I wish it would change.
It irritates the hell out of me to be thought of as something in need of protection.
I disagree.
One can bounce back from a rape, even if it takes years and years.
One cannot recover from an electrocution. Dead is dead.
Thank God (or Gerald Ford) for the volunteer military. No one is there who doesn’t want to be.
The next step is to open it further to those who do want to be, and that means women and gays. No one has ever shown an ounce of evidence that women can’t perform completely capably in combat, and the demoralizing effects of the presence of gays is probably slightly less than the demoralizing effects of the presence of blacks in 1965…
Most of my views on the subject were forged in the draft era, a dirty and ugly time in our history which is not missed one bit.
(It was always fun explaining to my “better dead than red” friends that conscription was a form of socialism!)
Trinopus
The arguments usually offered for and against the combat exclusion laws tend to revolve around women’s physical abilities and their physiological limitations, presumptions about military culture and the attitudes of men in today’s All-Volunteer Force, and historical (even crosscultural) examples of the effect (and/or effectiveness) of female combatants. Proponents often emphasize the exploits of exceptional women or cite the fact that women fought during wars of survival in such disparate locales as Greece, the Soviet Union, Israel, and Eritrea, implying that such cases prove women can be present on the battlefield with no ill effects.4 Yet, scattered ethnographic evidence also suggests the opposite. For instance, the great Shaka Zulu, widely recognized as a military genius, insisted on segregating his male and female regiments. Similarly, Mau Mau freedom fighters in Kenya (1952–55) found that “what disturbed [Kikuyu] men most was, first, the old taboo against wartime sex and then, when that became impossible to sustain, that sexual competition would wreck comradeship and discipline.
Cohesion should be regarded as the most serious obstacle to gender integration precisely because no structure can guarantee it, though certain known factors will surely inhibit or disrupt it. Solidarity derives from complex organic processes. Perhaps the fact that most militaries have excluded females from combat is nothing more than a coincidence of universal proportions. Regardless, so far, no military anywhere has improved upon male bonding as the fundamental building block of unit cohesion.
The interest in women that serves as a sure-fire bond among men becomes a cleaver dividing them as soon as women are present. The tone of conversation changes. Benign posturing turns into serious competition. What had been easy and meaningless banter among peers about what they would do with women gives way to meaningful attention being paid to women, and when women reciprocate the attention the bonds among even the closest teammates become strained. Women, without meaning to do so, automatically snatch men out of one another’s orbits. Add one woman to a team of males, and the dynamic among the men will immediately shift. Add more than one woman, and multiple pools of tension will spread and overlap. In the wake of rivalry come envy, frustration, impatience, disgust. Women cannot help but rearrange the team’s comfort zone.
No team can afford to have teammates in love, or lust, because the integrity of small units depends on the implicit understanding that no one receives or merits special attention. This is another reason why the presence of women inspires creeping doubt. Nor is it women as individuals who are problematic; it is women simply as females. Talk to anyone who has spent time in a foxhole, hidesite, or snowcave, or on lonely, boring guard duty, and he will tell you that it is not possible to shake and shiver and wait with a female beside him without this making some sort of difference. Never mind what the female soldier may be thinking. It is enough that she distracts—and even if she does not, everyone else who is not present will still assume that she has. All that it takes to corrode cohesion is such a mistaken impression, a seed of mistrust, an infectious doubt. After all, part of what men cannot say too loudly is that, when it comes down to it, they know they cannot always trust themselves.
