Today’s post is at The Stream: “Women In All Combat Roles Necessarily Means a Weaker Military.”
Reality suffered another defeat Thursday, routed by the forces of Political Correctness. The army with a rainbow flag led in yesterday’s battle by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who has ordered the military to open all combat positions to females.
According to one report, “Carter said that while moving women into these jobs will present challenges, the military can no longer afford to exclude half of the population from grueling military jobs.” Keep that “grueling” in mind. The report continues:
While noting that, on average, men and women have different physical abilities, Carter said the services must assign tasks and jobs based on ability, rather than on gender. He said that would likely result in smaller numbers of women in some jobs. Equal opportunity, he said, will not mean equal participation in some specialty jobs. But he added that combat effectiveness is still the main goal, and there will be no quotas for women in any posts.
Women are not just a little less strong and robust than men, but vastly weaker and less resilient, particularly among young adults, i.e. those who comprise our fighting forces. There is no reason to cite any “studies” to prove this most obvious of all human differences — but here’s one anyway; and here’s another.
If you find yourself doubting this most fundamental human inequality, then why aren’t you championing the complete removal of distinction by sex in the Olympics, or in any sport? Surely having male marathoners and male weight lifters and female marathoners and female weight lifters is unfair discrimination. Let all compete as one!
What strikes me is how little people care about this once-hot topic. Of course, the home-brew terrorists have something to do with distracting folks, but still, the will to fight against PC, at least on this topic, has been sapped.
Do read it, especially about the lie that women will have to uphold the same standards as men. They’ve never had to before, so there is zero reason to think they will in the future. Standards will be lowered, as they always are under Equality (right Loretta?), and even those who can’t meet the new, lowered standards will be given a pass.
Anyway, head on over and see why I say so.
The young people who are clamoring for “safe spaces” are not going to be combat-ready. Oh, never mind. With their four-year degrees, they will be officers. Nothing to worry about there.
As much as we try to deny it, there are fundamental biological differences between males and females pertaining to reproduction. Granted, someday in the nebulous future, babies may be grown in labs like just another crop, and having parents raise their biological children will be some funny practice that was done in the unenlightened past. The propagation of the species is more effective when female part of the reproductive team out of harm’s way.
Thank you, Matt.
However, I don’t agree that this is about equality. That’s just the pretext. On this issue at least, ‘equality’ is a pretext for something else even worse: crushing the dignity and honor of masculine martial sacrifice and competence; which is to say, “if I can’t have that, then I’ll make sure that nobody can.”
I think https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/the-fantasy-of-drafting-women/'Dalrock‘ has nailed it. Men will still be required to perform the task, but the honor of it will be crushed from it. ‘Dalrock’ makes a more extensive argument, which is worth reading, but if neither you nor ‘Dalrock’ mind, I’ll just cite his conclusion here, with my emphases in bold:
Correcting my cit:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/the-fantasy-of-drafting-women
Anon: You make an interesting point. The problem may be that women, as well as men quite often, have no idea of what is involved in the military. They don’t watch graphic war movies, they likely have never been in any fights on the street, etc. It’s all based on a romantic notion of equality. Reality will destroy these women, as it has already in many of the women captured and held prisoner. The good news is Obamacare will cover PTSD and drugs for life, so not worry. More government dependence.
If female cops are any representation of what women in the military are like, we should probably just surrender now and get it over with. Watching the high-ranking women in police forces talk to the press, I have the urge either to laugh in their faces or cry and then stock up on more ammunition. They are scary as a 12 year old toothless poodle. They cannot be taken seriously. No wonder crime runs rampant.
JohnK,
Good link, thanks.
The Israelis already tried coed infantry and they had high casualty rates. Naturally the men didn’t want to be in those coed units. Other than that, coed infantry was a great success.
Sounds like a problem that will resolve itself, after the US army will be defeated real good.
