Remius said:
And that goes to the point when someone says we need to or should take a feminist approach to the CAF. What are the key things that are discouraging women from joining? Likely you will see that if you address those issues you might actually have a better product and make the CAF a more attractive employer as a whole to men and women.
That is a good basic question, Remius. But what if the answer is: It's not us?
Let me try and illustrate, and since we are in Canada, I'll use hockey - but also because I am heavily involved in my town with the hockey organization.
Women hockey is pretty well in the news all the time in the last say, 12-15 years. The National team is reported on, incensed in view of its performances, on TV for all major tournaments, the leaders extolled publicly, and employed after their career in sports reporting, etc.
There's a National team, a pro-league and women hockey at the university level and in the lower grades, in every town in Canada or just about.
Yet, every year, in our town, I get 10 boys registering to start to play hockey for every girl that does. Meanwhile, in absolute numbers, the figure skating club gets 8 girls registering to start figure skating for every girl I manage to attract to hockey.
Is it because I am doing something wrong, or is it because parents still have a girl/boy activities approach as to what their little girls should participate in? In other words is there still a societal values bias against girls in what is seen as "masculine" undertakings? And if so, is it possible that civil society as it exists right now is still the one that pushes male/female distinctions as regards what is "acceptable" for girls or not? I only suggest that you look at the family, at large, reaction when their girl suddenly tells them she wants to be a fireman, or an industrial welder ... or a soldier. Then come and tell me it is the military that is pushing them away by what we present as an image, and not still accepted society norms.
Shouldn't the government, if it claims to be feminist in the sense of equality of result type of feminism, be better to work on convincing parents to push girls, in their formative years, towards, STEM, physical work and trades and anything "male" like the military, police or firefighting?
Until you change the parents/society at large and what they teach girls to strive for, I surmise that there is no approach, feminist or not, that the CAF can adopt that will lead to more woman showing up at the recruiting centre.
Piece of Cake said:
Epic, using your logic, all men can beat all women in every test of strength and endurance. So, can you beat the women's 100m dash world champion? Can you out press a women Olympic weightlifter? I would like to hear your answers.
Your logic is flawed, Piece of Cake. It's average to average that must be compared, on the basis of large numbers (to quote someone else's previous post): I'll stick to hockey again here: The Women's national team is certainly composed of top female athletes. They constantly train, they have training in cardio, endurance, strength, including upper body, train in skills for hockey etc. They are world level athlete. Yet, the woman hockey level of play is that of a top Midget level, and just about none of those players can match Canadian Hockey League level of junior hockey.
That's your average to look at: On an individual basis, a highly trained woman will beat the untrained man in her sport, but trained athlete for trained athlete, or untrained woman to untrained man, there is no match on average - and you know it.
There is nothing wrong in admitting for instance, that it is quite possible, even probable, that if we conducted widespread evaluations, we would find that perhaps 35- to 40 % of men only can hack the physical demands of soldiering, while only 10 to 15 % of women can.
