A recent comment to a post about the new Transformers movie got me thinking (always a dangerous thing, when a woman thinks) about women in the military.
Almost all the combat arms in the US military bar female applicants, right?
Why?
I realize that physically men are like 30% bigger and stronger, on average, and I know that personally I couldn't be in ANY part of the military due to the fact that I'd never survive basic training, but there ARE women out there who could do the job. No matter how small the numbers might be, does that mean we should prevent them completely? If the requirement is to lift X amount of weight and go X amount of miles and shoot X far or whatnot, and a woman can do it, why not let her?
You know there are women out there who want and can successfully do the job.
Does anybody have any thoughts, ideas, links, etc., on this?
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I agree with you that it makes no sense. I asked why back when I was young, naive, and considering joining. I was told that "we can't let women on the front lines because then they would be captured just to be tortured in front of men, and men can't handle the thought of a woman getting hurt."
And yet more and more women are getting combat medals because they're *in* combat even though they're not "supposed to be." Currently there are no fronts, so women (or any soldier) can't be kept away from combat. Women MPs are a good example of this. Thy act when they have a confrontation. They can't say "oh no, this is combat, get over here you big, strong man, I am not allowed/qualified to be here."
One of these women was interviewed by Colbert when he was doing his USO tour.
I heard similar responses that Gexx did when I asked people I knew in the military (both men and women) about it. They said that while a man would not break for another man getting tortured, they would not have the same emotional hardening towards a woman getting tortured and therefore would be at risk of spilling secrets to the enemy in order to save her. I have no opinion one way or another on the validity of this statement (I have never been in the military, and I'd feel weird taking a stance on something I know nothing about), but both the men and women who explained this to me told me they thought that it was true.
So when a male saves a male, he's heroic. When a male saves a female, he's going soft.
The torture thing mentioned above is commonly said by the military, but I've never seen any concrete evidence whatsoever that it's accurate. I've also heard a lot of responses that are basically the same as the excuses for why openly gay men can't join.
It's pretty much a load of shit. Women should be able to join the military so long as they meet the same physical requirements, and should be subject to the same draft requirements.
The average female weighs roughly fifty pounds less than the average male and stands six inches shorter.
What "physical requirements" do you think females should have to meet, and don't? Combat-readiness has practically nothing to do with brute force and a everything to do with agility, accuracy, and some combination of speed and stamina. For all brute force is the primary physical advantage of males, agility and accuracy are the physical advantages of females.
Really, this depends on whether you buy into the patriarchal definition of combat that requires confrontation exist in male terms: the entire concept of a "fair" fight is actually extremely unfair and deliberately maximizes the male advantage (brute force) while miinimizing female advantage (agility, accuracy.) Any attempt to compensate or mitigate the distinct male advantage is summarily rejected as "unfair." Terms like "back-stabbing" apply to using the element of surprise; "sucker punch" describes targeting universal weak points not sheilded by armor of muscle; "ganging up" refers to rejection of isolation and negation of brute advantage by sheer force of numbers.
Combine the patriarchal determination to completely exclude females from the concept of violence in the abstract with the patriarchal definition of the penultimate Sleeping Beauty passivity as the "feminine" gender ideal: boys get to be Jack the Giant-Killer, girls get to be in a coma.
I once dated a guy who'd spent six years in the Army. When the question of females in combat came up, he said he'd asked the same question of an Army doctor, and the answer he received was: it was because women have to be able to shower every couple of days or they get sick. I asked him what he thought women did during the Stone Age. I also pointed out that, given a month of not showering, males smell ten times as pungently as females. He confessed he'd never thought of that (of course not) and ceded the females-are-dirty argument as just another misogynistic excuse.
Wait, what? I just said women SHOULD be allowed to serve in all parts of the military, and that the reasons why they currently aren't allowed to are largely bullshit. One of the common bullshit reasons is physical requirements. If a woman can pass the same tests, why can't she serve?
For the record, there are some military careers that legitimately require high strength, because the job involves lifting/moving heavy objects quickly; for example, some navy services. Of course, other jobs (for example, pilot) have physical requirements that favor women.
I don't know close to enough about the issue to have an intelligent opinion on whether women should be assigned to combat duty (as opposed to just winding up with it because, as the poster said, modern wars don't have solid front lines).
But if you think brute strength isn't a major requirement, you should talk to someone who's seen combat, or at least watch a movie or something. Wounded soldiers are not light.
What if she WAS captured and tortured and he didn't spill the beans for her?
I can't say that its ridiculous reasoning because you're gambling on what someone you may never meet or know a day in your life would do win a situation you would probably never be in. Tough call. But I think if a woman WANTS to do combat then they shouldn't prevent her from doing so but that the requirements for men and women should be the very same thing down to how fast she has to be be up to how much weight she has to be able to lift, her ability to manuever and fire her weapon and fight hand to hand combat.
From my understanding though, you don't get to pick what you do in the military, they assign you.
"From my understanding though, you don't get to pick what you do in the military, they assign you."
1) Depends on the branch of the military (army is pretty decent about letting you sign up for a specific specialty whereas in the air force, you can ask nicely but are pretty much at the mercy of higherups) and 2) yes, within limits. You might be nudged around a little within your specialty (moved from installing communications systems to repairing them, etc) but if you sign up to be a communications technician, the military doesn't say "never mind, take this riffle, knock down some doors." Of course, there is a tacit agreement that IF the military WOULD ask you to do some batshit-crazy thing like that, you must click your heels and say "yes ma'am."
