thedrifter
09-06-02, 05:43 PM
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1. The Israeli Army claim:
The legend goes that Israel removed women from combat because a group of them were captured and horribly mistreated - or that Arabs would "fight to the death" to avoid being captured by women.
The reality is that those few Jewish women who happened to have fallen into Arab hands before the Six Day War were treated with respect and returned in a few days.
The "fight to the death" theory is also not so - when Israeli women went out on patrol their opponents surrendered or retreated rather than engage in battle - for religious reasons - a man killed by a woman cannot have a desirable after-life.
Also in 1995 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the ban on combat training that had been enacted for religious reasons - not capture stories - in 1949.
2. The "women were not in combat in the Gulf War" claim:
The media and some parts of the Pentagon decided that women were not in combat in the Gulf. The phrase "in combat" has more definitons than a dictionary, including separate definitions by each branch of the military and the by U.S. Congress. In advocating for women in combat it is not advocacy for women to engage in hand-to-hand gut slitting direct ground combat - women are still excluded from that and many have no desire to even think about qualifying. Perhaps combat roles would be a better term.
The reality is that women certainly performed combat roles in the Gulf - they flew refueling planes, flew troop transport aircraft and helicopters, fired Patriots that destroyed Scud missiles, supplied mechanized brigades with fuel and ammunition, loaded bombs, operated radios, radar, and military vehicles. They marched through mine fields, maintained aircraft, guarded perimeters, accepted the surrender of Iraqi soldiers and subsequently pulled guard duty. Women were taken prisoner and some lost their lives in the Gulf - is that not being in combat?
Speaking of direct ground combat one has to wonder about all these male military "experts" who say they have been there. For according to two studies cited in "Ground Zero" - "only 15 percent of Infantryman in World War Two ever fired their weapons in combat and fewer than 15 percent of the hundreds of thousand of military personnel who served in Vietnam are estimated to have been in a firefight." Although 3,403,100 troops served in the Southeast Asia Theatre, the number of troops within the borders of Vietnam was 2,594,000 -at any given time roughly 400,000 to 500,000 were there - peak strength was 543,482 at one time.
3. The Desert Storm "nondeployable for pregnancy" claim:
Columnists and commentators had a field day with this one - distorted statistics hit the press like pot bellies on beer guzzlers. They threw numbers around that practically had the whole military pregnant and undeployable.
The reality is that yes some women were undeployable for reasons due to pregnancy -as were many more men undeployable for substance abuse, alcoholism, court martials, sports related injuries, off-duty fight related injuries and pending charges of domestic violence.
According to Linda Bird Francke in "Ground Zero" - "No official records were kept on the impact of pregnancy on women's deployabilty rate to the Gulf war or their evacuation from the Gulf."
According to General Holm in "Women in the Military" - "after the war DOD reported to Congress that the deployment of women was "highly successful".
4. The "extra time going to the bathroom" claim:
Critics and opponents of women in the military often state that "women will delay troops in the field by having to undress to go to the bathroom" - or "women pilots take more time on relief breaks".
The reality is that intelligent miltary women have discovered female products like "The Lady J" and "Freshette" - female portable urinals used by female campers, aviators, and mountain climbers. As for the other necessary function - both genders have to bottom strip for that. So face it guyz - the day has come when women can stand up to - well you know the rest.
5. The "women can't shoot and haven't had any weapons training" claim:
Simply not true.
The Army began individual weapons training for women in 1975 and the Marines caught up in 1985. The Army also trained combat support women in light anti-tank weapons, M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, claymore mines, and M-60 machine guns. Many military women learned to shoot long before it became "official" - Carol T. Kirk, MAJ, USA (Ret), was the first woman to be awarded the German Army Marksmanship medal. She qualified for the bronze medal in 1972 while an Army Nurse at the 30th Field Hospital in Germany.
6. The "women pilots and astronauts can't take the G-forces" claim:
Opponents of women finally getting to fly combat aircraft, and some male pilots, bandied this about in trying to prevent women from flying the newer, faster, aircraft - most of which were designated as combat planes.
The reality is that women can counteract G-forces because their physiology makes them more tolerant of G-forces than men.
(G-forces push down on a body, they overcome the ability of the heart to pump oxygenated blood upward into the brain. Blood begins to pool in the lower extremities, while blood circulation to the head is reduced. When blood circulation to the head is sufficiently reduced, the oxygen supply to the brain becomes insufficient.)
Height, not strength or gender, is the most negative factor in a pilot's ability to tolerate G stress. Because women have a smaller body mass the shorter distance between their heart and brain makes it easier for them to counteract the G-forces. Advances in centrifuge technology and training , special exercises, and newer G-suits are making marked improvement in aircrew G-tolerance.