Even were universal service adopted to address critical equity issues related to citizenship, opening up
combat units to women—rather than creating all-female units—would still not solve the least tangible problem associated with gender integration, and one that no amount of new rules can recalibrate: cohesion…. The military is and must be predicated on the notion that everyone who trains together will deploy together. Otherwise, training with the same people day in and day out serves no practical purpose. All members in a squad or fire team have to be familiar with one another’s quirks for something so simple as a patrol to go well. And the combat arms comprise nothing but small units that must relentlessly practice such maneuvers if the coordination they strive for is to be achieved.7 Unforeseen absences due to illness or injury cannot help but affect a unit’s ability to perform its tasks as a unit. In hard-charging combat units, soldiers and Marines will often suffer with pain and forgo medical treatment precisely to avoid being released from duty. One distinction between pregnancy and an unforeseen illness or injury is that a pregnant woman cannot simply “suck it up”; pregnancy requires that a woman be removed from duty. In addition, pregnancy and problems associated with menstruation can hardly be considered random or accidental events that could happen to any soldier. No comparable, or separate but equal, set of “disabilities” renders males non-deployable. Consequently, it becomes virtually impossible to convince men that women’s gender will not render them a liability at some point. The concern will always lurk that women could be absent for prolonged, and thus potentially critical, periods of time.
One argument often heard is that, just as white soldiers prior to desegregation feared integrating blacks into their units, opposition to women in combat units on the grounds that their presence would destroy cohesion is tantamount to racism. But no matter how vigorously critics of the combat exclusion ban employ this analogy, it is false. Segregation kept the races apart and stoked mutual disregard at multiple levels. By contrast, soldiers of all colors are raised by women, grow up with women, marry women, and are keenly interested in women. They know women. And, one can only presume, they understand—even if they cannot articulate it—what effect the presence of women has on them as men.
As for combat soldiers who have yet to be bloodied, their concerns might be considered more suspect, especially members of Special Operations units that want to remain elite. Special Operators continually consider the angles, or, as one SEAL commander said, “They’re completely mission oriented. Teams are so eager to try anything new or different they think might lend them an edge, you have to wonder: why are they so resistant to women?” Because—he answers with another question—“what could women add?” Forget what women cannot do. “In more than twenty years I’ve never heard anyone explain what women can do, and how they would help rather than hurt my teams.”
Anna Simons
Women Can Never “Belong” in Combat
Orbis
Summer 2000
I highly recommend the entire article to those interested.
Note to mods: these are selected quotes, well under 10% of article. No copyright breach.
The arguments I have heard run this way: In a Combat Unit, your first and second loyalties are to that Unit and the Mission. Then your buddies. Oftentimes above self. You do anything for the guys you work and fight with.
Now inject romance into that unit (hetero or homosexual romance). That introduces a loyalty that can and does supercede loyalty to the unit and mission. Love for your buddies is different from Love for your honey. Now Mission and Unit are not necessarily #1 and #2 anymore, and the mission and the unit suffer as a result.
I’m not talking about pilots, Patriot Missile Batteries, or even Maintenance Units like Lynch’s. I’m talking about toe-to-toe infantry bubbas.
Not to mention the pregancy issue
Yes, yes, yes, you will have non-deployable men for various reasons, but this would take an ADDITIONAL chunk of manpower out of a unit that is generally understrength to begin with.
Women in the military? Definitely. More qualified women are needed. Gays serving openly in the Military? By all means.
But allowing Love to break out in a direct combat unit during a War is bad for the mission.
On preview I see Blake has touched on some of this.
I did post a link to the site that has the quote. I also did a search and found:
“In her book She Went To War, Rhonda Cornum tells her story of how she was shot down in the Gulf War and only she and another man survived the crash. She had broken bones. In the truck taking them to a prison camp, she was molested in front of her fellow soldier who could do nothing but watch.”
OK, let’s be up front about this “sexual molestation” thing. While the prisoners were being transported one of thier Iraqi captors opened up the woman’s shirt and began fondling her breasts. While doing so, he jarred her broken arms and other injuries, at which point she started screaming in pain and the guard stopped and backed off. When I read the account I was struck by several things:
First, the Iraqi guard seemed somewhat puzzled by a woman soldier and wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, it was almost like he felt some weird expectation that he was supposed to assault her in a sexual manner, but he didn’t really want to very much (he did back off, after all).
