Women in the military

[Boyd]

Quote:
Yeah but that kinda stuff happens everywhere to woman,we don't need no war to be attacked and brutalized.We are strong and when war is brought to our front door should we wait for a man to come save us?

I'd like to nonimate my x wife for active combat duty, she scares even me

She would make Caligula cringe

 

[chickened]

Gun control is a steady hand

I think being able to defend ones self is paramount. IT would be interesting to hear the details of the latest special opps mission and the role women played in that. There were many brave women in the resistance in Europe during WW2 and they were shot just like a man. I think in some roles they had the advantage, sexually that is if you know what I mean, men sleeptalk.
Quote:
Yeah but that kinda stuff happens everywhere to woman,we don't need no war to be attacked and brutalized.We are strong and when war is brought to our front door should we wait for a man to come save us?

 

[chickened]

Amazon women?

You just described our inner city welfare society.
Quote:
Yeah but that kinda stuff happens everywhere to woman,we don't need no war to be attacked and brutalized.We are strong and when war is brought to our front door should we wait for a man to come save us?

in many ancient cultures women became brutal and powerful warriors and soldiers because they simply could not rely on men to protect them, and cultures (both past and present) that relegated women to strict passive roles, often have a history of extreme violence towards and and high rates of poverty among women because they have no way to take care of themselves when the men in their lives fail, die, become sick or injured, or just end up being lazy bums.

 

[SourRoses]

Quote:
Ohhhhh Pleeeeeeeease!

Like a woman has to do 'research' to understand the risk. Want some numbers? 1 out of 4 women in the USA is the victim of this kind of violence at some point in her lifetime. This violence does not have anything to do with a persons looks, it's about power. Thus men are also susceptible to this. Look at our prisons. However.. I doubt it is ever admitted to in a male post-pow situation since military type fellows have such a stigma about the whole thing.
PLUS.. the numbers are much improved for women hauling weapons about

Quote:
What on EARTH? You can't possibly be insinuating that your comment has anything to do with professional women in our military?

 

[Boyd]

I don't get the sleep talk thing either. I do talk in my sleep, and my wife knows it for what it is.. my insanity showing through the facade of the wall I throw up when awake

 

[SourRoses]

Just don't let them hear you cheeping!

 

[Boyd]

Quote:
Cheeping? lolol not moi

 

[Mac in Wisco]

I was in the Air Force for 21 years having retired a couple of years ago. I spent the first 15 years as a power linesman. While the Civil Engineer units had a few women as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, fire fighters, etc., I never met one gal who worked on power lines. I was probably in the Air Force ten years before I worked directly alongside a woman, an electrician. She knew her job and jumped right in there and got the work done. The whole "women in the military issue" was more of topic in those units as there were very few of them in those units.

The last six years I served as a Flight Engineer on cargo aircraft. The active duty unit I flew with had no shortage of women; as pilots, navigators, flight engineers, loadmasters, aircraft mechanics, specialized aircraft technicians and such. They were so well integrated that it really wasn't an issue. There were many times when I wound up in a cockpit flying a plane with three women; two pilots, a navigator, and me.

The military is a general cross section of society. Any problems that are brought up about women and men in close quarters, sexual assault, and rape are found in general society. They are problems within the human condition and are not created solely by women serving in the military. Any arguments of such matters could also be easily applied to any college campus or many workplaces.

I have seen some strange situations though. One time I was working with a gal and tried to help her put a heavy toolbox in the back of a truck. She growled at me and told me that she could get it without any help. I was dumbfounded. I would have offered to help anybody, male or female, in the same position. Most guys I worked with accomplished heavy tasks in pairs and no guy would have turned down the help.

