New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | May 31, 2005

Cathy Young celebrates the equal right to be shot at.

Comments

|5.31.05 @ 1:03PM|#

It seems like Reason just can't leave this issue alone. How many times now have we gone over this?

For what its worth, I've been secretly hoping that the recent military actions in the Middle East would generate opportunities to test the mettle of the many women in our armed forces. It appears as though it has, with varying degrees of success.

I still stand by my previous statements about women in military service. I support their right to serve in the armed forces, but only if they can do the job to the same level of expertise as the men and they don't create unnecessary stress on the military infrastructure by doing so.

|5.31.05 @ 1:04PM|#

The House bill exemplifies perfectly the change that conservatism has undergone over the past decade or so. Once upon a time, conservatives criticized military personnel policies that were based on "social engineering," arguing that the exigencies of military operations need to take precedence over political goals. Today, they introduce bills to undo the pragmatic actions of the officer corps, and justify it on the basis of what they think women's roles should be.

On another tack, Republicans continue to play the race/gender/minority card incompetently. Ted Kennedy hates Catholics. You have to vote for Janice Rogers Brown because she's the daughter of sharecroppers; don't talk to me about judicial temperment, I said the word "sharecropper!" Bill Clinton following where Monica Lewinsky lead him is indistinguishable from Dabney Coleman in "Nine to Five." If the Air Force Academy can't force cadets to sit though conversion homilies by Evangelical officers, Christians are being persecuted. Can anyone think of an instance of a right making one of these claims and not getting laughed out of the room?

Luke Thomas|5.31.05 @ 1:28PM|#

I, too, stand by original position on this.

I'm sorry, but a few Horatio Alger stories of women succeeding don't convince me at all. Especially when I've witnessed first-hand how arbitrarily medals are handed out.

|5.31.05 @ 1:53PM|#

"How many times now have we gone over this?"

Well, counting this column... twice.

|5.31.05 @ 2:22PM|#

Let me see if I can write as eloquently as I just did before my computer froze and erased everything I wrote. (I wish I could hurt a computer)

Joe is kinda right, the Democrats play the race/sex/minority card better. The republicans need to work on it if they are going to ever be able to pull it off.

In the back of my mind I wonder if the Conservatives who tried to put that failed bill were trying to help some senior Army guys make a decision that they politically can't make, but want to real bad. (well the eloquence is gone, but perhaps I can still make the point).

I have an evolving view on this.

Women are not built for the warfighting that I have spent 11 years getting ready for, but this war is different. There are no women carrying out the real combat. The Marines in Falluja, and on the Syrian border don't have any women with them. The Army SF guys and the SEALs carrying out hits don't have any women with them.

Regular infantry, or specialized infantry stuff is not the stuff of women, but many patrols in this war are done in vehicles, physical strenght and endurance aren't needed. I have seen women with big asses that couldn't run a half mile ever, barely get into their Hummers. And though I was disgusted, I wonder what they can't do that needs to be done, that a healthy fit strong male can?

|5.31.05 @ 2:29PM|#

kwais,

I noted a distinct lack of "Pentagon Sources," "Military Sources," or "Sources familiar with the issue" making approving statements in the press.

If there had been the broad, covert support you allude to, I suspect the GOP caucus and Red State Dems would have lined up behind the measure.

|5.31.05 @ 2:30PM|#

On another tack, Republicans continue to play the race/gender/minority card incompetently.

How are you measuring their incompetence? By all the Congressional seats the GOP is losing??

|5.31.05 @ 2:31PM|#

Oh yeah, another point that I had originally wrote before it got erased;

Another very important part of the equation of compatibility of the sexes, is sex itself. How much does it affect unit discipline and effectiveness if the troops are having sex with eachother? How about if a commander is having sex with a trooper? And Joe, you can't train people who are attraced to eachother to not have sex with eachother. It can't be done. Really, I don't care what you have read it can't be done.

There was an independant study done back in the day that confirmed what every Joe in the military knows about how the issue of sexual harrasment and the different standard of performance has aversely affected the military. The study was quickly rejected and a new study was done by some feminist democrats in congress that showed the more PC results.

|5.31.05 @ 2:37PM|#

Like I said before, I think the women in the military (especially the ones deployed into war zones) need to be segregated into their own "all female" units. I realize that's not the most PC solution to the "deployment queen" phenomenon, but its probably the most practical.

