Women in the Military

[Stone-D]

Me, I think all military personnel, worldwide, should comprise entirely of the disabled, crippled, elderly, mentally challenged, genetically disadvantaged and past close runners up for the Darwin Award.

Before too long, war would be reduced to a glorified staring match, interspersed with rude farting contests.

This would A) be better; B) be cheaper; and C) be an amusing source for mass entertainment.

 

[Ozrat]

*Ozrat slaps Stone-D*

 

[alec]

Or that they're just cold, heartless harpies...

Yeah, that about sums it up, I guess. My mom is the only exception. Yeah, I love my mom. Really do. Love mom. Hm.

 

[SkynetV4]

Fine Oedipus, we don't need to know your sex life.

 

[Stone-D]

War's pathetic nowadays anyway. I mean, US wastes thousands and thousands of enemy troops - but if ONE of their own gets it, by christ... you don't hear the end of it!!

War no longer functions as a method of population control. Ditto with disease, famine et al.

Wibble.

 

[felionous]

I have spent a long time in the Army these are my observations

1. I have met some women who can and do work as hard or harder then the average man.
2. I have met some women who avoid any work they can and will use any means continue avoiding it.
3. I have met just as many men who are the same on both counts.
4. I have yet to see any woman who is even half attractive in the Army who didn’t suffer some form of sexual harassment or believe she suffered some. There were some who wouldn’t make an issue of it or were even unaware that it was taking place, but none who didn’t at least have 3 or 4 rumors concerning their exploits or some other form of garbage to make their life miserable.
5. I have met several women who could meet or exceed any physical challenge thrown at them so I don't buy the argument that women are just too weak to be soldiers, at least as a rule.

A lot of this supports women in the military. I have an argument against though.

Men and Women do not work well together in a military environment. The task of the military is the defense of this country and our policies. The military is not a proper place to conduct social experiments. When lives are at stake it seems logical too keep things as simple as one can and not too add additional factors too complicate a soldiers life beyond full filling their mission and staying alive. I have no reservations about women in combat just keep them away from men since they distract each other. Both males and females are too immature too work well together. When we have a society that can't even control sex in the schools, what business do we have putting our sexually immature people together on a battlefield and telling them to behave themselves? And for those that believe that this isn’t a problem and sex in a combat environment is okay, ask yourselves how well Jack and Jill will keep watch for the rest of their battalion while their making out in the back of the humvee.

 

[Ozrat]

[1]...The military is not a proper place to conduct social experiments.
[2]...we have a society that can't even control sex in the schools...
[3]...ask yourselves how well Jack and Jill will keep watch for the rest of their battalion while their making out in the back of the humvee.

[1]Since when did Equal Rights become a "social experiment"? Sorry, but this comes off as being sexist, whether you mean it or not.

[2]Sex in schools? I've never heard of such a thing happening. Sources and references please! And why didn't I go to this school?

[3]If Jack and Jill are making out in the humvee as you so freely claim, then neither one should be in the military if they can't do their jobs. It's not the fault of the military becoming co-ed, but rather the fault of the individuals.

Seems to me that your argument has a few fundamental flaws in it. Therefore I cannot accept it as a rational discourse to this thread. Please do add some more thought or examples to your side of the story.

 

[megatron]

wow you have crasy schools ozrat, nobody was claiming to have sex when they were 13 in your school? BIZARRO

 

[Ozrat]

Maybe they did claim to do so, but I probably didn't hear them. 'Cause, you know, I'm a deaf cunt and all...

Seriously, show me something that says kids have sex IN school.

 

[megatron]

my friend got caught masturbating in the toilets

sex

 

[welsh]

Ozrat, what? You didn't get any in schools? Jeesh!

But I think you made a good point. Despite the arguments that implementing equality in the military will cause problems both for women as well as for interactions between the sexes, we need to think of this not as an experiment but a right in law.

Otherwise, we need to also think about the issue of desegregation in the military as an example of difficulties when the military is forced to evolving standards and the expansion of notions of equality.

 

[Ugly John]

I'm still trying to find confirmation that they had sex in space. If not what a waste of time and taxpayer's money.

