No, the real test will be in five years time when >50% of females in infantry battalions are medically discharged due to being broken. Sorting that 1% of women that can hack it from the other 99% that can't is going to break huge amounts of females. All the DSTO studies support this very fact.
What like the SAS did in both Iraq and Afghanistan, frequently actually longer?Defence Network Australia discussion said:
Of course it involves more than lifting heavy shit, but it is frequently a large part of it! Some of the loads the lads are carrying in A'stan are huge.Defence Network Australia discussion said:
erm, not sure what the point is here. Only females can do it because the men dont have the brains? 4sqn seem to be keeping everything going atm...Defence Network Australia discussion said:
Maybe back in HQ/planning but pretty sure the non confrontational communication skills go out the window in a contact....Defence Network Australia discussion said:
my key areas - as GF pointed out, It is going to be a massive Media/politcal/peacenik football when the first aussie female combat troop gets killed/captured. Could potentially colour public opinion far more and far quicker than with men. Could potentially be war losing stuff??
Second, I haven't met a female that I consider aggressive enough to do my job(not infantry). Not saying that they aren't out there, or that i wouldn't be happy , but I haven't met one.
Not sure if we are doing this for the right reasons, and if the end results justify the costs/dramas....
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justsomeaussie
Member
I keep forgetting abe that while you have a large general knowledge in defence you have zero experience in combat and the front line. Your ability to read doctrine but not understand what it's actually like comes forward.
I think the point was that at the most elite levels men and women have vastly different levels of physical ability. So no amount of training will bring a woman up to the training of an elite male. If you think we don't require elite males you are sadly naive.
The point I raised earlier is that by this policy being forced through it will reduce capability and therefore increase the risk.
So use the women as decoys to protect the more vulnerable men?
Well the RAINF breaks a lot of men too, I don't think I've met an Infanteer over the age of 35 who doesn't have some type of persistant muscular skeletal injury.
I don't know if things have changed since the mid to late 90s but in my experience most infantry were smaller, wirery guys while most of the bigger stronger guys were in armour and arty.
They still have to succeed in the SF selection process just like everybody else.
Just because you open your combat units to women doesn't mean that your special forces get flooded with inept females which can't handle the tasks at hand.
We opened all occupations for women in Germany some time ago and there is still no woman in the KSK while several are in infantry, armor etc. units.
They still have to qualify which is a problem for 99% of the regular males, too.
And other mentioned it before. There are already women in combat related posts. I see no reason why not to open regular infantry slots to women when they are attached to line units in theater anyway. In reality there is not much, if any, difference between being a line infantry soldier or being a medic, engineer, FAC, dog handler, whatever attached to a line infantry company somewhere in Afghanistan or some other theater of operations.
Well f**k you to. So by this rationale the only person qualified to make any comment about the military is someone who has been shot at in a combat zone? Well thank god the CDF and CA all have such extensive close combat experiences… I’ve done my CFAs and all that but sure my only operational service was defending Australia’s bars and pubs from going out of business but that doesn’t mean I’m completely ignorant of the physical and psychological aspects of the job.
Besides none of that invalidates how stupid your argument about elite athletes and males and females not playing rugby against each other has to do with wether a female can meet the physical and psychological requirements of being an infantryman.
Does every rifleman have to be as strong as a Wallaby front rower? If so there are going to be very few soldiers left in the RAInf. No one is saying that a woman has to be as strong as the strongest man or win the battalion bench press competition but they have to meet the base physical standard required for the job.
If you can’t understand the difference between competitive sports and meeting a physical standard then you’ve got bigger freaking problems than I do never having had to shoot at some bad guy.
Yep, all that I was actually saying was replying to "Julie Green" that patrol length is not something stereotype made up just to keep females out of the frontline/SF on the grounds of hygiene etc... long patrols actually happen, and did happen a heck of a lot especially in the early days of Iraq/Afghanistan.. in fact most of her comment as posted by GF (not having a go at GF at all) didn't really address or state WHY females should be given a go and how they are going to improve capability.
I'm not against change. I am against unnecessary change that doesn't enhance anything and actually IMHO could cause more harm than good.
justsomeaussie
Member
Double post
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justsomeaussie
Member
Abe I think you need to read Neil James' comments on this.
The point about rugby was that in every physical sport we separate men from women. It's a sexist policy that we do so. We do it because of the physical damage that would occur to the majority of women who participate and it would be unfair to expect a woman to perform at the physical standards of a man.
