Posted on 04/11/2014 2:41:17 AM PDT by markomalley
Returning from Mass yesterday morning I turned on Radio 4 in the car. It was Women’s Hour and there was the presenter, Dame Jenni Murray, calmly discussing with other women the question of whether women should be allowed to serve in the front line in the forces or not. The question is topical because General Sir Peter Wall, head of the British army, stated earlier this week that the army should look “more normal to society”. He explained: “This isn’t just about getting more females into the 30% of roles that are combat trades but getting more of them into the army per se.” It seems he wants “every woman in the country to know the service is open to them and we need to make sure we get that message across.”
Is he crazy or am I crazy? Until now British women have been excluded from close-combat roles, which are, as Haroon Siddique describes it in the Guardian article referred to above, “officially designed as “roles that are primarily intended and designed with the purpose of requiring individuals on the ground to close with and kill the enemy.” In other words, hand to hand fighting in which you are trying to butcher your enemy face to face. Is this what the public at large, let alone women themselves, really want? Has Sir Peter Wall been so brainwashed by political correctness that he cannot see that hand to hand killing strikes at the very heart of what women are supposed to represent?
You don’t have to be a Christian – or indeed a Catholic, with a devotion to Our Lady and what she signifies in terms of maternal gentleness and graciousness – to know that men and women are different; that men have traditionally played a protective role towards women and, if the situation demands it, engaged in the ghastly business of warfare in order to protect their country, their hearth and their home. Killing people face to face doesn’t come naturally to men; they have to be trained to do it because occasionally, given our fallen state, war is a grim necessity. But it has always been accepted – until now – that although women can play excellent supportive roles as technicians, engineers, drivers, doctors, nurses or whatever (which demonstrate their courage and intelligence in other ways and which are in no way demeaning), it is inappropriate for them to actually fight alongside men. Apart from anything else it has been argued that seeing a wounded woman or a woman being brutally bested by an armed assailant, a man would naturally rush to her defence in a way that he wouldn’t instinctively do for a male comrade.
Yet Sir Peter Wall has no problem with this, even though an MOD review as late as 2010 stated that although “women were physically and psychologically capable of the job”, the effects of “gender-mixing” on team cohesion were unknown and could have “far-reaching and grave consequences.” I’ll say. Indeed, if it hasn’t happened before, how can it be known that women are “psychologically capable of the job”, let alone physically capable?
Significantly, the Woman’s Hour item focused on the possible physical problems that would arise: women, being built differently and with less muscle-power (I suppose one is still allowed to say this) might not be up to the arduous physical demands of long marches in appalling conditions while carrying heavy packs, let alone the extreme physical challenge of actual close combat. No-one asked, “Is it right that women should be licensed to kill alongside men?” It is often said that women are psychologically the stronger sex and this may well be true. But this is not stated in the context of the raw aggression needed to bayonet another human being; it is made in the context of the enormous demands over a long period of raising young children.
After his eagerness to follow the modern requirement of “equality” in everything, Sir Peter seemed to hedge his bets a bit when he added, “There will always be people who say the close battle is no place for female soldiers.” But he is not among them, apparently.
Laura Perrins, a mother of two young children and a barrister, has written a rightly sarcastic riposte to Wall: “Congratulations sisters. Soon you may get the right to kill another human being just the same as a man…If you are a woman, why waste your time being an army doctor or –God forbid – a nurse when you can be in there where the action is, bayoneting and throat slitting with the rest of them. This is what the suffragettes would have wanted! It should be noted that women soldiers already “serve on the front line with the artillery as medics, engineers, intelligence officers and fighter pilots…” But this is not good enough – they need to be in combat units also.”
Equality between the sexes in every aspect of life? It just doesn’t work. Get over it.
Most women don’t want to be in the literal line of fire.
Shall we conscript them, give them guns and get them shot at in the name of fairness?
Talk about a literal war on women.
I disagree that a man wouldn't instinctively come to another man's defense. Many Medals of Honor have been awarded to men who did exactly that.
