Women In the Infantry

[Poopyhead]

1. Not all men qualify...just the best.

2. This is what keeps them out.

"•This job is closed to women."

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/enlistedjobs/a/11b.htm

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000
1. Not every woman is going to be Ronda Rousey or Hope Solo

Exactly, this is the point that seems to escape those on the other side of the debate for some reason. I would have no issue at all with women in the infantry or police work if they had to pass the same standards set for the men. After all the standards were set based on job tasks the trainers had in mind when they set them, job tasks that must be done by someone. The problem is the numbers of women who could pass those standards are statistically insignificant when you look at the raw numbers.

Thus some politician demands standards be lowered so a statistically acceptable number get passed and they can then claim victory. Net result you end up with a situation where the vast majority of women in the position are not capable of doing what is required when the s**t hits the fan and they get themselves or others hurt or killed.

It's the lowering of the standards that is the real issue, not the gender of the trainee per se.

Jim

[charlie0311]

Delete

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

It's the lowering of the standards that is the real issue, not the gender of the trainee per se.

I'm with this. But to some people it just doesn't seem to matter.

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: Poopyhead

During the first Gulf War, one of the ground units to initially move into actual Iraq was a Military Police platoon on a route recon. It was led by a female lieutenant. I met her at her graduation from the advanced course. We've had women MP's for decades. They qualify with the M4, SAW, Mk 19, etc. to the same standard that an infantryman does. They can shoot, move and communicate just like infantrymen. The Isrealis have women in their armed forces on basic infantry patrol, mostly in all female units. Not because the women can't hack it, but because guys just turn stupid in combat if a woman gets hit. Tell Ronda Rousey or Hope Solo that they don't have what it takes to compete physically with a man. When the Marines get into trouble and call for air support, the pilot of the FA 18 may be a woman. Women are already holding their own in combat. They've already been shot and blown up and taken prisoner and molested. They have done everything except be infantrymen.

Let Ronda and Hope fight men in the same weight class then.

And, no, they cannot shoot, move and communicate just like infantryman. The key is move.

[JWW]

Another story on the three women who passed Ranger School. This is a mixture of fact and opinion. But the Army's shredding of records and stonewalling the Congressman is definitely fact.

http://usdefensewatch.com/2016/01/doubl ... e-rangers/

[gradenko2k]

ORIGINAL: JW
Let Ronda and Hope fight men in the same weight class then.

This isn't nearly as much of a gotcha as you might think it is, considering it's the same patronizing attitude towards women that keeps them cordoned off into their own sports divisions in the first place.

[Zap]

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

ORIGINAL: JW
Let Ronda and Hope fight men in the same weight class then.

This isn't nearly as much of a gotcha as you might think it is, considering it's the same patronizing attitude towards women that keeps them cordoned off into their own sports divisions in the first place.

Actually it is. Because the ones blamed for the terrible beating women would receive taking part in men's same weight class of men's boxing would be misplaced. The officials of boxing would be blamed instead of the group of activists whose misguided the masses to believe it was the right thing to do.

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

ORIGINAL: JW
Let Ronda and Hope fight men in the same weight class then.

This isn't nearly as much of a gotcha as you might think it is, considering it's the same patronizing attitude towards women that keeps them cordoned off into their own sports divisions in the first place.

I am the one advocating letting them fight men in the same weight class.

[gradenko2k]

There's a difference between military service and a sport deliberately crafted to allow for competitive entertainment, and there's literal centuries of historical gender politics as background context beyond simply saying "well if women are so tough maybe we should just let them fight men, huh?!"

Like, how do you think things got that way in the first place?

[JWW]

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

There's a difference between military service and a sport deliberately crafted to allow for competitive entertainment, and there's literal centuries of historical gender politics as background context beyond simply saying "well if women are so tough maybe we should just let them fight men, huh?!"

Like, how do you think things got that way in the first place?

I would go out on a limb and say biology and physiology.

[Poopyhead]

They would have to lower the standards quite a bit to let these women be infantry...because they are dead. They died fighting the war on terror.

http://www.cmrlink.org/content/Home/358 ... led_in_war

I seem to recall that everyone in the military has the secondary Military Occupation Specialty of 11B, infantryman. I guess that women soldiers just can't graduate to primary MOS. Combat MP's wear the same battle rattle the infantry do and women MP's shoot, and yes move and communicate. If you're good enough to be wounded, tortured and killed, then you're good enough to fight.

Not good enough to be infantry:

-Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester led a counterattack against insurgents who had ambushed her convoy while serving in Iraq. She became the first of two woman to earn a Silver Star since World War II.

-Army 1st Lt. Ashley White was killed in action. She posthumously received the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and the Combat Action Badge.

-Army Pfc. Monica Lin Brown was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as a combat medic in Afghanistan’s southeastern Paktika province in late April 2007. She would become the first woman to earn the Silver Star in Afghanistan, and just the second since World War II, after Hester.

