LoveMyHats2
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I think some of what I hold onto, is that I do not want to put down either the Military OR women. In fact I will show in my next post further on my views regarding women in the work place.
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The general decline in standards today
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I think some of what I hold onto, is that I do not want to put down either the Military OR women. In fact I will show in my next post further on my views regarding women in the work place.
Pompidou
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True. The general agreement amongst all the pro-equality camp is that a strict standard would be set - a gender blind standard - and nobody, male or female, that couldn't make it, would be accepted. The only change would be from, "Every man that can do X, Y and Z is eligible for the draft/front line combat" to "Every person that can do X, Y and Z is eligible for the draft/front line combat". X, Y and Z can be set to whatever values the job requires. Nobody proposes lowering the standards for the sake of looking more equal. If it's accepted science that men generally meet said standards more often and easier, than proportionately, more men will still be on the front/drafted. The only difference is, a small percent will be the women who are the exceptions to the rule. As it stands right now, those exceptions to the rule can do everything a male soldier can do, and are being held back by a useless rule. Keep the standards, lose the gender specificity. Might not have many women, but we'll have the deserving ones.
LoveMyHats2
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[/URL This is a picture of some of the "crew" that works for me in my commercial building company. If you note the two women on the left part of this picture are my Project Managers, both of which I have kept on board for a variety of job sites I have had ongoing, and both make a salary working for me in excess of $400,000. per year. Needless to say, I hired them for their skill levels and performance.
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Uh, yeah. You never noticed Vietnam did you? Friends of mine were sent over without a care as to what they had or how crazy they were. The same was true for WWII. They needed men. They took my uncle-in -law that was 40 pounds overweight, had high blood pressure and fallen arches. there are no excuses in war. If you can hold a gun and pull the trigger---you're in buddy. They do send you to boot camp and shave off all your hair first though.
Today's peace time Army may have standards but if they needed to fill the ranks......:eeek:
LoveMyHats2
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To give you some idea of the size of the job projects that I have women working on that are in charge.
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Pompidou
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Uh, yeah. You never noticed Vietnam did you? Friends of mine were sent over without a care as to what they had or how crazy they were. The same was true for WWII. They needed men. They took my uncle-in -law that was 40 pounds overweight, had high blood pressure and fallen arches. there are no excuses in war. If you can hold a gun and pull the trigger---you're in buddy. They do send you to boot camp and shave off all your hair first though.
Today's peace time Army may have standards but if they needed to fill the ranks......:eeek:
In that case, we'd be looking to solve a separate problem. There are two problems - the bureaucrats in charge of the draft are/were incompetent, and that worthy, patriotic volunteers for frontline combat are being turned down because of their gender. Refusing to solve problem #2 because we don't want to do what it takes to (easily) solve problem #1 is kinda silly to me. Enforce the standards and drop the sexism, and you'll kill both problems without breaking a sweat. In some places of the world, women aren't allowed to travel w/o a male escort because men are dangerous. Rather than simply cracking down on dangerous men like we do in the west, they found it easier to restrict the women. Doesn't seem all that fair in any case. If folks of either gender find themselves being drafted illegally, that's a serious problem no matter what genders are eligible.
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Yep.... not joining
The thing is.... I have a son that is currently in the military and although I worry like every mother would, I'm proud of him for wanting to serve his country. On the other hand if my daughter wanted to join I would do my best to talk her out of a combat position (if there was one), because I just don't think it's a woman's role [huh] It doesn't mean that I want my son to die and I want my daughter to live.
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Uh, yeah. You never noticed Vietnam did you? Friends of mine were sent over without a care as to what they had or how crazy they were. The same was true for WWII. They needed men. They took my uncle-in -law that was 40 pounds overweight, had high blood pressure and fallen arches. there are no excuses in war. If you can hold a gun and pull the trigger---you're in buddy. They do send you to boot camp and shave off all your hair first though.
Today's peace time Army may have standards but if they needed to fill the ranks......:eeek:
That's kind of a weak excuse for excluding women. The fact that some haven't done their jobs in the past or that people were needed and the military had to "take what they could get" doesn't suggest that adding women to the equation would change anything. It just adds more people to the pool, and not all of the women are going to end up being the equivalent of your uncle or friends.
If you're going to end up with a fighting force with a portion of fallen arched, overweight, and "crazy" men if you just draft men, then all you end up with if you draft women is a fighting force with a portion of fallen arched, overweight, and "crazy" men and women. But you do end up with more soldiers.
