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[split] Uppity wimminz with guns?
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Because, to put it bluntly, that's all it deserves.All right apologies if I'm a little impolite, but I'm calling you on it man -- all you've basically done is make snarky, condescending, and ultimately empty replies to my assertion,AngelHedgie wrote: »There's a vast difference between "making girls feel welcome" and "women are equal members of society, and thus have equal rights and responsibilities, and our government's makeup and rules should reflect this." Too bad Cat's not around - she'd enjoy playing with you like a mouse.
Oh, I disagree with her. But she'd point out the same thing that I am - that you're just stating bullshit.leaving me with a "oh man if mom were here she'd really get you in trouble" line. You know what? I respect The Cat and I'm also comfortable disagreeing with her. Try it sometime.
Why are the armed services regressive? You've stated this as if it's a self-evident truth, and in reality, it's not. Consider how the military treats minorities these days for a counterbalance.The Army, by its nature, is a regressive institution,
If you truly wanted "the most effective" military possible, then you wouldn't have a problem with the military committing war crimes. Since I doubt you do, we've already established that you're willing to surrender effectiveness for doing the right thing. The only point is to argue how far to go.and I feel if our goal is really to provide the most effective Army as possible, we have to allow it to maintain regressive policies.
"Waaah, let's take the easy way out and give the military a pass on behavior that is no longer condoned because I think it's too hard to root out." So we allow a corrosive reservoir of gender discrimination to exist because it's easier - never mind that this thinking could also leak back into society?I actually believe we should have a segregated Army based on gender, because it would both increase efficiency while reducing the amount of abuse and suffering on the part of female soldiers.
And we now get to the root issue - you don't like the military because you don't understand it. Which is fine - you're more than welcome to your views. But on the same token, I'm not going to take such views seriously at all - which is why I've been so snarky.Aside from that, I really think progressives would be better served doing things like trying to cut army funding instead of trying to extend it to as many members of society as possible, or focusing on things like sexism in areas which aren't hotbeds regressive thinking because it is itself a regressive institution based on murder and physical dominance.
I just call them as I see them. Your argument is based on a misunderstanding of the military, and as such is patent nonsense.Now enough with the snark. Either discuss the topic with me or spare me the "I'm holding a point just outside your view, maybe if you weren't so blind and ignorant you'd see it yourself" routine.
XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
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The Army isn't just a combat force. It's also taken the role of a job training and college prep program. Poor? Mediocre grades? No college prospects? Join the Army for a couple years and get a good job when you get out! Can't get scholarships? Get on the GI bill!
Beyond that, the values we instill in military recruits will follow them after they leave the military. Many recruits will enter into positions of political and business leadership once they rejoin the civilian world. If the values they're instilling are unnecessary for the efficient operation of an armed service, and are destructive to society at large, then we should make an effort to eliminate them. Sexism and homophobia satisfy both of these criteria.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Yup -- you just said you can't address me with respect, did you need to repeat it?
It's an institution based on violence and physical dominance. I stated that in my last post. I really thought it was pretty basic. War is about killing other people. Killing other people is not a part of a progressive society. Race and sex are not analogous.
Non sequitur.
You see? I actually think we should live a world where wars don't occur, but I also accept that wars occur therefore an army is necessary. In an ideal society armies simply wouldn't exist, so why are we trying to idealize the army again? I mean if we're talking completely theoretical wishy washy pie in the sky stuff, let's really talk about a tasty ass pie in the sky.
I don't understand it? Are you saying it's not about violence and physical dominance and killing enemy combatants? Or are you trying to say that that's not how it functions in modern society? Well I'd agree with that, but then I'd go on to point out that that's exactly the type of problem progressives should be focusing on instead of some of this other BS.
You also lack the ability to address someone with respect, and jesus did you really have to split this line by line? Sorry ElJeffe but I couldn't let it go, break the boards and split the split if need be.
Now the Army's job is to be a beacon of leadership for civil society? No -- its job is and should be to kill enemy combatants. See the point I made above. The Army is not, nor should it ever be a model for a civil society and vice versa.
EDIT: I also have a problem with both administrations basically saying "This is what we want, and we won't hear anything else!" whether its the invasion of Iraq or opening up combat support jobs to women in the Army.
I mean as long as we're just latching onto civil rights analogies -- people with disabilities also fought their own civil rights battle to be integrated more successfully into American society, should we start advocating for their inclusion in the army as well?
Unacceptable. Celery77 doesn't have a (good) point.
The only reason people in the military are resistant to allowing women to join as full members is sexism. It has absolutely nothing to do with women's ability to be effective servicemembers.