I guess it would be hard to move as fast as the infantry when you are wearing so many medals for bravery.

[MrRoadrunner]

Living up to your name Mr. Poopyhead?

http://www.cmrlink.org/content/home

Maybe the members posting to this forum would like to see the articles that come before what you cut and pasted?

And, did you read the list of those women who lost their lives and why?

RR

[Poopyhead]

Okay I re-read it.

All male Marine units are just faster than integrated units when moving under load. One problem with this statement is that every task in the military has a standard. If the male Marine hits the target 40 out of 40 and the female Marine only 39 out of 40 that would be a 2.5% reduction in some kind of combat power by the woman, but the two Marines would still qualify Expert. Did the women meet the standard for the task of moving under load? If you meet the standard, then you're qualified and you're a "Go". Apparently, the women were better than the male Marines with the .50 cal, but the report does not recommend the obvious conclusion that all heavy machinegunners should be female. The report also mentions that any loss of combat power by an integrated unit being a second slower might be dwarfed by the loss in combat effectiveness from a lack of leadership acceptance.

P.S. For those of you unable to use a search engine, here is a Marine Corps Training manual with the standards a unit must meet to be battle ready, fit to fight.

http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publi ... 00.44B.pdf



Infantry moving "under load" probably have a combat medic with them and that MOS is open to women. They will be in very direct combat.

[JWW]

The question is not whether women are capable of fighting well and dying for their country. Women can do many military jobs as well as men. The question involves combat infantry positions. And the biggest concern is about women placed in elite special operator positions out of a politically correct desire for diversity.

Men and women are not exact equivalents, though I have learned over the years that some people actually believe that they are. They are different. That is simply fact. Chemically, psychologically, physically, different. This makes men in general better suited for some things, women better suited for other things, with a great deal of overlap. This is not prejudice or opinion. It is fact.

[Poopyhead]

It's a fact and it's also irrelevent. Every single task in the military is "Go" or "No Go". There are no "fastest", "quickest" or "best at show" categories. Statistics don't win battles. You're either qualified to do the task or you are not. Can a unit with women infantry accomplish its wartime mission, yes or no? If women qualify to fill a position, then that should be the end of the discussion. That's the law actually in the rest of the land.

We have a professional military service of citizen volunteers. Some of those citizens are allowed to volunteer for more positions than others. I'm a conservative and that doesn't bother me politically. That's repulsive to me as an American. I know women after 9/11 that wanted to be warfighters, not Army clerks or nurses. They wanted to look the enemy in the eye and pull the trigger, but they weren't allowed. Vengeance doesn't have a gender.

The place where the unit with the best stats comes into play is leadership evaluations. Those Marine and Army infantry leaders get a document called an OER, Officer Evaluation Report. Most of it is check the block, but the important part that will get them promoted are the statements after a big black dot icon (called bullet statements). Things like, "Unit has highest PT average in Bn" or "Highest number of Expert Marksmen in the brigade", etc. These officers figure that if they end up in a unit with women, they won't be able to compete with officers in all male units. So women will be treated like second class soldiers. This is a leadership problem.

Back when it was my turn, I motivated all the soldiers God gave me. I didn't pretend to know which ones were going to help me win the next war. When the artillery barrage lets up and all the male infantrymen are dead or wounded, I hope that we invested enough in the soldiers left standing to get the job done. "A great leader can take his'n and beat your'n, and then take your'n and beat his'n". Leadership is the only combat power that really matters.

[Jonathan Pollard]

Any woman considering joining the US military, whether in a combat or non-combat role, should take into account the fact that according to Pentagon statistics she will have about a 10 percent chance of being raped and an additional 13% chance of being "subjected to other unwanted sexual contact." In fact, the 2012 Defense Department survey found that 23% of active-duty women had experienced a sexual assault, but it did not distinguish between rape and other kinds of sexual contact.

Also, female veterans commit suicide at a rate about 6 times greater than non-veteran women.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-fem ... story.html

[Poopyhead]

That link just takes you to today's L.A. Times. Here are some better links:

http://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/fe ... s-1.372251

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ary-photos

Another example of a leadership problem. This won't have one exact cause, but it's up to the leadership to find every answer.

In the 90's, a Marine raped a young girl on Okinawa. The Marine MP's picked him up...took him to the beach and beat the holy crap out of him for embarassing the Corps.

[Kuokkanen]

We could have missed one reason why somebody wants women into infantry. Among Muslims it can be unchastity for a woman to speak to a man outside of her family. What about body search then? If army woman would be at present to do the talking and body search, it wouldn't be considered unchastity (to same extent). Has this been mentioned before?

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

We could have missed one reason why somebody wants women into infantry. Among Muslims it can be unchastity for a woman to speak to a man outside of her family. What about body search then? If army woman would be at present to do the talking and body search, it wouldn't be considered unchastity (to same extent). Has this been mentioned before?

I'm guessing that since religion has nothing to do with joining the infantry, no.