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The only 'standards' in the last draft....was passing a simple basic medical exam. A HS diploma wasn't even required. I trained many southern draftees who barely had 6th grade educations. It's not that the Army 'chose' the 'ideal' during a draft...but accepted those they could squeek by the med exam. Then it was up to us to mold(the ordinary Joe) into someone with newly formed discipline,honor and trained basic skill to perform....possibly save themselves...and their buddies. The downside were those that must take up the slack for some that just barely passed the training physically or mentally...and then required to battle beside them in combat. In war..a soldier should be able to depend on the guy next to him just as he would be depended upon. The draft was all about getting boots on the ground..and,at times..quickly. The real training ..finding skills and emotiontally dealing with the horrors of war is,of course,on the battlefield..the real deal. I would suggest that Basic Training..and more often Advanced Training is just enough to 'basically' get you there with a somewhat better idea of how to maybe survive(hopefully both physically and mentally). Combat can be fun to debate..and just who and who should not be allowed..and the idealized arguments that surely must be realistically more fair from the armchair...but actual combat on the ground is quite a different scenario including everyone involved. Believe it or not...........
LoveMyHats2
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This is well stated, and as such, many men or women can form some ideas about combat and how easy or hard it would be until they have had to experience the nightmare of it. A picnic it is not.
There has been some changes in boot camps since I was in the service, and from some indications it may appear that the "politically correct" stuff has made it way a bit into it, and I would hope it has not made it too easy for the recruit. Being a soldier is in part, a bit of the puzzle of the bigger picture, that being a killing machine, something designed to take life.
A few times on the news you may have viewed in the past few years where married couples are both in the Military and joined to support a family and have children, and then all of a sudden they are told they have to "ship out" and get on the news and make it seem something is so wrong and they are more or less crying that they have to ship out. Makes me feel sad for them...not! You joined and now you serve, and if your Wife gets ripped in half by some device or shot while out "in country" then that is how it was. But again, please, do not take my words as a put down to the men and women that serve and my personal feelings are not a policy. If some 6 foot tall 300 pound gal that wants to join and wants to get right into the mix of it in combat, then I am not going to say she is wrong. But while I was "in country", I had to depend on my fellow service man to keep me alive and vice versa. I would have not been too thrilled to have "Betty Lou" doing that for me. Have there been some amazing women in history serve and fight and do a good job, yes. No question about it. I am just not for it, and never will be.
LoveMyHats2
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I totally understand and agree.Yep.... not joining
The thing is.... I have a son that is currently in the military and although I worry like every mother would, I'm proud of him for wanting to serve his country. On the other hand if my daughter wanted to join I would do my best to talk her out of a combat position (if there was one), because I just don't think it's a woman's role [huh] It doesn't mean that I want my son to die and I want my daughter to live.
Many can say that women should be 100 percent equal to men. I have to say that is not always going to be the case. And in some ways, men could not be the equal of a women. Fact example, when did your "Uncle Fred" give you a call and inform you he just gave birth to a 7 pound baby?
Until someone has been in a really serious combat zone and has had to deal with it personally, they have no real idea what it is like. There is no movie to take you fully there, sorry, I have seen them all.
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So I would tend to agree with you that the true test of how someone reacts is on the battlefield.
Many have stated that women are not in combat situations in the US military.
If the first two sentences are true, then how can we really know what it would be like to have women in combat situations?
(This is a serious question- if we don't know how someone reacts until combat, and we have no women in combat, how can we tell that women don't belong in combat situations?)
Many have stated that women are not in combat situations in the US military.
If the first two sentences are true, then how can we really know what it would be like to have women in combat situations?
(This is a serious question- if we don't know how someone reacts until combat, and we have no women in combat, how can we tell that women don't belong in combat situations?)
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Yep.... not joining
The thing is.... I have a son that is currently in the military and although I worry like every mother would, I'm proud of him for wanting to serve his country. On the other hand if my daughter wanted to join I would do my best to talk her out of a combat position (if there was one), because I just don't think it's a woman's role [huh] It doesn't mean that I want my son to die and I want my daughter to live.
Do you support women-only military corps or women joining the military if they are not in combat roles? Do you see other jobs/ positions in society as being more fitting for men or woman? What are those jobs, and what do you think makes women more fitting for some roles and men more fitting for others?
(I'm really curious how you think gender roles should be taken beyond the military, not trying to be "snarky" or anything. I just am curious.)