Second, the woman in question didn’t seem overly traumatized by the experience. I mean, she certainly wouldn’t have volunteered for that experience, but since she had just survived a helicopter crash, had severe physical injuries, and was in the middle of a war zone such treatment was not unexpected, just one more Bad Thing in a really bad day, and she even mentioned once in an interview I saw with her that she was expecting to be raped so just having her breasts fondled was … well, I don’t recall exactly how she put it, but basically - oh, so it’s just fondling, well, that’s not as bad as I expected. It’s icky but it’s not rape or torture.
Third, her fellow prisoner, who happened to be a young male, was MUCH more upset by the fondling than she was. Apparently every time their guards touched her or looked at her in an “inappropriate” manner he went ballistic and wound up getting frequent beatings for his trouble. It was MUCH more psychologically difficult for the man to watch her being mistreated than it was for her to endure the mistreatment.
And I think this really gets to the heart of the matter more than any discussion of physically ability. I mean, no one disputes that if a man doens’t have the physical prowess to do a job in the military he just doesn’t get the job, and certainly any rational approach to women in the military would take the same course. Women are not going to be Rangers or Seals because they just don’t have the brute strength required. OK, there may be a very very few women, but the military can accomodate the individual only so far - seven foot men, or three foot men, may be physically and mentally quite capable, too, but they won’t be joining the military, either.
Let me say as a woman that the “problem” of getting raped in war is a bullshit point of contention. Women have ALWAYS been raped in war, and killed in war. These days we even have a term for it - “collateral damage”. I’ve known a fair number of women who served in the military and every last one of them knew that if they were in a combat situation and were captured rape was definitely a possibility, and most say they would expect it, and just consider themselves lucky if it didn’t happen. Now, men have always been raped in war, too. However, they don’t expect it. Everything I’ve seen about male rape indicates that, for a man, rape is even more devasting than it is for a woman. After all, if a woman is raped no one questions whether she is still a woman or not. Rape, like getting shot or stepping on a landmine, is one of the Bad Things that happen to people in war. It’s not even close to the worst thing that could happen.
Let’s discuss pregnancy and menstruation. First of all, it is something the female body is designed to do. Military women tend to be healthier than the average population, and younger, so the average female soldier is, by virtue of being young and healthy, more likely than the average citizen woman to become pregnant. Keep in mind, too, that when a ship sails and, out of a crew of 100 or 1000 a certain number of women are found to be pregnant a couple weeks or month late that this in no way implies anything sexual occured on ship. After all, a lot of these women soldiers are either married or have boyfriends back on land and, if you know you’re going to be away from the loved one for awhile what have soldiers and sailors always done…? Had sex like bunnies the night before they leave. It’s just that the guys don’t get pregnant. So, if a month into the voyage 16 women turn up pregnant… well, it’s because they conceived just before they left port and didn’t know they were pregnant until a couple weeks later - it’s not like a light goes on in the vagina or a little buzzer goes off in your panties when a girl conceives. So, yes, if you’re going to have women in the military you’re going to have to conduct pregnancy tests from time to time. Because, let’s be honest, healthy young people have sex and even if you catch the I-got-pregnant-back-in-port crowd early you’ll STILL have an occassional woman conceive while on active duty. But is that really so much different than men getting injured or sick while on duty? Or stick to female personnel exlusively lesbian - but wouldn’t THAT be a hot potato?
As for the monthly bleeds - yes, that icky thing so many men are so squeamish about - thanks to medical science menstruation is now optional for women. A pill a day will prevent the bloodies for as long as you take it, and as a bonus will also act as a contraceptive, sharpy reducing pregnancies. There are even long-acting forms that can be placed under the skin and require no thought or maintenance for months at a time. Granted, the pill-a-day solution might be a problem if a unit gets stranded somewhere, or captured, or pinned down, but in actual combat people get muddy and bloody regardless of gender. Frankly, I think this disturbs the men a lot more than the women.
