Question: Should women be allowed in military combat roles?

Question: Should women be allowed in military combat roles?

  • Yes

    Votes: 41 69.5%
  • Yes, with exceptions

    Votes: 6 10.2%
  • Not Sure

    Votes: 4 6.8%
  • No, with exceptions

    Votes: 4 6.8%
  • No

    Votes: 4 6.8%

  • Total voters
    59

wooflepoof

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I was thinking about this as I was watching part of GI Jane. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this issue so I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. Currently in the U.S. there are no combat roles available to women in the U.S. military. Is there a good reason or just sexist nonsense/congressional laziness or whatever else?

Made sense to include a poll
 
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I feel like physical strength is a good thing to have in combat. Think about carrying heavy gear, wounded/fallen comrades, hand-to-hand combat, etc

This. Back in the early days, when women were first coming into the Marines, they ran the same stress bootcamp as the men. There were widespread injuries from stress fractures amongst the women. Hence, why they shouldn't be allowed into combat roles.
 
I feel like physical strength is a good thing to have in combat. Think about carrying heavy gear, wounded/fallen comrades, hand-to-hand combat, etc

The most decorated soldier in US history, Audie Murphy, was turned down by the Marines for being too short and nearly sent to US Army cooking school because they thought he was too slender and baby-faced for combat. Ultimately, he single-handedly held off about 200 Wehrmacht soldiers, killing about 50 in the process, and lived to tell the tale. Many women are as tall and as strong as Audie Murphy was.

And this isn't something we need to debate in a vacuum.

A 19-year-old medic from Texas will become the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest medal for valor.

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.

After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.

"I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there," Brown said Saturday at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost.

Brown, of Lake Jackson, Texas, is scheduled to receive the Silver Star later this month. She was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees.

Treating 'patients' under fire

"We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag," Brown said.

She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.
...
"So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit," she said. "I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23547346/ns/us_news-military/

Also...

Leigh Ann Hester (born January 12, 1982)[1] of the 617th Military Police Company, a National Guard unit out of Richmond, Kentucky, received the Silver Star for her actions on March 20, 2005 during an enemy ambush on a supply convoy near the town of Salman Pak, Iraq.[2]

Hester was the first female soldier to receive the award for exceptional valor since World War II and the first ever to be cited for valor in close quarters combat.[3]

Hester's squad of two women and eight men in three Humvees was shadowing a 30-truck supply convoy when approximately 50 insurgent fighters ambushed the convoy with AK-47 assault rifle, RPK machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs). The squad moved to the side of the road, flanking the insurgents and cutting off their escape route. Hester maneuvered her team through the "kill zone" and into a flanking position, where she and her squad leader, Staff Sergeant Timothy F. Nein, assaulted a trench line with hand grenades and M203 grenade launcher rounds. Hester and Nein assaulted and cleared two trenches. During the 25-minute firefight, Hester killed at least three enemy combatants with her M4 carbine.[4]

When the battle was over, 27 insurgents were dead, six were wounded, and one captured. Sergeants Hester and Nein were both awarded the Silver Star. Nein's was later upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Ann_Hester

Also...

http://img835.imageshack.**/img835/4706/610xxu.jpg

Uniquely among nations, Israel conscripts women and assigns some drafted women to infantry combatant service which places them directly in the line of enemy fire...The 2006 Lebanon War was the first time since 1948 that IDF Women were involved in field operations alongside men. Airborne helicopter engineer Sergeant-Major (res.) Keren Tendler became the first female combat soldier to be killed in action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Defense_Forces#IDF_Women
 
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Also...

In June 1941, 24-year old Pavlichenko was in her fourth year of studying history at the Kiev University when Nazi Germany began its invasion of the Soviet Union[2]. Pavlichenko was among the first round of volunteers at the recruiting office, where she requested to join the infantry and subsequently she was assigned to the Red Army's 25th Rifle Division[2]; Pavlichenko had the option to become a nurse but refused "I joined the army when woman were not yet accepted"[2]. There she became one of 2,000 female snipers in the Red Army, of whom about 500 ultimately survived the war. As a sniper, she made her first two kills near Belyayevka[3], using a Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle with a P.E. 4-power scope.

Pvt. Pavlichenko fought for about two and a half months near Odessa, where she recorded 187 kills.[3] When the Germans gained control of Odessa, her unit was pulled to be sent to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula[3], where she fought for more than 8 months.[4][2] In May 1942, Lieutenant Pavlichenko was cited by the Southern Army Council for killing 257 German soldiers. Her total confirmed kills during World War II was 309, including 36 enemy snipers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

In the summer of 1941 Marina Raskova, a record-breaking aviatrix, was called upon to organize a regiment of women pilots to fly night combat missions of harassment bombing. From mechanics to navigators, pilots and officers, the 588th regiment was composed entirely of women. The 588th was so successful and deadly that the Germans came to fear them, calling them Nachthexen--night witches.

The women, most of them barely 20 years old, started training in Engels, a small town north of Stalingrad. The women of the 588th flew their first bombing mission on June 8, 1942. It consisted of three planes; their target was the headquarters of a German division. The raid was successful but one plane was lost.

The 588th flew thousands of combat bombing missions. They fought non-stop for months, sometimes flying 15 to 18 missions on the same night. They flew obsolete Polikarpov Po-2 wooden biplanes that were otherwise used as trainers. They could only carry two bombs that weighed less than a ton altogether. Most of the women who survived the war had, by the end, flown almost a thousand missions each.

http://www.seizethesky.com/nwitches/nitewtch.html
 
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If they can do the job, then why the hell not?
 