There are always exceptions of course but it doesn't change it.
If you argue for women in combat why can't you argue for open sporting events?
The point about rugby was that in every physical sport we separate men from women. It's a sexist policy that we do so. We do it because of the physical damage that would occur to the majority of women who participate and it would be unfair to expect a woman to perform at the physical standards of a man.
There are always exceptions of course but it doesn't change it.
If you argue for women in combat why can't you argue for open sporting events?
Improve capability? Just a few off the top of my head...
50% of the people on this earth are women. In Afghanistan, do you thingk an Afghan woman is going to trust and open up to a man or a woman?
Women tend to be better listeners than men. We all know a woman's mind works very differently than a man's - you have a problem and a whole shedload of Class A male personalities trying to solve it - that's going to narrow the potential solutions based on the people present. Stick a woman or two in the mix and you'll get different and maybe better decisions being made.
Reaction to pain. Don't know if you have ever witnessed childbirth up close - but I have a whole new respect for how well women deal with pain. Women do pain better than men - fact.
Women's immune systems are better than mens - fact. This is why the legendary 'man flu' is worse for guys - because we get sicker than women when exposed to the same nasties.
Just a few - there are no doubt more.
Best argument I have seen yet. It will take the 5 years to see if you are proved correct. We won't know for sure unless they give it a go.
Australian article by Greg Sheridan
And I thought I already hated this guy as much as humanly possible...
"This wretched decision to make all combat roles in the Australian military available to women moves Australia closer to both outcomes. It will make our military less effective, and less respected, and it will make women less respected as well."
"make women less respected"
Does that sound a bit hypocritical to anyone when before he just said as a result of women being in front line service it would mean
"It will make our military less effective, and less respected".
"The men in the army represent probably the fittest, strongest 20 per cent of men in society. Perhaps 10 per cent of those could make special forces soldiers. So that's 2 per cent of men. "
I like how he pulls facts out of his ass.
"But the decision is bad for the military, bad for women and bad for Australian society. Some media reports yesterday said only Canada and New Zealand operated similar policies, but it may be there are one or two other militaries that do so as well. They do so because they are not militarily serious nations."
"The countries that practise the greatest gender equity, so-called, in military matters are the countries that don't take their militaries seriously because they don't face military threats."
He also shows disrespect for our friends.
I think the argument is pretty solid, as long as standards are not lowered and women have to meet the same standards of men it should be fine. This also means that women should not be given positions over men based on gender grounds, daily military life should continue as is... just that now positions are open to women.
- Just some commentary on the matter....
And I thought I already hated this guy as much as humanly possible...
"This wretched decision to make all combat roles in the Australian military available to women moves Australia closer to both outcomes. It will make our military less effective, and less respected, and it will make women less respected as well."
"make women less respected"
Does that sound a bit hypocritical to anyone when before he just said as a result of women being in front line service it would mean
"It will make our military less effective, and less respected".
"The men in the army represent probably the fittest, strongest 20 per cent of men in society. Perhaps 10 per cent of those could make special forces soldiers. So that's 2 per cent of men. "
I like how he pulls facts out of his ass.
"But the decision is bad for the military, bad for women and bad for Australian society. Some media reports yesterday said only Canada and New Zealand operated similar policies, but it may be there are one or two other militaries that do so as well. They do so because they are not militarily serious nations."
"The countries that practise the greatest gender equity, so-called, in military matters are the countries that don't take their militaries seriously because they don't face military threats."
He also shows disrespect for our friends.
I think the argument is pretty solid, as long as standards are not lowered and women have to meet the same standards of men it should be fine. This also means that women should not be given positions over men based on gender grounds, daily military life should continue as is... just that now positions are open to women.
- Just some commentary on the matter....
Yeah - funny how I have yet to hear of this issue from women. So far it's all been men making this point - and of course we men know periods and menstrual cycles far better than women...
My ex is an ARA RN. She has 23 years experience in the army. She is also a Sexual and Reproductive Health Specialist (if you have had a pap smear done by an army nurse in Bandiana a few years back, it was probably my ex). She has never come back from being bush complaining of getting her period out bush - she has complained about ill fitting webbing, sore feet, poor sleep, but never getting her period.
And yes, it is perfectly possible to control if and when you wish to have a period apparently. If the contraceptive pill isn't good enough because of anti malerials, then there is a small implant (Implanon?) that only needs renewing every 3 to 6 months. There is also available an IUD that will also stop periods.