Too bad the military, just like so many burecratic agencies, rarely makes decisions based on common sense and logic.

|5.31.05 @ 2:39PM|#

"If there had been the broad, covert support you allude to, I suspect the GOP caucus and Red State Dems would have lined up behind the measure"

Joe, why would they? I allude to helping out Army officers who want to help the Army, what is the political gain in that, when even the Army guys can't say they apreciate it?

|5.31.05 @ 2:46PM|#

Matt C,
I wholeheartedly agree.

I would like to add to my responce to Joe, that my assesment of what the higher ranking guys (colonels and generals) think and want is pure speculation. I haven't talked to any higher rank Army guys about this issue, and if I had they wouldn't talk ernestly with me. They after all are politicians. But I have talked to lower ranking guys and they are pretty upfront about it. All but a very few of them. You could chalk it up to male chauvinism.

Matt C's idea would certainly be the solution. If females performed on their own, the point could not be argued. If as I suspect without males close by to carry their weight they would not be able to perform.

Also without a dozen males to worship them when there is scant other females around, deploying would, I suspect, not carry the same apeal.

|5.31.05 @ 3:10PM|#

kwais, I trust that the officer corp could make its appreciation known to politicians they like, even if they can't do so officially. They manage to do so on every other military-related matter they have an interest in.

I responded to your post on the earlier thread about men and women working together.

And with all due respect, I'm not going to take at face value your depiction of which study was "independent" and which was "PC."

jc, could you please name a debate the right has won by playing the race card?

|5.31.05 @ 3:37PM|#

Joe,

Will you accept "the person of Ward Connerly", who erased the University of California affirmative-action policy as regent of the system, as an example of a race card played by the right, that won? I'll agree that there was more than a little subterfuge involved, but on the other hand, he prevailed on that issue, although not later CA Propositions.

|5.31.05 @ 3:45PM|#

"Like I said before, I think the women in the military (especially the ones deployed into war zones) need to be segregated into their own "all female" units. I realize that's not the most PC solution to the "deployment queen" phenomenon, but its probably the most practical."

Does this "phenomenon" really need a "solution"? Is it really the problem you make it out to be? Where is the empirical (or even a considerable amoutn of anecdotal) evidence proving such? Either way, why would you demand that they all be separated? Quite frankly, if a male soldier is weak enough for his judgment to be clouded by the presence of a female, then, well, that's a measure of his own performance as a soldier.

If as I suspect without males close by to carry their weight they would not be able to perform.

Well, it's a good thing your suspicions don't govern policy. Let the officers in the field make decisions based on individual performance, rather than make blanket policy declarations based on "suspicions".

Also without a dozen males to worship them when there is scant other females around, deploying would, I suspect, not carry the same apeal.

That's rich! "Uh, I think I'm gonna go put myself in the line of fire and through training hell and spend scorching summers in desert shitholes, all so I can get a bunch of horny GI's with blue-balls to stare at my ass..." Are you serious? Does your mind actually think that women would put their lives at risk and go through absolute hell just to get a little attention from some strangers?

|5.31.05 @ 3:48PM|#

Joe,
I went back and looked at your response to the women and men working together in the military and;

"No, but you can learn to keep it your pants, and to consider your team mates first and foremost as team mates. Not as sex objects. Not as damsels in distress. As one of the guys who, maybe in a different circumstance you might have been attracted to, but who you don't really think of that way, because she's one of the guys."

Really pray tell! Is it a lack of severe punishment that is failing to keep these soldiers from having sex? Is it a lack of apropriate counseling? I endured hours and hours of gruelling crap, and I an every other male I know would have sex with a woman he is attracted to in the right situation. Married people that wish to stay faithfull know that about themselves and avoid certain situations. Others that don't cheat.

You cannot learn that, no more than a gay person can learn not to be gay.

