To wonder why women are not allowed into combat?

[Weathergames]

The main reason being they don't have the "upper body strength" but Olympians have disproved this.

If you want to join the forces male or female
surely you should be able to perform all roles required (however grim/unethical etc).

Former head of the Army, Lord Dannatt, said keeping women out of combat roles was a "point of principle".

"To be in a unit that is given orders to attack a hill, to attack a town, to attack a village, that is a role not for women," he said.

Am not sure about this - OH is a submariner and they have allowed women on board (they must be NUTS to want to go).

Surely it's pretty sexist?

Many ancient cultures and some modern ones had/have many women soldiers on the front line. The Israelis think their female soldiers are more vicious and ruthless than the men. This page is a good jumping off point, follow the links.

Why don't women just rise above it? War I mean. MEN invented it and encourage and arrange it historically. Don't fucking join in for God's sake!

CorusKate I think it's despicable to exclude those women who can demonstrate they have whatever the required fitness levels are. But if you set required benchmarks like ability to lift this weight, throw this object a particular distance, complete an obstacle course in this time, then it's extremely likely that a higher percentage of men will be able to pass the benchmarks than of women

And the point is what?

I regularly beat many army soldiers in races and I'm hardly the fastest (that would be the winner). I used to train next to an Army barracks and even when they weren't carrying any weight, the Army lot were generally pretty feeble, felt sorry for themselves and were sneaking rests all the time and walking uphills I was running up. I was training for an Ironman at the time. You really have no idea how low the standard is of the average Army male recruit do you? And yes, some women, believe it or not, do build muscle very easily.

The issue should surely be not should we exclude women, but should we exclude more physically and mentally incapable men?

um well theoretically the armed forces are for the preservation of peace rather than the promotion of war

resented having the version of the human body that is optimised for baby-carrying, rather than the one which is optimised for strength and speed

Would you say men are optimised for fathering children, to the exclusion of all else? Most species tend to have the females doing rather a lot of the food gathering, rather than just the food preparation.

And you can certainly train the female body to be optimised for other things than baby-carrying. That's kind of the point of training. If you are not actually carrying a baby, why is that relevant? You get some pretty athletic, big, strong, non-maternally built women who wouldn't seem to be terribly restrained by the presence of female reproductive organs.

I have heard that the liklihood of being raped is a lot higher if you are a female in the military.

'walk and run in a way which is inefficient.'

this is true, I have a very womanly shape with large breasts and I am crap at running, because they get in the way even with a good sports bra I am inept compared to how I know I would be if I didn't have them there. I can totally see how they would make me inefficient in such jobs, and dont have a problem with it either because its nature!

22honey probably less so in all-female combat regiments...

And as to your second comment, congratulations on your boobs. However there are tonnes of women who are less endowed who are physically very suited to combat, particularly in terms of agility and speed.

Agree with CorusKate that roles should be awarded on grounds of skill rather than gender. FGS feel like I'm in the fifties reading some of this.

Personally speaking, I am old and fat now but when younger and fitter could outrun a lot of men and thanks to some excellent training could certainly hold my own in hand-to-hand (and have done)... wouldn't have wanted to join the Army but don't see why it should be withheld as an option just because a man doesn't want it to happen!

'If you have a CAMHS referral as a young person the armed forces will not accept you.

That disgusts me'

Thats because it is a potentially life threatening job that carries huge well known risks for people's mental health. They wouldn't want to be responsible for the suicide of an already mentally fragile person due to army experiences, I imagine.

lessons yes I know obviously I do notice a lot of women athletes are built with a more 'boyish' shape than I have! The boobs were only mentioned because I have experience of them making running etc harder than it would be was I flat chested so understood why the female shape can sometimes hinder certain physical activity.

they have all female combat regiments? I have to say I don't know that much about the army but its well known in the US military women have a higher incidence of rape.

OP if you read AFCO Form 5 for the army, there is a long list of medical conditions that preclude entry, why don't these disgust you too?
The Psychiatry section lists: Schizophrenia, Current mental health issues, Bipolar disease, PTSD, Anorexia nervosa, Autism.
The highest proportion of suicides in the army are people suffering mental health issues. There are not many other jobs that will give you access to a gun with live rounds on a regular basis. When I worked with the army all of the suicides I dealt with were young men with depression, PTSD and undiagnosed mental health issues.
I personally don't think it is disgusting that medical conditions preclude entry. The rules are there to protect the individual, colleagues and the armed forces.

