I'm going to go and take the unpopular perspective on this topic, although I suspect it may not be quite as unpopular as this thread suggests.
RoyalDrew said:
Do I believe women should be allowed to serve in the combat arms? Yes I do believe so but only if they can first meet the standard and secondly they can absorb into the culture. From my experience I have only known a few women to serve in the combat arms, more specifically the infantry, some belonged and some did not belong the problem being that because their are so few women their problems are magnified.
From my personal experience as well, women have a far easier time succeeding as an officer in the combat arms then they do as an NCM. This is no fault of their own it is just as a soldier it is difficult for a woman to jive with the platoon dynamic. Lets not beat around the bush, what is often on soldiers minds and more specifically infantry soldiers (they are a special breed)? Booze and Women! So you throw a woman into the mix and it can become somewhat of a volatile situation. This can be treated with discipline; however, I believe it takes a special woman to operate in that sort of environment. A female officer on the other hand has an easier time of it because she can isolate herself more easily from the nonsense and she will be able to get more support from her peers.
The other big problem I have seen is fraternization, this goes both ways; however, it is a fairly slippery slope and it is pretty easy for a woman to lose all credibility in a male-dominated organization if she sleeps around with some of the soldiers or her co-workers. Lets be realistic guys, we have all heard it, "this woman is a ****" etc...
Women should be allowed to serve but you need proper regulations and policy in place before this is allowed to happen and I think the Marines are going about this the right way trying to determine what those are. Sometimes I don't think we are very mature or professional in the way we handle women in the combat arms either and this has nothing to do with the physical aspects of the job, rather it has everything to do with the social aspects. I could get into some things I have seen but I am not going to do that on a public forum.
My :2c:
Finally, a post that acknowledges there is more to this than just the standards and equal opportunity.
I personally believe we have a discipline problem with fraternization in the Canadian Army. I know of a number of people, non-commissioned and officers who have engaged in behavior that would meet the criteria of fraternization. Including officer-NCM relationships. In no cases have I seen the CoC pursue charges. Now we can say that this is a leadership issue but it is also a direct result of women being integrated, or of women being integrated without the proper culture being put in place. The question is, is it possible to attain the culture, and what harm does fraternization have on our units?
ArmyVern said:
tomahawk6 said:
Women cannot handle the rigors of combat faced by the infantry.They do just fine in most other fields.There I said it Vern.I preferred military grounds/standards ect.
Some already have. :
I think we need to be very careful about this. We've been patting ourselves on the back for the past several years about our combat experience in Afghanistan, however, what we really did was execute low intensity conflict against a foe that had little ability to coordinate combined arms or employ truly rugged terrain against us. These ops employed a great deal of motorized/mechanized assets based out of sprawling FOB's/COP's that required a few hours of patrolling then a return to these bases that featured many amenities and force protection. How often did we stay out weeks at a time conducting continuous operations? Rarely did we close with and destroy the enemy. Let's not think that Afghanistan was WW 1 or WW 2, or Korea, or Vietnam. How does a unit with women integrated perform in that environment? Our current system has not be tested by a major adversary.
cupper said:
Having read the article previously, there are a lot of points she raised about her own experience that she attempts to extend out to all females, without really giving any evidence that the problems were specific to females. In particular, the lower back issues could very well have occurred in a male of the same stature, let alone anyone who underwent the same hardships she describes.
Essentially she's taken 1 data point and drawn a conclusion that may not stand up to more testing.
But I really have to question whether or not she had an underlying undiagnosed condition that caused many of the issues she described. Her point about being diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) raises a flag for me. From personal experience with my wife having been diagnosed with PCOS 10 years ago, much of what she described could well be the result of another undiagnosed condition which also resulted in the development of PCOS.
All she is really saying is that her body was abused due to constant work under heavy loads, stress and lack of sleep. But she got through it. If you went through a comprehensive survey of physical conditions of infantry troops that underwent similar deployment history, I suspect you'd find many of the same ailments and complaints.
The first time I read it, I wrote it off as more or less someone whining about having a bad outcome from an experience that many others underwent as well. And haveing read it again, my opinion still has not changed.
As I said previously, If the female candidate is able to pass the all of the requirements for selection into the infantry trade, passes the courses and other training, and is fully capable of preforming the necessary tasks of the trade there is not other reason to exclude that person from the infantry.
Capt Petronio points out some very real and important differences with men and women, however. It's not just about women not being as strong or fast. They also have lower bone density and connective tissues which no amount of training will change. Many of the women who are failing the Marines IOC (Infantry Officer Course) and at SOI (School of Infantry for the enlisted) are suffering fractured pelvis' and other severe bone injuries that will likely result in extensive medical bills and then either remuster or release. If they release then the military loses all the time and money put into that recruit. The institution owes it to the country and its people to look at long term effects and find out if women in the infantry is sustainable over the long term for the members but also for the institution who spends national resources to train them and is entrusted with safeguarding the security and interests of the nation. You'll all be interested to know that the next phase of experimentation is to stand up at Battalion Landing Team with 30% females that will go through a high readiness training cycle to include a trip to Bridgeport, the mountain warfare training center. Hopefully they have the pleasure of hiking Lost Cannon Peak. >
On this point, we don't integrate professional sports. Does anyone think that it would be appropriate for women to be in the NFL? How about in boxing or MMA where they are divided by weight class? Despite the comparable size the man will likely be an unfair match up for the woman. If a unit is a collection of the capabilities and the competencies of the individuals who make it up is it good for that unit to have a group who is physically incapable of performing as well as the others?
Standards have come up a lot in this conversation. Just what is the Canadian Infantry standard? I'd love to hear it because 8 years in and I don't know. We have an army standard of the BFT (that still stands right?) and we've got our new FORCE test. Does anyone really think these standards are sufficient? Do they really represent what we should be able to do, or convey that we are a professional force? I've yet to do the FORCE test as I'm in the US but I've been told that no one fails that thing and how many people fail the BFT for that matter? This means that our standards aren't really a great starting point for this discussion.
As for the Marines their standards aren't technically that much higher, except for two very important exceptions. Their Physical Fitness Test is scored on a scale of 0-300. To attain a 300 you have to do 100 crunches, 20 dead hang pull ups/chin ups and a 3 mile run in 18:00. The pass is 3 chinups, 50 crunches, and the 3 mile in 28:00 for a 17-26 year old male. Due to this scoring system there is a competitive edge to the PFT, getting the minimum is frowned upon. Our system is pass or fail and encourages people to achieve the minimum vice trying to achieve their best. So, this also has imbued the Marines with a real PT culture. They are always training. What this means is that attaining the "standard" (the minimum score) is not going to hack it in the Marines and people arriving at IOC scoring below a 275 are probably going to have a pretty hard time. SOI is a little easier and has had a number of women be successful already.
What should be our standard? How does it compare to our allies? Would we hold ourselves accountable to it? Army fitness manual tells us what we should be able to do army wide (level 3) but I don't think you'd find too many units who could attain those scores at an acceptable level.
A small point to be aware of in the American context. The Marines turn over 75% of their personnel every 4 years. That's right 75%. I'm not sure about the Army but I would imagine it is lower but not by much. This means that they are very sensitive to readiness, deployment cycles, and not getting their money's worth out of their Marines. They want to get at least two tours out of those first term enlistees. So people getting injured in training or becoming pregnant are major issues for them, whereas we have a longer term view as our retention is higher generally.
I'm currently posted to Quantico VA for Expeditionary Warfare School (for another 2 weeks) and this is a huge issue here. If any of you have specific questions I could always try to track down some answers.
