fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2218 ]

[ SECRET POST #2218 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2218 ⌋

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I am going to play devil's advocate here. Several years ago I asked my brother (who serves overseas in the military) how he felt about women serving on the frontline. He told me that for a lot of men, would not be happy about it because women would be a distraction. Not sexually, but because many men have grown up in a society where they are taught to protect women. And for him at least, seeing a woman being killed in action would be much harder to deal with emotionally and more likely to cause distraction that seeing a man KIA.

I think that's something that has to adjust naturally, even if it's difficult. A soldier is a soldier and all that. After all the gendered customs in the US, I can't see the change being completely easy.

tell him to suck it up. if we're out there, we're out there for a reason, and we're out there as equals, not damsels in distress.

Man, this. FFS.

This. I can understand his hesitation, but it's his problem. That perspective/idea is what needs to change; we can't just keep all women from certain positions just because it would make the poor mens' lives difficult.

It's more women have been held to much lower physical standards from the get go of them involved in the military in an official sense from the beginning - if these standards are raised to equal males and all the ladies rise to the occasion and blow the PT scores out of the water, more power to them and put them wherever they can be used (once they've been trained). Until then, the fact that fully loaded with gear that can weigh 80ish lbs in the field has seen as being an obstacle more than anyone's personal *feelings* on anything.

Other side of this, most of the people that have been kick out of the military in recent years were men who couldn't meet their own standards, so as a whole everyone needs to be trying harder...?

Allow me to play devil's devil's advocate and say that I, for one, am greatly disappointed in the thought our troops would lack discipline so greatly a fellow soldier being female would have that enough impact their leaders could not compensate.

I've never understood this argument. They take soft civilians and turn them into soldiers by teaching people to handle all kinds of deep-set instinctual anxieties such as fear of death and fear of killing, but the one thing they can't tackle is fear of proximity to wounded/killed women?

... uh, but.

Women have been in active combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. I know several who served and saw combat. Modern warfare is very different from how it was in the past, and "front lines" don't mean the same thing anymore. Most guys over there will be in combat with a woman at some point.

I haven't heard of it causing the issues that people are concerned about. What is really going to happen here is that the women who have already been in active combat now have more opportunity for promotion, recognition, and pay raises. (The promotion and pay raises are pretty significant, actually, considering that affects stuff like your pension if you are career military and retire.)

Truthfully, I would expect now this is formal, it will affect training for men and women to make sure that the things that people are concerned about happening are less likely to. It hasn't been something they have had to actively deal with because they have just been looking the other way about all the women who have served in combat even though they technically aren't allowed.

If anything, based on my understanding from talking to vets and active duty military, it will drastically help improve it seeing as women will be able to receive the life-saving training they need to function in areas they're already in</> and will cut down on the resentment some men feel at having to compensate and cover for women lacking training, education, ability, and/or authorization to fully pull their own weight.

Yes, that as well.

It's not all bad news on that front - the base we live on is commanded by a woman who just became a two star general. :)

That's awesome! I want to say I remember reading something about that :) but as it has been, it's been a lot harder for women to actually make progress. Lifting the restrictions should help a LOT there.

Sort of? Seems like more than likely changing the current standards officially (since women have been in the thick of things unofficially for years) will affect NCOs and other enlisted women more than it would women in the officer track.

Had the pleasure of briefly meeting this particular general at a function once (as the only spouse there I ended up taking pictures of my husband's unit with the base commander so everyone else could be in the picture), and she's come in and had a semi-offical sit down with my husband's (small) group and seems very down to earth/generally awesome in a no-nonsense fashion and is respected by everyone. :)

This would be a problem with the male soldiers, not the female ones.

People are probably going to jump up my ass for this, but since I'm married to and related to people in the military, let me get my (very short repeated copy/paste because it's very late here) soapbox out on this - the numbers of women who get pregnant in the field/deployed are staggeringly high, and a certain percentage of that is by women who openly admit to becoming pregnant to get out of a deployment.

Plenty of times when this *isn't* the case (majority), according to everyone I've talked to who has been deployed the last ten years or so, almost any woman in a remote camp gets escorted *everywhere* by the men she works with - if only because of biology and the fact that none of them have seen a woman in an excessively long time - which takes valuable resources away from what people *should* be doing. (Related to the need to 'protect' that's drilled in through family values from an early age.)

And to everyone up thread who's totally unconcerned for emotion and mental distress/damage your fellow human beings go through? Screw you.

One way or another, it's a major step to assume *every* woman in the military has aspirations of serving in the front line - because I assure you not every man does. (There being plenty of needed positions within the armed services that rarely/never involve leaving American soil.)

Oh please shut up about biology. They train soldiers to push the limits of human physical and mental endurance but rape is just inevitable? You're really okay with rapey soldiers representing your country as long as keeping women off combat somehow makes it so only foreigners get raped. I don't care who you're related or married to that's just stupid.

As to your mental emotional stress shit it is a WARZONE. If a woman on the area is too much for the frail little menz that is a HUGE problem that has nothing to do with women in combat. No one is saying EVERY woman just the ones fit with a desire or who are ALREADY there.

Not that I feel like you're up for discussing this rationally Anon since you apparently also lack the drive - if not the ability - to be civil, but no one brought up rape before you. Two of my husband's NCOs are women who came home from deployments the last few months, and neither one has discussed this being an issue at all. Distraction does not automatically equal rape, I'm not sure how you made that connection that was what I was talking about inside you head frankly.

Do you actually know anyone in the service anon? Because it's quite one thing to discuss all this in theory on paper, but real life rarely plays out like any best (or worst) case scenario we can come up with here.

What else is the mention of biology and not having seen women in a long time supposed to mean? I would also like to know why you think whatever you meant by distraction is acceptable.

Uhhhh, of course a woman would be distracting to a guy who has not seen one in a while. The same way a guy will be distracting to a woman who has not seen on in a while. Or a gay man who has not seen another guy in a while. Or a lesbian who has not seen another woman in a while.

Of course this doesn't mean the person who going to start humping their leg, but they are going to be distracted. Just like when you see a hot person and get distracted.

...yeah, how about fucking "no." What's wrong with you? "The boobs are distracting me" is the single stupidest excuse for anything, used only by stupid people. If you can't rise above some hypothetical baser instinct, you should not be there in the first place.

Jesus, people.

I recently read an opinion piece that said something similar (after kvetching because women physically aren't as strong and biologically don't produce the levels of testerone needed for such levels of aggression as actively engaging the enemy in combat).

Basically, she was all "if a woman in combat were captured, she'd be more likely to be raped, and any men who were captured with her might not be able to handle her screams (and would we want them to be able to do that?) and would either divulge information or have serious mental problems after afterward because they couldn't do anything while a woman was raped."

There's plenty of woman out there that can wipe the floor with plenty of guys - the problem is more that women aren't held overall in most branches of the American armed forces to the same physical standards are men, and have completely different PT scores they have to meet to be considered 'fit for service'.

Not that my two cents matter for much, but if these standards were raised people might be less squeamish about 'officially' sending women to the front line. (Which doesn't specifically exist in a place like Afghanistan like it did historically in previous wars.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2218 ]

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

Re: Pentagon lifting ban on American female troops in combat MOS

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