In the British Army women had a different basic grade fitness test from men. The tests are stupidly hard for men. Nobody was interested in looking at this from the point of view of preventing injury purely on it’s own merit. I used to laugh at some of the daft things they would do to “improve fitness” Now women are increasingly recruited they’re changing the fitness test. They won’t be able to join in with the shinanigins though.
Last I knew, the fire service had it right. Women had to do the same test as men. So you see very few female firefighters. One at our gym made the grade and so had the genuine respect from an ex Royal Marine but she had to have several attempts.
I see the main problem as being that sexual relationships will develop between women and their leaders. This is a problem in a combat unit where someone must decide who will, say, charge that machine gun nest.
And what about prisoners of war? Women will certainly have it harder then men. The Israeli experience with women in combat is something to be learned from.
Johnk
Some women, not me.
They’re just more pushy than the ones who disagree and they’re not listening.
Nelson’s words: England expects that every man will do his duty.” still lives on.
Sander Van der Wal:
It’s not that bad!
1. Women in charge of men as a matter of routine rather than being the exception.
Potential for tactical weakness where speed, nerve or strength is required.
There are occasions for extra special strength to carry wounded fellow soldiers in difficult conditions. Women WILL fail this test every time. Having a go won’t be good enough.
4. Strategy relies on personal experience in action not just a degree. Not sure they’d ever be taken seriously.
So ultimately they’ll fail and give up quietly.
Joy: I kind of lost belief in the “fierce firefighter” when one of our female news anchor persons passed the test. She did go to the gym for about 3 months before trying, but she allegedly did pass all the tests at the same level as the men. If a medium sized female (5’8 and maybe 135 lbs) could “train” for three months and pass the test. The station swore she really did pass. After that, I questioned a lot about the “toughness” requirements of things. (She supposedly only took that test once….)
I think what will finally convince women to give up this “equality” ideation is, as mentioned, when they end up POWs or in intense combat situations. Combat is not very accurately portrayed in most movies and on TV. It was interesting that during the San Bernadino shoot-out the reporter repeatedly said he had to not zoom in on the bodies in the street because it was too graphic. With that kind of attitude, men many not work out well either.
Well, Matt, as Ianto Watt says in his book ‘The Barbarian Bible’, ‘Slaves are equal, citizens are free. You can’t be both. In the Empire, the emphasis is on equality. Guess what they’re telling us?’
I was reading some un-PC stuff last week and came across
“female firefighters (called firewatchers by firemen).” I wish I could remember where I read it.
“Women are not just a little less strong and robust than men, but vastly weaker and less resilient, particularly among young adults, i.e. those who comprise our fighting forces.” – W. Briggs
How much strength does it take to push a button, or drive a car, or fly a plane? In case you had not noticed, we are fortunately no longer living in a time – like when the city-state of Sparta existed – when strength really was as important as you claim here.
The defence secretary is absolutely right when he points out that,
“the services must assign tasks and jobs based on ability, rather than on gender. He said that would likely result in smaller numbers of women in some jobs. Equal opportunity, he said, will not mean equal participation in some specialty jobs. But he added that combat effectiveness is still the main goal, and there will be no quotas for women in any posts”.
Positions will be filled by those with the ability, equal opportunity will not mean equal participation, and there will be no quotas. Why do you have such a problem with this?
“Women in combat” does not mean flying an airplane or pushing a button—they already do that. It means in a foxhole in the middle of a battle. Otherwise it’s not equality. You can argue the fantasy of using only qualified applicants all you want, but remains just that, a fantasy. We already employ race and sexual orientation to skew who ends up where in the military. The military has not been based on merit in at least three decades. Women will only makes this worse. Of course, since it’s not the military, but instead a huge government corporation leading a social experiment, I guess arguing women in the military is a mute point.
There is a problem with this because the defense secretary is lying. If he weren’t lying, then no problem.
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How do you know the defense secretary is lying? Is it because, as the old joke goes, ‘his lips are moving’?
If he isn’t lying, he’s a complete idiot. I was going with the idea he is not an idiot and therefore is lying.