. Men are less likely to be raped in a lifetime, but it is generally much more traumatizing to them. Which is not to minimize the effect of rape on women. But it really screws with a man’s self-image in most cases. If rape is SOOOOOO horrible that it justifies keeping a potential soldier out of combat, then we can’t let the men fight either.

My opinion? Some tasks will always be done by men due to biological constraints. Some tasks will always be done by women for the same reason, it’s just that none of those tasks apply to warfare. Deal with it.

12

Combat positions are quite a bit more demanding. Could a woman just as easily make a 30 mile forced march with 80 pounds on her back?

13

Me, no.
Some women, yes. (As there are some men who probably couldn’t make it across my living room floor with 40 pounds strapped on their backs.)
If that were the only reason, then stopping the women who are more than capable of performing the physical tasks from doing so is unfair (just because some people with the same body parts would not be able to make it.)

14

I hereby interrupt the debate to point out that the OP isn’t asking, “Hey, y’all, let’s debate whether women should be allowed in combat!”

The OP is asking, “Why don’t the United States Armed Forces allow women in combat?”

15

I doubt many women can pass all of the physical requirements of infantry life - and those tiny portion that can would then, by their nature as exceptions, be exceptions in the army. And so the army would have to maintain infrastructure for them and try to smooth out all of the mixed sex issues and such JUST to cater to a very small portion of people who can meet the MINIMUM requirements.

The army isn’t an equal opportunity career center. It’s a war fighting machine.

Anyway, if you want to debate it, feel free to GD it… I was just trying to clarify that being an infantry soldier is far more than pulling triggers.

16

Having spent the last 15 years of my life in the Army, and being a Gulf War veteran, I’ve seen this debated endlessly within the ranks. In addition to the several arguments served above, I’ve also heard it postualted that when it came down to the nitty gritty, a woman would have a harder time pulling the trigger to take another human’s life. That they are more hard-wired to preserving and creating life than destroying it.

BS, BS, BS.

I doubt if anyone is fully prepared to take another life unless they are trained to do so. I know I wasn’t before I joined up (and I’m still not so sure now; I fortunately never had opportunity to do so in Desert Storm).

As far as men feeling they need to “protect” the women in their unit: more BS. This is more about protecting your fellow soldiers with whom you’ve probably spent a considerable amount of time training and bonding with than anything to do with gender roles.

I think what it comes down to is a simple biological fact and a logistical nightmare stemming from that: Women Have Babies. A pregnant women is exempt from combat for the obvious reason that the unborn child is not a soldier and should not be put at risk. That leaves about 9 months + 3 months or more for complete recovery and physical re-training. That’s one year that you have a soldier taking up a spot in your unit that cannot fulfill their combat duties. As a member of a personnel unit that was almost a 50/50 split between the genders, I was surprised that at any one time between 20% and 30% of the females were in some stage of pregnancy or post-partum. Seeing as how these were healthy, physically fit women all of child-bearing age I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. Granted, being personnel we were not really affected too much readiness-wise as we did not go to the field but two days out of the year tops.

But lets apply that same formula to an infantry or armor unit that’s designated as Rapid Deployment unit. Upon movement orders a company commander has to respond back with the operational readiness of his/her unit. What happens when he/she reports that they are only at 70% strength? It’s simply not an option; your unit must be ready to go when so ordered.

Now imagine you are a Joint Chief of Staff and one of your many jobs is to pass policy that will keep those combat positions filled with soldiers that will be ready to deploy 100% of the time. There’s a reason that people with sometimes debilitating conditions (such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease) are screened out of these jobs and put in less combat intensive positions. Do you see where I’m going here?

I don’t see a way around this unless there is a signed agreement when a women first joins up in a combat MOS that she agrees to do everything in her power not to get pregnant and will immediately be reassigned should she become so. As distasteful as it sounds, I have known female soldiers who have gotten pregnant knowing that a certain side effect would be that they would not have to go to the field. I’m not saying that’s the only reason, but I have heard more than once “Gee, I’m sure glad I don’t have to go.” This wasn’t only restricted to females. I also knew men who would purposely hurt themselves to get out of field duty. This is known as malingering and is a punishable offense. Getting pregrant is obviously not malingering but the effect was much the same on unit operational readiness.

Another no so commonly thought of effect of women going into combat are a husband and wife that are both deployed. I saw this happen to a few people in Desert Storm. If the couple had a child one of them was usually sent home. The reason here is obvious: who suffers more, a woman’s pride in that she fights with the men or a parentless child (if both parents die in combat)?

The military is not about putting innocent lives at risk or completely demolishing a family (if easily avoidable), it’s about protecting a nation and defeating all enemies. When in vitro births, surrogate wombs and cloning becomes the norm, this will probably no longer be a real issue, only a “values” issue with die hard traditionalists.

17

I remember an article that said that mixed units in Desert Storm were detrimental to the health of the unit. Apparently, some people were having sex! That caused a lot of jealousy and discontent among the males. Women, don’t fault yourself for not being in certain positions, it’s just that we men can’t control our love rods all the time.

18

The British army also recently decided against women in combat duties. The scientific reasoning from the ministry of defence is here.

19

Um, I might point out that service members have sex during both peacetime and wartime. The effects of jealousy and discontent you mention would be near consistent and therefore cancel out as a reason for or against women in combat. Fact is, there was a lot of sex going on while I was there (in a personnel unit far from the front lines) and I saw it as much of a tension reliever as anything else.

I realize your post was mostly a “whoosh”, but the fact is that this is treated as a serious reason to keep women from serving in combat roles. Even Dagon’s excellent link above from the British Ministry of Defence purports there is no scientific reason for their exclusion other than small mixed gender combat teams have not been proven in actual combat, and they see no reason to “fix” what isn’t broken.

20

I think the argument that women are not as physically able to go into combat is complete and utter BS. I have seen some pretty wimpy looking male infanteers, and worked with a few that I could’ve taken out myself when I was in the military. Is it for EVERY woman? No, but neither is it for every man. The training is tough and weeds out many potential soldiers.

As far as I know, Canada allows women into the combat-at-arms trades, providing they can make the physical requirements of the job. The only job closed to women is submarine training, but that is more due to obsolete equipment and the necessary changes for having mixed crews (under the Geneva Convention, women are required separate sleeping and bathroom facilities). An all-female crew might be allowed though.

I myself do not think I could at this time (dragging my big, pregnant self through pepper-podding drills does not excite me), however, there was a time (when I finished basic training) that I feel I probably could’ve made a go at Battle School, if the desire had been there. I definitely have friends, both male and female who would make kick-ass infanteers.

I do think it’s interesting that usually the reasons given for not allowing mixed-gender teams is because the men are “distracted”.

It would seem then, that the men are the problem. :smiley: