By your own admission, you would deny a job to 1% of a population for no reason other than their gender. If that’s not the textbook definition of sexism, I don’t know what is.
I bet men are way more likely to be tortured by electrocuting their testicles. The torturers are going to do the most demeaning thing they can. Lady parts are just likely to make it more fun for them. If you want to argue that women likely couldn’t keep up, then you have a point. Denying the ones that are capable the opportunity because something bad might happen to them is stupid and should make men angry. Doesn’t anyone care about the men???
In my bootcamp platoon we had a varsity football player and a ranked high school wrestler. Most women aren’t raised to be rough. Most don’t have the desire to be. Even if only 1% could keep up with the men, why not allow that 1% serve if they can perform the task.
Absolutely. I would absolutely deny the 1%. I also didn’t support the guy who sued Hooters because they wouldn’t let him be a waiter, or the female high school football player who wants to play on the male varsity football squad.
I wouldn’t spend millions of dollars, and go through all of the problems entailed with looking for a 1%, needle-in-a-haystack population.
Should there be women in the military? Yes. Should they be on “Navy Seal Team 6”? Heck no.
I’m not sure I agree with your exact numbers, but I’ll concede the general point. But the persons arguing for the inclusion of willing female volunteers in combat roles are, I think, opining that the 1% you claim exist, if they are willing, should be allowed to do so, especially as advancement through the ranks in the armed services is far easier for service members with combat experience.
I find the notion of women in combat aesthetically displeasing. But as long as there is no relaxation of standards that would reduce the service as a whole, I cannot say that it’s just, right, or wise to deny willing & capable women combat roles. I still think that the service will be overwhelmingly male for reasons of sexual dimorphism, but the women with the physical and mental toughness to perform in combat should be allowed.
It seems to be SDMB fare to play to the exception, and rare exception at that. The average testosterone laden 18 year old enlisting isn’t coming off the set of “The Big bang Theory.”
All of us knew some women at the local bar who could beat some of the men at arm wrestling. And it doesn’t have anything to do with ‘how you were raised.’ men are bigger, and stronger. Thats just the facts.
Telling me about some woman wrestler doesn’t change the fact.
This is from memory, but I read a book on the subject entitled “Weak Link”. IIRC, the author (who is/was career military) mentioned war game situations where they matched an all-male division, an all-female division, and a division mixed between men and women in simulated combat. The all-male divisions nearly universally finished up first, the mixed divisions second, and the all-female divisions last.
There was a ship in the first Gulf War that they called the Love Boat because so many of the female sailors had to be un-deployed, because they got pregnant.
As Robert Heinlein mentions, a second-best military is the most expensive luxury on earth. The point - the only point - of fighting a war is to win. Considerations of how the world should be if it were different tend to take a back seat when bombs begin to go off, and you need people to load shells and lead a rifle assault.
I don’t believe anyone is arguing that, on average, men have greater physical strength then women. It’s possible that some persons in this thread may assert that women are as aggressive as men, but I am not one of them. I think the persons who want women to be de jure allowed in infantry combat (rather than our current de facto non-policy policy) are saying that the physically and mentally exceptional women – let’s say it’s 5% of them – who possess the necessary qualities and the desire to exploit them in the military should be allowed the opportunity to do so.
I think there is the law of diminishing returns. If the female population overwhelmingly doesn’t have the requisite strength, why are we pounding round pegs into square holes?
The costs and problems are so great, for such a small return (especially since the quotas can be filled with men) there is simply no good reason to do it, save for the feel good inclusive political correct karma that it’s designed for.
Again, you are stopping an entire population because of what most supposedly cannot do. Some women fit into those square pegs. Also, there are combat roles that are not as physically demanding. If a woman can do the training, why not allow her to do the job. Not all combat roles are lugging a 150lb pack for miles and hand to hand combat. Other than convenience and sexism, there is no good reason NOT to do it.
Of course these women would not take the spots of capable men, but if the performed well enough for those spots, meaning better than some men, they should be allowed.
I think there is a valid role for woman, including top management. And there are a lot of women in the theater of battle. I’m ok with that.
But front line combat? Nope. It’s not that they supposedly can’t do it. They *definitely * can’t. Combat roles aren’t segregated based on strength. Everybody has to be capable.
I don’t want some 22 year old killed because his 5’4" 130 pound partner couldn’t help him, just so I can feel good about myself in my living room 10,000 miles away.
A quick Google search says the average man is 5’9.2", and woman 5’3.8".
You are not just at average height for a man, but taller than most of the women you know, and almost surely stronger than almost all of them. (probably all of them)
In boot camp those differences wouldn’t narrow, they would increase.