Women now allowed to be combatants

[buttfacedmonkey]

What do you all think of this?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323539804578260123802564276.html

I personally like the idea of equality and am a firm believer that women can do anything men can do, but I do have a few problems with this.

1st: I want to be a SEAL. Meaning I have done a lot of research on SEALs. According to my research, women aren't allowed to become SEALs mostly because of the possibility of their capture and torture. There are terrible ways to torture women that are completely unique to their gender.

2nd: The male members thinking with their miniature brain that is located between their legs and not doing what they need to do.

 

[nukeduster]

It won't work so long as men and women have different PT standards.

For example, a 21 year old man needs to be able to do 42 pushups to graduate from AIT in the Army. A woman, only needs to complete 19.

This is fine and all if you want them in support roles, but if they are put into combat roles where physical strength matters, they'll need to pass the same standards. The guy that surprised you and pinned you down wielding a knife doesn't care that you passed your pt test with 19 pushups.

Or, if your buddy gets shot who weighs 220lbs... and if you only are able to squeeze out 13 pushups, then you're not hauling his ass anywhere.

Or if you are ambushed and your humvee is hit by an RPG and you need to haul ass, the guy wielding the AK47 who is chasing after you doesn't care that you passed your PT run in 19 minutes vs all the guys around you who had to do it in under 16.

If they want equality, make it so, all the way. Otherwise, people will lose even more lives.

Edit: There's plenty of gender specific tortures, for both sides.

[buttfacedmonkey]

It won't work so long as men and women have different PT standards.

For example, a 21 year old man needs to be able to do 42 pushups to graduate from AIT in the Army. A woman, only needs to complete 19.

This is fine and all if you want them in support roles, but if they are put into combat roles where physical strength matters, they'll need to pass the same standards. The guy that surprised you and pinned you down wielding a knife doesn't care that you passed your pt test with 19 pushups.

Or, if your buddy gets shot who weighs 220lbs... and if you only are able to squeeze out 13 pushups, then you're not hauling his ass anywhere.

Or if you are ambushed and your humvee is hit by an RPG and you need to haul ass, the guy wielding the AK47 who is chasing after you doesn't care that you passed your PT run in 19 minutes vs all the guys around you who had to do it in under 16.

If they want equality, make it so, all the way. Otherwise, people will lose even more lives.

Edit: There's plenty of gender specific tortures, for both sides.

Makes sense. I obviously don't have any military experience, so I don't know the details of PT standards. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.

[Fresnel]

PT standards are easily fixed, all it takes is fifteen minutes with a pen. The big problem is how the male brain is trained to react to a female in danger compared to a male in danger. Men are raised knowing that a woman's life is worth more than their own, thus the ever-present "women and children first". Thus a male commanding officer is much more likely to scrub a mission to rescue a wounded/trapped/captured female soldier than he would for a male soldier. And if he didn't, if he let the mission go and she was captured and tortured, or died out there... his men would never properly respect or trust him again. And thousands of years of social and evolutionary conditioning are not broken overnight.

[Bob Z Moose]

Well, this seems like a non issue. Make PT the same and all is well. If a chick can haul around a 249 or carry her squadmate on her back for however long men have to, go for it.

[Sergeant First Class Keenan]

Won't be in effect until 2016 at the earliest. More then likely won't happen anyway. The Military isn't fast to adapt. And this goes beyond the above postings, from barracks, training methods, standards, and hygiene.

If it was as simple as "cause I said so" there wouldn't be anti racism, anti sexism, and yearly EO training already.

Easy to legislate on the way out the door.

[kman94]

1st: I want to be a SEAL. Meaning I have done a lot of research on SEALs.
 

lel

[BK]

 its not much of a combatant role but my brother was in a submarine out in groton sub base. while he had female superior officers, they were never allowed into the subs, because they didnt have the proper facilities and seperate quartering. Which in my opinion is a load of crap. If a womans willing to spend 3 months underwater in a cramped sub, and passes all of the means neccesarry, then they should be able to.

But on the other hand, in a combat situation, they could be out for even longer than 3 months, and after a while im sure someones going to get "lonely". I just find this as a perfect example of the female combatant argument.

[Fung Li]

I find women to be more easily emotionally compromised... Just saying.