You won't have to wait five years, we already know. All the testing, all the stats point to this very fact. It is the reason that the CA and everyone else with a star on their shoulder was waiting for the full results of the DSTO study before making a decision about women in combat (before politics trumped it). The objection was simply one of OH&S - the injury rates sustained by females in testing was simply too great. To implement the policy would breach the duty of care to the female soldiers (I remember the stink caused when an ex I was on had a >80% casualty rate for females. The boss essentially lost his job over it. The ex simply consisted of arduous infantry minor tactics. Lesson - no more all-female sections. They struggled when there were no males to carry the gun/radio/claymores/66s etc for them).
That is what the five year gap is for. Everyone agrees about implementing women in combat jobs - someone just has to figure out a way to do it that won't kill all the females. Good luck.
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
justsomeaussie
Member
I really hope you read this just to clear up your "facts".
You say that women make up 50% of people on earth.
Pretty close to being correct but it's irrelevant anyway because we aren't recruiting bulk parts of society. Included in your 50% are female children does that mean we should recruit them too. We aren't starving for people. Army actually over recruited and special forces units have a fresh pool of victims each course.
"women are better listeners" so you can admit this but not "men are stronger physically". How many women do we see in Arab cultures? Bugger all,
Because culturally they are hidden away. So there isn't a need to have a lot of women to be those "listeners". We already pile a ton of female Arab speakers though the language school who are mostly useless on operations as translators as the men don't speak to them. But for you the combat multiplier is "listening", well better tell every military to start doing courses on it.
Pain? Childbirth? Give me a break. How many men have given birth? Zero.
Therefore it can't be compared. What we can compare is pain receptors and quite simply women have DOUBLE the pain receptors of men. And have a LOWER pain tolerance. Google is your friend.
I'll point out again that I'm not against the rules excluding women from combat roles but I'm against the affirmative action and political push of women into these roles which decrease the capability of our troops.
That’s even worse than slamming me for not having been shot at!
Who says I’m not arguing for open sporting events? And what does competitive sport have to do with staffing and infantry battalion: nothing, and more on this after a few paragraphs.
There seems to be a fundamental disconnect in reality from some of the opponents to this new policy. They – and you – seem to think it means ALL women will be allowed into infantry units. But the policy is all about a gender neutral physical standard that if a woman meets it they can serve in the infantry. Now a woman who meets this standard is also likely to hold her own playing contact sports with those same men.
Now said woman may not be likely to be called up for the Wallabies/Kangaroos etc but that’s OK because we are talking about a standard not the best of the best. Now if you have a physical test for the infantry and say it was the same as one for Rugby what you would have is say 40% of males meeting this standard. This would mean they would make good grunts and wouldn’t embarrass themselves playing contact sports. Now for women maybe the top 5 or 10 percentile will meet this same standard. Make good grunts and even survive the odd ruck and maul.
Now this is different to competitive sports because on the physical test for infantry/rugby teams that want to win will always strive to have their players being ABOVE the required standard and the best of the best. So for men to get into the First XV you need to be at a standard that maybe only the top 5 percentile of men can reach. For women to meet this standard it may be that only 0.0001% of women can meet it. Which isn’t good news for anyone wanting to integrate elite sport but it shouldn’t define the infantry battalion. Because if it did –as you seem to be suggesting – then an awful lot of men won’t make that grade either. Which is what the SAS is for.
If you really want to improve the effectiveness of an infantry battalion then rather than setting an SAS style physical standard I would suggest a better focus is more and more collective training. Putting more and more soldiers through advanced individual training. Daily section live fire and movements. Etc.
justsomeaussie
Member
I’ll clarify again, I see no reason to have rules to specifically exclude women. I agree that the rule is largely cultural and times change. My issue is capability and the affirmative action that has been sanctioned by the minister to put women in combat roles. Women are in combat, and are used by infantry battalions and SF units.
*
For me the entire issue is simple. Is this push of affirmative action going to improve or decrease our capability?
*
In the vast majority of society affirmative action has its place in putting minority groups into more exclusive roles in order to break the concept of discrimination and to “level the playing field”. There are some key fields however where affirmative action is dangerous, law enforcement and the military are key examples. Both are physical jobs where the reason you need to be physical doesn’t care if you are a male or female. i.e criminals, enemies.
*
So in trying to be “equal” we end up less effective because our policies include people who we are actively fighting against. People who don’t share our equality views.