Each time women have entered into a new military role they've done just as well as the men, which is exactly what happened when the military ended its racist segregation policies. The same arguments were advanced decades ago--e.g. "damaging to unit cohesion"--and they were all shown to be baseless.
could you explain why they're 'not even remotely analogous'? both are groups people to this day have major prejudices against despite advances in civil rights.
incorporating people with disabilities into the discussion is intellectually dishonest. they are a group defined by what they can't do. however, yes, they absolutely fucking should be allowed to be in the army if they are capable of doing so. the army extends beyond combat duty.
Sure, I'll go with you on that.
To some degree, it is by de facto, and always will be.
The military is an organization that thrives on taking young men and indoctrinating them with a set of values. Some of those values are necessary for the organization's mission - obedience, duty, self-sacrifice. Some of those values - sexism, homophobia - are not. We can't expect the military to stop indoctrinating young men, that's too much to ask, because heavily indoctrinated young men make the best soldiers. But we can try to ensure that the values they push aren't going to leak over in a destructive way when those young men return to civilian life.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Uh no, they haven't. There's a reason the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) is stacked the way it is: Because women weren't making up a proportionate quota of NCOs like the suits in the DoD thought they should be, and realised that the fact was that women couldn't compete in the same physical standards as men. So they fixed the test to where females have to do remarkably less to get the same points as the men do.
There's a reason that you won't see female infantrymen, or female tankers or female anything in combat arms remotely soon, and that's because of two major things: the rule of a third (a person can carry about a third of their body weight and fight effectively at the end of a march) and the fact that so much combat arms requires upper body strength. And lets not even get into the entire hygeine issue there is with women as compared to men (Protip: Men don't menstrate, nor do they get UTIs as much as women do when deployed). Sounds like a little thing, but when you're 100 klicks into the desert and someone comes down with that, it suddenly becomes a huge thing.
But, seeing as how I've been there, done that, I doubt I'm going to sway you from your pie in the sky ideals of what the military is like, as opposed to the BS I've seen during my time in. Hell, you can even look at historical analogues (the French Foreign Legion, German Wehrmacht) and see that an all male force fights more effectively than a mixed gender force. There's reasons for this on both sides of the gender divide, and its not as simple as Grrrl Power!/Back to the kitchen!
Edit: Jessica Lynch is an excellent example of why women shouldn't be combat support. Not because she threw down her weapon and surrendered, no, that's just embarassing and pathetic. The entire spectacle/action movie that was made up by the whiz kids at the Pentagon is a big reason why.
And if it's determined that there are some reasonable standards of physical fitness then women should have to abide by them as well. Look, if there's a job that requires someone be at least 7 feet tall, no one in their right mind is going to claim that there's gender discrimination going on just because far fewer American women hit 7 feet in height than American men. The most that'll happen is that there will be honest and appropriate scrutiny of the height requirement, and it'll be accepted.
Ditto women and military fitness standards. As long as the standards are created in good faith, then I think there shouldn't be any gender discrimination issues, and the women can abide by the same standards as the men.
Menstruation is a red herring. Female athletes with low body fat routinely stop menstruating as a natural reaction to their physical condition. Women are getting more UTIs than men? Sounds like the medical staff needs to do a better job of educating women troops in treatment and prevention of UTIs. All of these concerns are easily addressable.
And why do you think that is, if not cultural gender discrimination.
So a bunch of out-of-touch bureaucrats make a retarded PR move and suddenly it's women's fault just for being women?
EDIT: follow-ups
Re: menstruation - can be eliminated entirely with a variety of modern medical birth control practices, from the pill to IUDs
Re: women as subjects of abuse by the enemy - As long as women are counseled on the risks of sexual mistreatment when captured by the enemy before signing up for front-line roles, then the choice should be up to them.
Re: "unit cohesion" - See the Israeli Defense Forces.
And no, its not time to play "blame everyone but the person responsible for it". Why do women get UTIs more? Simple - because they refuse to urinate. Unless you're enforcing "forced urination" or some crazy ass idea, I don't see how you get "blame the medics" out of that, unless you're torturing your logic so badly that its screaming in pain. And assuming that they're just going to "stop menstrating" and pretending that every soldier in the Army has a low enough body fat content (Protip: They don't!) isn't an answer at all. Nice try though.
Cultural gender discrimination? Are you insane? Or maybe its just the fact that they tend to hold to higher physical and training standards then mixed gender units. How about instead of trying to make up facts to fit your insane viewpoint, you take a step back and look at the facts without trying to make excuses for why things were the way they were.
