Really, I shouldn’t be wasting time on this topic because so many other people have tackled it effectively, but it scratches an itch. This article by Maggie Fox offers an intellectually lazy, shoddy, one-sided, cherry-picking argument laden with ridicule and a lack of any real engagement with the very serious issues at hand. This is the sort of drivel that leads to terrible policy, which, while our intelligentsia (Maggie, that’s you) gets to feel good about promoting equality, leads to other peoples’ kids dying and us losing wars.
Maggie, let’s have a dialogue about this issue, shall we?
By the numbers:
Women don’t have enough upper-body strength. They can’t run as fast. Their monthly cycle will interfere with being on the front lines. All the arguments against letting women serve in the military are being made again [by whom? name names please and let us judge who the critics are. You’ll recall this report coming from the Armed Services as noting that women in combat roles is a bad idea.] as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted restrictions on women serving in direct combat roles. [you didn’t articulate all the arguments but instead offer straw men and mischaracterizations of your opposition’s position. The argument is not that women are weak. The argument is that allowing women in combat positions will lead to decreased military effectiveness for a variety of reasons and is not worth the career advancement/equality “pros” that advocates such as yourself offer.]
But experts on fitness and on women in the military say the past two decades have shown that being female is not the biggest barrier to serving on the front lines. Being fat is. [again, distraction from the real issue being discussed, which is the exchange of someone else’s lives and victory in combat for nebulous concepts of equality.]
“I don’t think gender is a factor at all,” says retired Navy rear admiral Jamie Barnett, who is now at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. “I do think there are physical requirements and not all men or women will be able to meet those physical requirements. Those physical requirements should be tied specifically to making sure the job gets done.” [Jamie Barnett hasn’t done anything that would qualify him to comment on this issue. You’re using his former rank as an appeal to authority to convince people who don’t know better. A retired Army Special Forces colonel with an Infantry background and experience on the ground in actual conflicts would be much more credible. Even then, you’d have to have several of them in line so as to avoid cherry-picking sources, which you’re clearly doing here. Lazy, biased journalism.]
Just as with men, women selected to combat roles will be “a select few”, says Edward Archer, an exercise physiologist at the University of South Carolina. “When it comes to physical capacity, I think without any question there will be females who will be able to exceed and excel and to perform as well as the average male, in that setting.” [Irrelevant. I can go find 5-year-olds who can drive, too. That doesn’t mean that we should be issuing drivers licenses in the first grade. Further, I doubt that Edward Archer has any expertise that qualifies him to comment on what the physical requirements inherent in combat arms are. His expertise is athletics in a controlled setting. Maybe if he rolls through Ranger School and a couple combat deployments he’ll have a different idea.]
The various branches — Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines — already have differing requirements for physical fitness, by branch and by gender. All have a minimum standard, calculated using three exercises that include running, either pull-ups or push-ups, and sit-ups. Women’s requirements are lower in some cases, but the Marines doesn’t give females a break at all when it comes to minimum physical fitness. [Invoking Chesterton: Why, again, exactly, are women’s standards lower? And actually, for the record, the marines do give women a break. Was this such a hard thing to find out? Really? Last, those minimum standards for fitness are merely proxies for physical requirements for combat training. Being able to do 42 pushups in 2 minutes does not in itself qualify one for the physical demands of storming the beaches of Normandy.]
Barnett notes that these are general fitness measures that may mean little when it comes to completing a specific task or mission. “You can be a football player and if you go out with your mom on a half marathon and you haven’t trained for it (and she has), she’ll kick your butt,” Barnett said. [Irrelevant.]
There is a problem with fitness that affects the military, but it doesn’t reflect on women alone. It reflects on Americans in general, says Barnett, who as a member of a group called “Mission: Readiness” signed a report on the dangers posed by obesity to U.S. security. [Diversion from the issues.]
“We are too unfit to fight, is the term. We are definitely an unfit society,” Archer added in a telephone interview. “They need basic training to get ready for basic training. This is true of both males and females,” Archer said. [Diversion from the issues. Getting tired of this. Assumes that men and women perform at the same levels.]
“Already we see only one in four Americans between ages of 17 and 24 who can join the military,” Barnett said in a telephone interview. “The single biggest reason is that they are overweight.” [Don’t care. Old news.]
More than two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and experts agree that both poor diet and a lack of exercise is to blame. The military needs men and women alike who are in the best possible shape, argues Barnett. [No one said it didn’t. Irrelevant.]
“Once you establish objective criteria for what the requirements are for a military job, then I say let women compete for those and let the best man or woman get the position,” says Barnett, who served in Iraq and who was deputy commander of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, with sailors serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Appeal to authority. Again, he has no competence to comment on this issue. “serving in Iraq” can mean a lot of things, and Barnett wasn’t a SEAL, so it meant staff work. Not a door-kicker. He’s not telling you about all the personnel problems he’s had with women in his commands already.]
