Reply to: Women in the Services front line

[SpontaneousOrder]

If they can do it, sure.

If, on the other hand, it imposes logistical or other issues, then no. They shouldn't be automatically barred from it, though.

That's the thing. In a few cases it'd have huge cost implications, in which case it'd be proper to ask the customer if he/she want's to pay for that equality.

[Zero Liability]

If they can do it, sure.

If, on the other hand, it imposes logistical or other issues, then no. They shouldn't be automatically barred from it, though.

[darmstadt]

I remember working in Israel, their women soldiers scared the hell out of me: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...1824276&type=3

[vwdan]

I am a big fan as well, but people do not get taken from one unit in the British army and get plonked into another, especially from support to teeth roles. When they even tried moving people sideways, there were mutinies

But that's not what he said - 'soldier first' is a pretty well known saying and if 'tulip hit the fan' then you'd be doing whatever was asked. Even non teeth arms do a good amount of field training - CQB, room clearances etc. They don't do it for laughs - they do it because every soldier is expected to be at a certain standard.

But moving units definitely happens as can be seen by the regimental changes which made your excessive point about pride somewhat moot.

[minestrone]

I think the first principle is that we really should not have armed forces, from the get go it kind of messes up the concept of equality. To then and wish to apply equal rights thinking onto this and expect an easy outcome is just going to get you in trouble.

And don't think women are not physically capable of this kind of thing, I've been chicked many times on many tough runs by some pretty tough women. Them bitches be crazy.

When you see the courage of the Kurdish women fighting ISIS they are more than capable of warfare. There is a whole museum in Hue dedicated to the ladies that fought in the Tet offensive. The bit in full metal jacket is sort of historically accurate.

Se they can do it if they want, I am not stopping them, just don't expect to work out the answer by wrestling with the concept of equality during bayonet drill.



#meminist <- you should read that, it is funny

[EternalOptimist]

It's no secret that I'm not a huge fan of some of what SO posts, but did you even read his post? What did he say that was wrong?

Your reply looks especially daft when you consider the changes and amalgamations that have happened over the last few decades.

I am a big fan as well, but people do not get taken from one unit in the British army and get plonked into another, especially from support to teeth roles. When they even tried moving people sideways, there were mutinies

[vwdan]

Absolute cobblers, I am afraid.

In WWII there were numerous mutinies in the British army, when soldiers were sent to regiments they did not feel they belonged to.

In fact it was a sharp contrast to the Wermacht, where the soldiery were more like cogs in a machine. The German soldier did not mind being part of 1 battalion 1234 regiment
whereas the British soldier took great pride in being part of the 1st Yorks foot and mouth brigade.

It's a cultural thing in the forces, in our culture, people want and need to belong

It's no secret that I'm not a huge fan of some of what SO posts, but did you even read his post? What did he say that was wrong?

Your reply looks especially daft when you consider the changes and amalgamations that have happened over the last few decades.

[EternalOptimist]

You're correct, generally speaking - at least from a man's perspective. In reality though, the tulip would have to have really hit the fan for them to want to send people onto the front line who don't want to be there, and only joined to drive toilet rolls from A to B. Or maintain helicopters. Etc.

Absolute cobblers, I am afraid.

In WWII there were numerous mutinies in the British army, when soldiers were sent to regiments they did not feel they belonged to.

In fact it was a sharp contrast to the Wermacht, where the soldiery were more like cogs in a machine. The German soldier did not mind being part of 1 battalion 1234 regiment
whereas the British soldier took great pride in being part of the 1st Yorks foot and mouth brigade.

It's a cultural thing in the forces, in our culture, people want and need to belong

[SpontaneousOrder]

I thought once you were in the forces you were pretty much at their beck and call, hence my question. I guess I was under the impression women could already join units that might end up fighting, but wouldn't be allowed to join in, or something odd.

If every soldier is allowed to decide if they want to be nominated for front line duty, the question seems trivial... of course they should be allowed to.

You're correct, generally speaking - at least from a man's perspective. In reality though, the tulip would have to have really hit the fan for them to want to send people onto the front line who don't want to be there, and only joined to drive toilet rolls from A to B. Or maintain helicopters. Etc.

