Women in Combat Discussion

Shipmaster Sane said:
So you'd have the women only able to join if they met the men's standard of physical fitness?
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A general standard, with basic capabilities required would be my option of choice. Or you could go to the effort of making a special female standard accounting for some differences, either works.
 
Comrade Clod said:
A general standard, with basic capabilities required would be my option of choice. Or you could go to the effort of making a special female standard accounting for some differences, either works.
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So the military needs to either lower its standards, or exclude men who perform better than women but beneath the male standard?
 
Shipmaster Sane said:
So the military needs to either lower its standards, or exclude men who perform better than women but beneath the male standard?
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Well you could take that the entirely wrong way but never mind what I actually said.

They can fight and in the modern era if they're fit by military standards then there's no reason not to let em.
 
Comrade Clod said:
Well you could take that the entirely wrong way but never mind what I actually said.

They can fight and in the modern era if they're fit by military standards then there's no reason not to let em.
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It's a very simple set of questions.

You have men failing to meet the standard of the military, who "want to fight" as much as the women do. To let in any meaningful proportion of women who wish to be soldiers, you can only do one of two things:

Lower the standard unilaterally, letting in a large number of men who would otherwise be judged unfit
or
Establish two standards, one for women, one for men, in which Men who perform at a higher level than the women (but below the male standard) are judged unfit, with women who perform at a lower level than them taken in their place.


Which is it?
 
Shipmaster Sane said:
It's a very simple set of questions.

You have men failing to meet the standard of the military, who "want to fight" as much as the women do. To let in any meaningful proportion of women who wish to be soldiers, you can only do one of two things:

Lower the standard unilaterally, letting in a large number of men who would otherwise be judged unfit
or
Establish two standards, one for women, one for men, in which Men who perform at a higher level than the women (but below the male standard) are judged unfit, with women who perform at a lower level than them taken in their place.


Which is it?
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Alternatively, use the current military standard where they've thought of such things.

Checkmate librul.
 
Marduk said:
It's distinctly different from modern small, professional militaries that are under circumstances where they can pick and choose among reasonably healthy and willing men for their ranks.
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To contest this for a moment--the last I'd heard there was a trend of difficulty in doing so, as finding healthy individuals was beginning to pose more trouble, and the willingness to sign-up was declining. Leading to, at least in the US, there being enlistment bonuses and other incentives to try and get people to join or to re-up.

In which case expanding the pool of potential applicants is a useful measure itself--especially when that can bring in people with knowledge or skill in technical fields the military needs.
ShieldWife said:
If they hold women to the same standards then barely any would get in (presumably, if the standards are high enough no woman could pass them) and so you would only have a tiny number of additional soldiers for the massive added headache of a sex integrated military.
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Some things are worth doing on principle--even if such things being done do not contribute to or allow a nation to operate at 'peak' military effectiveness (which is compromised in a host of other manners already by everything from rules of engagement to how the military obtains its equipment, to the mere fact there's civilian oversight and control or that the military is volunteer-based itself). The allowance of female soldiers, should they be equally capable of fulfilling the standards set for male servicemen, is one of those things*.

Beyond that, as mentioned, analysis of physical differences and long-term physical difficulties for infantrywomen due to injury or incapability is not the sole variable or measure of military effectiveness or performance--one might be able to argue against the specific presence in infantry arms and positions with such, but packing hundred-pound loads on ten-mile hikes isn't the norm for every military position, and analysis of female soldiers in current (or prior) service suffers from being impacted by the standards currently in place--where equal fulfillment of the same standard as men is not the norm (I think only the Marines officer school tried that? Don't recall).

*Notably not the situation currently where, as you point out, standards for female servicemen are lower than for males.
 
There is a very long post that can go here, but some others have said it well-ish.

Keeping in mind this is the US experience; we started badly, one side wanted to force it to work, the other side didn't, or didn't care enough to put the effort into fixing it.

The current two standard system is an unmitigated disaster due to this background. The Army faced a choice; either set physical standards based on the requirement for each occupational specialty... or punt. The Pentagon chose to punt. Women's standards were created based on what-ever 85% (IIRC) of the women currently in the Women's Army Corps could do. As you might recall, they tended to be very concentrated on clerical and secretarial work. There was no effort to set logical standards. The entire experiment was poisoned from the start. Not being held to the same standard stoked a resistance among elements of the military and civilian populace that had existed since the women's auxiliaries were created, and hardened attitudes. At this point, I am not sure you could fix the situation without decades of effort, and you would have to start with a complete review of what the sex-blind physical standard should be for every military position, and setting a universal standard accordingly.

As to innate differences, that is a longer post it would take some time to write, but the simplistic answer is; women, usually, are set up to fail. Differences exist, but are (badly) exacerbated by the 'nurture' side of the scale. Less active play, less exercise (in general), all of this contributes to the issues raised with spatial reasoning, skeletomuscular development, and so on. If there is interest, I can write this essay, but it will take quite some time with my current work hours.
 
Devastator said:
Differences exist, but are (badly) exacerbated by the 'nurture' side of the scale.
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Nurture here isn't just cultural. Sex hormones and differences in brain growth have an effect on behavior. A vast majority of girls and women aren't even interested in the things that would prepare them for military. There are exceptions because our biology is built for a great deal of variance, but they are vanishingly rare.

There are only two systems where its really viable, states with full population conscription and societies with a warrior caste. In both cases the culture would coerce women into acting more athletically than they would want to otherwise.
 
I don't see the issue if they can pass the (men's) test. A problem only arises when ideologues demand lesser tests. Just so they can have more women.
 
CarlManvers2019 said:
Warrior Caste? Sparta was a horrible place from what I know
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I think Sparta's negative reputation has been exaggerated. I mean, except for the chattel slavery, and occasional bouts with killing babies in eugenics programs but hey, glass houses, right? They diddnt have state sponsored pedophillia, like some other greek states, so score one to them.


Notably, women were supposed to stay home and make children, they just supposedly had a high standard of physical fitness because it was thought that "strong" women would produce strong children.

Contemporary accounts from within and without suggest that they had less marital troubles than their peers, take that for what it's worth.
 
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