US Military to open all combat jobs to women by next year according US SecDef - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Code3Response;49245882]Dismissing a female as a fully qualified soldier because they are unable to carry the same amount of equipment is sexist.[/QUOTE] Congratulations on the most insane post I've seen all year.

[QUOTE=Code3Response;49237109]Cant wait for people to bitch about this. Oh wait they already are. Its 20-fucking-15, no reason why females shouldn't be given the same opportunities as males.[/QUOTE] Hey guys, did you know that it's the CURRENT YEAR? I mean COME ON. [editline]6th December 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49247449]Yeah, I was in for two years. I've carried the weight. I've done the marches. 25k in full ruck as a basic training requirement. It was difficult. I can also tell you that my MOS had a substantial number of women in it, all of whom also had to complete basic training, and many of whom outperformed the majority of the men by a fair margin during our regular physical fitness tests and training. One of those women beat the shit out of every dude in AIT at unarmed combat training and went on to do MMA cage fighting. One of my drill sergeants was also a woman, and that girl was a fucking PT [I]monster[/I]. I have never seen anybody go at it as hard or as long as she did. None of the other brown hats smoked us half as bad as her, and unlike the others she would actually do the punishments with us. She'd make shit up to punish us for just to laugh at how much we all struggled to keep up with her. Being a woman does not make a person inherently less capable.[/QUOTE] That's some nice anecdotal evidence, bro. [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49247449]I mean, even assuming the theoretical maximum level of raw physical strength for a biological woman is lower than a biological man[/QUOTE] lmao. Assuming? It's a natural fact my man. Of course there are going to be exceptions, but the general consensus in nature is that men typically are stronger. [QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49247449]Stamina, speed, dexterity, marksmanship, bravery, etc are on unquestionably equal footing.[/QUOTE] How exactly are these things "on unquestionably equal footing"? I can understand dexterity and marksmanship. When it comes to stamina in speed, though, women are at a disadvantage. They're shorter and that makes them have a shorter leg span. Let's go on to the "bravery" now. You say you used to be in the military? Have you ever been in combat? Your anecdote only touches on training it seems like. Consider that PT and sparring matches are in controlled environments. Being in combat is very stressful for lack of a better description. Men and women handle stress differently. The way men handle that stress is better in a combat situation. There are countless scientific studies on it. Our brain chemistry is different. You can't change that. Unit cohesion is the most important factor in combat. When you've got people not being able to do what they're supposed to do in an efficient manner, that cohesion starts to diminish.

you seem to have a problem with taking studies you've seen entirely as pure and untouchable fact. Have you ever taken into account any specifics of what you have read? sample size? Location? method? to blindly back yourself up with uncited sources to push that women are just entirely nearly always shorter and therefore not equipped got running, not good at handling stress, and just generally inferior in all physical aspects because you read it somewhere is incredibly short-sighted and ignorant. the amount of physical and mental differences between every individual in this world regardless of gender is immense. no of course regulations should not be different by gender, and most certainly we should not be holding up theoretical or occasionally "proven" stereotypes to insinuate that most women couldn't fathom passing physical standards set already.

Here you go VIOLATION_SNG [url]http://www.webmd.com/women/features/stress-women-men-cope[/url]

Goldenhue, hasn't society taught you that men and women are EQUAL? Treating them differently is SEXIST. Letting them serve their country, and forcing them to comply equally to the selective service, is equality.

[QUOTE=soulharvester;49261992]Goldenhue, hasn't society taught you that men and women are EQUAL? Treating them differently is SEXIST. Letting them serve their country, and forcing them to comply equally to the selective service, is equality.[/QUOTE] Well, shit man. You completely refuted my points.

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;49247449]Yeah, I was in for two years. I've carried the weight. I've done the marches. 25k in full ruck as a basic training requirement. It was difficult. I can also tell you that my MOS had a substantial number of women in it, all of whom also had to complete basic training, and many of whom outperformed the majority of the men by a fair margin during our regular physical fitness tests and training. One of those women beat the shit out of every dude in AIT at unarmed combat training and went on to do MMA cage fighting. One of my drill sergeants was also a woman, and that girl was a fucking PT [I]monster[/I]. I have never seen anybody go at it as hard or as long as she did. None of the other brown hats smoked us half as bad as her,[b] and unlike the others she would actually do the punishments with us. She'd make shit up to punish us for just to laugh at how much we all struggled to keep up with her.[/b] Being a woman does not make a person inherently less capable. I mean, even assuming the theoretical maximum level of raw physical strength for a biological woman is lower than a biological man, a woman can sure as shit still get plenty strong enough to meet and exceed the duty requirements, and raw physical strength is the only field in which that would even arguably be an issue. Stamina, speed, dexterity, marksmanship, bravery, etc are on unquestionably equal footing. Also, don't call people idiots. Rude Gus.[/QUOTE] So, Misusing power and trying to prove something at the same time? Sounds like real cunt if you ask me

[QUOTE=4NGRY MUFF1N;49262064]So, Misusing power and trying to prove something at the same time? Sounds like real cunt if you ask me[/QUOTE] No, no. You've got it all wrong. She's brave and empowered. I mean it's 2015.