 

[felionous]

ozrat wrote
[1]Since when did Equal Rights become a "social experiment"? Sorry, but this comes off as being sexist, whether you mean it or not.

[2]Sex in schools? I've never heard of such a thing happening. Sources and references please! And why didn't I go to this school?

[3]If Jack and Jill are making out in the humvee as you so freely claim, then neither one should be in the military if they can't do their jobs. It's not the fault of the military becoming co-ed, but rather the fault of the individuals.

Seems to me that your argument has a few fundamental flaws in it. Therefore I cannot accept it as a rational discourse to this thread. Please do add some more thought or examples to your side of the story.
_________________
Devil Fan Club

You should think some of this through if your going to reply
1. Yes it's a social experiment what else do you think it is? Equal rights are an ongoing and fairly successful attempt to change fundamental views. Don't like the words "social experiment” deal with it, as it is accurate.

2. Got me here I am too blooming lazy too quote one of the literally thousands of articles concerning the problems with teenage pregnancy and sex in our schools I'll withdraw that argument.

3. This is the fundamental basis of my argument why put them in a situation where they must consider their mission, their personal safety and their hormones when it is so simple to remove the additional distraction? Soldiers are not, despite popular myth , living paragons of virtue. They are people and they screw up why add to the ways they can screw up?

If you’re going to argue Ozrat please put some thought into it. I don't mind having to defend my opinion but give me a valid reason to do so. And also don't immediately resort to calling me sexist because I dare to disagree with the politically accepted view.

 

[welsh]

Felionous- I think you made some very good points here and that there are serious problems with integrating men and women in the armed services. To some extent I share these and other concerns. But similar issues arose when women joined police forces for the first time. They too suffered high levels of sexual harrassment, there were relationship issues that came up between males and females, and there were issues raised with regard to the net social cost.

Yet to deny women the right to participate equally in the military is to deny them a right, and thus reduce their role as citizens in our society. An army is not just the agent of the state, but also a reflection of the society as well. While I think most would agree that the military's first and most important goal is to serve the national defense it has also served a variety of other functions for our society.

Again, I would suggest considering the role of segregation of the military. Many balked at the prospect of an intergrated military service, and it is interesting that by Vietnam the military was integrated (even while Blacks had only recently become enfranchised politically through the Voting Rights Act). Yet, in Vietnam there were racial issues and there remain racial issues. Only a few years ago wasn't there a shooting at Ft. Bragg that was racially motivated?

Women are increasingly becoming empowered in the US. The salaries they are making vis-a-vis men are becoming increasingly equal and women often are treated more favorably then men in issues of domestic relations. If we can allow women to be cops, why not soldiers. If they can work for the government why not the military?

I agree that the women in the military are often of a very young, immature age, and that these young people are often still growing as adults. But there is also a recognition that our society is evolving as well. We need to think more broadly than the short-term problems but ask if what's more important is whether women have equality or we have a functioning military.

 

[Sander]

1. Equal rights may be an experiment, however, this does not mean that experimenting should be avoided, because if you don't experiment, you will never get anywhere. WOmen in the army COULD be an experiment, but so was almost every other development ever in the military. Anti-innovation is NOT an argument.

2. Media-hype. I know you'd let it go, but I'm serious, it's mainly media hype.

3.But does "removing a distraction" warrant weakening the army(Because there WILL be less people), and violating equal rights.

 

[welsh]

Actually with regard to the issue of sex in the military, I am reading Grey's book The Warriors and there is a chapter dedicated to this topic. Part of it is that during wartime the sexual urges are heightened and some armies have actually incorporated systems to deal with this. For example it was famous that the Japanese army used Korean women for sexual favors, and in the US army officers would often organize official brothals for this purpose. In Yugoslavia and in Russia, partisans were often female and there are many stories of women combatants having affairs with men in the field.

It would be interesting to consider what the role of women as fellow combatants would do to this. Your thoughts?

 

[felionous]

Welsh said:
Yet to deny women the right to participate equally in the military is to deny them a right, and thus reduce their role as citizens in our society. An army is not just the agent of the state, but also a reflection of the society as well. While I think most would agree that the military's first and most important goal is to serve the national defense it has also served a variety of other functions for our society.

