Women still banned from combat roles after MoD review.

[winnybella]

here

Seems to me that it's the men who might not be able to deal with this but it's women's careers that will suffer.

What do you think?

Nothing to do with sex and I didnt say it was!

I'll give you one example based on the comment I made. In the tank my husband drove the driver sat with his head between the commander's legs and the gunner sat across them both. If they were 'locked down' (which happens quite often in a combat situation) they didnt leave the tank - at all - not to wash, not to relieve themselves. Everything was done in position.

They wet themselves if they needed to, they defecated into plastic bags. Then they cooked and ate around the waste.

A mixed crew brings more issues to the table (and quite frankly - having smelt my husband on his return, the last things I'd want would be to have my head pressed up against his penis for 2 weeks at a time!)

I've been on exercises / deployments when washing / toilet facilities are scarce. I've smelt myself, and I have had to stay in clothing after (TMI) 'flooding'. It's not nice - and I'd have been mortified if it happened in close quarters and I was the only female on a tank crew.

Notyummy - TBH I forgot about RAF Regt (not had a lot to do with them outside a deployment in 1996!). Yes, agreed, I would expect their fitness minimum to be the same as any of the Inf Regts - they were certainly very fit then.

(Is that what Wingdad is? Sorry WingDad!)

Sorry eve I've already explained why I jumped to that conclusion. I don't mean to offend anyone just assumed (wrongly) that that is what you ment.

Suerly no one male or female wants to sit with there head in someone elses crotch but if it's part of the job you just have to get on with it and I'm sure that would apply to woman if they were allowed to do that job also. As I've said before I don't have to strength or fitness to do their job but if someone like madwomanintheattic earlier does and is aware of what the job entails and is still willing to do it why should she not be allowed.

Well, because you'd then have to take into consideration the chap whose penis the female was pressed against - she might not mind, but maybe he would.....and what about his (notional) wife - she can accept that another man has his head in her husband's crotch, would she still accept it if it was another woman?

No offence taken Dylthan, none at all.

I've got to run now and pick up my DD - will come back later if there are any more comments.

omfg.

i can't believe it. i post about not being allowed to join the mountain rescue team because the team's wives wouldn't like it, and then i find a serving female using the exact same argument.

i knew it was a mistake to post on this thread. as the 'only lesbian on the camp' eve, did you not get fed up of everyone assuming you were a predatory female? a bit like the old argument of hetero blokes not wanting to share close quarters with homos? predatory men who couldn't control tehir urges?

fortunately, we aren't allowed to discrimate against gay and lesbian personnel any more. but i'm aghast that you think it's ok to discrimate against women. for the same reasons.

hygiene smygiene. most women on ops decide to take relevant precaustions to cease menstruating. that's an intersting discussion in itself, (back to gi jane again lol) but aaaargh.

and yes, even as a fat mother of two or three i had no problem passing the utterly utterly patronising raf fitness test for women of my age group. most women complete their test without breaking a sweat or losing their breath, and then stand around and wait for the men to finish theirs. it is a nonsense. either you are fit enough to do your job, or you aren't. it is insulting to women to lower the standards for them. lower them both if a lower standard is acceptable.

I don't have any experience at all of the army, raf etc but I do have experience of high performance athletes in a power based sport.

I think the physical argument is a bit of a red herring. I am not saying that on average men aren't stronger than women just that women can be stronger than men and the strength required might be over rated.

In society at the moment (and this is a huge generalisation) women are not encouraged to be competitive, use their strength and partake in physical activity to the same extent as men. Women are therefore starting from a much lower point on the scale and so it is understandable that not many women would make the grade.

The level of expectation for women to perform is not as great as it is for men - so a lot of women will, naturally only perform to expectation as that is all that is required.

Those women who do break the mould and focus on getting to the top of their chosen sport end up being faster, stronger and more powerful than most of the men involved in their sport. I realise that this is still a small percentage but it does show that women, if encouraged can gain similar strength to normal men.

Anyway what I am trying to say is that if the tests for women were the same as for men some women would be able to pass them. In addition if women were encouraged more, from an early age to use their strength, be involved in sport etc that the numbers of women achieving those levels would increase.

In addition, I do not doubt that warfare is physical and although there are some tasks that would perhaps take a great deal of strength, stamina would probably play a bigger part. There is very little evidence that women have any less stamina than men. In fact when it comes to extreme events e.g. 100 mile runs etc, there is some evidence that women may even have more stamina than men. For those tasks involving extreme levels of strength then teamwork might be better deployed.

And whether a man or a woman's head is stuck another's crotch when you are in the middle of a battlefield is just weak. You really think that men couldn't dissassociate themselves from "their sexual urges" in that kind of situation? Whether they choose to is another argument. And how often, realistically, is that likely to happen (quite prepared to be proven wrong)? But surely it is all about teamwork and using your resources in their best positions (literally in this particular scenario).