Which brings me to my main point - I think it’s the men, much more than the women, who can’t handle the idea of women in combat. Is it societal programming? Is it biological? I don’t know - but it IS a factor and we’re only fooling ourselves if we don’t recognize it.
I spend a lot of my social time in groups were I am the only woman around. I can always tell when the guys accept me as part of their group because I become “their” woman. Not in a sexual or any real sense of ownership, but there IS a change in subtle things like body language. They become protective. This doesn’t mean they stifle me, or restrain my movements, or hinder me… but they they’ll do things like escort me back to my pickup, or if a stranger comes up they’ll most definitely start to put themselves between me and the new guy no matter how friendly the new guy appears to be - and this will sometimes happen even if the guy in our “tribe” isn’t particularly fond of me. It’s my personal belief (so don’t ask for a cite) that at least some of this is innate to being human. I’ve talked to other women who also spend time is predominantly male groups and they’ve had the same experience. Men tend to want to assume the physical risks in place of women doing so - particularly when the risk involves other human beings. Men seem much more willing for women to assume risk when no other humans are involved in the situation.
So I don’t think women are going to work out in infantry combat roles because of the effect on the men. We can not afford to degrade the effectiveness of 90% of a fighting force to accomodate 10% of that force. We couldn’t do that even if the ratios were 50/50. And there aren’t enough women involved to make an all female infanty unit - or submarine crew - feasible. So, I’m sorry, that’s just the way it goes.
However, women CAN be used in other combat roles. The American public seems to have come to terms with the notion of female combat pilots. Air combat, however, is markedly different from infantry. First of all, pilots don’t normally spend months in the field - they operate from a base, sometimes a base very distant from the front lines (some of the bombing missions in the Middle East have been flown out of a base Missouri, half a world away). Matters of segregated sleeping and bathing quarters, and personal hygiene, are much more easily dealt with. Also, a woman pilot in combat gear, sitting in her airplane is not as visibly female as a woman in infanty combat gear standing two feet away. She doesn’t look as female, and the males around can’t smell her, either (men and women do smell different, and yes, I also believe this plays a role). It is much easier for the men to see her as a soldier first and a woman second or even third - which is necessary if everyone is going to function on a mission.
In other roles - such as troop support, supply, cooking, and medical staff - the personnel have combat training, but that is not their prime function. The issues that make women a problem in frontline ground troops are not present to same degree. If the cooks and nurses are required to fire shots in anger then you’re in a defensive situation, likely desparate, and historically there seems to be no problem, at that point, for the women to take up arms and start fighting. The problems with women in combat seem to be greatest in offensive situations, not defensive.
Finally, let’s lay to rest this bugaboo about “women will be treated worse if captured”. It’s not a universal. As an example, when Allied forces surrended to Japanese forces in WWII the men were treated MUCH worse than the women. There were a couple of factors at work. For one thing, although there were women in the military they weren’t officially soldiers, and for the Japanese civilians - even those supporting troops - were allowed to surrender in their culture. Soldiers, however, were supposed to go down fighting. A soldier who surrendered was beneath contempt and undeserving of anything good. Of course they brutalized the surrendered male soldier much more than a surrendered female nurse - it was entirely in keeping with their culture. Which is not to say women weren’t mistreated, raped, etc. - just that men received even worse treatment.
Now, the Middle Eastern cultures all seem a little puzzled by our female soldiers. Their culture doesn’t have a niche for assertive women who act like men (from their viewpoint). That may be changing, what with the advent of female suicide bombers and the discovery of how many Western male journalists snuck into Taliban-controlled Afganistan under burkas. I don’t expect to see women in chadors manning the trenches, but the Arabs and Islamists are starting to grasp that women can play a role in war, too, and are finding niches for them. But I’ve yet to see any evidence that women have been treated worse than the men when captured. In fact, when it comes to capture, our women seem more likely to come home than our men, all too many of whom are being shot in the head or having their throats cut.
