I’m sure you’ll totally be a SEAL by the end of the year with those brass ones. You go, boy!
No, the first side’s reaction is “No shit, but why would you be hammering on that unless it was to excuse not letting any even try?”
And we’ve been proven right so far.
Explain how my position that A) being a Navy SEAL is very physically demanding, requiring a rare and elite combination of endurance and strength and B) Women are very unlikely to possess these qualities due to physiological reasoning is somehow being threatened.
I’m not a bad ass. I’m not an athlete. I would not qualify to be a navy SEAL. In fact I’m not in the armed forces at all and too old anyway. You keep trying to come up with these pathetic dime store psychology ad hominems because you can’t handle the argument, so you have to try to create some straw position of the threatened sexist, or the internet tough guy.
You haven’t been proven right. I wonder if you’ve ever been proven right in the history of the boards, actually.
Who here is proving you right? As far as I can tell, pretty much everyone is saying “go ahead and let women compete. They won’t qualify”
You are declaring that the argument is about whether or not the navy should simply ban women from applying to BUD/S. The only problem is that it doesn’t seem that anyone is actually arguing that.
I, personally, am arguing against ignorance. Either the ignorance of what it takes to be a SEAL, or the sort of nonsensical GRRRRLS CAN DO ANYTHING MEN CAN DO retardation.
Irrelevant. We don’t care if Serena Williams can beat Andre Agassi or whatever. We care if she can meet an arbitrary set of standards that are the same for men and women. If 25% of men can pass the test and only .003% of women can, that’s fine. The point is that they’re restricted by physiological limits and not sexist ideals. I’m not understanding where the belligerence is coming from.
See, I feel differently about female infantry officers than I do SEALs. I could see a woman being an infantry officer, if unlikely. Women might be a great untapped resource of tactical and operational thinkers. But doing infantry officer things, like setting up an ambush, calling in fire support, ordering a flanking maneuver, is in a sense as much managerial as it is soldierly, and I don’t see why a suitable woman capable of staying cool under stress couldn’t be trained to do it. I’m certain any number of male infantry officers are incompetent commanders, so it’s less of a “best of the best” situation.
SEALs are a different thing entirely.
No, we hear them just fine, what we want to know is why are they telling us stuff we already know?
Thanks, Xena.
I’ve been keeping up with this thread and have read it all and I’m pretty certain nobody is saying what you are claiming.
The belligerence is coming from the fact that anyone who tries to point out how physically demanding being a SEAL is and why it matches up well with male physiology are hammered with insults and ad hominems.
I’ve been pretty neutral, even pointing out that I don’t doubt that there are women who have the mental toughness and other mental skills to be a SEAL, that the limitation comes from physiology and not their personal failings.
And yet every idiot on the other side is screaming about how I’m THE WORST SEXIST EVER, how I’m the same as racists, how I’m proclaiming to be this internet tough guy who’s so macho that he can’t handle tough women, how I’m apparently somehow threatened women will take my job if they can go into BUD/S. The belligerence does not originate on my end.
Incidentally, this is the exact sort of stupid counterproductive shit that makes most people recoil from the idea of the feminist movement instead of embrace it.
And saying “it’s just a set of tests anyone can pass” is not an accurate description of BUD/S. Several times more people apply to go to BUD/S than will be accepted. So there’s a process eliminating most of the candidates from attending right off the bat based on their test scores, military history, etc. There’s competition for a number of slots. If someone were to be pushed through for political reasons rather than qualifications, it would be at the cost of the spot of someone more qualified.
Because in the history of the military, men are incredibly unlikely to commit war crimes, sex crimes, or suicide. 'Cause men are so level headed, predictable, unbiased, and fair minded.
No, the push-back is because you, like the OP, are being such a dick about it.
None of that actually touches on the point he was trying to make. You are just spewing random nonsense at this point.
He said he could see a woman making a good infantry officer as a way of trying to convey that you guys are simply not getting the point about what special operations require, and you come up with irrelevant point about how men do bad things. What is it that you think you’re responding to?
You are bad at message boards.
Should I count the number of personal attacks made upon me and the other way?
I’m actually attacking arguments. You and your ilk are just throwing endless straw men and ad hominems my way.
Because the implication of your posts is that not only do you not believe women have the necessary physical power, which is a legitimate opinion, but also that they should not even have the opportunity to fail out which is discriminating against someone on the basis of their sex, which is sexism.
Now, if you don’t have a problem with women taking the test, you just think none will pass because of physiological limitations, I think everyone will agree that you might be cynical but you’re probably not sexist.
Which makes more sense to you?
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The Navy asks for volunteers, and sets up a test in which a number of women attempt to pass the exact same SEAL training that men are required to pass. The Navy then uses the information acquired to determine whether it makes sense to open up the SEALS to qualified women.
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The Navy decides that since a bunch of people using a massive amount of hyperbole on the Internet have determined that women just can’t possibly under any conceivable circumstances be SEALS, no women should ever be allowed to attempt the test or become a SEAL.
Part of the mission of the Straight Dope is that we require actual evidence before reaching conclusions. While there is existing evidence regarding the physical capabilities of women, we don’t have specific evidence of their ability to pass SEAL training, since no woman has ever been allowed to try. Insisting that they be banned without the appropriate testing and evidence sounds an awful lot like prejudice to me.
HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THAT I HAVE NOT OBJECTED TO ALLOWING WOMEN TO ATTEMPT TO QUALIFY FOR BUD/S?
Holy fuck you idiots, read what I’ve said 50 times.
He’s implying that “a suitable woman capable of staying cool under stress…” is a rare creature, which implies that male soldiers are preferred because they stay cool under stress. Evidence may prove men to have superior physical strength on the whole, but the ability to “stay cool under stress” hasn’t been demonstrated to be a dominently male trait in recent news.
Well, that and a bit overconfident that he has the qualifications to make better military decisions than the Pentagon.
Do you know what a military officer is? It isn’t just some random grunt. They’re trained for leadership. They’re held to much different standards than regular soldiers. Different screening, different training. Most men aren’t suited to command, so it isn’t sexist to assume as part of his hypothetical that he’d find a woman with the same traits they’re looking for in men.
The second quote is the first and only time I found of you stating that you don’t have a problem with women trying out for being SEALs and it was many posts deep in the thread.
This is the attitude that you came into the thread with along with a weird equivalence to athletics that you keep harping on with more and more all caps that isn’t really persuasive to anyone. I really don’t think you can accurately make the case that the belligerence didn’t start with you.
Okay, so they set up a test for women. Maybe a few of them even pass. But making a selection cut isn’t the final word as to whether it’s suitable for them to actually be SEALs. And I maintain that the SEALs don’t actually need women, not in the sense that the Soviet Red Army needed female soldiers in order to make up for their manpower shortages. So again, what reason do we have for allowing women to be SEALs other than some generic notion of equality? What are they bringing to the table that’s worth upsetting long established tradition, and introducing unique tensions to that particular military subculture?
When have I said or implied that women should be barred by rule from applying to BUD/S?
It’s not weird. The whole point is that SEALs are not run of the mill people. They are screened from amongst the best the country has to offer in terms of mental toughness and physical performance. I don’t doubt that there are women who can qualify for the mental toughness part. But special ops soldiers have ridiculous demands for strength, speed, and endurance. In that way, they’re similar to professional athletes. Not quite the same thing, but it works to demonstrate that if, in athletics, the top tier physical performing women simply cannot keep up with their male counterparts, then when it comes to the most physically capable soldiers, the same logic applies.