I live with a badass former combat medic who is female. She was so good at what she did, she was assigned to an all male combat engineer battalion. She was right there with them in combat, rucking up and down the mountains of Afghanistan with 120 pounds on her back (medic loads are heavier). She dragged people, carried, and treated them. She could get 270 out of 300 on the male scale of the pt test. Guess what? Her hips are destroyed so bad that she can never work again. She can't even get out of bed most days. And the kicker is that she doesn't think females should be in the combat arms. What happened to her will happen to others. The males in her unit didn't have that problem when they came back. There are absolutely zero advantages to having women in the combat arms. None.

[QUOTE=SKEEA;49262123]I live with a badass former combat medic who is female. She was so good at what she did, she was assigned to an all male combat engineer battalion. She was right there with them in combat, rucking up and down the mountains of Afghanistan with 120 pounds on her back (medic loads are heavier). She dragged people, carried, and treated them. She could get 270 out of 300 on the male scale of the pt test. Guess what? Her hips are destroyed so bad that she can never work again. She can't even get out of bed most days. And the kicker is that she doesn't think females should be in the combat arms. What happened to her will happen to others. The males in her unit didn't have that problem when they came back. There are absolutely zero advantages to having women in the combat arms. None.[/QUOTE] If this is true, that's awful. I feel bad for her. Women and men have different hip structures. I guess the military didn't consider that.

We are all expendable. They make new ones of us every day.

[QUOTE=SKEEA;49262123]I live with a badass former combat medic who is female. She was so good at what she did, she was assigned to an all male combat engineer battalion. She was right there with them in combat, rucking up and down the mountains of Afghanistan with 120 pounds on her back (medic loads are heavier). She dragged people, carried, and treated them. She could get 270 out of 300 on the male scale of the pt test. Guess what? Her hips are destroyed so bad that she can never work again. She can't even get out of bed most days. And the kicker is that she doesn't think females should be in the combat arms. What happened to her will happen to others. The males in her unit didn't have that problem when they came back. There are absolutely zero advantages to having women in the combat arms. None.[/QUOTE] If that is true then that alone settles it. Unless we are in a doomsday scenario and need to fight off the mecha-nazis there is no reason we should send people who, while able to complete the mission, do so at the likely expense of their own bodies. (Not talking about the likely expense of death, that is a given)