So, what it comes down to, in the end, is a social problem. Can integrated male and female combat units work as effectively as gender-segregated, once you get past physical capabilities and hygiene issues? In some areas, yes, but when you’re talking about people in close quarters for months at a time - no, I don’t think so. Because biology and sexuality will come up eventually. I’m not willing to castrate (even on a temporary basis, if that were possible) every man in the infantry so we could accomodate female infantry, and I think that’s what it would take for a mixed gender infantry to function as well as an all-male infantry.
Although the idea of equality in the armed forces in particular women allowed in combat forces, the odds of that happening is very low.
1: Men can go out bush and not shower for days, sure they stink but they smell like their surroundings. If i woman was to do that, unfortunately, their odour would be quite different.
2: Hygene, yes, women could go on the pill, however, unlike men we women are more predisposed to contracting nasty infections/diseases with out regular washing.
3: Although both sexes would be deemed equall, if a women was to be injured, men in her platoon would be on gentlemen role and would risk their lives to protect her, though men do the same for thier mates, the difference is in the hieght of the risk undertaken by the man.
Although women in combat forces would be nice, the likely hood is low if not none
Aldebaran,
Do a Google search.
You’ll find the answer without much effort.
I won’t dispute that unwashed men and women stink differently - they do - but here in North American the “bush” doesn’t smell at all like unwashed human males.
Then again, I see you’re posting from Australia and I here it’s very different down under.
This not-washing this is just spurious. Many female disorders are caused by over-washing as it is, knocking out the natural bacteria that actually protects our nether regions.
Are you seriously suggesting that women (a) smell worse, and (b) because of this should be denied a particular job opportunity?
And as for disease and infection, all military personnel are pumped full of so much shit these days in terms of jabs and vaccines and god knows what else, PLUS they carry medical kits - I really can’t see what the fuss is.
As I understand it, humans smell very nasty unwashed - up to a point. After that point they all begin to become “earthy” (probably woody/musky). When you start smelling strongly for a while, eventually your own body odour and that of other people’s will be far less noticeable/offensive. Do you think cavepeople went around with flint-knapped clothespegs on their noses?
this brings me back to 1973 when the ERA failed to pass.
bear with me I was a young girl, just out of high school, in 1973.
30 years later I’m disappointed.
I’ve seen a swing around against equality towards women.
Its getting WORSE.
I remember Philyss Shafely telling us women how to take care of our husbands.
Not all women are capable of defending theirselves or their country. But, goddammit, some women ARE!
This is 2003.
Broomstick, you said what I was going to say, only better. Thank you. Especially for the part about men’s attitudes toward women which is what ultimately changed my mind about women in combat, albeit reluctantly.
CJ
No i’m not saying women smell worse then men, what i am saying is the difference in smell is one, that when confronted in gorilla war-fare the distinct odour of an unwashed women, would jeopordise themselves and their platoon.
Yes, they are pumped full of vacc and meds and yes they do carry around first aid kits, but certain infections are hard to treat, with repect to women’s privates, infections that are extremely uncommon in men, that with out proper medical treatment are fatal. In the cicumstances of the Vietnam war, which was mostly fought in humid, jungle climate, cut off from any medical services and proper hygenic conditions the risk of infection and death is high.
Yes i understand your point about caveman, but from back then to now??? the life span has increased, body make up has changed, diets ect ect ect, and apart from that i would never try and deny women the right, for years i wanted to be a grunt in the Australian army, but until i spoke to a friend of the family who explained to me the medical, and emotional complications (emotional not meaning womens issues, but of a mans instinct to protect a woman) i realised until societies, technology, millitary systems, and medical facilities are capable of allowing women to stay outside, unwashed for months, then womens opportunity to fight in combat role is unlikely.
I do not like the fact that women can’t be grunts, but i acknowledge at this point in time it is possible.
I’m sorry - I still don’t understand what the “distinctive odour” of an unwashed woman is (as compared to a man) nor what it has to do with anything.
