Women in the military

Mine is simply that if a woman wants to serve on the front line, she should be free to do so, given that she follows the same standard protocol as a man would.
 
If they can pass the exact same hurdles that a man would have without the requirements being lowered(which I think is the point of concern), sure. The issue is that the current climate may force the issue in a way that will cause terrible results. Military work theoretically requires high levels of skill and cohesion to make sure people don't fuck up and die. If there's even an illusion that they don't belong in their position; then people are going to be exposed to uneeded risk. At least, that would be my fear.
 
Tranhuviya dijo:
What is the Kiwi opinion on the issue of women in our armed forces, and more specifically, women on the frontlines?
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I don't want to see soldiers, women or otherwise, die for bullshit political correctness. Women are also more likely to be treated extremely horribly if captured.

But if they can meet the same standards, they should be allowed to serve. Lowering standards either just for them or across the board will get people killed, though.
 
The number of women who are even close to being as capable as the average man, let alone the average soldier on the front lines, is minuscule. Women are not as strong as men, or as fast, and do not have the same spatial awareness. Letting women into combat roles in the military is going to lower standards and will just be an all around catastrophe.
 
I think you guys are seriously overestimating the requirements for military service. FYI, at 16 years old (not even legally old enough to serve as a woman), I could meet the naval fitness requirements without too much trouble, which I proved in the middle of the 6th form common room when me friend questioned whether I could really do 50 sit ups in 2 minutes. When my stepmom was in the RNR she met every fitness criteria at the men's level. Other than special ops and the Royal Marines, which the vast majority of men cannot meet, the requirements for the military aren't all that high. It's just that the denzions of this forum are so fat and lazy that it seems like a huge challenge.
The concern that most people bring up is, as @AnOminous said, the way women would be treated if captured, but given that Al Quaida (sp?) aren't exactly following the Geneva Convention they aren't actually that much safer in non-combat positions, and aren't going to be treated any better for being medics. Plus, I should really hope the military has more sense that to admit people who don't understand the potential risks of serving, and if somebody wants to get themselves blown up for queen and country then I don't think sex/gender should be a valid reason to stop them.
As for @Corypheus 's concern about cohesion, that could be used against literally anything else. Hell, it has been! It was the argument about racial integration and the repeal of DADT in the US, and for permitting gay people to serve openly over here. And I will say the same thing about this as I would about those - if somebody is so butthurt about there being a women on the front line that they fuck up, then that is on them, not the woman. Last I checked the only positions currently barred to women in the Royal Navy are submarines, recon, and the Royal Marines, and funnily enough the Navy did not collapse when the Royal Navy and Women's Royal Navy were merged, despite the fact that we do indeed put men and women aboard the same warships. There is minor differences in fitness criteria for men and women - women need 10 less push-up and 10 less sit-up in 2 minutes, and get an extra 2 minutes on the 1.5 mile run - but it isn't as much as you'd think, and you'd be surprised how many women can meet the men's requirement. As I said, it really isn't all that high.

TL;DR: every commonly used argument for not letting women into combat is bullshit, and can be easily proven thus by the fact we've been unofficially letting women into combat since Lord knows when. It's worked out just fine for the Israelis, and while OFFICIALLY, every position in the Royal Navy baring the Marines is non-combat, in practice every position in the Royal Navy is combat, and funnily enough teh wimmins have not yet burnt all of out navel vessels to soot.
 
Ideally, I wouldn't mind if anyone can pass the tests. However, I pay for the military with my taxes and I want it running at peak-efficiency for my money. If introducing women into the group will diminish efficiency, especially if it's just being done for political expediency, then no.

Irrespective of both, there's far more pressing concerns in the military than spending money on this issue, it's purely for scoring political points so it can fuck off.
 
All for it, myself.

That said, military service's appeal to your average American woman is usually viewed optimistically. The subject of draft registration usually bears this observation out.
 
millais dijo:
Conscription is bad, but so long as it exists, women shouldn't get a free pass.
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It doesn't exist in the U.S., unlike Israel, where having compulsory service for both sexes has not caused any disasters, and unlike the U.S., Israel faces existential threats right across every border it has.

People conscripted should be given assignments they're actually suited for and not everyone is suited for combat.
 
There's also the issue of 'revenge anger' or something to that effect. When women on the front lines get killed in the line of duty, the men have a tendency to go let their revenge emotions gain control of them and try to charge the enemy to retaliate. Forgetting protocol. It's been shown to happen fairly frequently in militaries where women serve in the front lines. If we can teach male soldiers not to do something stupid because a female soldier gets killed, then it shouldn't be an issue.
 
Harakudoshi dijo:
There's also the issue of 'revenge anger' or something to that effect. When women on the front lines get killed in the line of duty, the men have a tendency to go let their revenge emotions gain control of them and try to charge the enemy to retaliate. Forgetting protocol. It's been shown to happen fairly frequently in militaries where women serve in the front lines. If we can teach male soldiers not to do something stupid because a female soldier gets killed, then it shouldn't be an issue.
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The other issue is something similar. When women are captured or otherwise threatened, men tend to let their protective impulses take over and, similarly, do things that are not strategically valid.

My opinion remains the same, though, that we should look to countries who have actually done things like this successfully, like Israel, and emulate how they have dealt with these emotional issues.

It's a fairly simple logical issue that if you had two identical national powers, but one of them refused to use females for any military purposes, and the other utilized them with any degree of efficiency at all, that the one where all the population, including the women, had the ability to fight, the latter nation would win.
 
I'm all in favor of having women serving in full combat roll's, what I don't like the idea of is giving them special requirements for fitness and such, having said that I'm not really aware of that happening at least in the UK and most of the women in the British army tend towards the officer corps anyway (from my experience).

AnOminous dijo:
People conscripted should be given assignments they're actually suited for and not everyone is suited for combat.
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That's a interesting issue that's always came about with conscription, back in WW2 when we lost a good chunk of our army and equipment at Dunkirk and conscription kicked into high gear there was some talk about how to use the recruited men correctly, I think it was around that time the phrase was coined "Every Man is a Infantryman" the sentiment was every man in uniform should be capable of using a rifle and understanding orders after that everything is a specialism - but there was some effort made to match your skill's even if they were not considered professional at the time to the kind of position you'd be in during your service, i.e. if you woked in a shipping company you where put into logistics, if you where a butcher you where in the Catering Corps, Photographer you where placed with signals etc etc.

The thing is in the modern western world if your conscripting people you are already fighting a war you should have given up long ago, at least that's the current thinking about the issue. There is a a term I think it's Wartime Weariness, that describes the modern civilian mindset to a fault - that being we are so used to a smackdown quick victory over a enemy if a war drags on it will be unpopular especially when a enemy is hard to understand from a operational point of view, and this is something we are seeing more and more in the populations mind.

To a civilian IED's and Militias are understood through a idea that they work like a conventional army, this isn't the case as anyone who's been to war in the last 15 years can tell you it's not that simple and they wish it was, the public while showing support for the guy's in uniform for the most part are fed up with seeing kids come home missing rather important bit's and the media saying X number of people where killed at a wedding etc, they are expecting a big dramatic strike that will end it all in short order and we can go back to business as usual.
 
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