Even you Joe, wishing to be faithfull to your wife in the right situation at the right time, for long enough and you too would cross the line. Something about no one being an island.

|5.31.05 @ 3:57PM|#

Evan,

"Quite frankly, if a male soldier is weak enough for his judgment to be clouded by the presence of a female, then, well, that's a measure of his own performance as a soldier." Hold on, there. I absolutely agree that soldiers who have spent their time in all-male units, who don't see women all that often, and who haven't had the experience of working with women as colleagues and superiors could be thrown off their game by having women brought into their sausage fest. This happened in government, in academia, and in corporate America, too. Then they got over it.

I'll bet that when the armed forces were integrated by race, there really were episodes of damage to unit cohesion and effectiveness. But then they got over it, and nobody much notices anymore. So it's not about the soldiers; it's about the system.

|5.31.05 @ 3:57PM|#

Kwais, as I said, if these soldiers don't even have enough willpower to keep from "whippin it out and squirtin' it on her eyelash" like a horndog schoolboy, then, how are they supposed to handle high-stress combat situations where great amounts of willpower and mental strength are of absolute necessity?

|5.31.05 @ 3:57PM|#

Let ammend my previous post. I had a theme of willpower in it. And there are some people out there with tremendous willpower.

So let me put it like this; those single soldiers, or those who don't feel the need to be faithful to their significant other. Why would they not have sex with someone they are attracted to? Because they are told not to? Because those are the rules? Hot ass pulls like a train, it is stronger than the pull of drugs or someone elses property. The pull is constant, and can drive a coward to fight like a lion, and a brothers to kill one another.

What rules would you implement?

|5.31.05 @ 4:02PM|#

"Married people that wish to stay faithfull know that about themselves and avoid certain situations."

I work with hot women every day. Pretty much every male outside of the military has had the experience. I haven't seen our economy collapse as women enterred the workforce.

And as a matter of fact, the same is true of many units in the military.

|5.31.05 @ 4:02PM|#

Evan,
"if these soldiers don't even have enough willpower to keep from "whippin it out and squirtin' it on her eyelash" like a horndog schoolboy, then, how are they supposed to handle high-stress combat situations "

As the old sayings go; "you can trust him with your life, but not with your wife". Or, "They will share the last drop of water when they are dying of thirst, but fight over a bottle of whiskey"

|5.31.05 @ 4:04PM|#

"What rules would you implement?"

The same ones that are in effect in military hospitals, the Pentagon, the Military Police, the ground crews at Naval Air Stations...

|5.31.05 @ 4:08PM|#

Joe,
"I haven't seen our economy collapse as women enterred the workforce."

In the corporate world you can go home after work. In the corporate world you can have affairs with other people at work a lot easier. In the corporate world no one makes life or death decisions about you. In the corporate world no one has the power over you that a military commander has.

Not that the military will collapse even in the worst situations. Even with the worst morale, and discipline, we still have bigger guns and better technology than the bad guys.

The Wine Commonsewer|5.31.05 @ 4:19PM|#

Think of the possibilities. I mean, when can you ever have the chance to get a great blow job in a foxhole WHILE yer firing a machine gun and killing bad guys?

Best of all possible worlds.

Real Men Don't Eat Quiche Regards, TWC

|5.31.05 @ 4:23PM|#

Evan,

"Well, it's a good thing your suspicions don't govern policy. Let the officers in the field make decisions based on individual performance, rather than make blanket policy declarations based on "suspicions"."

Can the officers in the Field really make the decisions? Because if they can and an officer can say "no women in my battalion, because of the cost, discipline, and morale problems" so be it. That is not the case.

Truth in reporting here, I have never been in a mixed unit. Every unit I have been in has been all male. But I have been to mixed training, and in every case I have seen men carry the weight of women, whether it was a big brother thing or wanting in the pants thing.

Now that is not to say that an all women unit could not perform to standards. I would like to see it. I mean I am genuinly curios, to see how they would perform.

As for;
"Are you serious? Does your mind actually think that women would put their lives at risk and go through absolute hell just to get a little attention from some strangers?"

To tell you the truth, I don't know why men join non combat units. I get the impression that the above mentioned has a lot to do with the female rationale. I know that the reason I do what I do is a aggressive male trait. It doesn't exist in the women I know.