*
As I pointed out above the ADF trains a number of staff in Arabic languages, but due to cultural reasons, women are disadvantaged when using those skills on operations. So we end up with better male linguists than female simply because of their experience. Do we still promote the less experienced women out of equality?
*
Should soldier X be paid at the same as soldier Y even though soldier X is held to a lower standard? *As the current policy is that we pay people the same even though women have lower physical standards). Is that fair and equitable?
*
The battlefield isn’t an equal opportunity employer. Our enemies generally don’t respect the Geneva Convention let alone gender diversity.
*
The general problem with this argument is that it seems to me that the most experienced say we should tread very carefully on this issue and the least experienced are all for it. The most uninformed and less exposed to the physical rigour of combat are the most outspoken. Imagine it on any issue such as the economy where joe blogs down the road is interviewed because he has the right to give his opinion. Anecdotally after spending my entire working career in the military I’ve never met an ADF women who was pro women in combat roles and I’ve spoken a lot about it. It seems that the closer women get to those roles, the more they realise the physical limitations of doing it.
*
The US recently raised the ire of feminists by charging soldiers who got pregnant while deployed. Because when sitting back at in a cushie office every women has a “right” to get pregnant, that employers can’t discriminate against pregnant women. But when lives depend on people performing physical actions and pregnancy limits those actions, discrimination can be sanction.
*
The ADF isn’t an equal opportunity employer. We actively discriminate against people with a range of physical conditions. There are no wheelchair ramps on tanks. The ability to get pregnant and remove your self from the work environment for 9 months could be one.
*
Lastly, do we have an ethical issue of the risk of putting women through training and operations which (as the studies suggest) will physically break the majority of them? We already accept the risk and acknowledge of the injuries the average infantry soldier will sustain over his career. Let’s say that percentage is 60% chance of being physically disabled after a 20 year career. For women, the results will be higher, vastly higher. *
*
What is an acceptable risk of breaking someone purely through their employment?
*
For me the entire issue is simple. Is this push of affirmative action going to improve or decrease our capability?
*
In the vast majority of society affirmative action has its place in putting minority groups into more exclusive roles in order to break the concept of discrimination and to “level the playing field”. There are some key fields however where affirmative action is dangerous, law enforcement and the military are key examples. Both are physical jobs where the reason you need to be physical doesn’t care if you are a male or female. i.e criminals, enemies.
*
So in trying to be “equal” we end up less effective because our policies include people who we are actively fighting against. People who don’t share our equality views.
*
As I pointed out above the ADF trains a number of staff in Arabic languages, but due to cultural reasons, women are disadvantaged when using those skills on operations. So we end up with better male linguists than female simply because of their experience. Do we still promote the less experienced women out of equality?
*
Should soldier X be paid at the same as soldier Y even though soldier X is held to a lower standard? *As the current policy is that we pay people the same even though women have lower physical standards). Is that fair and equitable?
*
The battlefield isn’t an equal opportunity employer. Our enemies generally don’t respect the Geneva Convention let alone gender diversity.
*
The general problem with this argument is that it seems to me that the most experienced say we should tread very carefully on this issue and the least experienced are all for it. The most uninformed and less exposed to the physical rigour of combat are the most outspoken. Imagine it on any issue such as the economy where joe blogs down the road is interviewed because he has the right to give his opinion. Anecdotally after spending my entire working career in the military I’ve never met an ADF women who was pro women in combat roles and I’ve spoken a lot about it. It seems that the closer women get to those roles, the more they realise the physical limitations of doing it.
*
The US recently raised the ire of feminists by charging soldiers who got pregnant while deployed. Because when sitting back at in a cushie office every women has a “right” to get pregnant, that employers can’t discriminate against pregnant women. But when lives depend on people performing physical actions and pregnancy limits those actions, discrimination can be sanction.
*
The ADF isn’t an equal opportunity employer. We actively discriminate against people with a range of physical conditions. There are no wheelchair ramps on tanks. The ability to get pregnant and remove your self from the work environment for 9 months could be one.
*
Lastly, do we have an ethical issue of the risk of putting women through training and operations which (as the studies suggest) will physically break the majority of them? We already accept the risk and acknowledge of the injuries the average infantry soldier will sustain over his career. Let’s say that percentage is 60% chance of being physically disabled after a 20 year career. For women, the results will be higher, vastly higher. *
*
What is an acceptable risk of breaking someone purely through their employment?