But I digress.
If anyone is interested in this topic, or wants an excellent addition to their feminist-lit library, check out "Band of Sisters" by Kirsten Holmstedt. It's the stories of several different women deployed in war in several different capacities. What I really like about the book is it doesn't have any particular agenda, rather its sole aim is to tell the stories of women serving in combat. The book was really eye-opening for a civilian such as myself. It really impressed upon me the intensity of the front lines and how unqualified I am for that kind of job.
Right, so. My sister is in the Marine Corps. Yes, Marines. My sister stands 5'6", was at her heaviest 135 right out of basic. Her job: combat communications. She runs around on the battlefield with a radio on her back. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, et cetera.
Flashback: When I was five, I thought I was going to be a fighter pilot when I grew up. Then one of my cousins smashed my dreams: girls can't be fighter pilots. Being a little halfpint radfem, I demanded ot know why and got my first facefull of the patriarchy in all its cavalier, self-congratulatory glory: the condescending self-satisfaction of a ten-year-old boy who only cares because he gets to and you don't. I made up my mind on the spot: if I don't get to fly fighter planes / combat choppers / drive tanks it either has something to do with me personally or else the military can go $%^& itself. And every time something cool popped up: Airwolf, Tank Girl, et cetera, if it was remotely appealing: No Girls Allowed.
Back to my big sis, The Marine. She saw more action than anyone I know (except one crazy Special Forces d00d I worked with who did 16 tours by the time he was 26.) It's a miracle she still has all her arms and legs. Guess what? The patriarchy doesn't care if you're an assbusting Lady Marine. It hates you like all the other NOT MALES. In fact, it kind of hates you times two.
When my sister was just out of boot, she and her buddy went to a club. Standing in line, and some guy started hitting on her and would not accept no thanks. She was coerced into getting married the week before she shipped out - her first husband was also a Marine. He finally grabbed her ass, and she dropped him on the pavement. He never considered she might be anything but a "helpless" female; as he lay gasping on the pavement, all he could say was "You hit like a guy!"
Not long after, her husband took a swing at her. She wiped the floor with him. He really should have known better than to instigate a physical fight; he had no excuse to not be aware that any advantage of physical size is perception.
About a year or two later, her husband took another swing at her. When I say "She wiped the floor with him, again" what I mean is he picked a fistfight with her and lost. He was a Marine himself; what the hell made him think he could possibly win? Attempts to intimidate her will not work; this is not an individual who fears anything as puny or pathetic as you. I mean, the last time she prayed, she realized she was offering to stop threatening to kick her diety's ass. (She quit praying. God does not scare her any more than you do.)
My sister carried just as much weight as the males - plus the radio. During physical training, her commanding officer at the time (a male) tried to use his physical size against her - knocked her down. Dropped her on her ass. So she seized him and sank her teeth into his inner thigh until he cried. Could not prize her off to save his life, and believe me, he tried.
The problem with being a Lady Marine is Marines have to spend a certain amount of time stationed on ships as well as doing land tours. When ninety-eight percent of the crew is male, my sister (considered aesthetically pleasing by most) was frequently discplined for sexual harrassment: making eye contact too long with any one male. The result: male entitlement and attempts to dominate forced her to adopt a posture that was submissive, even with the personnel under her direct command. Males abused what was supposed to be sexual equality and found creative ways to leverage anti-discrimination policies, and did so. My sister defied their patriarchal ideas of ownership of females. In the end, it was that exact shameless individual and systemic misogyny that drove her to not sign again.
In my life, I've managed to date one asshat after another; only one of them could stand the mere idea of my sister, as none had actually met her post-Marines. The most abusive asshat in particular would frequently threaten my family in addition to myself, and whenever he got to my sister, I instantly took courage and gained perspective: he hated her because she showed him was a puling weakling he was, because he was a coward and a bully and she was a bigger bully than him and her existence was a threat to his entire understanding of his male supremecist, patriarchal world. There was no way he could dominate her (he probably wouldn't survive the attempt) and he hated us both for it. She, for her part, has always maintained that there will be an old-fashioned fistfight should the opportunity ever present itself. Knock-down, drag-out, no holds barred.
When my sister graduated from basic, I combed the commissary for a single sticker: "My Sister Is A Marine." Both sister and neice stickers were missing; needless to say, all of the male familial relationships were represented.
My sister married again - another Marine; she'd been his commanding officer. I told my special forces coworker, and he shook his head: "I would never marry a Marine."
My sister's recruiter tried to recruit me when my sister shipped out; he told me he'd never recruited a pair of sisters before. Plenty of brothers, twins, even triplets - but never once a pair of sisters.
I universally get at least a doubletake with the statement, "My sister is a Marine." Some people have to check: sister? Yeah, sister. You can tell how little people know about the military even in a general, layperson sense when they instantly assume that because my sister is female, she drives a desk. No, I said Marine. I then have the entertaining task of explaining that because Marines are essentially shock troops, my sister is more likely to drive a blimp than a desk. My sister's job is not technically defined as combat, even though it's called "combat communication" and the in-combat life expectancy is three and a half seconds.
And just to snap it into context:
My sister's commanding officer was the first American killed in the war in Afghanistan - of her entire unit, the only chopper the Taliban didn't shoot down was the one my sister happened to be riding in. That first American, my sister's commanding officer?
Was also a female.