If guerillas are tracking opponents via scent, they’ll use animals - eg sniffer dogs - that will easily find either men or women. Quite apart from BO, human shit or urine would be easily traceable, even if you tried to dig it deep.
I’m in the military, and the guys who want to protect you are the most irritating things around. That kind of chivalry always seems to be back-handed, too----they want to protect you from other guys, but some times they expect that they’ve earned something in response to ‘protection’ you didn’t ask for. They can get offended if you try and protect yourself from them. And if they’re so hot to protect women, why don’t they recognize that we might want to protect ourselves? It seems like being ‘protected’ means being protected from the big bad world, and that includes all the risks that come with rights, too.
The thing about the different physical standards in the military is this, too: the standards drop with age. If recognizing the limitations that age imposes on soldiers is okay, why is not okay to recognize that women with shorter legs and a genetic pre-disposition to a higher proportion of body fat might not run as fast as a man? In something like firefighting I’m fine with the standards being what they are. In the military, though, there’s more room for flexibility.
Does anyone remember the DOD study that came out in about 1996? They wanted to find out if women could match the physical standards. They took housewives as volunteers on the theory that, well, these women wouldn’t be as physically fit as the average guy. With a a few months worth of training, they found that the women exceeded some of their best-case scenario outcomes. The only places I saw references to it in the press were in brief articles, and then a mention in Self magazine, which of course focused on the fashion aspects of this discovery.
I love the military, but I have to wonder how much of this ‘protection’ stuff is the last gasp of chivalry. Chivalry sometimes seems like it’s offered in place of justice. I’ve read studies that say that male children of single mothers are more likely to see women as being capable and so on. I havewn’t been able to find links yet, but I’m still looking. So what if it is an old-fashioned attitude? Leaving aside the repercussions for women, isn’t it kind of limiting for men to think this way? What effect does it have on them? At one point, racism in the military seemed pretty intractable, too. Protectionism seems harmless, maybe even beneficial, but if white people were acting that way about people of color, would it seem that harmless? Isn’t the best way to really protect women is to ensure that they’re able to protect themselves?
Assuming the rather stringent physical standards remain there will, statistically speaking, be very few women who can make the cut. I believe something like only 30% of male soldiers make the cut for special forces. These are already soldiers too. That means they are already better physical specimens than the general male population. That said, if a woman can make the cut I see no reason she shouldn’t serve. The physical standards are high for a reason though and should not be lowered to make things “more equal”. These units are highly effective party due to their athleticism and anything would compromise that is wrong. The rape issue is not relevant. Anyone ever heard of Lawrence of Arabia?
I’m sure stank is a big concern for war planners.
I’m sure the army could issue the M-69A2 Defense Operation Utility Combat Hygene Equipment device to female soldiers to keep them “battlefield fresh” if that is the only issue.
Well…I would certainly rather carry a 120lb female Marine off the battlefield than a 250lb male Marine.
Look, there are legitimate reasons and there are silly reasons that female soldiers should or should not be in front line combat roles. I don’t see an issue with women doing things like manning a SAM battery or flying a gunship. These aren’t roles (AFAIK) require a great deal of raw physical power. On the other hand, I can see some potential issues in other roles. Can a small woman load 40 lb tank shells as fast as a man? How about humping the same amount of food and ammo around the boonies.
A bigger issue is the public perception of women in combat roles. I was struck by how most of the coverage of Jessica Lynch seemed to portray her not as a soldier but as a little girl needing rescue. (Little was mentioned of one of her fellow soldiers killing 6 to 9 Iraqis before being captured).
Kaz_Jel: got a cite for women being more likely than men to contract diseases due to lack of hygiene? As istara already pointed out, a lot of “feminine problems” are actually caused by over-washing.
Maybe what’s really driving this notion is really simple. If I, as a woman, fight for my country, then I expect my country will fight for me. It appears that that’s something a lot of people have problems with.