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That this is a good example of the difference in the genders

206 replies

walkswithmydog · 27/05/2018 10:28

en.mogaznews.com/World-News/915265/First-woman-to-join-infantry-regiment-quits-after-two-weeks.html

Doesn't this just show that there is no such thing as gender neutrality, there never has been and never will. Women aren't suited to certain roles, and vice versa.

OP posts:
Spudlet · 27/05/2018 14:59

Interestingly, the equine sector is overwhelmingly female - and if you think it's physically undemanding then I have a bridge to sell you, and in the meantime I'd invite you to go and persuade a half tonne flight animal to do something it really doesn't want to do, or any of the other heavy lifting that caring for large animals entails. Yes, there's more to handling horses than sheer physical strength, but there are instances where you need to physically assert yourself too. And bales of hay, barrows of muck and big buckets of water don't shift themselves.

corythatwas · 27/05/2018 15:02

Andrewofgg Sun 27-May-18 14:13:59
"corythatwas In a country which had conscription would you apply it to women too?"

This is something that was quite frequently discussed when I was a young woman as we did have conscription (though the risk of actually finding yourself in combat was low). The general consensus seemed to be that though the opportunity should be open to women who wanted to serve, but that women are already losing valuable time out of their careers and risking damage to their bodies through child-bearing and breast-feeding and until we can find a way of adjusting that situation (which we evidently can't), then perhaps we should not be too eager to add to the time already lost.

For the record, only one of my brothers actually served, one did non-military service on pacifist grounds, and one kept arguing for pacifist exemption for so long that they got bored with him and never pushed it through.

The year two of my db lost out of their careers is still a lot less than the time I spent in and out of hospital with pregnancy complications, then recovering from labour, then breast-feeding.

As a society, we naturally want a number of women to be willing to take on the work of bearing children, so it might be well to recognise the cost of that in terms of physical risk and earnings potential when we discuss service imposed by that same society.

But this is not the same as forbidding individual women to make a career choice that suits them as individuals.

I hear Sweden are discussing the introduction of conscription again. Haven't heard what they intend to do about women.

corythatwas · 27/05/2018 15:09

ah but Spudlet, equine industry involves caring for living creatures, you know, like all soft and fluffy, and that means that any heavy lifting just becomes cancelled out

like someone lifting a 120 kg patient who is flailing around and trying to punch you because he thinks you are a communist agent out to get him- all feminine and flufty-wufty, like embroidering roses on silk

lifting totally compliant bricks onto a brick wall otoh is strong and masculine because it doesn't involve caring

Bearhunter09 · 27/05/2018 15:10

It always puzzles me why people deny there is an innate difference between genders. Every other animal species shows a clear difference between the attributes of both sexes. What makes humans so special? True equality will only arise when we recognise the values of all of these attributes equally rather than placing male strengths centre stage and measuring a woman’s success by achieving in these areas

Ruthlessrooster · 27/05/2018 15:11

Genvonklinkerhoffen

Such a tiny proportion as to back up the OP's initial assertion. In this case there is a definite difference between the genders that is not evident in other roles within the military.

Spudlet · 27/05/2018 15:12

Oh, fair point cory. I myself frequently lifted bales with my uterus and womanly feels as opposed to my weak, pipe-cleaner-like arms.

I would stand corrected but that sounds suspiciously masculine. I'll just sit corrected instead, legs crossed demurely at the ankle.

Jessikita · 27/05/2018 15:12

You’re confusing the difference between biological sex and gender.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 27/05/2018 15:16

jess

I do feel the urge to keep yelling SEX!!!!

Or typing it at least Grin

Genvonklinkerhoffen · 27/05/2018 15:17

ruthless get back to me when you understand how not to conflate sex and gender.

NCbecauseIdontwanttooutasaman · 27/05/2018 15:21

Having been an infantry soldier for many years (and ignoring my inter-service disdain for the RAF Reg) I believe it's only a matter of time before a woman passes the Combat Infantryman's Course.

Being an infantry soldier is mentally and physically demanding. It's not a matter of pure fitness. There are world class athletes that would not pass because it's about travelling distance carrying heavy weight over long periods of time. Only a small percentage of men are up to it and realistically it will be an even smaller percentage of women but that still means there are thousands of them out there.

If a male soldier deals differently with a wounded female colleague compared to a male colleague then he is the problem. It's an excuse used by men to exclude women. The way we operated in Afghanistan put far more logistic effort into recovering casualties compared to previous wars and largely negates this argument anyway.

In Afghanistan women in non combat roles such as medics went on patrols and found themselves in fire fights. I've had female soldiers that could out tab a lot of my male soldiers.

Until groups of women come through the system the issue of a female recruits either being isolated or having to sleep and do their ablutions with men will be difficult.

SardineReturns · 27/05/2018 15:24

Conscriptipn is one the MRAs always flag, even if they live in countries with no conscription.

I would prefer that we had less wars and fighting personally, as probably would most sane people, both women and men.

The fact of forcing women to fight in wars when wars are fought by and for men (at least in the past) feels a bit much.
There is also the problem that women can and do get pregnant, and presumably most people would not be keen to send pregnant women to the front lines. So it would be very disruptive. Do they have to take a pregnancy test every week? And then get removed - this would be highly disruptive for the squadron or whatever they are called where I think bonding with the others is important. Or, would they be forced to have long term hormonal contraception? This would be totally unreasonable, given the potential side effects.