I think that, psychologically, women are just as capable of handling combat as men. After all, women already work in areas that bring them very close to combat; in the capacity of doctors and nurses, they routinely deal with combat-caused injuries and psychological problems.
However, there is still the issue that women are simply not as big or strong as men. I do not think there are many women who could lug around 100 pounds of clothing and equipment for hours on end. We won't see women in combat for the same reason we don't see many women in heavy construction or other physically demanding jobs: most women just aren't very strong.
I think we should just admit that men and women are not equal. Both sexes should be treated equally under the law under ordinary circumstances, but we should allow ourselves to have occasional exceptions such as combat roles.
Excuse my ignorance, sir, but what combat roles—and we are excluding support jobs here, as outlined in the article— don’t involve strength and endurance?
The reason we should exclude women from combat is because men and women are not equal. As a society, we have decided that men and women should be treated equally under the law. I'm just saying that society should reserve the right to make exceptions to this law, with combat being a good example.
Indeed. Please explain.
When I think of combat roles, I think of infantry and heavy machinery. Maybe a woman could drive a heavy armored vehicle, but could she change a heavy armored vehicle tire or do other field repairs if it breaks down?
“Most women don’t want to be in the literal line of fire.
Shall we conscript them, give them guns and get them shot at in the name of fairness?”
At least the men will be more than happy in a combat situation and say, “Ladies first!”.
No, any real man will place himself between the females & incoming fire. That alone will interfere with combat effectiveness, as the Israelis found out back in 1948.
Yes, I know, but if women want to be men they gotta take point and be the cannon fodder for the guys.
Now you know the reason why the one percenters are gung ho to put women in the military at all levels.
The only visual characteristics of an army should be: fearsomeness... uniformity... and/or invisibility/concealment.
No other traits need apply (other than exceptionally attractive dress uniforms for rare social engagements). The liberal psycho-babble of "looking like society" is simply a ruse to make the military weaker, more confused, less coordinated, and less effective.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh............
You’re missing the point.
The GOAL is to vastly increase gummint power over as many people and parts of society as they possibly can.
The rest is just details.
The author has clearly never served.
That wasn't the question.
It appears you don't want to address the question either, as you quickly changed the subject.
You clearly don't understand men.
Let me offer another view as someone who has seen young men and women in the formative years of their lives as an elementary and high school teacher.
It’s true enough that looking at a group isn’t the same as looking at an individual, so summary judgments about women and men are sure to contain exceptions. I’ve taught some young men who would not be able to handle the physical effort needed for combat, and there have been a couple of young women who would do all right in the same situation. Generally, though, I’d have to say the writer is correct, and since I’m seeing the two sexes in their early years, it’s very clear that I’m looking at differences that are biological, not cultural.
At this point I can see my grandmother smacking her forehead and saying in that beautiful New York Brooklynese Jewish lilt, “For this you went to college?”
I’m constantly surrounded by the “culture is everything” crowd in academia, which I scrupulously ignore and undermine at every turn. Of course males and females are different. I see it every day in its most basic unmasked form. In order to maintain discipline in my class, I have to respond to boys and girls differently, or there is chaos, and no learning takes place.
Best of all, using Alinskyite methods for my own purposes, I regularly mock those claiming that men and women are alike except for culture and the way they were raised. It’s always good for a cheap laugh. As Alinsky would say, you can’t defend yourself against being mocked. And if they want to fire me, I have tenure.
Working in a hospital, is hardly combat, they don't have anything in common at all.
okay....then they’re also fine with being drafted into this role too right? ...same process and responsibilities, without exception, to men right?
I know I’d be really p*ssed if I was injured and couldn’t get assistance (carried) because I’m surrounded by many women who aren’t physically strong enough. Men have rights too, these women don’t even consider the impact on men. This is war, not some social utopia.
If you kill 100s of thousands of your child bearing females in war, where do your future generations, and future military come from?
Now you are catching on.
The total US fertility rate is less than replacement levels of 2.1 (as of 2011 it is about 1.89). You have women too busy working to have children, women have unlimited abortion, pets have become substitute children, plus having women in the military doesn’t help matters.
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