[d000hg]

Doog is thinking of the Jesus army.

I'm so sorry for asking an honest question.

[Zippy]

Look guys, it's really simple - women will no longer be automatically barred from seeing if they can do the job.
And for all of you fretting over laydees being shot at, injured, raped etc - wake the f*** up. That's been going on for millennia, and amply demonstrated recently by women being shot, blown up and even going in to save a colleague when under fire. If you can stop the sexist bollocks disguised as concern for long enough you could check the stats from Afghanistan.
Jesus wept.

[mudskipper]

Women will make excellent fighters once a month providing they synchronize.

More side-splitting humour. PMSL.

[Paddy]

Women will make excellent fighters once a month providing they synchronize.

[SpontaneousOrder]

As I'm sure SO will enjoy admitting that the vast majority of blokes couldn't hack it through the Commando Course or P-Company, so the fact that most women won't be able to is neither here nor there really.

It is very relevant. The vast majority of men wouldn't qualify, but even fewer women could - by a factor of a thousand or so. When I was in there was a manpower shortage - and that's in a corps of only 5 thousand. Not because there weren't enough candidates at the careers office, but because there weren't enough when you consider that 1 in 300 or so will make it through. The old slogan used to say 99% need not apply, but if you apply that to the general male population then its much less than that.
They would likely have 1 or 2 (if that) women in the entire corps (excluding the bandies).

Out of idle curiosity, I checked the results for the last Paras 10 Tab and the first woman was 182nd place, though still a good few mins quicker than me. She didn't quite make the cutoff for regular P-Coy, but then neither did most of the blokes who did it either - including me.

P-Coy is not the paras though, just like the All Arms Command Course is not the Royal Marines. A 10 week All Arms course is to Command Training as the 10-tab fun-run is to P-Coy.

Capt. Pip Tattersall was the first woman to ever become a Commando, while I was in the Corps, on her third attempt. The All Arms course was only 9 weeks, and Royal Marines generally only get a couple of attempts at the real thing.

She did good though. I used to like seeing her in the gallery at breakfast (female faces were rare unless you'd done something nasty to yourself), and thought she was home & dry until she got kicked off the course when they discovered that she had done the entire final exercise without firing her weapon (in order to keep it clean). She made it a couple of attempts later in the following year.

The point is, though, that she is a lone woman who took multiple attempts to pass a course would be fairly trivial for one of the young Marine recruits (and to be fair - the All Arms guys tend to be a bit older, so it'll be harder in that sense). All arms guys (including men) don't fight alongside marines. They provide supporting services etc (not that that can't get hairy) as the Corps doesn't have its own artillery etc.

Spontaneous makes a reasonable point about the numbers, but I don't think that's an excuse to continue being sexist.

I'm not picking a side - It would suck to be a capable woman but not allowed to join.

BUT... it's in no way sexist. Unless you redefine the meaning of the word 'sexist'.

It's just a recognition of the economic realities of the situation.

[vwdan]

I think the truth is that modern insurgency style combat in places like Afghan and Iraq has shown us that there is no real definition of front line (Even the biggest bases are attacked and mortared on a regular basis) and anybody who steps outside the wire has to be trained and prepared to kill and be combat effective. Even logistics movements come under regular attack. Not only that, but the women who find themselves in these situations have proven time and again that they can indeed fight back and soldier properly under effective fire.

Other than that we merely have somewhat arbitrary definitions of what it is to "look for a fight" and, personally, I'm not sure if that's for any reason other than the belief that women somehow can't stomach killing a person. It's not like there aren't plenty of big and hard (meant genuinely) male soldiers coming back with PTSD etc - you're either mentally equipped or not, but nobody ever knows until after.

Spontaneous makes a reasonable point about the numbers, but I don't think that's an excuse to continue being sexist. As I'm sure SO will enjoy admitting that the vast majority of blokes couldn't hack it through the Commando Course or P-Company, so the fact that most women won't be able to is neither here nor there really. Other than that, every other unit in the military appears have integrated successfully.

Out of idle curiosity, I checked the results for the last Paras 10 Tab and the first woman was 182nd place, though still a good few mins quicker than me. She didn't quite make the cutoff for regular P-Coy, but then neither did most of the blokes who did it either - including me.