I mean I fight because I love America, and I believe in freedom and and justice, and all that stuff. I would fight for the Alamo, I would put my life on the line if necessary. I would not let another die to save my life.

But in a peacefull world, I would probably either be a police officer or a criminal. And I think you would find the same personality traits in many of the men who do what I do. Actually there is a study that shows that.

|5.31.05 @ 4:42PM|#

"Does this "phenomenon" really need a "solution"? Is it really the problem you make it out to be? Where is the empirical (or even a considerable amoutn of anecdotal) evidence proving such? Either way, why would you demand that they all be separated? Quite frankly, if a male soldier is weak enough for his judgment to be clouded by the presence of a female, then, well, that's a measure of his own performance as a soldier."

Comment by: Evan Williams at May 31, 2005 03:45 PM


I wish I had a definite response to this, but I don't have any experience in the military. I do, however, work in a female dominated profession (Nursing) and I have had the experience of being the only man in a working environment. I know for a fact that women work differently when a man is around. How would this be any different for men? Depending on the circumstances, it may be no big deal. And, I suspect that multi-gendered military posts are not as rife with sexual tension as some would think. However, we are talking about young adults raised in America. I don't doubt that there are some interesting sexual dynamics at work in a gender integrated unit. Whether or not they negetively effect morale, productivity, or efficiency is not really my call. Frankly, at my job it doesn't make a difference.

I just think that men and women should be separated to promote the best that these people are capable of. Since when does military service involve sex?

Plus, I believe that there is resentment of women who are held to lower standards by men who aren't. Race is far less of a difference than gender. In fact, dividing humans by race is highly irrelevant anyway. Dividing humans by gender is clearly not.

If a woman wants to be an infantry soldier, then she should be held to the same physical standards as the men she is supposed to be serving with. That's not only logical, but fair. If a woman wants to be a radar operator, then the physical standards for infantry shouldn't apply. The qualifications for a radar operator should have nothing to do with how far you can hike with a 100 lb. pack.

What's wrong with setting up the qualifications for certain jobs in the military, then only accepting people who are capable of carrying out those jobs? I believe gender shouldn't matter, unless there ends up being only one woman out of a 1000 male soldiers. Then the logistics of gender integration get a little ridiculous. If we lived in a society that didn't have so many sexual hang ups, then having a "Pvt. Vasquez" wouldn't be a big deal. Unfortunately it is.

So, the only solution, in my opinion, is to round up all the women who can meet the minimum standards for infantry service and pile them into an all female unit lead by women officers and NCOs. Once again, unfortunately, there probably aren't enough women such as this to allow this to happen. Also, even if there was, the USA wouldn't allow them to go into harms way because of our gender role/sexual hang ups.

dagny|5.31.05 @ 5:24PM|#

I don't know, the ancient Greeks seemed to think that having their soldiers screwing each other was helpful. Of course, there still weren't women involved...

|5.31.05 @ 5:47PM|#

You guys talk about the standards as if there's one standard right now. And I don't mean male/female. A support soldier who's scoring 70% on his PT test will be told that he needs to keep improving, and it would sure look good when he goes to the next promotions board if he could score 90%. An infantryman who scores 70% on his PT test will be regarded as a dirtbag until such time as he is scoring 100%, or damn close, like a good infantryman should.

A field commander does not have the luxury to tell his commander that he doesn't want any females, thankyouverymuch. He has a mission to accomplish, and if he bitches about female soldiers he will be quickly replaced with another officer.

Of the handful of commanders that I know personally (company level, some combat arms/some support), every one of the combat commanders has said over beers "thank god I didn't have any women in my command over there (there being Iraq)". And every commander who led women lamented all of the Melrose Place bullshit he had to deal with while trying to accomplish his mission (mostly moving convoys from south to north and MP duties).

The way I've seen it, you can have esprit de corps, or you can have Melrose Place.

|5.31.05 @ 9:30PM|#

Women make up roughly 10% of the 3,000,000 people serving in the armed forces.