And in regards to your last line - its simply how human nature is hard wired. Everyone likes a GI Jane story. No one wants to see a woman suffer. The fact of the matter is that women get preferential treatment in the armed forces by and large, and pretending that its not the case is pure insanity, and exactly what Celery is railing against. And you're the example of why he's right, because you obviously are approaching this situation with an agenda as opposed to what the reality of the situation is.
Oh, and I was figuring you were going to quote the IDF or the Russian Army during WWII. Let me bold the relevant parts of that article, since you seemed to have missed it:
Israel has female conscription, but about a third of female conscripts (more than double the figure for men) are exempted, mainly for religious and nuptial reasons.
Following their active service, women, like men, are in theory required to serve up to one month annually in reserve duty. However, in practice only some women in combat roles get called for active reserve duty, and only for a few years following their active service, with many exit points (e.g., pregnancy).
Combat roles are voluntary for women.
Yeah, about as fair and balanced as Fox News. If you think that's fair to both genders, you're a goddamn idiot with an agenda, and should be kept as far away from policy making in the military as possible.
The fact that you can't see how that little bit right there would screw up a squad's coherency (IE - the squad leader goes and gets herself knocked up!) simply shows the fact you're an amateur who has about as much idea of what goes on over there as some idiot on Free Republic who thinks he can kill a thousand hadjis because he's "good at CounterStrike".
Edit: You talk about rape counseling pretty dispassionately, as if talking to someone about "hey you might get raped here sign this form that says you were told that" makes it all better. Not to mention the fact that someone getting raped would make people do stupid things, that they're not going to react in the neat orderly manner you seem to think they will.
I'm not sure why you're all about letting more women get put in unqualified positions to get killed and raped, but hey whatever.
Elicits an entirely different response, hearing about a dude in a platoon over getting cornholed and a chick in a platoon over getting cornholed.
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer had an interesting piece on this just last week. Here's an overview and stream of it.
Interesting, but fails to note there's a huge world of difference between being a grunt and "driving a truck" or being an MP.
Edit: My own experiences pretty much run contrary to everything they were talking about.
Very much so, and I doubt they'll be put in infantry or other such actively aggressive roles in the Army and Marines for some time, if ever. However, it is showing a large degree of progress in the roles that they are currently allowed to partake in. Acceptance may be hard won, (although I would expect something similiar occurs for green men, maybe not to the same extent, though) but it is being given with the experiences occuring overseas.
I think there'd be a lot more acceptance if the entire double standard was worked on, which is probably the hugest thing. Its a lot of the small things, the puff pieces about "Team Lioness" in the local base rag and how they cleared some building when you know that you laid down a cordon and search for 6 hours in the heat of a Mosul summer only for them to pull up and take pictures for a half an hour and drive off.
Then you read about how they led the way. Its stuff like that which breeds a lot of the resentment in the grunts.
Again I have to point out the blindingly obvious: it's not women's fault that the bureaucracy is stupid. That's not an inevitable by-product of women's claims to equal/equivalent treatment with men.
You missed my follow-ups. Eliminating menstruation is easily achieved by basic modern birth control. It's not just a matter of body fat.
The cultural gender discrimination I was referring to was the basic assumption that women weren't soldiers to begin with, and therefore soldier units should be all men. Admittedly I didn't state it well---what I'm saying is that you're overstating the influence of biology when it comes to gender differences. If the military decides that certain physical fitness levels are required for front-line service, many women will meet those standards event if the balance of men to women doesn't match the population at large. Why is it fair to deny these women the chance to volunteer for the supposedly all-volunteer military?
Bullshit. Completely. Those are culturally-determined attitudes and they have nothing to do with biology.
You're damn right I'm approaching this with an agenda: the military has historically been a bastion of regressive political and social policies, and it's time to move past the feeble excuses and hold the military to the same standards that we do the rest of American society.
Knee-jerk insults aside, you're still completely putting the burden on women. If a (male) member of your combat unit gets in a car crash, or breaks his leg, or does something else to himself that's physically debilitating just weeks before you're all scheduled to deploy somewhere, doesn't that "screw up a squad's coherency"? And the fact that pregnancy isn't really a disability is important to note, but as I noted above, if menstruation is a significant health concern in the field then female front-line troops probably are going to be on birth control anyway and not getting pregnant. Plus, you're completely discounting the experience of the thousands of US military units currently operating with women servicemembers, some of whom get pregnant, and yet the rates of female participation in the military are only increasing. There can't be that much of a "unit cohesion" problem after all.
Let me state again: I'm not suggesting that women must occupy 50% of front line roles today. I'm saying that women who meet the military's standards for men's participation in those front line roles must be considered for those positions along with those men.