Another time, I was charge of a team of four Air Force engineers that were running generators for a small Marine encampment. One of our troops was a 20 year gal who was assigned to the female quarters, a tent with 15 female Marines. They made her life hell to the point that I finally just told her to sleep in the tent that us three Air Force guys had to ourselves. We were bored to death watching those generators run for weeks on end and were itching to do some maintenance. When it came time to change the oil (which was her job as a generator technician), I jumped right in to help. Shortly after we started I realized that she had disappeared. I saw her stomping across the camp looking mad about something. I caught up with her to see what was going on. She broke into tears and said that it was her job and that she didn't need any help. I explained that we were all bored to death and that we were all going to work together to get it done. She still insisted that it was solely her job, so I finally barked at her to get her ass over there and get it done without all the drama. She went back to the generators to do her job... and it started pouring down rain. She finished a three hour job by herself in a rainstorm and after all of the drama that occurred, was too hard-headed to come in out of the rain.

And another story from when I was a Flight Engineer... We were flying equipment for an Army exercise. A young female captain was Aircraft Commander (pilot) on one of the planes. She was a small gal, maybe 5' 2" and 120 lbs. The exercise was behind schedule and her crew ran out of crew duty time. (We were limited by Air Force regulations to the number of hours we could operate an aircraft in one duty day). The pilot tried to explain to a burly Army Senior NCO that they were done for the day and couldn't fly any more loads. The Army SNCO started hollering about how long his men had been working and that this was a bunch of BS, etc. She tried to explain that there was nothing she could do, yet he kept demanding that they fly another mission. She was finally reduced to tears. Her Flight Engineer, a young Staff Sergeant, stepped in and told her to go back to the aircraft, which she did, and he defused the situation. There were a number of witnesses that reported this to the exercise commander and the Staff Sergeant got his ass chewed for "ordering" the Captain to do something and yelling at the SNCO, but nothing came of it. It was just one of those situations that don't fit into a perfect box of how we would expect things to go.

Outside of some of these odd situations that come up, which all tie back to expectations that we impose upon each other, I've never really found any problem with women in the military.

 

[PineappleMama]

chickensducks&agoose :

I feel that if the military is going to let women in, they should have to meet the same requirements. Same pushups, same running times. They don't currently have to, which means that the women are generally slower, less strong, and i feel that puts them at a disadvantage. Colleges don't give women a sliding scale, jobs don't say that women only have to type 50 wpm, when men have to do 75wpm. If a woman can do the SAME exact job as a man, and is as strong, and fast, and well trained, I'd be glad to have her at my husband's back (or him at hers) when he's at war.

Gotta agree with this one... if you can do the same job, you can get the job. If you can't then you shouldn't be given the job anyways just because of your sex (or race, religion, handicap, etc) Affirmative action has resulted in less qualified people getting jobs and there have been consequences because the priority in hiring wasn't to find the absolutely most capable person. Shame in an office, less productivity and all... but when you're talking about life or death the qualifications DO matter. If you can't carry out one of your 'coworkers' then you are NOT equal, you are in fact a liability because they can't depend on you the same way they can Bob or Tom who did pass the lift and carry requirement. Same goes for police, fire and rescue... I'm all for women's lib but if it means that you are physically unable to pull my kid from a burning building and Jim is... I'ma hand the job to Jim. There's a time and a place for Girl Rule, Boys Drool... the workplace isn't it.​

 

[Mac in Wisco]

chickensducks&agoose wrote:

I feel that if the military is going to let women in, they should have to meet the same requirements. Same pushups, same running times.

General military fitness requirements only ensure that you are physically fit, they do not ensure that you are physically capable of doing any specific job. If a woman passes the fitness test it means that she is physically fit. It does not mean that she is capable of running as fast or lifting as much as a man or doing any specific task.

If there are additional physical requirements for a specific career field then you are generally tested for those before being placed in that career field. For example, before I was sent off to power line school I was required to strap on some gaffs and climb a utility pole a short ways to show that I was physically capable of it. I also received a fear of heights test where I was required to climb a fifty foot tower. There's no sense in sending somebody off to train for tasks that they can't accomplish.​