7. The really rampant "dual physical standards" claim:
The media is always harping on this and so are the men in the military - in part they are right to complain - but this issue has more sides than the pentagon. Not only are there dual standards, there are probably octuple standards.
Each branch has different standards - not only for women, but for men, for older men, and "invisible" standards for the higher ranking officers and NCOs.
Nothing is standard between the services with respect to physical fitness requirements and they have been admonished to change them and catch up to fair and equitable standards based on gender, age and varied physiological abilities.
The GAO recently looked into this issue in depth - here is a brief from their report -
"There is a widespread perception that the existence of lower physical fitness standards for women amounts to a "double standard." However, the physical fitness program is actually intended only to maintain the general fitness and health of military members and fitness testing is not aimed at assessing the ability to perform specific missions or military jobs. Consequently, DOD officials and experts agree that it is appropriate to adjust the standards for physiological differences among service members by age and gender."
One hopes that these changes will address the fact that the ability to do 30 pushups does not constitute being a better soldier - especially when measured against the ability to do aerobic exercises - given that women can sustain aerobic exercises longer than men. Or that pitting upper body strength against lower body strength has anything to do with the ability to operate complicated equipment, fly jet aircraft, or fire sophisticated weapons. Brains, not brawn should be the watchword.
Hasn't anyone noticed that separate standards are a way of life in the rest of the world? Professional golf has the PGA and the LPGA - different strokes for different folks. Basketball has the NBA and the WNBA - neither sex is expected to play the other's game. The Olympics has men's events and women's events - so what's the big deal about the military creating different sets of standards for age, sex, and as qualifiers for particular jobs?
The rules are totally different with respect to physical standards for combat arms. According to Lt General Claudia Kennedy the following is the reality:
"These are the facts: Soldiers enlisting in the combat arms, who are by regulatory definition all men , undergo both Basic and Advanced Individual Training in gender-segregated (all male) units in what is known as One Station Unit Training. Therefore there are no women trainees to "weaken" the combat arms as political critics persist in implying. Their argument is without merit."
8. The "women can't throw grenades because they're biologically different" claim:
A few hack writers and some television pundits have repeatedly claimed that women can't throw grenades - and glibly show video clips of the young women's futile attempts. Conveniently leaving out clips of the women who could throw grenades the required distance. Conveniently leaving out the voices of the women who said "they never told me to use the opposite foot", or the woman who said "they made me move back so I wouldn't embarass the men who couldn't throw".
continued.............
1. The Israeli Army claim:
The legend goes that Israel removed women from combat because a group of them were captured and horribly mistreated - or that Arabs would "fight to the death" to avoid being captured by women.
The reality is that those few Jewish women who happened to have fallen into Arab hands before the Six Day War were treated with respect and returned in a few days.
The "fight to the death" theory is also not so - when Israeli women went out on patrol their opponents surrendered or retreated rather than engage in battle - for religious reasons - a man killed by a woman cannot have a desirable after-life.
Also in 1995 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the ban on combat training that had been enacted for religious reasons - not capture stories - in 1949.
2. The "women were not in combat in the Gulf War" claim:
The media and some parts of the Pentagon decided that women were not in combat in the Gulf. The phrase "in combat" has more definitons than a dictionary, including separate definitions by each branch of the military and the by U.S. Congress. In advocating for women in combat it is not advocacy for women to engage in hand-to-hand gut slitting direct ground combat - women are still excluded from that and many have no desire to even think about qualifying. Perhaps combat roles would be a better term.
The reality is that women certainly performed combat roles in the Gulf - they flew refueling planes, flew troop transport aircraft and helicopters, fired Patriots that destroyed Scud missiles, supplied mechanized brigades with fuel and ammunition, loaded bombs, operated radios, radar, and military vehicles. They marched through mine fields, maintained aircraft, guarded perimeters, accepted the surrender of Iraqi soldiers and subsequently pulled guard duty. Women were taken prisoner and some lost their lives in the Gulf - is that not being in combat?
Speaking of direct ground combat one has to wonder about all these male military "experts" who say they have been there. For according to two studies cited in "Ground Zero" - "only 15 percent of Infantryman in World War Two ever fired their weapons in combat and fewer than 15 percent of the hundreds of thousand of military personnel who served in Vietnam are estimated to have been in a firefight." Although 3,403,100 troops served in the Southeast Asia Theatre, the number of troops within the borders of Vietnam was 2,594,000 -at any given time roughly 400,000 to 500,000 were there - peak strength was 543,482 at one time.
3. The Desert Storm "nondeployable for pregnancy" claim:
Columnists and commentators had a field day with this one - distorted statistics hit the press like pot bellies on beer guzzlers. They threw numbers around that practically had the whole military pregnant and undeployable.
