"80 pounds of body armor, 210 rounds of ammunition, and then having to put on a rucksack and perform a 16 mile march in 4 hours."
If given similar training and conditioning, women can do the above better then men. Women have higher endurance levels, higher pain levels and can carry heavy weights longer then a man. They do NOT have the upper body strength to engage in hand to hand activities with a man, to do any heavy lifting (as opposed to carrying, through many a nurse has to carry the weight of 150-200 pound patients).
The reason for is is the placement of Muscles in men and women. The same volume of Muscle weighs four times the same volume of fat. Thus men's center of Gravity is in the middle of their chest, while women's center of gravity is two below her belly button.
The reason for this is women have the strongest single muscle in the Human Body, the muscles to push out a baby at birth. Men have more muscle, but it is concentrated in the upper chest region. This distribution of muscle is the main reason for the difference in the Center of Gravity.
Women's center of gravity permit them to tote heavy loads on their backs OVER their center of gravity. A heavy pack of a man, pulls his chest back wards, so he has to bend forward to balance between the pack and his own center of gravity. Thus women can tote heavier loads then men, while it is easier for men to pick up heavier loads.
Thus your comment about having to haul "80 pounds of body armor, 210 rounds of ammunition, and then having to put on a rucksack and perform a 16 mile march in 4 hours." sounds like "Women's work", for a woman, if given similar training as the men, can do that better then a man.
Notice, I used the term "Similar training" for many women are NOT given the same training as men, or anything close. My sister when she went through Navy boot camp in the mid 1970s, made the observation that the Physical Training was NOT going to get the women up to the level needed to pass the PT test. She was correct, but she saw what the women had to do and knew what training they had to go under to get to that level and the two were NOT compatible. My sister also was known to out walk a Marine, who decided to go with her when she had liberty at her next training site, she thought nothing of walking 10-15 miles to the town that had things in it, and walk back. She had done that all her life, many of her fellow female Sailors had NOT. Could she out walk the Marine, yes, could she lift what he could, the answer was no but was given her level of phyiscal training.
My point is to show, women, if probably train, can excel in activities involving endurance, carrying heavy weights over a distance etc, but most women of the 1970s and today are NOT given that training (and if they are, they opt for Title XI scholarships, for Collages have to have the same number of Female Athletes as Male Athletes and thus there is a shortage of Female Athletes for the Collages and that removes many a better trained female from other areas, including the Military).
If you want to justify different treatment for women then men based on physical differences, lets make sure the difference is REAL, not made up. Superior upper body strength is a factor if you get down to hand to hand combat, something that STILL OCCURS QUITE OFTEN IN TODAY'S COMBAT SITUATIONS. On the other hand, endurance is something women can do and have done for thousands of years. In fact prior to the 1880s, whenever troops were formed, every 20 men (a traditional Platoon, Platoons starting in the 1880s started to get larger, as did most combat units) was entitled to have one "Washer Woman" assigned to it. The Washer women did more then wash clothes, she did many other "Support" elements to the platoon, while it was NOT a requirement, she generally was the wife of the Platoon's Sergeant. She walked behind the Regiment, the platoon was part of (or smaller unit if the Platoon was attached to a smaller unit) but was expected to keep up with the platoon and take care of the Platoon's equipment that the men of the Platoon was not carrying themselves. Sometimes they would do more (Molly Pitcher of American Revolution Fame was such a "Washer women" when she saw her husband killed, she took his place in manning his cannon, for this she was given a "promotion" to Sargent and discharged by George Washington, thus she was entitled to two pensions, her late husband's and her own).