Let me turn that argument around: because some men have raped some women (both US servicemembers and foreign civilians, like in Haditha), men shouldn't be allowed to serve on the front lines with women.
See how stupid it sounds? You're completely ignoring male soldiers' responsibility for their actions by placing all that blame on women.
EDIT: we should probably split this off.
1) The biology DOES play a large factor in it all, which you're pretty much refusing to admit, shutting your eyes and going NANANA CAN'T HEAR YOU. The rule of a third isn't something I pulled out of my ass, its something that's been known since Roman times. Women tend to be lighter than men. A women will be able to carry less than a man, thus the burden falls more on her male comrades. I saw it when I was in Sergeant's School, where I was ordered to give a female soldier the light machine gun, and she couldn't hump it. Hint: People don't assign 240B light machine guns and other crew served weapons to people who aren't considered "strapping" for a reason.
2) You're also refusing to acknowledge the fact that the bureacracy isn't just going to leave it at "oh if they can meet the same standards.." because, and here it is in bold text for you: that's what happened last time when they integrated combat support roles, and when females weren't making it past Specialist because they couldn't meet the physical standards, they changed the physical standards in favor of the females. Getting all huffy because the bureacracy is fucked up dosen't change a thing.
Again, the military isn't your pet social experiment, its there to fight and win wars.
As far as your cohesion rebuttal goes, it shows that you still have no clue WTF you're talking about. Someone who breaks a leg can still deploy. Someone who gets into a car crash can - possibly - still deploy. Someone who gets pregnant CAN'T deploy, no how no way. Someone over there who gets pregnant gets sent home, no ifs ands or buts.
Sorry dude, but the military isn't a push up competition where you get to pad the scores to make up for a biological deficiency.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/HL317.cfm
Looks like its been working really well, and this is simply from the Gulf War. :roll:
Actually, in Canadian Reserves at least, not 100% sure about Regular Forces but females have lower standards to attain to join and receive promotions.
Yes and you won't deny that our army is stretched to the limit right now would you? Turning away potiental soliders is the last damn thing we need to be doing right now. Cat is right here. There should be no double standards. If women biologically cannot qualify for combat roles then if you hold them to the same standards they won't get in anyway. So what's there to lose?
Same line of thinking applies to gays in the military.
You're right the army isn't a social experiment. However it's also not there to reinforce the insecurities and prejudices of it's members.
I think you missed Cat's point. Saying, "this is the physical standard required of a soldier," is not reinforcing a prejudice. It's saying that if you do not meet the standard then you cannot be relied upon to perform equally and people are liable to die as a result.
Every soldier needs to be relied upon to be interchangeable so that the commander knows what performance he can expect. If half of the platoon can't carry as much ammo as the rest, then that half will not be effective soldiers and will also drag down the effectiveness of the platoon as a whole.
Not all women are lighter and less physically fit than all men. This is why neither I nor Cat have argues that 50% of all front-line troops must be women; assuming that there are certain physical standards to be met before you can join the front-line ranks, then those exact same standards should be applied everyone regardless of reproductive organs.
There may not be enough women to hit 50% front-line participation, but there certainly are some and they deserve a fair chance, and not to be arbitrarily disallowed.
It's true that bureaucrats and politicians have done a great job of botching the women's assimilation process through heavy-handed and stupid policies. This fact has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the military women who meet the standards of front-line combat deserve an equal chance compared to their male colleagues to be considered for those jobs.
If we want to eliminate Pentagon dumbassery then we need to eliminate Pentagon dumbassery, not perpetuate gender discrimination.
I do not expect that process to go smoothly or easily. It will take a long time, with setbacks along the way. But it's still the right thing to do.
First, I have always acknowledged that pregnancy is a little different and will almost certainly require women in these combat roles to use birth control. Second, there's technically no fraternization in the ranks as it is. Women in front-line combat roles will face different standards of behavior and health than women in non-combat roles. I can accept that as long as those standards are fair and based on sound reasoning, and I doubt that most women looking to get into these positions would disagree.
Probably because the 'chick' is usually getting *ahem* 'cornholed' by those who she thought were her fellow soldiers. Which is in my book treason, being a deliberate act of sabotage against the combat effectiveness of a fellow soldier. Or am I to read from this that you think it just doesn't matter as much when a male gets sexually assaulted? That's pretty misandrist, right there :?
as for the UTI thing, I'm going to hazard a guess that women being too scared of sexual assault from fellow soldiers to go piss in unguarded, unlit toilets might have something to do with the trouble. There's a lengthy and depressing article on the subject here.
We had a loooooongass thread on this a while back and several articles on some outstanding female servicewomen in Canada were posted. Its not the case, and an important reason why their female soldiers are better respected than they are in the US military.
