General News US Military Opens All Combat Roles to Women

Adults are capable of working together without sleeping together if the latter poses a problem for the former. I really don't see how a ban is better than clear guidelines and disciplinary procedures.

In any case, the presence of women in conflict zones is a very desirable thing. The role of a modern military, especially that of the USA and those of similar countries, is far more than merely effectively fighting an enemy, which I don't see women as having a detrimental impact on, anyway. It's also about humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and providing stability for the places where they operate. For that, not only are women not unhelpful, they're actually far better to have in large numbers. Women affected by violence, particularly sexual violence, tend to be able to cooperate better with women soldiers and peacekeepers. Female soldiers in conflict zones are more likely to be sensitive to civilian women than men are. I'm not just making supposition here, I have spoken to peacekeepers and humanitarian workers who have made very clear that male-dominated units are often rather incongruent with their roles.

For example, when UN forces had to be deployed in Darfur, the male soldiers were rather hopeless in many cases at dealing with the endemic sexual violence against women, and male leaders of the military mission were rather reluctant to treat rape as a weapon of war as a serious military issue, despite its massive prominence in the Darfur situation. The military men on the ground and in the leadership were far better able to engage with the local civilian men, which resulted in quite a lopsided response.

I'll also say that the presence of a large number of women in the military is likely to change military culture. This is absolutely a positive outcome. From soldiers engaging in sexist behaviours and sexual assault (I've outlined why I think this is tied to the actual role of the military) to the arrogant attitude many military forces take to their civilian governments and civilians as a class (which I perceive as quite a masculine thing in the expressions of it I've come across), women are a positive way to create change around those issues.

So yeah, I'm entirely in support of this. I don't want to pretend no change in operations or culture will occur. I want to admit and celebrate that change.

 

About time.

 

I don't think of distractions when I say that. I think of different combat needs. It's a biological fact that men and women have different strengths and weaknesses. Putting them together to fight may ultimately hold them back. Women have different needs than men when it comes to training and combat. I don't think it's wise to sacrifice productivity to spare people's feelings. Women can probably end up working much better if it's among themselves. Men tend to have more muscular strength while women tend to be more flexible and more capable of gymnastic-like combat moves. It's not trying to hold anyone back. It's just what it is.

 

Outside of PT, not really. It's not like women are trained to handle guns differently, or use a different set of infantry formations, or anything like that.

This isn't just feelings. Segregated units are a pain in the ass in terms of logistics and command structures. I also do not buy into the premise that women do in fact work better in the abscence of men.

Gymnastic-like combat moves? Since when has that sort of thing ever been valuable in infantry combat, much less in an environment dominated by heavy individual firepower and easy access to fire support? Shit, since when have gymnastic-like combat moves ever been useful for anything except showing off or whupping on somebody who isn't a trained fighter at all?

---------- Post added 5th Dec 2015 at 11:28 PM ----------

The West Wing had something to say about that:

 

The news story is about opening combat related military jobs. Women have already been in combat situations for a long time, even if their specific MOS isn't technically combat related. For example, women have been in combat in Apache helicopters. In addition, my former partner was in combat situations on the ground in Iraq in 2009. There was no hand to hand combat or gymnastic-like combat moves even among the men, and her shooting ability was better than most of her male counterparts. While it's true that in general men have more muscular strength than women, you don't need to be Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rambo to be effective in real life modern combat. In fact if you are Rambo, you're just a bigger target.

 

Fair point. Perhaps I just had a misconception for what real military combat is like. If the units really are just as you described, then I guess it shouldn't matter if their are mixed units since strengths and weaknesses would play a negligible role.

I didn't mean to digress, but I was only responding to someone.

 

Give a woman a gun and a reason to shoot, and she will shoot as well as any man.

 

As a former solider in the US Army, (12 years) I think anyone who can do the job, and wants to should be able to regardless of gender. I have known women soldiers who were much better soldiers than many men.

There will be some adjustments that will end up having to be made, but the service will adapt, and be better for it.