“I think what we’ll find is there will be a lot of women who will be able to meet even the hardest positions.” [Empirically false. He’s either ignorant or lying.]
Experience shows this happens, says Lorry Fenner, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who is now at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. [Another appeal to authority. That position and resume are impressive-sounding to someone who has no idea what it means. Less so to anyone who’s actually been on the receiving end of “strategic studies.”]
“Example after example can be found of women exceeding the expectations of their physical capabilities, finding work-arounds for heavy tasks, or teaming with their co-workers to complete their assignments to best effect,” Fenner writes in her book, “Women in Combat”. [Great. First: Anecdotal evidence counts for squat. Zip. Zilch. Study it and get to me with data. Helpful would be to know what those expectations are, because they’re already so low that getting over them is not rocket-science. Next: The last thing we need in a combat zone is someone trying to “find a work-around” for hauling casualties up or down a mountain for evacuation. We don’t need women scurrying around through doors because they can’t get over walls. In combat, any time someone can’t fend for himself means someone else has to do it, and what you’re talking about (“teaming with their co-workers to complete their assignments”) means that someone else is having to do the woman’s implied tasks for her just to make sure they get done. So this proves the point that women are burdens in combat.]
“Obviously, not all women are strong enough for all jobs — just as not all men are,” Fenner adds — then describes how women recruits mastered tests to show whether they could scale walls and carry heavy equipment. [Data, please. Also, have you read Katie Petronio yet?]
“When we study history, we find that women have coped with every aspect of war. [usually by staying home and letting men fight it. why does this bother you?] Women have demonstrated the emotional courage to withstand the brutality of war, including during lengthy imprisonment as POWs under very harsh conditions in the Pacific and in European work and death camps; in very dangerous and stressful resistance fighting; in the face of rape and mutilation; and at the moments of their deaths,” Fenner writes. [Not quite irrelevant, but doesn’t address military effectiveness. Further, this is great for the women, but emotional courage and 2 bucks will buy you a cup of coffee. What about the units they were with? How were they impacted? Would they have been better off with men instead? Most of the examples you’re talking about have to deal with consequences of women losing in combat. Losing in combat is not the goal, in case you forgot.]
The average woman is indeed weaker and has less heart, lung and blood oxygen capacity than the average man, says Archer. “But an elite female athlete can outperform the average male soldier easily in many ways,” he adds. [Er… data please. I already provided some. Your turn. This is getting old. Further, this doesn’t account for structural weaknesses, things like bone density, tendon thickness, and muscle mass that determine longevity in a combat environment. An elite female athlete chick running faster than a fatty infantry guy in garrison is swell until you realize that he’s the one who’s going to be able to hump his kit, M240B, and ammo up a mountain, and she can’t.]
Fenner and Barnett say the U.S. military needs to be able to pull from a pool of the best recruits for all jobs, including front-line combat. [Ah, here’s the real and best argument. Sadly, they don’t note what the advantages would be versus the very real disadvantages of: Displacing more-capable men with less-capable women in combat, time effects of combat on women, degradation of morale and focus in the units, staffing effects vice pregnancy and medical problems, staffing problems with forced branching, facilities and accommodations, cultural shifts which can and do impact combat effectiveness, any effects on overall gender relations in the US, selective service, how our enemies will exploit this, and whether all of these things are worth the trade-off in lives that you’re proposing. I submit that they are not.]
“My view is you can get the job done better if you can draw on the best talents that America has to offer, regardless of gender,” Barnett said. “If you have to be able to swim 3 miles in a certain amount of time, then it doesn’t matter what gender you are.” [Sadly, that’s not the issue at hand. See my points above.]
Critics of the new policy also raise the issue of feminine hygiene — something women in the military will hoot at. Women worried about monthly cycles can use oral or injected hormonal contraceptives to suppress ovulation and bleeding and studies show there is no additional danger to health from using birth control in this way. [Actually, there’s quite a bit of worry about this, and you’re trivializing the issue. The issue is not PMS. The issue is biological differences that impact readiness in a combat zone. Cosmetically, women would have to get rid of any modesty, and I don’t want to then hear about sexual harassment. Empirically, pregnancy hits units really hard in staffing, which are slots that are not easily filled in crunch-time. Women are more prone to a variety of maladies, and this impacts readiness. You may suggest that women will hoot at this, but find a cramper, and she’s less effective. You’ll also recall that the last time someone addressed biology affecting readiness, there was a huge uproar. Why won’t that happen now? If a general were to propose mandatory contraceptives, would you accept it, or cry foul? There are many issues here, some of which we’re probably not even aware of at this time, which come into play that you’re mocking. How about interpersonal dynamics? Try to address the issues seriously, and I’ll treat you seriously. ]
Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints 