Why do men need to prove themselves equal to other men on the battlefield?

Better and/or luckier, they are dead

There are women who want to do it, and they should be able to if qualified.

The sexists cling to the military and pro football, because these fields are the only ones left where male exclusivity of it, they think, can seriously be argued. But they are being proven wrong about the military. Football they are probably right, there might not be any women who could ever qualify, or once in a blue moon.

Brute strength isn't everything any more. That's all the sexists have for their claim for male superiority.

Mostly not, but sometimes it is (unless we implement _Starship Troopers_ suits).

Exclusion is exclusion. If you are not accepted into a job, you are considered inferior. If you've never had a huge door like that closed to you, you don't know how it works.

...in ill-advised and illegal wars. It may not be smart but at least it is equal. In my opinion, not something to brag about. Just my opinion.

The military is an entry-level way that someone from the working class can get a foothold into education, job training, career advancement, other fields, etc. The military isn't only used in battle. Discrimination sucks. Woman in the military will be able to access resources that have been unfairly barred to them, and they achieved it in the face of unrelenting hate.

I think that is something to be very proud of.

aren't shut out from certain positions. As for losing limbs and such, Tammy Duckworth lost both her legs in Iraq. You can be caught in battle even if you aren't on the front lines.

Women are already in combat situations in wartime. Getting the positions, pay, and recognition has been a huge struggle. I am proud of the women who faced down national skepticism and passed this course.

Nurses, drivers, pilots in combat zones? Check. But good luck getting credit for combat service.

Puts me in mind of how physical requirements for military service go up and down depending on how recruiting is going...

Getting used and killed for no purpose, it stands to reason that females should fill up some of those fodder spots, to spare men from doing all the dying.

Equal rights; equal responsibilities.

That's not exactly how I see it - my firat concern is that the military be good at its job, and my second concern is diluting the rape-and-murder culture that tends to develop in exclusively male groups.

A coed combat force in which women are fully integrated at all levels from fodder to commanders - if it can be done without compromising speed and strength and effectiveness of the fighters - is less likely to rape village girls - or female GI's..

Came upon USN hubby (I was USN also), with his all-male squadron, shooting the bull.

DID NOT RECOGNIZE HIM, OR THEM (many of whom I knew).

It was like wild animals caught in the headlights (thank goodness the pack was ashamed to be caught and did not attack me).

I was shocked to my socks. Homogeneous cultures can become toxic, IMHO.

And I am not a person who thinks women are peaceful angels with no violence in our hearts: hell no!

But in an all-male culture men compete to "prove they aren't pussies" (sorry); it's like they are all fearful of being called a sissy. The leader is the loudest, raunchiest, most dominating guy and all the others scramble to follow his example.

Females establish cohesion and pecking order in a different way (not necessarily better, but different). Add females to males - I mean respected females, not targeted victimized ones - and the dynamic changes.

I saw still nice people, and I saw them bonding. I saw them being rather crass, and I saw them being embarrassed when I showed up.

Thanks - you just showed me a different way of looking at it, and those guys (including hubby) weren't so bad.

maybe you'd caught your husband and co doing something horrible involving misogyny and strippers.

I am curious - I think you said you were USN too. Are female soldiers in some ways, at some times, as raunchy as males?

I ask because I think there's another possible outcome of coed combat: that nothing will change because women will just adapt into the traditional male-soldier mold - become swaggery, help rape village girls, and so on.

What's your sense?

And I really think that having both sexes, and all sides, at the table is important.

is so chronically violent is that females are largely kept voiceless.

especially since by my own admission they weren't doing anything super-heinous. (As evidenced by the fact that I don't remember the details - but it *was* nearly 40 years ago....)

What they *were* doing was following blindly (without even a clear leader, except groupthink) and egging each other on (in the negative direction the phrase implies). I really don't like either of those things.

Women can have their body parts blown off if they want to, and men can teach children if they want to.

Having a penis or a vagina has nothing to do with either of those things.

Now the women have to be educated also. A great stride forward?

There have always been women who have supported war. The only difference is that before they weren't allowed to participate.

And women don't need to be educated about violence, we're intimately familiar with it.

Are you a Heinlein fan also? This thread made me think about the contradiction in _Starship Troopers_.

Also an ex Marine who has first hand knowledge of how inherently discriminatory the military is.

Women shouldn't be prevented from serving in combat roles because of their gender.

My mom worked for a defense contractor of some sort. (Would like to ask, but they have both passed.)

She told them they "could run a three-ring circus" if they wanted but her husband was on Guadalcanal and therefore she quit.

I think I would have loved both of your parents.

So many people crap on members of the military here, how quickly they forget their sacrifices.

Let your country send your tender body wherever it wants, to do whatever it wants? You better trust your county (i.e., its people) a whole lot. At the moment, I don't.

At least your dad knew what he was fighting for and against. If I had it to do over again I wouldn't sign up now or encourage anyone else to do so.

If you sign up to fight/die for your county, it's best you agree with the reason (another disagreement with Heinlein, sort of - I think he meant not on-the-fly, without accepting the consequences).

before Vietnam. Hollywood presents a picture of noble patriots who believed in cause and country (WW2, Union soldiers). Maybe that's because olden days really were more simple: there was no Internet; and you believed in America because mama and the pastor said you should!

But maybe the black secret is that every war has felt - to many of its soldiers - like the recent ones: just a big fuck-over from the far-off DC bosses who are never gonna bleed a drop.

Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ being exceptions, at least to me.

Seems like presidents always have to get people killed.

I know Vietnam was $!#@d up. LBJ was still a great president.

some of our posters who have served gladly and proudly.

Sure some of the soldiers who were sent over there were criminals but the vast majority of them are decent people like my brother.

One guy posted about how he was worried about his nephew who was called up and someone told them that the kid deserved what he got if he voted Republican.

I mean Jesus, the uncle was just looking for a little compassion.

Jesus Christ not even I would have written that
..... I mean look at my username.

I used to disdain the military too..... then I worked alongside many military men and women and grew to respect them. at one point in a foreign country I was evacuated and protected by US Marines. ..... literally my ass was saved by them, so I am personally cognizant and grateful of the job they do.

They do not inflict pain for sport, they take no pleasure in hurting another.

Many humans seen to revel in it.

and dog care....I walk dogs during the day for cash, and it helps my metabolic rate and my checkbook......

But I don't do it for that....I do it for the beings capable of loving even the worst of us.

I know exactly what you mean.

I could never forgive or love again if I had been abused that badly. But he loves humans more than life. That's why they could get away with it, because he wouldn't turn on them.

I just do my best to live up to who he thinks I am.

I know I've really fucked up when my lab gives me the double facepalm look.....he has infinite patience in me.

Good thing my guys don't know that though.

too.

We all saw what you did to help someone in trouble. I see it hasn't stopped you from reaching out to others.

to change names again, mine will be:

"Damnit, Jim"

I got my Hello Cthulhu from Modem Butterfly.

I still miss her.

To the JURY......seriously, you should google her birds.........


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x2983598

(love my job, my supervisors not so much). Your way sounds interesting. Is dog-walking reasonably lucrative?

Post WWII, the job is murdering innocent people for no good reason.

I don't like the military-industrial-Congressional-prison complex either.

And I wonder how much that has outraged you, or how much effort you have put into changing it.

If you've been pretty okay with women being always the unarmed helpless victims - throughout history, around the world - but recoil at seeing them carry a gun into a battle and defend themselves, well! that's interesting.

If you are male: don't you think it's arrogant to preach what's right or wrong for women? We know male violence; thanks for caring. We get our body parts ripped up plenty right here on the home front - in case you hadn't noticed.

If you are female: I respect your views but don't agree.

In other counties and across time. War is a terrible, horrible, psychotic thing, but it exists. Women should be allowed as much as their male counterparts, and all in-between.

Men are perfectly capable of doing anything a woman can do, including civilizing and teaching

If women can pass the exact same test as men then they can be equal in that endeavor. And vise versa. I will give these two ladies credit for their hard work, but I just can not believe they did the exact same test as the men.

This applies to police, firefighters, and military.

Special forces are an elite group where many men that fail are not equal with the men who pass the requirements. Those that fail do not get the titles.

took the exact same course.

And I heard that some news crews were invited in for the final, most brutal third - swamp training - so they could see it for themselves.

So if all the evidence says the women passed fair and square,

and you maintain without evidence that they cheated, or didn't earn it, or slept their way to the top, or whatever you meant to imply there with "I just cannot believe they took the same test" -

-- then the problem is you.

Your assumptions of women's inferiority were wrong in these two cases. Be a stand-up man/woman and admit it..

Present your evidence, then.

I'm a liberal but I can't help myself and I won't watch female boxing and I think it's too brutal for women.. i think women though can be as tough and courageous as men. In World War I the Russian Women's Battalion of Death fought in trench warfare against German regular troops. I can't think of anything more horrific than the attrition brought about by trench warfare, the diseases, the filth, the constant shelling and the effect on the nerves, and the bayonet attacks. In the battle of Smorgan, they were ordered to go over the top to shame the men's units (who were afraid to advance) into attacking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Battalion

"...Called into action against the Germans during the Kerensky Offensive, they were assigned to the 525th Kiuruk-Darinski Regiment and occupied a trench near Smorgon. Ordered to go over the top, the soldiers of the war weary men's battalions hesitated. The women, however, decided to go with or without them. Eventually they pushed past three trenches into German territory, where soldiers discovered a stash of vodka, which the women tried to break before they could be drunk. In his report, the commander of the regiment praised the women's battalion's initiative and courage.[8] ..."

She'd kick your sexist ass.

I don't propose banning women's boxing but it's not for me and it doesn't entertain me. I guess I just forgot myself and fell out of lockstep. I don't know whatever came over me.

And never have been. My cousin (female) got two sets of boxing gloves for Xmas. Threw a punch, I left.

Not the same as saying male OK, female not OK.

but I know it's not your fault.

kiddin' of course. About the weenie part.

I get Nothing from it. It sickens me.

The strikes are at weakest links. Like mosques, cartoonists and cafes.

As far as violence and war fronts on our own land a teen from Chicago who enlists and gets deployed to Afghanistan is likely safer in Afghanistan.

Death toll to murder in Chicago - 293

Let's just let our leaders play chess for the fate of the world. Seriously. It makes just as much, if not more, sense.

Last edited Sun Aug 23, 2015, 08:31 AM - Edit history (1)

If they make it through the training they should be allowed to volunteer for the missions.

You think this is about validation?

It's about the right to be allowed to follow their chosen path and not be excluded because of gender.

Period.

Any person capable of doing a job should never be prevented from holding that job. It really is that easy.

Oh yes.....if you have any doubts about female soldiers you should check out the female kurdish fighters.

Last edited Sat Aug 22, 2015, 06:46 PM - Edit history (1)

What you're really saying is men are basically a bunch of savages that have to be held in check by the civilizing influence of women. And that women are, or should be, Pacifists.

Women can be just as tough and violent as men. The Women of the USSR who defended their Motherland during WW2 proved this. We can discuss the political and other deficiencies of the USSR under Stalin, but they were the only major combatant in WW2 where women served in front line combat units. A point where we, the supposed liberal and enlightened US, have not yet reached 75 year later.

The most successful FEMALE sniper in history was Lyudmila Pavlichenko She is credited with 309 kills. The best U.S. sniper in history, Chris Kyle, claimed an unconfirmed 225 kills.

Now, as a man, there is no way I would last for 5 seconds as a sniper in combat, I just don't have the skill set. So this woman is definitely tougher than me. And she volunteered, she was not drafted.

http://englishrussia.com/2012/03/08/outstanding-soviet-female-snipers-of-wwii/

Women can do anything they want to do, and men don't have the right to say what they can or can't do.

Period.

Is that why we go to war?

Who knew?

for proving anything; it is for surviving.

Do not confuse sex-bias career limitations for any lack on the part of those facing the limitations.

FWIW I've led women on the battlefield. It wasn't supposed to be a battlefield but someone forgot to email that info to the enemy.
My girls did just as well as my boys. I am confident however there would be an inequality in the maternity room.

Incoming fire during a firefight is an equal opportunity killer. Cares not your sex, race or religion.
As stated only proof you can give yourself is survival and hopefully taking out more than you lose.

drafted into combat, in a war you don't believe in

enemy bullets piercing the body


some say envy is wanting what someone else has, without fully understanding what they've got

American women?

Woman already fight in combat in several other countries. Or consider the fact that Women are raped, mutilated and mutilated in war and in the name of war. They watch their children killed in front of them. A woman's privilege do you think?

My oldest daughter is a decorated combat veteran. She wasn't on the "front lines" in combat--she was in the New kind of War in Afghanistan--there were no front lines.

But my jaw had dropped onto my keyboard fingers.

responsibility along with the rights. No feminist ever said differently.

will the first woman to get a draft notice in a hot war really be grateful - Is she really going to say 'I've come a long way, baby?' (and she's going to be going a long way, probably thousands of miles)

don't kid yourself - the pieces are falling into place for that day to become inevitable

and I don't mean this as criticism - my own vision of 'progress' would be getting men OUT of needless wars, not getting women INTO them - I think that's way more important, and a much higher priority

(and I'm not completely anti-war, just elective MIC driven elective conflicts)

feminists were trying for that while Vietnam was happening. Did they sit back and say at least I don't have to get a draft notice because I'm a girl? Because I'm a girl I don't have to serve in the military? Well it also meant I don't "have to" become a politician, doctor, lawyer, anything else.

to work long hours (say, as astronauts or senators) or to get injured (say, while playing sports or working construction.)

