Snickers - Oh my god! You mean there are crackpots spouting ridiculous, baseless BS on the Web? What next, TV programs that might not be worth watching?
Repeat after me: “The ‘Back’ button is my friend, the ‘Back’ button is my friend…”
C’mon! She was a loony person who heard voices and attributed them to St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret.
I somehow remember hearing a similar argument in the movie GI Jane (where Demi Moore was trying to become a SEAL). The response was “How come when a man risks his life to save a fellow male soldier he’s a hero, when he risks his life to save a female soldier he’s gone soft?” I also recall seeing a photo of a male US soldier in Desert Storm crying as he was evaced in BlackHawk helo after one of his crewmates were killed when their vehicle was struck by a mortar shell. I imagine seeing your fellow soldiers blown to pieces is traumatic, regardless of what their gender is.
It is a fact that the average woman is physically weaker than the average man. In certain combat roles like driving a vehicle or firing a weapon this probably doesn’t matter much. In other roles like hand to hand combat, loading 50lb artillery shells into their guns, or even just carying heavier weapons like an M60, you would need a big strong guy.
I’m not being sexist here. If a woman can do the same job as a man in the military, they should be allowed. I just think that a 120lb girl would be at a big disadvantage against a 190lb guy in combat. On the other hand, I remember reading stories about women who served in the circa WWII Russian Army and in the Viet Cong who were very effective as soldiers.
I suppose sexism can have its advantages.
People have a tendency to be lazy when they know the outcome of their actions does not matter. It may well be true that many men will work harder during times of peace when women are present because they do not want to be outdone by a woman. However, during times of war (i.e. when the outcome of one’s actions matter) the men are not likely to be particularly lazy. The question becomes, does having women around during times of war increase the efficiency of the average male soldier and are there any negative effects associated with having the women around (such as those mentioned in previous posts)? I can understand why soldiers would get lazy during peace time, but I would not expect the same behavior during war time.
Women should certainly be allowed in the military. The question is, does mixing the two sexes cause more trouble than it is worth. Homosexuality poses the same problem. There is nothing that prevents homosexuals from being perfect soldiers. The question is, will mixing homosexuals and heterosexual soldiers into the same squad cause more trouble than it is worth? If having a homosexual in an otherwise heterosexual squad causes many of the heterosexuals to perform more poorly than in the homosexual’s absence, it may be better to not allow the homosexual into the group. I know it is not fair for the homosexual to suffer because of the prejudice of the heterosexuals but if we kicked out all the heterosexuals that were even slightly uncomfortable around the homosexual, we would have a much smaller army. If the homosexual never brings up his sexual orientation then there is no problem. If the homosexual feels he/she has the right to state his/her sexual orientation, then it may be wise to have all homosexual squads. If we lived in a world of complete tolerance than we would not need to separate people based on their sex or gender, but we do not live in such a world and the armed forces is not the best place to teach tolerance, especially if the learning process involves making our army less efficient.
Some people have stated the all homosexual squads will not work because of the potential love connections that may be made. They may have a point. If you mixed half heterosexual women with half heterosexual men I would expect some love connections to be made, so I see no reason that homosexuals would not behave in the same way. Obviously, if you care significantly more for one member of your platoon than the others, you may not perform as a good soldier should (e.g. you may let 5 soldiers die if it means you could save the life of your significant other) and even if you do behave as you should, if your significant other dies you may take it worse than a good soldier should which could affect your performance. It is a sticky situation. To not allow someone to serve because they may fall in love is cold, yet the consequences of their falling in love could be devastating.
Playing devil’s advocate here (I’m firmly in favor of women in the military, etc):
One argument is that it’s not fair to let women into the military if they are guaranteed only the ‘soft’ jobs. I mean, a lot of men enter the military and ‘do their time’ humping a rucksack in the boonies in order to build their careers. How is their morale going to suffer if women on the same career path get to avoid the nasty stuff because they aren’t strong enough?
Second, it’s surprising how often strength does matter when you’re in the military, even in jobs where you wouldn’t think it should. I spent part of this morning reading citations of Medal of Honor winners, and I was struck by how often brute strength was one of the primary factors in saving their comrades and perhaps even themselves. And a lot of those guys were not infantrymen - they were pilots or gunners shot down behind the lines, medics, Chaplains, etc.
However, there are plenty of examples of women who served with distinction in the military. There was a female fighter squadron in Russia that played havoc with the Germans, despite flying obsolete airplanes and flying over enemy territory constantly.
As for the greater role of women in society, I saw an interesting debate on “Politically Incorrect” a few weeks ago. The debate was whether or not women should be allowed to vote. The person advocating this position was surprisingly a woman. Her point was that it is the influence of women in government that has caused the explosion in spending and taxation. She had some interesting statistics showing how government spending exploded after women got the vote. She also pointed out that if women didn’t vote, not a single Democrat would have been elected president since WWII (the men voted Republican every time). Of course, depending on your political persuation this could be a huge point in favor of women.
Anyway, her thesis is that men evolved to be protectors, and therefore men’s view of government had more to do with a strong military, rule of law, police, etc. Women, however, evolved to nurture, and therefore they see the proper role of government to provide for the needy, provide lunches for children, day care, etc. In other words, government as Mother to us all.