Washer Women are NOT reported in Ancient text, nor Medieval text, then we have linen text about the exchange of prisoners during the crusades, and the first people exchanged are the Washer Women AND THE WRITING MAKES IT SOUND EXCHANGING WASHER WOMEN FIRST WAS A LONG ACCEPTED CUSTOM BY BOTH SIDES. This is probably the product of Linen paper being introduced about the time, prior to the Crusades it appears only in China, but came West in the 1200s during the height of the Crusades. Linen was much cheaper then parchment, the previous most common form of "paper" and thus could be used for thing previous done on wood, bark or other non-permanent object that writing could be done on was thus replaced by linen paper and we get all types of new data about the same time period. More do to the fact they had something relatively cheap to write on (linen paper) that could last more then a few months in the damp wet condition of Europe and the areas of the Mid East where the Crusades were fought in.
The reason for the removal of the Washer Women in the 1880s is harder to determine. Congress passed a law abolishing Washer Women, but did not explain why. It could be part of the Women's rights movement, it could be part of the budget problems of the 1880s (One year Congress refused to pay the army, in an effort to prevent Congress from having to pass the first peace time One Billion Dollar Budget in an election year). Other factors could be the decision to pay enlistees extra if they had wives and children, thus cutting out the extra pay a washer woman often provided her Husband, the Platoon Sergeant with. Could be Congress did not like the fact that Washer Women did NOT have to be married to the Platoon's Sargent. It could be that the Army decided to strip the men of cooking they own food (Men were formed into files of four men each, each file had to cook their own meals, a job the men often paid the Washer Women to perform) and replace them with actual cooks, but this being the 1880s the Cooks had to be men not women for the Cooks had to go to some sort of school and Congress did not want to pay to educate Women. Any of the above could be why the position of washer women were eliminated, and it could be ALL OF THEM.
My point is women can and have served in every ground combat unit with the exception of Armor (and Armor only because it is a post 1914 developed unit). Women did NOT serve in the front lines of these units, where they weaker upper body strength would be a major factor, but did serve in all of the other aspects of the unit.
In the case of Armor, one of the Criticism of Soviet Armor was it was a tight fit for American tankers. The reason for that is the same reason the ME-109 of WWII fame, when flown by a British pilot was called "Cramped", that reason being Soviet Tanks and German WWII Fighters were designed around men no bigger then 5'4", while the US and British army would take no man below that height. Thus women, being smaller, can actually operate those Soviet Tanks better then men. Now, the Soviet's used men in the tank forces, but only because they had a lot of short men (Thus Soviet Tank controls took more muscle strength then western tanks for they were designed around short men not women). I mention it for women are smaller then men and thus the tanks they operate can be smaller, especially given that today's tanks are so huge you have to have power assist to operate one even if you are a man. Once power assist is required, the higher upper body strength of men is no longer an advantage.
Thus I can see women being segregated from Infantry Units, from Towed Artillery units (No power assist, thus muscle is important) but not from Armor or Self Propelled (SP) Artillery. In Armor and SP Artillery you have power assist to move the gun and to aim it, load it and fire it. The only time where Upper Body strength would come into play would be if a track broke and had to be repaired, but that tends to be something the Tank, APC or SP Artillery piece has to perform as a team and often with unit maintenance support. Women can perform such maintenance AND repair, just as if such damage occurred in a non-combat unit tracked vehicle. If there is a rush, the vehicle is either towed or destroyed if the enemy is near even if it has a all male crew. On the other hand if the enemy is not near, men's greater upper body strength can be offset by women with the use of mechanical devices (i.e. jacks, and even larger tools). This is done today in the non-combat units, so not a real problem.
My point is, except in those units where there is a good chance of a one on one combat situation, women can perform as well as a man. How Women do it will be different, but the job will get done. If you want to use endurance as the test, it is a loser, if given adequate training women will do better then men in areas of endurance. Men's main superiority over women is men's in upper body strength, but that is offset by Women's superior ability to tote heavy loads long distances. The key is balancing between the two sexes in a way that is "Fair" to both. You do not want to require women to be equal to men, when the definition of equally is what men can do (and neither do you want the definition of equity to be based on what women can do, for men lose out in that situation, though it is much rarer).
= new reply since forum marked as read
