Image Michael Kamber
Dying at the front lines of war–whether those wars are justified or not–has traditionally been a gendered equation. Men go to die, be maimed, and come home with PTSD while women support them at home and in the field. The reality is that the bright line has already been blurred as plenty of women have paid the ultimate price in our most recent endeavors in the Middle East. But the Pentagon is switching its policy to allow women to serve in an actual fighting battalion while maintaining the all-male roles of infantry and special ops.
So the question is whether this is a good thing or not? Is the Pentagon just acknowledging what in practice is already going on? Should women be allowed in all functions in the military? What, if any, impact will the formal entry of women into before all-male battalions have on discipline and effectiveness? Is there an argument to be made that these units will actually be more effective?
Please discuss.
Pentagon rules are catching up a bit with reality after a decade when women in the U.S. military have served, fought and died on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the Pentagon is recommending to Congress that women be allowed to serve in more jobs closer to the front lines.
According to defense officials, the new rules are expected to continue the long-held prohibition that prevents women from serving as infantry, armor and special operations forces. But they will formally allow women to serve in other jobs at the battalion level, which until now had been considered too close to combat.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeIn reality, however, the necessities of war have already propelled women to the front lines — often as medics, military police or intelligence officers. So, while a woman couldn’t be assigned as an infantryman in a battalion or in a company going out on patrol, she could fly the helicopter supporting the unit, or move in to provide medical aid if troops were injured.
The officials said the new rules will formally allow women to be assigned to a battalion and serve in jobs such as medics, intelligence officers, police or communications officers. The changes would have the greatest effect on the Army and Marine Corps, which ban women from more jobs than the Navy and Air Force do, largely because of the infantry positions.
I went through each comment and each have valid responses. What we’re not discussing is how special missions units fight the current and emerging enemies of the United States of America. We are now re-designing the larger force to reflect these operational qualities. There are no isolated incidences of terrorism. Those type comments are lies. It is 4th and 5th generation warfare on a global scale and its been going on for a very long time using women. I have fought alongside female American’s for many years; real fighting. They do die the same way as men; giving their all.… Read more »
wet suit. I think you think you’re telling us something we don’t know.
You’re probably right. Some days though, I wonder…
Personally, I’m glad that women will be given the opportunity to be ground up and spit out in bloody little pieces in the machine of war. That is the birthplace of GLORY and HONOUR and these things should be open to everyone. Plus, I think that female brains would taste just as good as male brains when they’re blasted out by enemy fire directly into the mouth of the soldier next door and that their blood will pool just as richly red as die gasping like fish out of water. It will be a beautiful thing! P.S. I love the… Read more »
Also, I’m just gessing that the above post will be removed by a moderator due to the horror contained in it. Which is too bad because I am being sincere and war is the most awful thing imaginable. It is also the most glorious and the most honourable. No honour nor any glory should be denied to anyone who would take the field of battle and die upon it.
I’m not gonna moderate it, cause you kind of remind me of a Klingon right now and I can (weirdly) respect your opinion. Or maybe you are being extraordinarily dry and sarcastic. Either way.
Neither dry nor sarcastic. This is what I really feel about war. It’s both the Glory and the Horror. I see no good reason why both males and females ought not be ground up and spit out of that machine.
It’s definitely Klingonesque, but it’s also innate in the origins of war. That said, back in the good ol days, women were literally too valuable to be slaughtered on the field of battle, for reproductive reasons and the fact that war was a regular part of life. Not so much these days…
Ref. Leigh Ann Hester and her Silver Star.
See
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/03/after_action_re.html
Note she was mounted when she arrived. Note also she and her teammate returned to the vehicle for more ammo. No indication of how much she was carrying and expended when she first dismounted.
Guts and skill. But does not apply to women in the combat arms.
6000+ war dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, 144 of them women. Let’s not pretend that we’ve entered some new paradigm were we have gender parity in the “price of freedom”.
The Defense Department is currently recruiting women for 14,000 job openings in the military (for women alone). That’s a lot of booty…so I don’t want to hear of any rapes! It didn’t mention how many will be job openings for men; I imagine higher than 14, 000.
Woops. I meant “less than the most they can carry”.
That guy.
You missed something. If a piece of equipment is half as heavy, you get to carry two of them. Or you make up for the missing weight with more ammo.
It is irresponsible to load the guys up with less than they can carry, with due consideration for what they’ll be doing.