The reality is that yes some women were undeployable for reasons due to pregnancy -as were many more men undeployable for substance abuse, alcoholism, court martials, sports related injuries, off-duty fight related injuries and pending charges of domestic violence.
According to Linda Bird Francke in "Ground Zero" - "No official records were kept on the impact of pregnancy on women's deployabilty rate to the Gulf war or their evacuation from the Gulf."
According to General Holm in "Women in the Military" - "after the war DOD reported to Congress that the deployment of women was "highly successful".
4. The "extra time going to the bathroom" claim:
Critics and opponents of women in the military often state that "women will delay troops in the field by having to undress to go to the bathroom" - or "women pilots take more time on relief breaks".
The reality is that intelligent miltary women have discovered female products like "The Lady J" and "Freshette" - female portable urinals used by female campers, aviators, and mountain climbers. As for the other necessary function - both genders have to bottom strip for that. So face it guyz - the day has come when women can stand up to - well you know the rest.
5. The "women can't shoot and haven't had any weapons training" claim:
Simply not true.
The Army began individual weapons training for women in 1975 and the Marines caught up in 1985. The Army also trained combat support women in light anti-tank weapons, M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, claymore mines, and M-60 machine guns. Many military women learned to shoot long before it became "official" - Carol T. Kirk, MAJ, USA (Ret), was the first woman to be awarded the German Army Marksmanship medal. She qualified for the bronze medal in 1972 while an Army Nurse at the 30th Field Hospital in Germany.
6. The "women pilots and astronauts can't take the G-forces" claim:
Opponents of women finally getting to fly combat aircraft, and some male pilots, bandied this about in trying to prevent women from flying the newer, faster, aircraft - most of which were designated as combat planes.
The reality is that women can counteract G-forces because their physiology makes them more tolerant of G-forces than men.
(G-forces push down on a body, they overcome the ability of the heart to pump oxygenated blood upward into the brain. Blood begins to pool in the lower extremities, while blood circulation to the head is reduced. When blood circulation to the head is sufficiently reduced, the oxygen supply to the brain becomes insufficient.)
Height, not strength or gender, is the most negative factor in a pilot's ability to tolerate G stress. Because women have a smaller body mass the shorter distance between their heart and brain makes it easier for them to counteract the G-forces. Advances in centrifuge technology and training , special exercises, and newer G-suits are making marked improvement in aircrew G-tolerance.
7. The really rampant "dual physical standards" claim:
The media is always harping on this and so are the men in the military - in part they are right to complain - but this issue has more sides than the pentagon. Not only are there dual standards, there are probably octuple standards.
Each branch has different standards - not only for women, but for men, for older men, and "invisible" standards for the higher ranking officers and NCOs.
Nothing is standard between the services with respect to physical fitness requirements and they have been admonished to change them and catch up to fair and equitable standards based on gender, age and varied physiological abilities.
The GAO recently looked into this issue in depth - here is a brief from their report -
"There is a widespread perception that the existence of lower physical fitness standards for women amounts to a "double standard." However, the physical fitness program is actually intended only to maintain the general fitness and health of military members and fitness testing is not aimed at assessing the ability to perform specific missions or military jobs. Consequently, DOD officials and experts agree that it is appropriate to adjust the standards for physiological differences among service members by age and gender."
One hopes that these changes will address the fact that the ability to do 30 pushups does not constitute being a better soldier - especially when measured against the ability to do aerobic exercises - given that women can sustain aerobic exercises longer than men. Or that pitting upper body strength against lower body strength has anything to do with the ability to operate complicated equipment, fly jet aircraft, or fire sophisticated weapons. Brains, not brawn should be the watchword.
Hasn't anyone noticed that separate standards are a way of life in the rest of the world? Professional golf has the PGA and the LPGA - different strokes for different folks. Basketball has the NBA and the WNBA - neither sex is expected to play the other's game. The Olympics has men's events and women's events - so what's the big deal about the military creating different sets of standards for age, sex, and as qualifiers for particular jobs?
The rules are totally different with respect to physical standards for combat arms. According to Lt General Claudia Kennedy the following is the reality:
"These are the facts: Soldiers enlisting in the combat arms, who are by regulatory definition all men , undergo both Basic and Advanced Individual Training in gender-segregated (all male) units in what is known as One Station Unit Training. Therefore there are no women trainees to "weaken" the combat arms as political critics persist in implying. Their argument is without merit."
8. The "women can't throw grenades because they're biologically different" claim:
A few hack writers and some television pundits have repeatedly claimed that women can't throw grenades - and glibly show video clips of the young women's futile attempts. Conveniently leaving out clips of the women who could throw grenades the required distance. Conveniently leaving out the voices of the women who said "they never told me to use the opposite foot", or the woman who said "they made me move back so I wouldn't embarass the men who couldn't throw".
continued.............