So, we remove the women. Which 300,000 jobs can our military do without? Which infantryman gets pulled off the line to drive the truck the Jessica Lynch used to drive? Or do we have one less truck supplying the units at the tip of the spear?

10% less air support, or 10% fewer ammo trucks?

I imagine a company commander would have to deal with a lot more drama if he has 10% fewer rifles, 10% fewer supplies, and the Hornets get there 10% later when his unit is pinned down.

|5.31.05 @ 10:50PM|#

Some random thoughts from the peanut gallery:

- I am constantly amazed at how opinionated some people are about military policy without, apparently, ever having had the benefit of actual military service.
- My eight-year Navy career saw Tailhook and the beginnings of gender integration. There were no women in combat squadrons when I was deployed, and when a female support pilot flew aboard it was a very newsworthy event. From discussions with my active duty friends, women in combat squadrons is no long novel, but routine.
- Nevertheless, put me down in the camp of �'Women shouldn'�t be allowed in combat roles, even though some women are absolutely physically and mentally capable of performing in combat.'� There are tangible and intangible costs of integrating women, and I am not sure the benefits to the military as a whole outweigh those costs.

Some of my experiences:
- When military policy changed to allow women to fly tactical aircraft, the Navy appeared to be in a huge hurry to qualify the first female tactical pilot, probably in an effort to repair its public image after Tailhook. So the Navy decided place three female support pilots (who had never completed full jet flight training) directly in tactical aircraft training in the Fleet Replacement Squadron, known by its former acronym of the RAG (for Readiness Air Group) rather than sending the candidates through the entire jet flight training curriculum of Basic, Intermediate and Advanced flight training. One of the most important skills for a Navy jet pilot is the ability to land a plane on an aircraft carrier, and successful tactical pilots must demonstrate this skill in both Intermediate and Advanced flight training. The first three female tactical pilots didn'�t do this, because they never completed Intermediate or Advanced flight training. How did they do in their tactical aircraft? One was killed in a mishap while she was trying to land an F-14 on the carrier during RAG training. She mishandled the plane after an engine failure and caused a stall. The instructor pilot ejected both seats but unfortunately the plane was too low and she didn�'t survive the ejection. The second managed to make it through the EA-6B RAG but only barely. When she was in the fleet, was so bad flying around the boat at night that she was put on the �Day team�. Before her, there was no such thing as a Day team, so it was created just for her. The third pilot apparently did OK and flew F/A-18�s. Considering that overall attrition for Navy flight training is somewhere around 20%, I would consider this particular experiment a failure.
- I blame Navy policy for this failure, because I believe there are no skills required to fly tactical airplanes that give men any advantage over women. (One of the best instructor pilots I ever flew with was a woman. She was incredibly aggressive and flew the airplane at the edge of the envelope as well as any man I ever saw). I just think that the Navy should have required female pilots to complete the full training curriculum and demonstrate they possess the necessary skills, rather than sliding support pilots into a role that they were apparently unqualified for. I understand that the Air Force took the more conservative route and had more success.
- When I left the combat squadron and was assigned to a shore squadron, enlisted women were much more integrated. The single biggest personnel problem I faced was unwed pregnant women. I estimate the pregnancy rate among enlisted women in the squadron was around 75%-80%.
- The military can make all the policies it wants to that prohibit fraternization, sexual relations etc. But when relatively young, immature people of opposite genders are thrust into a stressful environment such as the military, instincts take over. And BTW, stress doesn'�t have to come from combat. It can come from the more routine aspects of military life such as six-month deployments in close quarters away from home, family and friends, or assignments to military bases in East Bejesus USA where the only recreational activities are going to the Enlisted club and drinking until their inhibitions are gone and their pants magically fall down.

I realize these experiences are anecdotal. Judging from some of the other posts in this thread, however, I surmise they are not uncommon.

|6.1.05 @ 12:45PM|#

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,158098,00.html

Link to fow news story 1700 incidences of sexual assault in the military in 2004.

|6.1.05 @ 3:49PM|#

Think of the possibilities. I mean, when can you ever have the chance to get a great blow job in a foxhole WHILE yer firing a machine gun and killing bad guys?

Throw in some monkeys and it would be perfect. (See thread below.)