Israel hasn’t had women in line combat units since ’48. Among other reasons, you don’t want to know what arabs did to captured IDF women. Mainly, it’s because they can’t handle the physical requirements. IDF makes a big deal of it for three reasons, as far as I can see. First, it’s the picture of plucky little Israel where even the women have to fight. Second, it’s possibly deterrence. “Hey, Omar. You got killed by a girrrrrlllll.” Lastly, anybody in any army goes through basic where they learn basic combat skills after which they go to specialized training for their… Read more »
The “carrying capacity” issue is a key one in some infantry operations. It’s so key that the Pentagon is having to rethink its assumptions about it. The load is becoming so big that there are troops out of commission with back injuries and long-term problems from overexertion. They spend even more downtime than they used to lying down totally exhausted and in pain. These are young men in peak physical condition who are carrying loads even they can’t handle. They have to lift weights like body builders just to survive. There are military experts suggesting lighter packs and less equipment… Read more »
What weighs the most is the ammunition and body armour (which traps body heat). Less ammo means more risk when you hit a fight. Unlike Hollywood movies, there are not unlimited helos flying around ready to drop off ammo into the middle of a fight. Less ammo means reduced combat effectiveness – which can lead to more injuries/deaths. Also, soldiers are heavy, and it takes brute strength to drag/carry them to safety when injured – no miracle material will change that. This means you need to have confidence that the person next to you can carry out whatever task is… Read more »
I have clear memories watching the first Gulf War on TV. I remember many commentators and political activists at the time arguing that there will be a huge outcry when the American public sees women coming home in flag-draped coffins or sees body bags with women inside. I heard many critics of the war effort on the left and right wondering if the American public could handle the knowledge that mothers, daughters, sisters and wives were dying in combat. I distinctly remember one man interviewed on national TV suggesting that when the first mother is sent back home in a… Read more »
What I want to know is will this have any effect on the fact that right now in the States a guy has to apply for Selective Service just to apply to college and scholarships under pain of fines and prison while a woman faces no such requirement.
I doubt it though.
See, it would be logical to me that those would go together. If women are able to fit on the front lines, it would make sense that they would have to also register for selective service.
I would be curious to find out if that has been discussed.
*fight, not fit. Sigh.
My money says this has not come up Artemis. Ideally I don’t think anyone should have to agree to Selective Service just to apply for college/scholarships under pain of prison and fines (oh and did you know that immigrant men, but not women, could lose their citizenship under this as well?) but if the pain is going to be out there then it should be equally shared.
tana. Let’s presume you were hoping to convince the unwary that female soldiers average 164. There wouldn’t be any other reason for mentioning it, would there? So, let’s do some more math. To average 164, there would have to be a lot of female soldiers above 164. Otherwise, there’d be no way to haul the average up from the rest of them who look pretty much like a college track team. So you’re telling us that we’re going to find a bunch of female soldiers going pretty far over 164, right? Since we’re talking about soldiers here, there’s no reason… Read more »
tana When I go to the mall, I can see the avg 164 for women. At least. However, we’re talking about young women, soldiers. So forget the 164 average. But do the math however you like. Women can’t carry as much in the way of expendables as men can and that makes a difference. But forget 164. You know there are weight limits? Too porky and you don’t get in, or if you bulk up once you’re in, you’re out. And the specific levels of fitness are DIFFERENT. Did you think anybody would miss that? Women don’t have to be… Read more »
well, the cop requirements are kind of… not all that relevant to the job. They are testing to make sure that you are in good shape when you enter. “In good shape” is different for males and females because of our different physiology. Hence the different requirements. After that, they don’t even retest your fitness levels (at least according to my brother, who is a cop). I would argue military is different, for obvious reasons, so I don’t think your example really proves a point. Physical strength really isn’t all that important in at least police officer positions. I would… Read more »
I say don’t discriminate on gender and let ability speak for itself. Those who can’t do it, won’t.
I’ll be interested to see if they change the rules on the draught accordingly (or maybe even get rid of it altogether). As I understand it the current objection to draughting women is that they weren’t permitted to serve as GIs.
The connection between feminism and the real world is frequently tenuous. Here’s a prime example. When discussing the idea of carrying munitions, some clown in the congress asked if you could get lighter weapons for women. Of course you can. You just have to accept they’re not as effective. That okay? Injuries have already been addressed. Do the math. Figure the grunt hits the street with two thirds of his body weight. If he averages 180, that means 120 lbs of stuff. Some of that is personal gear, from armor to water and rations. Some is equipment such as radio,… Read more »
Richard Aubrey – The average weight for a US man is 190, your representative calculations are off by ten. The average weight for a US woman is 164, your ‘representative’ calculations are off by thirty-four. That’s no small discrepancy. I strikes me that it is more effective for you to skew the data because this appears, on the surface, to prove to us that women are small and thin little people. But either way, the army has taken care of its own requirements for men AND women, demanding specific levels of fitness which, if either sex cannot fulfill, will bar… Read more »
In addition, you might want to look into how all the OTHER militaries around the world who use women in all roles are faring. They include Canada, Israel, Germany, New Zealand, Italy, Serbia, and now Australia.