As a progressive I am personally much more interested in reducing the role of the army in American government and society than I am in seeing the army become a shining beacon of equality and acceptance. Given the choice of spending money to institute effective training and counseling on sexism in the Army or further cutting its funding so that it can't supply these services among many others, I'm going to advocate further cutting its funding.
Instituting integrated sex units is a red herring. I find it frustrating when American progressives get caught up in these dead-end debates because they can't set their dogma aside momentarily to grasp the unfortunate realities of the situation. Also -- the sexism we see rampant in both the upper and lower ranks of the army is more a result of society wide sexism, and I think the efforts of American progressives are better spent attempting to curtail these factors than they are in reforming an institution which is inherently founded upon violence and physical dominance.
In short -- I support women being allowed to serve when they can meet the same standards required of the men. When the standards are lowered due to pressures from liberals in America, everyone loses, but in particular the liberals because really it's just a stupid ass fight to be picking. It's a quagmire, and we need to be a little more realistic in how we approach it.
There's also the matter of elite schools like Ranger, Halo, Scuba that are crushing to the body, and involve insane amounts of (you guessed it!) upper body strength. Furthermore, you don't see many higher level NCOs/Officers w/o a Ranger Tab. So tell me, how you address the fact that women aren't going to get promoted over their peers who do have these things, because they simply cannot keep up.
What, you're going to keep them at Sergeant/Specialist the entire time? Lawl.
You keep saying that "they won't enforce quotas" when they already have been proven to, and your assertion that there's "no fraternization in the ranks" is fucking mind numbing to someone who's seen it. You say "you don't expect it'll be easy road" and I say bullshit because its not you who's going to be fighting and dying and relying on someone who was allowed exceptions because she happened to be a female.
Yes, because exactly what this about. We're obviously denying all the sports stars from high school and collegiate athletics a chance to go and be infantrymen, because the majority of women aren't shorter and lighter and have a higher allowable percentage of body fat then men do. Gotcha.
Its not like they already fixed the PT chart once to make it easier for women.
Oh wait, they did. So your assertion that "grrls are tough!" flies in the face of reality, where a woman has to do 13 push ups to pass a PT test but a man has to do 42. Also a woman has to run her two miles in 18:54 while a man has to do his in 15:56. Yeah, obviously there's NO difference in the physical capacities between a woman and a man. :roll:
Men's 17-21 Standards
Women's 17-21 Standards
Regarding women in front-line combat roles, I'm going to have to say no. Adding women creates yet another social dynamic to an already unbelievably stressful situation. At the very least, mixed gender units are a really horrible idea. Not to mention the horrible things that would happen to female POWs by and large when captured by an enemy force comprized entirely of males who haven't seen a female in 9+ months.
Either way, if women do eventually get into front-line combat roles they should be doing the exact same things thier male counterparts are doing.
The premise that women who can meet the same performance standards should be allowed the same opportunities as men, and that our societies are better off for it, is not a social experiment. The results of that experiment have been in for a while.
It doesn't have to be a "close thing" when we're talking about a nation of 300 million people.
Even if only 100 servicewomen in the entire US military are capable of meeting the men's physical fitness standards and are large/strong/quick enough the carry all their stuff just like the men, that's still 100 able-bodied recruits that are being arbitrarily denied the chance to join their male colleagues on the front lines.
It doesn't matter if there's just one woman in the whole Army who can do it---if she can do it, she deserves to be considered along with the men.
Wow. So much for reading what I've actually written.
I think we agree that the US military needs a culture change at the top if this is going to work. That is not impossible and must be attempted. I'm not condoning the use of lower standards for women! That should stop immediately!
All I am saying is that women who are capable of serving on the front lines should be allowed to do so, and unless I'm mistaken, you seem to be saying that they shouldn't.
I don't think he's read a single post here.
Well I'm in the Canadian Reserves and they have different qualifications for men and women and now I know for a fact that the Regular forces do too. Mainly just in the Running, Push-Ups, Sit-Ups, and Hand Grip categories. Women have a lower standard than Men to achieve to be PT Qualified and you need this qualification to get promoted nowadays.
Knock it off. I'd like to actually engage the guy for once instead of leaving him on the defensive.
More American women are raped by American men each year than would be raped as POWs by foreign soldiers---does this mean American women should stay indoors?
Theoretically GI Joe and GI Jane should combine powers and form like Voltron to make the deadliest fighting force in the world.
Realistically that's not going to happen.
That's what's maddening about the American liberals I've encountered, they really struggle to compromise and search for realistic solutions. That was the comment I made that started this discussion, so I figured I should clarify.