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The Case Against Women in Combat
What "new evidence" are you offering to show that women aren't fit for war?
The evidence comes from the field of evolutionary psychology, which recognizes that the human mind is a product of our evolutionary history. The reason men don't like women comrades in dangerous situations is they don't trust them when the shooting starts, and that is probably because women don't possess whatever cues evoke trust in men. And trust is central to combat cohesion. Men don't say, "This is a person I would follow through the gates of hell." Men aren't hard-wired to follow women into danger. It is largely an emotional reaction.
When African-Americans were integrating the armed services there were lots of similar-sounding arguments about unit cohesion.
The reasons that people oppose women in combat are much more clearly tied to biological, not social, difference. The integration of the races in the military has been fairly successful. The integration of women is much more difficult, and there is a lot of reason to think that the problem is intractable.
© 2007
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Member Comments
Posted By: queensmonkey @ 07/13/2008 11:46:29 AM
Comment: The M-19 was constantly being used in drills that would require the "dismount" of the weapon from the vehicle and mounting it on a separate tripod. The majority of the men could lift it off of the truck and setup the weapon in the tripod in 20 seconds or less. For the other men that couldn't do it in that amount of time the driver would help get the weapon "up" and operational. For each of the women in our Platoon... the women were not able to do any part of the drill except provide cover fire with their 6 pound M-16 rifle. There isnt the thought of them getting it into the mount faster than a guy, there really wasnt a thought of a woman helping get a 115-120 pound automatic gernade launcher off the roof of a 6 foot hummer while in "full battle rattle" (wearing armor and LBV and guns). Instead, it took the Team Leader to help the Assistant gunner get the gun off of the roof while the female "gunner" or "assistant-gunner" lay in the prone with an M-16... All-the-while the Team Leader should be laying on the ground making radio calls to other units or teams while the weapon is being setup.
I want to say that I am not against women in the military, i am only against women that are assigned to a combat position. At times women will be forced to shoot back if shot-upon, that is the basics learned in military training... To have women at "forward outposts" really makes life of the soldier hard and in some cases will actually degrade living conditions.
Thank you,
Posted By: queensmonkey @ 07/13/2008 11:45:16 AM
Comment: The M-19 was constantly being used in drills that would require the "dismount" of the weapon from the vehicle and mounting it on a separate tripod. The majority of the men could lift it off of the truck and setup the weapon in the tripod in 20 seconds or less. For the other men that couldn't do it in that amount of time the driver would help get the weapon "up" and operational. For each of the women in our Platoon... the women were not able to do any part of the drill except provide cover fire with their 6 pound M-16 rifle. There isnt the thought of them getting it into the mount faster than a guy, there really wasnt a thought of a woman helping get a 115-120 pound automatic gernade launcher off the roof of a 6 foot hummer while in "full battle rattle" (wearing armor and LBV and guns). Instead, it took the Team Leader to help the Assistant gunner get the gun off of the roof while the female "gunner" or "assistant-gunner" lay in the prone with an M-16... All-the-while the Team Leader should be laying on the ground making radio calls to other units or teams while the weapon is being setup.
I want to say that I am not against women in the military, i am only against women that are assigned to a combat position. At times women will be forced to shoot back if shot-upon, that is the basics learned in military training... To have women at "forward outposts" really makes life of the soldier hard and in some cases will actually degrade living conditions.
Thank you,
Posted By: queensmonkey @ 07/13/2008 11:45:04 AM
Comment: I am a former soldier. I was in the MP core and I gotta say women really hurt the Unit, the Platoon and the Team. Overall, women are suited for many jobs in the armed forces; however, when the Unit goes to the field there are no shower "rooms" there are no changing "rooms" there is no privacy and there is a lot of personal hygiene done in the open. Its not because they choose to, it's because there isn't a place to do it in private. Many of times showers are taken in large rooms with multiple shower heads, the room you sleep in, the area you change in, and the area that personal hygiene is taken care of is in a Large Room called a GP-Medium, absolutely no privacy.
The reader might ask why I talk about the privacy so much... Having women and men in the same unit Makes the Unit Commanders accommodate for both sexes, which forces them to spend more time and effort to make shower times for each and setup or attempt to setup different holes in the ground for women and men to use the bathroom.
When it is that "time of the month" it is impossible to find any womens hygiene materials or medication.
As stated in the article soldiers use Extremely heavy equipment. Backpacks range from 75 pounds with a few days supply to 115 lbs with a decent supply of clothes and supplies. My women co-workers would never pack as they were told. Everyone put all supplies in one Ruck-Sack, while they tried to bring 3 bags... and we would always have to help them load the bags as they were too heavy for them to lift.
On top of normal operating luggage, we would have to bring large weapons with us such as the .50 cal and the Mark-19 40mm machine gun. These machine guns were quite heavy... the M-19 alone without the required accessories weighed 75 pounds with accessories weighed in at 120 pounds.