Overall, they’re handling it just fine.
Leaving aside Israel which needs all its citizens to be militarily prepared against it neighboring enemies, which other county has faced a war with women in their combat unit.
For NZ. we have fitness standards, that are gender and age normed, then we have combat fitness – which is one standard. The battlefield provides no allowances based on gender – whether you are humping rounds on a gun line, or an integral part of a platoon carrying an equal share of the combat stores a platoon carries.
Meet the standard, male or female, is all I would ask. As Gen Rick Hillier (Canada) said – “we ain’t civil servants with guns”.
I thought it was a question of fairness but it endangers men. See data laid out in “Co-ed Combat,” by Dr. Kingsley Browne. A blog item on it:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2007/12/06/coed_combat_1.html
I believe part of the reason females aren’t allowed in all combat roles was due to higher injury rates, physiology and weight carrying ability. Google “study on female military injury” and it seems there are some big concerns for their health. Anecdotal evidence I’ve heard from soldiers is they are carrying 60kg of gear and even very strong men have trouble, especially if they’re carrying light machine guns and quite a bit of ammo so strength could be an issue. That said I believe Australia has opened up the roles to both genders if they can pass the test, It’d… Read more »
If the same fitness requirements are applied to all then it shouldn’t be a problem. I suspect less women will qualify for infantry positions than men (purely based on sexual dimorphism), but I don’t agree that a formal “no women” rule is helpful. The australian navy has one uniquely progressive element in this regard: All female submarine crews. The usual arguments against allowing women into the submarine service is that it would be difficult to impossible to segregate the crew. Also, concerns regarding women becoming pregnant at sea and having to be airlifted off, not so possible on a sub.… Read more »
Agreed.. and about time, too. The time when “lifting and carrying capacity” was the key criterion for a frontline soldier is long past. Either we embrace gender equality, or we don’t. This change was long overdue.
Sorry, but the battlefield is not a place for gender equity. Lifting and carrying is a key criterion – because the enemy is not going to do you any favours. As has been mentioned, many men struggle with the physical demands. That being said, I have served with women who have been front line infantry – but that was only because they could achieve the standard that was required – independent of gender or age. Carrying a combat load, fighting through buildings etc, is physically demanding and draining for even fit men (and women). We tend to get an idealised… Read more »
Peter, I believe the US Navy actually recently started allowing all-female sub crews. I have a friend at the Naval Academy and he said that they were starting that (not true a few years ago, I believe).
If anyone from the military can confirm, it would be appreciated. It seems like a solid idea.
The downward spiral of the economy and unrest in the world, interestingly open up jobs in the military… in the tens of thousands. To many soldiers have died, the Defense Department has no choice but to recruit women now, I don’t think this is the sake for gender equality – children are next.
the men who have lost factory/labour jobs by the hundred thousands are prime candidates for the military also. So gender equality for all.
Is it actually due to lack of men though? With the US Army out of Iraq I would have imagined there’d be plenty.
Call me an idealist, but I think this is actual progress.
EVIDENCE: Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032598_veterans_suicide.html#ixzz1luBMvHJy 18 U.S. veterans commit suicide daily; largely due to psychiatric drugs A study released by the Army in June 2009 indicated that nearly as many American troops at home and abroad committed suicide in the first six months of 2006 as the number who had been killed in combat in Afghanistan during the same time period (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131096642). An average of 18 American veterans commit suicide every day (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/fort-hood-shooting-puts-spotlig…). Now, the increasingly high number of deaths among both veterans and active duty soldiers–including suicides, accidental overdose, and lethal drug interactions–have now been linked to the exponential increase… Read more »
This should be a scandal. No question.
But, something doesn’t add up here — 468 in a year is not 18 per day. It’s maybe 1.5 per day.
As a historian, I’m wondering how this compares to the past century of warfare. Is this a relatively high percentage compared to Viet Nam and WWII and WWI?
Just noticed this reply. I doubt the survivors of previous wars were scrutinised with anything approaching the concern that today’s soldiers are. In other words we don’t have nearly enough data to compare the psychological impact of Iraq to Vietnam to WW2 etc.