No all-female combat regiments as far as I know, but it's something other cultures have had and would be one way of overcoming the squeamishness (rightly or wrongly) about the sexes serving together.

I actually think it's a good idea we don't give people who may struggle with mental health issues guns and teach them how to kill themselves or others. Uncontrolled/crap gun control in the States hasn't had particularly great results in the community at large, can easily imagine how much more badly this would turn out with people who are bluntly trained to kill.

Coruskate

I know it's childish to be annoyed about something I can't change, by the way, which is why I'm so keen on our changing the things than can be changed.

This says it all for me, says so much, and it is not churlish. A statement for a generation, and more. I should show it to my niece, who rather then vote, said she had more important stuff to do, such as get a new tattoo.

As Lt Eve already said, women are already on the front line performing in many roles - there are only a very few things left that women are prohibited from, infantry being one.

It has nothing to do with strength or fitness, although more difficult in general for a woman to be better, faster, stronger than a man it is not impossible.

The kit that a woman carries is the same as a man, so the notion that they do less or different is nonsense; it has nothing to do with 'men at the top' thinking women 'shouldn't be stabbing people with bayonets'.

It is purely down to the belief that a man would naturally try to protect or look after a woman 'on the battlefield'; it is feared that they would lose task focus to save their female colleague - even though they can deal with their friends being blown up, could they deal with a woman being tortured or blown up?
It is also due to public opinion - how much public support would a war get if the nation's mothers/daughters/sisters were coming home in bodybags in the numbers we saw during recent conflicts?

There have been service women killed and badly injured in combat over the last few years, so some of the comments on this thread are incredibly naive re women in active service. They are out there doing patrols, driving convoys etc tonight, outside the relative safety of the compounds - it is not just the men that do all that.

I don't know if anyone heard Richard Drax MP talking about this on R4 this afternoon?
He argued that former army colleagues of his had been in the Falklands and that women simply not could have done that job. That their bodies aren't designed to carry 120lb packs over rough terrain and they couldn't bayonet an Argentinian soldier.

IIRC most of the soldiers down there on the islands were Paras or other 'elite' regiments. So most of the regular British Army wasn't first choice for the task. Male or female.

I can't see hoardes of women wanting to be front line Infantry. But if they can get through selection and training then why not?

Scarlett a lot of your post could well go to quashing the idea often propagated that men are more valued than women in society. It seems obvious people are 'happy' to see men tortured and blown to bits, but not women.

Does anyone know why this is?

It is purely down to the belief that a man would naturally try to protect or look after a woman 'on the battlefield'; it is feared that they would lose task focus to save their female colleague - even though they can deal with their friends being blown up, could they deal with a woman being tortured or blown up? It is also due to public opinion - how much public support would a war get if the nation's mothers/daughters/sisters were coming home in bodybags in the numbers we saw during recent conflicts?

Scarlett do you think this is a real issue or a false perception? "The nation's mothers/daughters/sisters" we are back to the 1950s again.

I don't think people are happy at the idea of men being killed or tortured as such 22, just that they are more bothered or troubled by the idea of it happening to women.

It's the ingrained way of thinking that women are mothers and nurturers and men are the protectors - quite an old fashioned way of thinking perhaps, but still prevalent.

Heres the thoughts of one of the men who quit the BBC Series "SAS if you think you're Tough Enough" which replicated SAS exercises in Borneo, which Iona Robertson won, beating all the men, carrying the big weights:

www.bbc.co.uk/northamptonshire/features/sas.shtml

Heres the thoughts of some women adventure racers:

www.thefreelibrary.com/ACTION+WOMEN%3B+THEY'RE+SUPER+FIT,+SUPER+TOUGH+AND+RACE+FOR+250+MILES...-a0146283238

You really think the British Army can afford to miss out on women recruits on the front line of this calibre?

Real issue.

I am not front line and not army, but I have trained and worked alongside mostly men for my entire career - when we are on an exercise or anything in a group, I am the one that they seem to naturally try to look out for more. I am not needy at all, and extremely capable - it is natural instinct I think; boys want to protect their mums or sisters, at a very base level.

I just said what is widely believed to be the issue, believe me I am far from 1950s - I believe everything should be open to both sexes, and if a woman wants to do it, and can pass to the same standards expected of men, then they should be able to do it.