Removing gender discrimination for serving in combat roles in Australia, Only 13 per cent of forces are women.

Kuonji · 2009-09-09T23:52:52+00:00

Women in front-line combat roles is a mixed bag. Here are the main issues:

Women on average are not as physically capable as men. Being able to run certain distances carrying a certain amount of weight such as their packs and gear is very physically demanding. I do not know if there are baselines that must be currently met by male soldiers in order to participate in these front line roles, but if there are, any women must be able to meet these requirements as well. Not lower requirements, these requirements.
It is a concern that men may provide special treatment or protections to women in combat. I do not know if there are studies on this, but I think it's at least a valid concern. I'm pretty sure that trials of women on the front lines in hostile territory would be able to provide some data on whether or not this would happen in reality. I would be fine with waiting to see if there are actual reports of this happening before making any firm judgments on it.

Ultimately I am all for equality of opportunity. However, if we are to measure our troops, we must measure them with the same yardstick for men and women alike. If there are discrepancies between the sexes that affect performance, it must be dealt with. If these issues end up affecting an entire sex (women), then so be it. However measuring an individual's contribution would be ideal.

etherspirit · 2009-09-10T07:52:48+00:00

Israel has mandatory military service for both men and women. I don't see why the selective service can't adopt this policy. As far as combat roles, I don't know how Israel discriminates between the sexes. Anyone know?

BestServedCold · 2009-09-10T11:04:08+00:00

The problem that I see with the objections you guys are raising is that they are arbitrary and probably almost always irrelevant in today's modern, mechanized military.

Men can carry more? So what? Noone's marching infantry anymore.

As for test standards for fitness being equal, what is your alternative?

NOT drafting women if needed? NOT signing them up for conscription as a prerequisite for all the benefits of citizenship that they currently enjoy? Letting them join a volunteer military and shirking their equal responsibility to dangerous situations by giving them equal pay and equal opportunities for advancement in exchange for unequal responsibility?

You guys are saying you don't want a woman watching your back. I say I don't want to be on a combat line when a woman should have in all fairness taken my place.

nlakes · 2009-09-10T01:09:28+00:00

Men can carry more weight, men have superior weight to power ratios, men on average have better hand-eye co-ordination and therefore men are ideal for the army.

This is not gender discrimination, this has panned out naturally given the physiological differences between men and women. I personally would not want a woman watching my back in armed combat, unless of course she passed the exact same test that men had to in order to get in.

Lowering the criteria for women would be gender discrimination, against men, as better men would be turned away to let in an arbitrary number of women whose abilities are comparatively meagre.

Furthermore, are schools who hire 90%+ women going to introduce such policies to let more male teachers in ahead of women?

Title	Removing gender discrimination for serving in combat roles in Australia, Only 13 per cent of forces are women.
Author	eyeofthestorm
Upvotes	9
Comments	15
Date	September 9, 2009 11:31 PM UTC (16 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/9izj1/removing_gender_discrimination_for_serving_in/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/removing-gender-discrimination-for-serving-in.1052975 https://theredarchive.com/post/1052975

Comments