[QUOTE=SKEEA;49262123]I live with a badass former combat medic who is female. She was so good at what she did, she was assigned to an all male combat engineer battalion. She was right there with them in combat, rucking up and down the mountains of Afghanistan with 120 pounds on her back (medic loads are heavier). She dragged people, carried, and treated them. She could get 270 out of 300 on the male scale of the pt test. Guess what? Her hips are destroyed so bad that she can never work again. She can't even get out of bed most days. And the kicker is that she doesn't think females should be in the combat arms. What happened to her will happen to others. The males in her unit didn't have that problem when they came back. There are absolutely zero advantages to having women in the combat arms. None.[/QUOTE] Well other than the obvious advantage of having more troops. [editline]7th December 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Zenreon117;49262344]If that is true then that alone settles it. Unless we are in a doomsday scenario and need to fight off the mecha-nazis there is no reason we should send people who, while able to complete the mission, do so at the likely expense of their own bodies. (Not talking about the likely expense of death, that is a given)[/QUOTE] This happens to guys too by the way, women aren't so physically different that they alone suffer from hip injuries. It's actually a big problem in the Army and presumably Marines. So no his anecdote about a female soldier suffering an injury, as tragic as it may be, doesn't really "settle it" [editline]7th December 2015[/editline] You can get fucked up in the millitary without ever "completing the mission" (assuming you mean being in combat or rucking around Afghanistan). I know E5s in their early 30's whos knees, shoulders, and back are fucked up just from lifting shit and jumping off tanks. Saying we shouldn't let qualified female soldiers join combat arms because they might get injured is as silly as stopping them because they might get raped or shot or blown up. [editline]7th December 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=4NGRY MUFF1N;49257640] Soldier A Who only had to pass with moving a 65/75kg dummy tops [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=4NGRY MUFF1N;49257640]Reminder: I'm talking about my experience in the Swedish armed forces and the Swedish "hemvärnet" Home Guard.[/QUOTE] Yeah I know because I already told you that the US army doesn't do this before you made your incredibly detailed and totally irrelevant scenario. [QUOTE=Ducksink;49252739]From my personal experience serving with female fighters(IDF), standards had to be lowered because they physically couldn't do things that guys could, and no thats not a 'chauvinistic' approach or whatever..its biological differences. This shows in carry weight, length and time alleviation in run tests, amount of pullups etc.. Easiest example - obstacle course, the female fighters have a bench for climbing a 2 meter wall because of something to do with their wombs, and also recently half of the wall has been lowered just so that they could pass.(not saying that a few haven't without the lowering, but the most couldn't)[/QUOTE] Again, doesn't happen in US Army basic training. Honestly a lot of people from other countries prematurely fear-mongering about the US military lowering their standards needs some introspection. This shit about lowering walls on obstacle courses and bringing out the lighter dummies is goofy as fuck. [QUOTE=goldenhue;49261439]That's some nice anecdotal evidence, bro.[/QUOTE] How is "they are already doing the thing you said they can't do" anecdotal evidence? [QUOTE=goldenhue;49261439] How exactly are these things "on unquestionably equal footing"? I can understand dexterity and marksmanship. When it comes to stamina in speed, though, women are at a disadvantage. They're shorter and that makes them have a shorter leg span. Let's go on to the "bravery" now. You say you used to be in the military? Have you ever been in combat? Your anecdote only touches on training it seems like. Consider that PT and sparring matches are in controlled environments. Being in combat is very stressful for lack of a better description. Men and women handle stress differently. The way men handle that stress is better in a combat situation. There are countless scientific studies on it. Our brain chemistry is different. You can't change that. [/QUOTE] Link atleast two of these countless scientific studies, not including the garbage pop-psych WebMD one that both generalizes massively and has nothing to do with a combat situation. [QUOTE=Swilly;49252304]No one is arguging against women who can keep up. If they perform just as well or better than men then there is no reason not to give them a rifle a smack on the helmet and put them in combat. The issue is lowering standards for the sake of having more women.[/QUOTE] Several people are arguing that women in general should not be allowed in combat arms actually, namely the two people I refuted above and a couple others I've replied to in this thread, where as only one person said standards should change for women not able to make it (I disagree, as in my military experience women are already doing a lot of shit combat MOS's require you to do anyway) and absolutely no indications that standards would change because, again, women are already doing a lot of this shit. I don't know what all jobs they aren't allowed to do right now but I know women can definitely be armor crewmen and anyone who gets through processing can be an infantryman. I don't think there are any other, more difficulty combat MOS's so yeah I don't see a reason not to take advantage of an obvious source of manpower.

[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49248555]This, right here. Aside from some ultra fucking rare instances I can't really see any US infantry soldier or marine being in a position to get captured (which is necessary for that rape to occur) unless they're being monumentally stupid. I mean that would require you to essentially go AWOL outside the wire. Who the fuck does that?[/QUOTE] You don't know what you're talking about. What if you get lost out on patrol? What if you get split up from the rest of the unit during a firefight? What if your OP gets overrun (it happens)? What if? There's a shit-ton of ways you can end up POW-MIA without it necessarily being your fault. Cases like Bergdahl are the exception, not the rule.

[QUOTE=SKEEA;49262123]I live with a badass former combat medic who is female. She was so good at what she did, she was assigned to an all male combat engineer battalion. She was right there with them in combat, rucking up and down the mountains of Afghanistan with 120 pounds on her back (medic loads are heavier). She dragged people, carried, and treated them. She could get 270 out of 300 on the male scale of the pt test. Guess what? Her hips are destroyed so bad that she can never work again. She can't even get out of bed most days. And the kicker is that she doesn't think females should be in the combat arms. What happened to her will happen to others. The males in her unit didn't have that problem when they came back. There are absolutely zero advantages to having women in the combat arms. None.[/QUOTE] Few months ago in a similar thread someone posted an interview or something with a similar story, but her problem was not the hips, it's that she became sterile and can't have kids. She mentioned some other stuff, and said that she loves what she does, but in her opinion, it would be better for women to stay away from it.