This is a very good point. Quite thought provoking
I cannot argue the validity of this point so I will amend my earlier statement to say that as a society we are still adjusting to all of the ramifications of women’s equality. All things considered, I would go so far as too say, we are doing pretty well. If there is an element of inertia to progress, one has to admit that we have significantly changed a view that has persisted for thousands of years, in a fraction of that time. We are changing it still. In my original post I didn’t suggest that women should be excluded from military service. I may be a reactionary old conservative but even if I held that view it’s indefensible and quite frankly foolish. I did suggest that women should not be fully integrated into the combat environment. On consideration of your very compelling argument I’ll add that they shouldn’t be integrated at this time. In my own defense I think that the reader could draw that conclusion from my original post. But it is true that our goal should be the eventual complete integration of women into the military. I would only say to achieve that goal; our society needs to change some of its pre-conceptions about women. While one portion of our society is trying to prove that there is no fundamental difference of quality between a woman and a man, another is telling women that their primary concern is too be beautiful, or to be a sex object, and men that women exist to provide sexual conquest. I won’t make the mistake of citing an issue without evidence as I did with the point of sex in the schools J , but isn’t the sheer number of female nudity sites, female beauty magazines, cable network programming (sex in the city, MTV, spice network), female beauty consumer items, ect. a form of evidence in an of themselves? Until our society can recognize that women are on an equal plane with men and can as well as should contribute equally to the society as a whole, it seems unjust to expect the military (which is not generally considered to be a liberal institution) to do the same. After all the military is made of the same people and exposed to the same viewpoints as the rest of the society. This generates a problematic environment for women in the military, which to my thinking is an unjustified risk in actual combat. Should they be fully integrated? Absolutely, but does this justify deaths that could be avoided? That’s the moral dilemma.

 

[felionous]

Welsh said:
Actually with regard to the issue of sex in the military, I am reading Grey's book The Warriors and there is a chapter dedicated to this topic. Part of it is that during wartime the sexual urges are heightened and some armies have actually incorporated systems to deal with this. For example it was famous that the Japanese army used Korean women for sexual favors, and in the US army officers would often organize official brothals for this purpose. In Yugoslavia and in Russia, partisans were often female and there are many stories of women combatants having affairs with men in the field.

It would be interesting to consider what the role of women as fellow combatants would do to this. Your thoughts?

Heh
My first thoughts are how you would recruit for this
Recruiter: There you go Miss Smith welcome to the army. Here's your orders to report for training in MOS(Military Occupational Speciality) 69P Combat Moral Specialist
Pvt. Smith: So thats like running the gym right?
Recruiter: Well, not exactly
Pvt. Smith: This must be a great job since my uniform looks so much better then the one the girl in supply had on.
Recruiter: yeah. Right. (choking) well I gotta go good luck Pvt.

Just Kidding
couldnt resist a little cro-mag humor there. Though the very thought that women should contribute to the war effort that way reinforces my opinion that were moving too fast where the military is concerned.

 

[welsh]

It's an interesting point you raise about how the society must evolve first and the military should follow. It would seem that this is one of those strange circumstances were society is outpacing the military. When the military became integrated, blacks were getting more equality in the military than in society. During the 1960s and 70s, fFor many blacks the military was not only the ticket to a good education, but a way of climbing the social ranks in society. Even these days, many poor blacks are able to find opportunities through military service not available in civilian life.

I think in the way this process is less about rights than about labor. The closer your bring women into the military (on aircraft carriers, flying combat aircraft, being captain of vessels) the harder it will be to deny them full access. The notion of the exceptional woman (your Brigette Nielson amazon types) as being more than a match for some men, makes the idea of generalizations inconsistent with notions of equality. But then generalizations have always been the problem of equality. That there are greater personal risks at stake is part of the gamble that women take. That the danger or unfairness rests with the men, well the argument would go that they represent more than a flag but a system of values- and one of those values is equality.

Having an 18 yr old kid behind the machine gun on a humvee in Iraq understand that might be tough. Still, the military is not merely the tool of the state, but also a constituent part, and as such part of the larger social fabric of a nation.