Pompidou
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True - men and women aren't 100% equal, but the challenge is separating the natural differences from the artificial ones. Men can't give birth - no argument there. No amount of legal wrangling will allow a man to do so, and I don't see science changing that any time soon, either. And, a lot of you have said there are fundamental strength and mass differences between us - no argument there. Averages are averages. It's plain as night and day. You can see the numbers. Those are natural, biological differences that can't be disputed.
On the other hand, there are artificial differences that society has been working to demolish for some time now. Why, there's a movie coming out, or just released called Hysteria. Medical history buffs can rest assured the movie is about what they think. Consider the arguments about why women shouldn't be allowed to vote. People believed them then. Women as breadwinners was a ludicrous idea once. We look back on past generations with a certain (justified) sense of superiority in terms of racial and gender equality progress. Odds are, our great grandchildren will be doing the same about us. If they're not, then hopefully it's my great grandchild reviving this thread 75 years from now and saying, "What the heck is going on?". It'll take a while to remove all these institutional but unnecessary barriers, because the people who aren't restricted by them never see any reason to do anything about them, but they'll fall eventually, and like Lizzie says, more or less, "History won't look kindly on us".
I agree that there would be no movie that could duplicate the experience. I grew up with stories from my grandfather's WWI service and have read quite a lot about the subject, spoken to veterans etc, but am under no illusion that this means I can comprehend what it is to be in combat on an absolutely visceral level. However, the fact remains that in spite of obstacles to their participation, many women have performed superbly in combat conditions. Look at someone like Mary Borden, who operated ambulances and field hospitals in World War I. Her correspondence and books have graphic accounts of horrific experiences on the front lines of trench warfare in the conditions my grandfather described and which female ambulance drivers were often caught up in (and yes, their work did sometimes involve acts of physical strength in getting the wounded out of danger). In spite of all that, she was still mentally and physically tough enough to sign up to do it again in WWII. Many of these women came from genteel middle class, sheltered Edwardian background, and yet they were able to adapt to conditions that included coming under enemy bombardment and putting themselves in the combat zone.
Not every man or woman who wants to sign up is going to be fit for active duty. Some willing volunteers would no doubt be more able to make a contribution and be less of a potential liability in a role behind the lines. But there are women willing and able to make a contribution that includes a combat role, and denying them that on the basis of gender is to turn away a potential resource for the military. If they meet the base line recruitment criteria, then why should they not fill that role? If they can prove themselves physically fit enough, they why not?
Not every man or woman who wants to sign up is going to be fit for active duty. Some willing volunteers would no doubt be more able to make a contribution and be less of a potential liability in a role behind the lines. But there are women willing and able to make a contribution that includes a combat role, and denying them that on the basis of gender is to turn away a potential resource for the military. If they meet the base line recruitment criteria, then why should they not fill that role? If they can prove themselves physically fit enough, they why not?
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Let me put it like this..if you 'sheeplady' were beside me in combat..and got hurt..I would more than likely attempt to get you out of the mess immediately...maybe even disreguarding what I should be doing. I think it is part of human nature to feel that way about a woman. It is not saying that a woman is 'less' of anything. It is hard enough to see a man cry...let alone a woman. So it's not really all..'how a woman would react or how well she would do in combat'...but also how 'fellow' soldiers would react to her. I suppose that it could get to the point that she is just another 'fighting machine' and that form of female compassion isn't 'equal' enough..and desreves a more hardcore approach. When it gets to that point...I suppose we have gotten to just where many seem to want to be...or think they do.
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I'm not taking you as being snarky
To be honest, very few women would agree with me on how I feel about gender roles and, like politics and religion, I try very hard not to talk about it. I just opened my big fat mouth without thinking lol To put it another way... the suffragettes would like me, but the women libbers of the 70s wouldn't. Good lord.... I'm going to be hated ..... :eeek:
To sort of answer your other question.... I think women should be able to join the military (like I said my grandmother was a sergeant in the Marines), but they should be in non-combat roles. All women should know how to use a gun to protect themselves, but I don't think they should be on the ground fighting in war. As far as jobs... well, there's all kinds of jobs women can do in the military, but I'd have to go over a huge list.
I think I just felt a rock thrown at me..... ouch....
Pompidou
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The way I see it, in such a case, it would be your training that would be suspect - or the fellow soldiers'. If a female recruit can't do her job as commanded by her superior, she shouldn't keep it. If a male recruit can't do his, same deal. If a male soldier can't do his job with a woman doing hers, we aught make sure we penalize the right person.
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