The other point here is that MRAs go on about it but how many men would support seeing their wives / mothers of their children being sent off to fight? I don't think that men in general would want this. I really don't.

The other point is that women and children are always massively impacted by war - starvation, violence, rape, murder. This is always brushed under the carpet a bit (a lot) though.

corythatwas · 27/05/2018 15:24

Bearhunter, the thing about comparisons with the animal kingdom is that they work better the fewer species you know about. There is an awful lot out there, most of it bears little resemblance to human capitalist society, and some parallels are extremely dubious.

Just to treat you to a little variation:

In quite a few fish species, the female is completely incapable of performing any care for her offspring once the eggs have been laid: this task is performed by the male instead.

Some crocodilians also delegate these duties to the male, others to the female.

In many species of fish and birds, parental duties are shared and both parents perform the same task of protecting and/or finding food. Can you tell me what a male eagle does that isn't equally performed by a female eagle?

In lions iirc, most of the hunting is performed by the female, who tends to provide for the group, while males are often happy eating carrion.

If we're looking at actual numbers, then most animal species probably don't provide for their young at all.

Most animal species don't do anything comparable to human work anyway, so are of limited use for comparison. But animals that do, such as beavers, tend to share the work. Nest-building tends to be performed by both parents, though sometimes only by the male.

Some animals give birth through parthenogenesis. Some do sex changes. Some eat the male after intercourse. Some eat their newborn babies.

Who decides what species we should emulate?

Mamaryllis · 27/05/2018 15:25

Arf. RAF Regt. Grin
Meh I spent years trying to get the Marines to take me and they wouldn’t. Didn’t stop the boys on my commissioning course from accusing me of cheating in the physical aspects because they didn’t think it was possible for a 5’2” girl to beat them. Didn’t stop the Mtn Rescue from telling me they wouldn’t take me because their wives and girlfriends wouldn’t like it. (But then grudgingly offering a day on the hill as prep for a different course because they wanted a new carpet for their clubhouse - and then admitting I would easily make the standards, bar the uterus thing.) I know loads of hard as nails women - mostly working in SF. Not being allowed to do things is not the same as being incapable of doing them.
Total GF though. 1/10 op.

corythatwas · 27/05/2018 15:28

I've decided I can't be arsed to cook tonight. I'm going to eat ds instead. Because that is what a female guppy would do.

derxa · 27/05/2018 15:39

cory All female mammals have to suckle their young for a certain period or they die. Even lions. Humans are the exception in that they can be bottle fed. But a pregnant human female is vulnerable just like all pregnant mammals.

Ruthlessrooster · 27/05/2018 15:43

Genvonklinkerhoffen

Of course. Because it's language that's preventing the vast majority of women, compared to men, meeting the physical requirements for infantry soldiering.

OrdinaryGirl · 27/05/2018 15:47

OP: As a woman... I'm a woman... Being a woman...

MN: Erm, ok, you're definitely not a male troll pretending to be a woman, posting a typically misogynist piece originally from the Daily Fail, then making wild, baseless assertions just to get us to kick off. Alrighty then.

corythatwas · 27/05/2018 15:49

derxa, the suckling period is often very short, sometimes a matter of weeks (some seals), and even when it is longer it does not necessarily render the female tied up and unable to hunt

she will be vulnerable while actually suckling the baby, but this typically doesn't take up much of her day

when not in the act of suckling, flock-living females will still be able to hunt because there is childcare available

other species, such as deer and seals, have babies that are programmed to stay still and hidden, so that the mother can leave them to forage

which only goes to show that there is no point in making these comparisons, because animals have different lives from us- and different from each other

SardineReturns · 27/05/2018 15:54

I'm confused about the animals stuff and vulnerability. Is this linked to the conscription thing?

Mamaryllis · 27/05/2018 15:56

I wish Ds1 could have been programmed to lie still and quiet so I could have hidden him and gone to the grocery store.

corythatwas · 27/05/2018 17:04

Sardines, yes. We are not allowed to take masculine jobs because mammals can't bottle feed.

And while we're at it somebody had better go into the world and explained to all those lionesses that they mustn't hunt during the suckling period because human convention dictates that they should go all weak and feminine. It's a pity because male lions are as lazy as fuck and all those cubs will starve, but hey ho, the important thing is intra-species conformity.

ErrolTheDragon · 27/05/2018 17:04

I'm confused about the animals stuff and vulnerability.

I think it's about the futility of comparing sexual dimorphism between different species.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 27/05/2018 17:14

On the off-chance that @walkswithmydogs hasn’t flounced for good from this thread (presumably because they didn’t get the ringing endorsement for their opinion that they wanted) -

It is ridiculous to make a sweeping generalisation based on a statistical sample of just ONE woman, @walkswithmydogs. You cannot prove anything about women, based on only ONE woman!

Also - what response did you think you were going to get, on Mumsnet? You honestly thought you could ask that question, and we’d all say ‘Oh yes, that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that women are all weak little girlies who cannot do things that men can do. Thank you for coming on here and explaining that in a way our little fluffy lady-brains could comprehend’. Hmm. You really don’t know MN at all!!

Clionba · 27/05/2018 17:27

I think SDT that he thought we'd be overwhelmed by his information and statistical analysis! Maybe he thought we'd all get hysterical. I notice he mentioned the word "feminism" at one point, which I would suggest is his bete noir.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 27/05/2018 17:30

How mean of us to disappoint him so sorely, @Clionba!

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