The downside comes with the upside. Any reasonable woman and man should see that.

On the other hand, if women are still suffering at government hands stateside (poor protection from wife-beaters and religious nuts, endless war against our reproductive choices) and are ordered to fight and die anyway... I favor a Muhammed Ali moment.

time.

Seriously....I would never, ever, wish anybody that. But just know that what I face, what every woman faces....walking down the street, every day.

Life is just kittens and chocolate for us.

performing non-combat duties. They still got shot, killed and often had to pick up a weapon in defense. It's time they were taken seriously and given the training and respect that they deserve. Not all men can be Rangers either so if some of the women can qualify why not let them?

Women have been put in the same jeopardy since forever. Just not got credit for it.

It is irrelevant whether or not a war is legitimate or not, it seems? And every military adventure of recent times has not been honorable or legitimate. Yet, many of our soldiers have died - men and women. In the name of what? Equality? Give me a break!

So predictable. There are always a few waiting in the bushes to yell "sexism" or some other charge without thinking.

Yes. But it is a volunteer force and women can volunteer to fight if they wish. "They are just as violent as men", and that is not "sexist"?

Brave new thinkers we are.

Mistook your question about women in the military as a question about women in the military.

I didn't catch that it was about war in general.

Sorry, my bad.

I won't waste my time on your threads in the future. Welcome back.

Is it not a given that that you will likely go to war in today's military? Or perhaps you thought it was a Sunday social? How could you overlook such an obvious fact?

So since you aren't reading them, I see no reason to respond to your strawmen.

Why didn't you do it from that point of view?

Did that not cross your mind?

Sounds like you are saying women in the military are just playin'. I may be wrong, but that's what I hear here. Or at least what my emotions hear.

"Realistic possibility of going to war".... Uh, yeah, that's what's being discussed, per your OP.

..it is the men and women outside the military. It is not a game. It is life or death, usually dictated by the leaders of our country and the MIC. Women do not have to pick up 500 lbs just because a man does. Their equality lies elsewhere.

The women who were the subject of the OP passed the SAME COURSE the men did.

Now do you get it? You don't get to tell them where their "equality lies."

Well, you can try, but it does make you look sexist.

whether or not we agree with the war's legitimacy. What does that have to do with the sex of the soldiers? If we think the war is not legitimate (Iraq) neither the men nor the women should go. If we think it is, (World War II), then both the men and the women go.

It's like you are saying we should suddenly turn sexist and say that this war is not something we agree with, so only the men should go.

I see that is exactly what the OP was saying. The logic escapes me, but it generated a good discussion.

Women should strive for what's important to them. No societal-imposed limits to their aspirations.

and needs to prove herself to be as good as any man..

(brother, boyfriend, cousin, etc)

Might be true in some, but not most cases. Some just like a challenge or an adventure.

Grammatical play aside...

Women so routinely have to go through hell and may still be put down as inferior. In business, in the military, wherever.

in their own minds.....how does one achieve superiority or equality? By having interests totally different than a man's, or beating a guy in his own game, and do it to prove something to him or herself......

Not just in business or the military - you ever go shopping with a man? Or have him help in the kitchen - and he ends up giving
suggestions that sound like orders..


everyone wants to go up but it's hard, and SOME men won't let you...I think they fear being outdone by a female....

I don't think it's a matter of proving equality. Nor do I think becoming a soldier validates anybody, male or female.

Men can raise the children, teach the children, etc. We see many families where the woman pursues a high powered career, and the man stays home and takes care of the kids, or picks up part time jobs etc.

Until we have suits like in _Starship Troopers_.

What I find hilarious about that novel is that Heinlein relegated females to pilot roles when those suits were the great equalizers.

Well, even geniuses have their blind spots....

since the early days of this country women have proved their mettle in, on or around the battlefield. The West Point cemetery is the final resting place of Margaret (née Cochran) Corbin, she was the first women awarded a military pension. Women have sacrificed for centuries, nothing changes look at Tammy Duckworth.

http://hhoc.org/hist/mc_corbin.htm

Don't know why none so far, but I think this is an important discussion. And I still think Heinlein dropped the ball in _Starship Troopers_.

Or do they need to be able to blow off more body parts than men.

It stinks however one thinks about it.