Report: Women should be allowed to serve in combat

Nmysys wrote: Have you also taken into account the effect on the male counterparts related to the male instinct to protect the female of the species. Imagine a male soldier having to endure the humiliating screams of a woman soldier being raped or tortured. Can you imagine what that could mean pertaining to security and/or psyche? Might it endanger more troops? How about the propaganda effect?

On the flip side of that coin: so we need to protect the poor men from that experience? If a woman wants to participate in combat, understanding full well the ramifications of everything that can happen, then that should be her choice. Do you think it hasn't happened to men who have been captured? Maybe it would inspire whole units to fight better/longer/meaner so as to especially win/not get caught? "Male instinct to protect the female" <snort> Seriously?

"I do not believe in using women in combat, because females are too fierce." -Margaret Mead
Maybe we should have all-female units...!

No one is denying that women should be allowed to compete equally with men. It is not gender bias, but there are other factors to be considered regarding combat besides the equality issues.

Yes there are. Lionshead brought up some very good points worth considering, but I also think it should be given a shot and see how it works. It was once accepted as dogma that women couldn't strain themselves too strenuously with exercise lest their organs go all out of whack, I'm guessing that their abilities to handle adverse situations, and of their fellow soldiers to handle it, are being underestimated somewhat. We'll only find out for sure if we try.

My snort was not for my ego at all but was in remembering that approximately 25% of women are raped/sexually molested before reaching age 18, most often by family members or friends - someone they know and trust, who is supposed to provide for and protect them. The number of women who suffer domestic abuse and death every year is staggering. Men's "instinctual need to protect females" is crap. "The answer to the "men only want to protect women" spiel is in a great quote by Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Civil War Medal of Honor recipient - "You men are not our protectors... If you were, who would there be to protect us from?" quoted from http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/combat.html
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art45047.asp and http://www.dvrc-or.org/domestic/violence/resources/C61/
Domestic Violence Statistics

So Israeli women are better than American women? You think we love our country less and are less willing to die for it? Are not as fierce? Wouldn't and haven't laid our life on the line our fellow men- and women-at-arms or our children back home? Sorry, but that's BS too.

Pain tolerance, endurance, and strength are all things that can be equalized with effective training. There are women who are stronger, faster, and outlast many men - it takes conditioning which is what the military does. If they meet requirements that are standardized for the requirements of that position, not watered down to make sure an "equal percentage" of women make the grade, then they are just as capable as the men who pass muster. No, Renegade, I'm not advocating that ALL women go to the frontlines, just the ones who want to and are qualified/can get the job done. And while God may have "designed men to protect", he also designed him to abuse and kill - both instincts are natural and to romanticize it, or focus on the happy-feel-good portion only is not good enough. Women have just as strong of a protection instinct - look what we do for our children. And don't male and female soldiers disobey orders to save other men who are wounded and in the line of fire? How is that different? You're telling me that brotherly love isn't as strong as needing to save a fellow female soldier who is hurt? That they aren't professionals who do their jobs like every other profession? What I'm trying to say is that I think there's a whole lot of stereotyping and traditional assumptions of what genders are capable of, and what actions they'd take in the situation.

You're right, I'm not making this judgment call - the DoD is: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/01 ... -not-gays/

http://www.angelfire.com/ok/4equity/captbarb.html
Why Not Women in Combat?
Barbara A. Wilson, Capt. USAF (Ret)

My honest opinion is that it is not necessarily a male-female thing even though society portrays it that way. I have known some pretty weak men who wouldn't protect the back of their own mother in a crisis or combat situation and some strong women who would go to the wall for a total stranger in the trenches - and vice versa. Many women are excellent shots with pistol,carbine and automatic weapons, many men can't hit a cow with a target painted on it. I would count on whomever was trained, schooled, and had the skill and cunning to get me out of any hostile situation - more often than not brains not brawn make better survival material. And history tells us that hundreds of women have experienced varied forms of "combat" more so in Europe than here.

To say that women should not be in combat because they can't act like men is like saying they shouldn't be in major league baseball because they can't spit, scratch and rearrange. If they can throw from right field to first base is what counts.

