SAS hell week

I suggest you go back and read that last post I wrote again, because it addresses exactly what you have re-raised.

Shove, I'm not trying to present a rigorous statistical analysis so much as give a few examples of what happens when men and women, who are all committed athletes, compete against each other in sports that require full-body fitness and a degree of tactical ability and tonnes of mental fortitude, in order to give a more realistic counterpoint to the idea that a woman winning a game show should automatically change the recruiting rules for the special forces.

An awful lot of people on this thread seem to think that because it has 'SAS' in the title, it is somehow representative of SAS training. Me and others have pointed out that it really isn't.

Shove tried to claim "we've discounted the 'women are physically incapable' argument by pointing to all kinds of strong women who out-compete men", which is just simply not true. I can't find a single example of this happening in endurance sport. And I've picked out a few examples from sports I know well to show why that isn't true.

If you want to find some examples that support this, I'm all ears, but beyond ideology, I haven't seen any compelling reasons that SAS selection should be opened up to women because they would have a good shot of passing the selection in its current form.

I'm sure a sports scientists or similar could give a better analysis, but if sports results across the board show a 10% or more difference between what men and women can achieve physically, and only the top 10% of those applying to do the (physical) training will get accepted, what is the case to allow those who can't pass the opportunity to try it?

Yeah, because Jessica Ennis = just good at one thing.

I take the point, though, that the skills sets are DIFFERENT. That has, in fact, been what every single one of my posts has been saying for the last two pages.

Actually I think the skill set for a special forces person is harder than an elite athlete. For the SAS you have to be excellent at multiple disciplines while an elite athlete is only good at one. You can be the fastest runner in the world but you are not going to make the cut for the SAS if you can lead your team while running with 80lbs on your back and in your arms.

We can argue til the cows come home about whether the selection events were as tough as those for special forces (and I don't think they probably were)

They weren't even in the same ball park

sparechange - can't you see what's wrong with your 10% figure, though? I don't mean in terms of anything political, feminist, or ideological - I mean in terms of basic statistics. You are not making the a sound comparison!

You are assuming that the sub 10% performance gap between men and women at an elite athletic level equates to a 10% performance gap between ALL men and women - including and especially those undergoing selection for the SAS. That's not a sound comparison, because the level at which those elite athletes are working is far, far higher than the level the top 10% of SAS recruits need to meet. So you cannot assume in the slightest that the elite 'gap' will translate across to more ordinary levels of performance.

The point being, as I said earlier, that good strength, stamina and fitness are just one of the things special forces need to demonstrate. It's worth pointing out again that this thread was kicked off by a WOMAN winning a 'hell week' event. We can argue til the cows come home about whether the selection events were as tough as those for special forces (and I don't think they probably were) but she still beat all the men so she was by definition in the top 10% of her field!!

I can't follow your logic that women need to 'have a go' unless it is in order to tick some sort of equality box

Well thats because that isnt my logic

But why should that mean they shouldnt have equal chance to try?
And get an merit certificate on the way out?

This isn't a assessment day to join the grad scheme at John Lewis. It is a 5 month intensive training programme, which is so difficult that people have died doing it.

It does precisely zero to further equality to have an intake that isn't going to pass, and isn't going to be able to work alongside the men when they do.
I can't follow your logic that women need to 'have a go' unless it is in order to tick some sort of equality box. It makes no sense

What you say about injuries would tie in with what my brother has observed in the armed forces. They are very short on numbers and injuries are a huge burden for them.

And given the SAS's published pass rate is 10%, a cohort who can't get into the top 10% aren't going to cut it.

But why should that mean they shouldnt have equal chance to try?

I'm pretty sure no one things the organisers hand out places at the Dog and Duck on a saturday night

i was addressing the notion that it was "just" men these women couldnt even beat.

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the world's fittest and best men

Well yes. They are men competing at the World Championships for Iron Distance triathlons. I'm pretty sure no one things the organisers hand out places at the Dog and Duck on a saturday night

SurlyCue
Yes, I'm sure that's what the criteria would be.

And given the SAS's published pass rate is 10%, a cohort who can't get into the top 10% aren't going to cut it.

It is also interesting to look at the pass rates from the US example. Assuming they all had to pass the same test to be accepted onto the training in the first place so are starting on a level-ish field, 25% of men are graduating, compared to 10% of women.

This suggests to me that while women can get up to the required standard of fitness, they find it a lot harder to maintain it.
This would tie in with what I've seen anecdotely while training for endurance events - we just pick up more injuries when we are training on our physical limits

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the men

I'll also correct your statement.

"The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the world's fittest and best men".

These arent just your average joe bloggs down the pub man.

Shove, the gap is not getting closer.
Paula's record has stood since 2003, with no other woman getting within 3 mins of it before or since.
Where as the men's record time has been consistently coming down year on year, and the top 10 fastest times have all been set in the last 5 years.