Personally, I think that’s a stretch, and as I said you might see that as a good thing if you’re a Democrat. But for conservatives, especially non-thinking ones that accept gross generalizations as immutable truth, there is some pretty good evidence that women vote fundamentally different from men.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sam Stone *
Playing devil’s advocate here (I’m firmly in favor of women in the military, etc):
One argument is that it’s not fair to let women into the military if they are guaranteed only the ‘soft’ jobs. I mean, a lot of men enter the military and ‘do their time’ humping a rucksack in the boonies in order to build their careers. How is their morale going to suffer if women on the same career path get to avoid the nasty stuff because they aren’t strong enough?
**
On the other hand, allowing women in the military to do the non-combat stuff frees up more men to follow the “manly” pursuits of driving tanks, firing artillery, and humping the boonies.
The problem I see with women in front line infantry units (and what I heard has been a training issue for the Marines) is that the average women is smaller and slower than the average man. Since a unit can only move as slow as its slowest component, the overall performance will be affected.
I don’t think that should prevent women from entering the combat arms, as long as the performance standards aren’t lowered. The result would probably be something like 80% of men would qualify for combat duty and only 20% or less of women would qualify.
That really isn’t an argument against allowing women to vote. Just because they vote diferently then men doesn’t make it right or wrong. Taxation and government spending are not necessarily bad things if the money benefits society as a whole.
This logic is faulty anyway. It assumes that allowing women to vote has deveoloped a government with more feminine politics. It is also possible that society has developed a more feminine nature which has allowed women to vote.
I believe the whole women-nururing business may be true to some extent, at least in the business world. Whenever I have worked with a woman project manager, they become emotionally attached to their project. They spend more time trying to turn the team into one big family than actually planning the work. When women PMs aks people do do stuff, they are very polite and use “please” and “thank you” as if the person was doing her a favor. Men project managers tend to focus more on the hard skills like project planning. Men also seem better able to emotionally separate themselves from the work.
You and I have had some rather different experiences in the work place.
I have, indeed, known a few women who got caught up in worrying about team members’ feelings on a project, and I have known a few others who took it personally when attacked by an opponent to a specific task or goal.
On the other hand, most of the women I have known as project managers have been very hard-nosed (in the best sense) about achieving goals and delivering products. In fact, while it is hardly true that “most” men have become emotionally attached to their projects, of the projects that I have seen die because the manager could not make necessary course corrections, the majority have been because the male manager got caught up in “owning” the project and imposed “not invented here” constraints on the team.
I have known great and crappy managers of both sexes, (and their personalities did tend to differ according to their sex), but I have not seen any trens of failure that could be laid to the feet of either sex.
The one place where I would tend to agree that some men perform better than some women–based on my experience, not on any objective studies–would be in terms of long-term abilities to work with others. In any department there are, inevitably, personality clashes among some individuals. I have found it slightly more likely that two feuding males will ignore their feud if they agree on the project while I have known a few women who would sabotage a project simply because an “enemy” headed it up. Even here, however, we are talking about a few cases, not a normal occurrence.
Yeah, so most of the great innovators were men. So were the large majority of the biggest fuck-ups in society and the greatest criminal monsters. The prisons are full of men (the women in prison are mostly just drug addicts - most of em didn’t kill their families or co-workers).
[[I have found it slightly more likely that two feuding males will ignore their feud if they agree on the project while I have known a few women who would sabotage a project simply because an “enemy” headed it up. Even here, however, we are talking about a few cases, not a normal occurrence.]]
Boy, not in my experience. I was the only female working in a mountaineering store once, and the petty feuds never ended. Mostly had employees ignoring each other, but twice had fistfights right in front of the store. I also worked at Planned Parenthood with all women and never had these problems. Don’t get me wrong - I love men and don’t mean to bash them. I’m just sayin’.
[Edited by JillGat on 04-30-2001 at 12:33 AM]
YMMV, of course.
Procacious, the rest of your post is just the standard line on the topic, that I’m sure has come up before on this message board, and has plenty of standard replies to it, and doesn’t belong in this thread. So I’m just going to respond to this one line:
It can be strongly argued that the forced integration of the armed forces, regarding race, was one of the primary causes for the success of the 50s-60s civil rights movement. The military was staunchly opposed to it at the time, and I’m sure it did result in making some aspects of things “less efficient” in the short term, as the vocal minority of bigots were forced to deal with their own ignorance. Top brass argued then, just as they do now, that it would cause a lot of problems in the rank and file. In fact, it probably did. They dealt with the problems the same way they dealt with all other discipline problems, and the result now is an army where black & white serve side by side, without a second thought, each having total trust in the capability of the other. Predictably, much of this bled back into civilian life.
So, in the long term, integration strengthened not only the military, but the entire country. The history of the US armed forces is full of examples of qualified, even exemplary, black units being relegated to pissant duties, wasting their capability, and now we look back on that with the contempt that it so rightly deserves.
I see the same thing here. Hold the same standards to everyone: if they can do the job and not disrupt the smooth operation of things, by all means, let them fight. One more motivated soldier means one less apathetic civilian to draft, should it become necessary.
The military is the PERFECT place to teach tolerance. If they don’t like it? “Deal with it, soldier” Their job is to kill people and break things, not have their every childish whim catered to.