But I digress - the point is rather moot given the technological nature of future wars - little will be done hand to hand and a lot will be done in the realm of virtual reality, computer and satellite arenas, and probably robotics. The gut slitting, bayonet stabbing, and grenade tossing will be minimal - and if each branch of service wants to maintain it's own little group of cutthroats then let it be an equal opportunity band - I seriously doubt that too many women will apply. - and of course the religious right, the aging suits in congress and the anti choicers will hue and cry so loud it will never happen.

Meantime if there is another conflict I think the one with the most electronic toys will win and we both know either sex can handle computers, VRML, Virtual Reality, multimedia, Mars sojourners (invented by a woman), satellite tracking, robotics, unmanned aircraft, tanks and ships and computerized combat simulator software.

Hope this gives you another perspective from an older female veteran - who when on active duty could shoot the o's out of a coors beer can at a hundred yards, could fly a twin prop plane, flip a 200lb guy with a judo move and scrape bodies off the flight line from a plane crash without blinking an eye...but that doesn't mean I would have wanted to be a SEAL- or a Green Beret - or Hercules

The reality is that women should be allowed to apply for and attempt to qualify for any position in the military. History has shown that they can perform well and that given the right training and environment they can work together...in any profession!

Real women have saved lives, gone in to space, fought wars, invented, financed and designed everything from nuclear fission to radium, and from DNA to COBOL. Real women have overcome as many, if not more, obstacles and hardships than have men. Women pioneered, starved, reigned, battled, spied, strategized, and taught, doctored, nursed, reared families, started churches, and won political rights, yet few magazines, books, movies and television productions tell these stories. It's not a gender thing, it's not a sex thing, it's not a strength thing - a highly trained, highly intelligent, strongly motivated person can do any job the military has to offer - and do it well.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/regardingwar/con ... -point.php
Women in Combat is a Moot Point
written by Jessica Scott on March 10, 2010

Everyone in the military knows that women are already in combat, or direct ground combat, or direct action or closing with the enemy. However you wish to phrase it, women are in combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Using Iraq and Afghanistan as examples, I believe women can be assigned to combat arms units by exception. In my officer candidate company, out of approximately 100 candidates, there were two women that could have even come close to cutting the mustard in a regular infantry platoon and that was only based on physical capabilities. But then again, most of the men in my class would have had trouble holding their own in an infantry platoon, too.

Within the military, we know that combat arms can't fight without operations support. And that means the Army can't go to war without women going into combat, period. Because they are only allowed in operations support units, women serve in significant numbers in the battalions that provide this support to the warfighter. So you can argue that by keeping women from combat arms units keeps them out of direct action, but that denies the reality on the ground and the tactical necessity that requires women go out into combat to support the warfighter and bring that infantryman beans, bullets and bandages.

It's an unspoken rule that soldiers who don't meet a unit's standards are moved around to the job where they will do the least amount of harm. They're shuffled to the staff or to another unit and the local commanders are the ones who make that decision. It's not about whether they're male or female or any other equal opportunity issue. It's about whether or not they can hold their own and that decision, ultimately, remains with the commander.

Pretending we can keep our female soldiers safe from harm is antiquated thinking at best and harmful at worst.

http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/combat.html

The reality is that there is absolutely no intelligent, logical, sensible reason for women not to be in combat roles with the technological style of warfare that abounds today.

There are political, patriarchal, religious, and misogynistically stupid reasons to preclude women but they all belong in The Museum of Natural Idiocy next to chastity belts, urban legends, homophobia, promise creepers, senile senators, proselytizing preachers, and military machismo.

The pure and simple point is that all jobs should be open to women and men - if and only if - the women and men are qualified, capable, competent, and able to perform them! Nothing more, nothing less.

http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/topic ... opicID=425
Women in Combat: Pros and Cons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military
Psychological concerns

A third argument against the inclusion of women in combat units is that placing women in combat where they are at risk of being captured and tortured and possibly sexually assaulted is unacceptable. Rhonda Cornum, then a major and flight surgeon, and now a Brigadier General and Command Surgeon for United States Army Forces Command, was an Iraqi POW in 1991. At the time, she was asked not to mention that she had been molested while in captivity.[11] Cornum subsequently disclosed the attack, but said "A lot of people make a big deal about getting molested," she noted later, adding: "But in the hierarchy of things that were going wrong, that was pretty low on my list".