I think they should be able to at least try. Certainly I would suck at it, but I know I would suck so I assume most women are able to make the judgment on their personal physical strength.
My mother for example, who is in great shape could probably do it. It would be entirely dependent on the person not the gender. I am pretty sure the US military has a decent amount of sense in the subject since they let women serve and I know a guy they wouldn't let into the airforce because he was too physically weak.
 
yeah, give her a rifle and have her sniping people, that's fine
also, what you have provided are exceptions, not the rule. All other things being equal, a woman will lose to a man in a physical confrontation or task

Marksmanship and training and teamwork and technology, not brute force, is how modern militaries fight. That's why modern militaries repeatedly engage forces, and win, despite being outnumbered 5 to 1 or more (far more, in some cases, like Mogadishu).

Also, for every situation where being bigger and stronger is an advantage, there's a situation where being bigger just means being a bigger target for the enemy and being smaller is advantageous. If you look at the best of the best of the best--high-end special forces like SAS and SFOD-Delta--they're not necessarily the biggest. On average, I don't think they're any bigger than anyone else.

As 2Billion said, if they can do the job, why the hell not let them in?
 
Difficult question. Having been involved in combat operations and experienced some of the psychological effect of it first hand, I see some potential problems. Witnessing a fellow soldier being injured or killed is by no means easy, it is however an occupational hazard that soldiers should very aware of. Civilian casualties can be harder to deal with for some, often due to the notion of innocence or helplessness of civilians; (western) society still prejudice the very same notion in regard to women.

While many veterans develop mechanisms that allow them do deal with the above, these coping mechanisms aren't necessarily healthy nor do many young soldiers posses them. Not having served with women in comba, I can't be certain, but it could make combat even more fucked up than it already is.
 
Well I think there would exceptions, such as in the Army Special Forces. Their primary mission is unconventional warfare and they are allied with, and often charged with training various militia groups, guerrillas, tribesmen, and developing armies. The problem I see is that in many of these cultures there's a long-standing taboo against women of authority, and certainly female soldiers. So to have a foreign female authority figure who is supposed to be teaching them how to fight and become warriors might not sit well, and gaining their trust and respect could be incredibly difficult if even possible (would definitely not be kosher in most Islamic tribes, for example).
 
Of course they should. If they can perform the same tasks, then their gender doesn't matter. If they can meet the standards, they should be allowed.
 
Well I think there would exceptions, such as in the Army Special Forces. Their primary mission is unconventional warfare and they are allied with, and often charged with training various militia groups, guerrillas, tribesmen, and developing armies. The problem I see is that in many of these cultures there's a long-standing taboo against women of authority, and certainly female soldiers. So to have a foreign female authority figure who is supposed to be teaching them how to fight and become warriors might not sit well, and gaining their trust and respect could be incredibly difficult if even possible (would definitely not be kosher in most Islamic tribes, for example).

Actually, some units in Afghanistan have found it useful to have one or two women embedded. In tribal areas, local women won't speak to male soldiers. It's not socially proper. A female soldier, on the other, they can sit down and have tea with. By having at least one woman in the unit, you've doubled the number of potential informants in every rural village you visit.

Also, if you have to search the locals for weapons or whatever, good luck getting rural Muslim women to consent to a search by a male soldier. Or more properly, good luck getting their male relatives to permit you to do that without starting an incident right then and there.

Having some women present in a unit is an incredible benefit in places like Afghanistan.
 
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Sounds like some people here are saying no on the grounds that the average woman is smaller, more frail, etc than the average man, and if the armed forces were made up of just the average citizen from each gender, then yes there'd be a rationale. However, a well-conditioned woman with above-average strength, stamina, etc should not be barred just because of the statistics of the millions less fit than her.
 
Yeah, if they're capable of it physically.
Much the same goes for homosexuals.
Jews.
Indians.
Arabs.
Anyone, if they are physically (and mentally) up to it, should be allowed to.
 
Actually, some units in Afghanistan have found it useful to have one or two women embedded. In tribal areas, local women won't speak to male soldiers. It's not socially proper. A female soldier, on the other, they can sit down and have tea with. By having at least one woman in the unit, you've doubled the number of potential informants in every rural village you visit.

Also, if you have to search the locals for weapons or whatever, good luck getting rural Muslim women to consent to a search by a male soldier. Or more properly, good luck getting their male relatives to permit you to do that without starting an incident right then and there.

Having some women present in a unit is an incredible benefit in places like Afghanistan.

Would that really justify the hundreds of thousands it costs to train an SF soldier rather than recruiting a female from another unit as needed??
 
Yeah, if they're capable of it physically.
Much the same goes for homosexuals.
Jews.
Indians.
Arabs.
Anyone, if they are physically (and mentally) up to it, should be allowed to.

Well race and sexual orientation aren't quite as physiologically distinct as gender.
 
Would that really justify the hundreds of thousands it costs to train an SF soldier rather than recruiting a female from another unit as needed??

If the special forces unit is in the field for weeks at a time, as special forces are prone to do, wouldn't they want the female soldier to have the same training as every other soldier in the unit? You can't just helicopter in a female soldier whenever the need to talk to a woman comes up.
 
If the special forces unit is in the field for weeks at a time, as special forces are prone to do, wouldn't they want the female soldier to have the same training as every other soldier in the unit? You can't just helicopter in a female soldier whenever the need to talk to a woman comes up.

good point, but then they would need quotas for female employment wouldn't they? If only one is necessary per detatchment and if that social situation is unique to Islam, then there aren't that many jobs to fill are there?
 
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