Women in military combat roles?
 

Obviously it works in movies like GI Jane and TV shows like Ultimate Force, putting a pretty little lady or two on an elite unit that would otherwise be a testosterone-filled sausage-fest. It also works in video games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. Reason being that it's good entertainment. But real life hardly ever works out like movies, TV, and video games.

There also exist a lot of myths and legends like Delta's infamous "funny platoon", a unit supposedly composed entirely of female shooters.

What do you guys think of the idea of women being allowed in combat roles and Special Operations in reality? The Israelis have recently started opening combat roles to women, but obviously the level of military readiness in Israel is quite different to the United States. I've read on MP.net that Canadian JTF2 allows women to enter Selection and that Polish GROM has female operators.

So... opinions?

For spec ops its a no go. Theres the higher chance of capture and things going to shit, and captors will try to get information out of the men by using the woman as leverage. Its mens natural instinct to protect women. This is one reason the military doesn't do it.

For standard combat, like patrols around Iraq and such, why not? I know people who were deployed and saw women in combat, one who took 8 gunshot wounds on convoy escort and kept on firing away at terrorists. I will say however, women should be required to do what a man can do. The whole "since tehre women they can do less pushups and a longer timed run" is shit. But if they can do the same requirements as a man, they can do the same job.

In SpecOps no idea, that works for Hollywood (maybe in some years). But women are great for peacekeeping, like the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti).

I'm serving in combat with women right now, and frankly it's a non-issue. A soldier is a soldier, man or woman. There are no occupations left in the CF that are gender segregated.

As for the old argument about women getting raped if captured, well, I've got news for you. If you are a man and get captured in Afghanistan, chances are you're going to get raped. This is not bashing Islam (which I have no patience for), or gay panic, or demonizing the enemy, it is a simple fact of life. In fact over here, because of Pashtunwali, women stand LESS chance of getting raped than men.

Its more that if several soldiers are captured, a terrorist will threaten to kill or torture the women to make male prisoners talk, this is actually quite effective, as men crack to protect a woman way easier than to protect other men.

Personally I'm against women in combat for a variety of reasons. I'm not going into it because it can get political. I will put one point out though. I've read that Islamic fighters do not surrender when it is a women as oppose to a man because they consider it shameful to surrender to a women.

From what I've read the Israelis stopped using women in combat units because of the negative effect it had on male soldiers morale when women were wounded/killed.

I can say as a fact that the British had women in undercover roles in Northern Ireland and those women had the same chance of combat as their male counterparts and as such recived the same level of training. The only real differance between the two was that the women tended not to have the leverage to fully control a G3KA4 and that they prefered the Walther PPK to the Browning High Power.

It really sounds to me like a case-by-case basis is what's necessary to determine it. I know plenty of women who would probably perform better in combat than I would. I don't let that bruise my ego; I think that if they can fulfill the demands of the job, they should be allowed to do it.

But statistically, we do have to face facts: In general, women tend to be less physically and mentally capable than men. So women will inevitably be under-represented in combat roles no matter what. If the forces of political correctness start demanding that we scale down the requirements so that women can meet them, then I would be strongly opposed.

Yeah, I've heard the same thing. The Pashtun are so afraid of women that they actually like little boys better. It's a running joke about them.

Then how do you explain the Iraqi soldiers in the Gulf War surrendering to newscrews, many of which had female reporters? :D

Yeah, but that's something you can train them to deal with because it's based mostly on culture. It doesn't strike me as a compelling enough reason.

As I've said, I think that even if SF were open to women, there would still be almost no women (if any) who qualified. So it strikes me as a moot point.

How do you explain Saddam's Iraqi army being considered an army to begin with? :D

Good point. :D

But seriously, they were mostly Muslims, I'm sure. Some of them probably had Islamist tendencies. And anyway, the jihadists are mostly cowards (aside from a select few Islamist groups who are decently tough).

During WWII, The Russians employed women in their frontline military. Israel also has women in active combat duty.

Well, yes, but that was because (1.) Stalin was spending men's lives quite rapidly against the Germans, and (2.) they were egalitarian Commies trying to impose social engineering upon the population.

I think the most relevant factor in the debate is whether or not women are up to the task. Individual women might be, but that's probably going to be rare.

Not to mention they had the Germans literally beating down their front door, something the US hasn't experienced since the 1800s and likely never will again.

I remember hearing about the Soviets having whole UNITS of just women snipers

One woman sniper had over 300 confirmed kills.

A couple of them did.

Nina Lobkovskaya had 308 kills and Lyudmila Pavlichenko had 309.

Damn, they blew Carlos Hathcock's number of confirmed kills right out of the water

Yeah, I've heard about the Soviets' female snipers. I'm just saying that they had particular reasons for putting women in the armed forces.

Also, given the Red Army's reputation for rape in WWII, I can't imagine too many Soviet women were all that excited about serving.

Those two aren't even the half of it. Both Ivan Sidorenko and Simo Hayha are credited with over 500 kills (though neither are women).

True, but I can't see a German-controlled Russia being any more appealing.

Poor morale/no will to fight

And by Islamists, I am referring to Taliban fighters/Insurgents

It's not so much that, but as a Pashtun dishonoring a woman is pretty much the worst thing you can do. It's like child rape to us (which, to them, while frowned upon, not as big a deal).

The thing about women in the military is that once you get over it, the whole thing seems kind of silly. There will never be many women in the infantry, but those that are make damned good soldiers. I don't want to sound like a holier than thou Canadian, but one thing I've noticed about working with US troops is they have a huge hang-up about it.

My friend Anna, who before transferring to our current trade was an infanteer, went on an exercise in the states where she was one of two females, both Canadians obviously. They gave them separate tents, drove them out of the field every night to shower, their officers gave big speeches about leaving them alone, etc, and alot of them couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of a female combat soldier. Well, of course female soldiers aren't going to work if you treat them like that.

No female soldier I've worked with wants special treatment, those that do are shitpumps, but they're no different from any male shitpump I've ever worked with (and there seems to be more of those). Treat them like any other soldier, that's what they'll be. In the CF, in garrison female soldiers won't share a room with males, and there are separate bathroom facilities. That's all.

Nah, you don't. I do agree with you that it seems kind of strange to me to think that our military has been dragging its feet on this. The reason really does seem to be cultural more than empirical fact, and that's something I have no time for. But I am sure it will change...I'm old enough to remember when people doubted women belonged in theaters of war at all.

Also:

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/200...fghan-mission/

They can lift me out of a hot LZ any day... :D

I do know that the Columbians use female drug intrediction pilots with their blackhawks. The reason that these women keep their jobs is the fact that they are damn good at them flying lower and faster than what most of their male counterparts are willing. Now as far as ground combat goes...women are already seeing ground combat as Hadji is attacking out support units. As far as I am concerned if a woman can physically meet the same standards as a man then let the woman have the job.