And while I have huge respect for the marathon as an athletic discipline (and have run 5 myself), it isn't a great marker for overall physical strength of the sort needed for something like Special Forces - by Paula Radcliffe's own admission, she didn't even have enough upper body strength to do a single press up.

Hence my examples of iron distance triathlon and ninja warrior as being things closer to the sorts of tests that special forces use for physical selection. Even the MdS requires you to carry kit and has stages which include hill running and scrambling.

(Men's Kona record = 483 mins. Women's = 532. 10% of the men's time would be 48 mins. The woman's record is 49 mins slower. So yes, you are mistaken. A woman can't get within 10% of the men's record time.)

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the men

I'm assuming the pass criteria for SAS wouldnt be set for women as "acheive within 10% of the best man" i'm assuming it would be a case of "these are the criteria necessary for being in the SAS. meet these criteria whether you are male or female and you are capable"

No?

spare change Marathon world records: men 2:2:57, women 2:15:25. And that gap is getting closer.

And if I'm not mistaken, your figures for the Iron Man do actually show women within 10% of men?

When Paula Radcliffe won the London marathon, she didn't just beat all the British women. She beat all the British men in the race too. Yes, there were non-British men who ran it faster. But the point is that nationally (and the army, let's remember, is a national institution), she was the best.

Of course, that doesn't mean Radcliffe would be great in the SAS! I think she's tough as nails for doing what she's done, but elite athlete toughness might well not be the same thing as special forces toughness. Because the point about special forces is that they are NOT all about the fastest and strongest - they are about being fairly fast, fairly strong, incredibly resilient - but also quick-thinking, strategic and tactical.

The point in mentioning these elite athletes is to show that there is no reason why a woman couldn't cope with the physical rigours of the selection - because the top women are achieving far, far more than is demanded of recruits to special forces. Women who want to do so should be allowed to try, to prove what they can do.

(Hooray for the Army Rangers women, proving this point).

Some of the US SpecOps variants -

Business Inside Article

There are women who work with the SAS but they are not in any way at the same fitness levels as the men. It's not that they are weak but that their skill set is different. They are often neigotiators and work with intelligence. They are trained to the same level as someone on the front line but they are not if the standard required to go beyond the front line like the SAS and the marines are.

I'm all for women being allowed into the SAS and its why I have challenged my brother. He is now in a position to move the culture forward. Honestly after attending a mess dinner with him I wasn't impressed with the behaviour of the officers. Quite frankly they were not officer material IMO and behaved like squaddies. When I gave them a look they toned it down. I've never had to do that in an Army officer mess for the logistics or rifles.

No getting away from the fact that it's a tough course, but the fact that there are more American "Special Forces" trained people than there are in the Regular British Army is a bit telling.

They're not in the same league as the SAS, SBS, Pathfinders etc...

Current Ironman Kona (World Champs) course records:
Man: 8 hours 3 mins; Woman: 8 hours 52 mins

Marathon des sables times last year:
Man: 20 hours 27 mins; woman: 29 hours 4 mins

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the men...

Is anyone going to comment on the two women who actually passed the Army Rangers training in the USA? They received the exact same training as the men.

I'm just going to give you the google link, because every news agency carried the story.

www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Women+who+passed+Army+Rangers

Army Rangers is special forces in the US.

we've discounted the 'women are physically incapable' argument by pointing to all kinds of strong women who out-compete men.

Not in the Special Forces there aren't - that's the point, until they prove they can do it, it's all conjecture, which is why I think anyone that thinks they can do it should be able to apply for selection.

As "impressive" as it was, Murphy only won a BBC gameshow, it wasn't any more significant that her winning "Ninja Warrior" in relation to proving anything on this subject...

You can show me as many fell runners, ultra runners etc (of either sex) as you like - but until they can prove that they're elite in more than that one facet of the role, it doesn't mean anything...

To recap (from my perspective) - we've discounted the 'women are physically incapable' argument by pointing to all kinds of strong women who out-compete men.

This is just not true. Look at the top athletes competing at sports like iron-distance triathlon... There is a gulf between the winning times of men and women.

That Ninja Warrior programme in the US, which is like Total Wipeout on steroids. In 7 series, they've only had 1 woman complete the course, let alone win the series.
The Marathon des Sables finishing times as well, the list goes on. I can't think of a single endurance athletic event where the women finish within a few % of the male winners time, let alone beat them.
Even in my local Cross Fit gym, comparing the men vs women who are totally and utterly committed to their training, they aren't even close on what they can do and the weight they can lift.

As admirable as her win on the TV programme was, it bears so litle relation to the actual SAS training that it is a total straw man argument.

This discussion shouldnt even exist. In 100 years they'll laugh in disbelief that it even happened. Like how unbelievable the objections to the post office were on the basis that women would have unsupervised contact with men