on women in combat corps

From a discussion board I couldn't resist posting to on Facebook:

I think the point here isn't that women are more likely to be incapable of physically or mentally taking on a combat role, and therefore should be excluded by default. I figure that if it is a job that you are capable of doing, and you have the determination and desire to do it, then by all means, find a Force that will accept you in that position. I hope that by thinking about what is at the core of what you really want out of life, you'll be able to find somewhere in the ADF that can help provide it.

The argument regarding ADF is that being an equal opportunity employer, any female that has the correct attributes for a position should be allowed to apply for it. However, attributes cover more than just mental and physical. In general, I believe that women have more capacity for mental toughness than men, whilst men have more capacity for physical strength. I'm not being sexist here - this is just how the world is skewed!

It's hard for any male to bring up the point of menstruation without it seeming like a clumsy attempt at pointing out weaknesses. There are of course multiple ways to safely stop a woman from menstruating - but they probably cannot be legally forced upon a female as a workplace requirement. And might I point out here that safety doesn't equate to reliability when it comes to birth control, hormonal in particular - I knew a number of women in recruit school who had trouble with their menstrual cycle due to stress. I can just imagine what might happen if any of those women were in an actual combat zone!

James said:

hey um not trying to sound sexist or anything but women are not normaly as strong as men. they would probably want different places to got to the toilet. they would possibly be raped by someone. they might slow the squad down simply due to the differences in stamina and things.

Perhaps it wasn't well articulated, but James does have a point here about the different needs of women. When I was doing field training with my cooks' course, I was the only female out bush, and they asked if I wanted a tent to myself. I told the boys not to bother putting it up, and apparently most of the time the females on course will actually ask for their own separate tent. But just because I don't care whether I sleep, eat, shit, and shower amongst a bunch of guys doesn't mean all women are cool with it, nor are all guys cool with a female being 'one of the boys'.

Even though it seems like the government has a double standard regarding sending out men on the front line but keeping our women somewhere safer, can you imagine the shitstorm that would result if a female troop were to get captured by the enemy, raped, tortured, and possibly killed? We haven't got rid of enough of the patriarchy for even the possible image of that happening to be acceptable.

Keeley said:

Along with the fact that if a woman is introduced into such an already male dominated role, the dynamic of the group itself could change, possibly causing division within the group itself between those who take a liking(non romantic or otherwise) to the female/s within the group, and those that dont.

I've seen this happen in a non-combat situation, while I was the only female on my cooks' course. Kayla Williams wrote about the Queen For A Year syndrome in her book 'Love My Rifle More Than You', where the attractiveness of a female being a minority amongst testosterone-fuelled men on deployment increases, while the normal perception of how attractive women are in general decreases. Face it, we don't live in a utopian world where women are seen as being equal to men - that won't happen for as long as we are two different genders. There is no denying the undercurrent of basic instincts that come into play when there isn't a balance between the genders within a group. Our course was told repeatedly that if there were more females within the class, the dynamics would be quite different, and most likely find it easier to settle.

Jes said:

My degree was social sciences. This is a fact of life. Dynamics change. Combat soldiers need to be immune to this - it is an integral part of their life/work. This can happen with different men in the units also.

I don't have a degree in social sciences, but I would argue that despite dynamics changing (it's what they do best, I hear), the essential nature of humans will not. You can't expect any large group of men, highly-trained combat soldiers or not, to act the same way whether or not there is a female present among them. Much like you wouldn't expect a large group of women to act the same way when there's a minority of men present.

Basically, you can sit and wish you could be treated like one of the boys as much as you want (heck, there are some days when it comes close to forgetting you're not, that's the kind of mates you make in the military though), but for as long as you've got the requisite bits that make you female... you won't *be* one of them. You never will be, and that's no fault of the ADF or other Forces with similar lines of thought.