However, on a very personal level I cannot get past the fact that everyone in a combat role is trained to kill another human being and I would rather not be the one doing the killing or the one being killed. So I would find it impossible to be part of it and perpetuate the violence that some men do.

I can't believe the argument that women have a rightto bear arms, to defend themselves rather than simply be the cannon fodder for men's wars has been got around by pretending it's uncomfortable for men to have to be in close proximity to women.

It reminds me of when they were trying to stop female boxing. They were coming out with all kinds of crap, such as "It's too dangerous for women's breasts" and the like. I think they quite forget that men have become brain-damaged from this sport.

Sakura - I agree. It is also such a subjective reason that it is difficult to argue against. The only way you could prove it was bollocks is to put women and men into combat together. And even then it probably wouldn't work without anything but the entire backing of the armed forces because it would require a change in attitude and probably behaviour on behalf of the men.

I'm a bit late to this thread, I don't know anything about being in the Forces but there's one issue that hasn't been mentioned yet.
WRT to men not being able to 'control their urges', I saw a statistic somewhere that women in the US military were more likely to be sexually assaulted by their own comrades than by the enemy.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to say really, someone else can probably articulate a better informed opionion. If the above is true, it's horrific :(

It almost certainly is true Ann. I don't know what the stats are, but if you consider that most sexual assaults are carried out by people known to the victim, and females in the military operate in a male dominated environment numbers wise, you can see how it could happen. (This is not me excusing it btw - I think it is more prevalant in the US military than in 'ordinaty life' and that is not acceptable.) I don't know the stats for the British military.

I was in the forces (RAF) in 1977. The RAF used the non combat rule to justify paying me less than a man doing the same job. I think it should be up to the person whether or not they join up but if men/women do they should have the same duties, even if that is combat.

equal pay brought in since, fortunately. when i joined (in 1991 lol, hardly the middle ages) i had to sign a disclaimer saying that i understood i would have to leave if i got married or pregnant.

they've changed that little rule, too. (anyone remember the mid-'90s european court ruling that meant all the pg ex-servicewomen got huge payouts?) so did the women who had abortions so that they could stay in.

re sexual assaults etc. i was assaulted in the officer's mess at a station in the uk, by three serving officers. i was effectively blindfolded, so don't know to this day which of the three was actually the physical abuser. that said - those stats were probably taken from one of those sexual harassment surveys. (the military run them every few years at least) i applaud the intent behind them, but they aren't terribly valid tbh. the questions are fairly bizarre, and are at best misleading. (and i say that as someone passionate about gender discrimination in the military lol). i wouldn't base any argument at all on the outcome of those surveys. it stands to reason that statistically women in a male-dominated environment are more at risk though.

the surveys are all online somewhere i think - i found them a few years ago.

i love the spin when the report comes out too - woo hoo, amazing, 71% of serving females have not experienced sexual harassment this year! if the questionnaires produced valid results, some of the stats would be enough to make you weep. tis difficult to get any real evidence though.

Madwomanintheattic, that's fucking awful :(

Did you report it?

no. i retreated to my room for about a week, doing the classic 'omg, what signals was i giving off to make them think that was ok/ what i wanted?' of course, nothing. i just happened to be drinking in the same bar. that said, they (or at least one of them) was fully aware they had overstepped the mark, as i found a gift/ peace offering on my doorstep a day or two after the incident. as if that would make it ok...

it actually did occur to me to call the police - i can't remember why i didn't. and yet, now, when i see thread titles like 'would you report x,y,z', my automatic response is 'yes!' and yet i didn't. older and wiser now, i suppose. it was a long time ago.

I have to admit, females have had it hard in the past with the forces; it's something which should never have happened and very luckily has now been addressed.

I don't really hold a strong opinion on women serving on the frontline. If it happens, it happens, and I'll do my best to accommodate for the change; but if it stays as it is, OK, it's not for me to decide who can or can't fight on the front-line. Of course you see and do some often sick and horrifying things when fighting, which requires to have a very strong frame of mind to not let it get to you; generally men are better at doing this, but I have no doubt that many, many women will be able to do so as well as men, and there will be some men who can't keep it together. Sometimes you get a few of those latter men, and the results aren't really amicable when the proverbial hits the fan (although I'll add it doesn't make you less of a man....anyway I'm drifting off topic and rambling horrendously).

And yes, I'm a Rockape. Insults on a postcard please, I've heard them all before!

LteEveDallas, surely if you're "locked down" in a tank for days your main concern is not getting blown up, not whether you have a blokes cock in your ear?
In those situations, I'd assume the training takes over and there wouldn't be much of "ooooh she's near my winkie, ooooh....oh, I'm dead".

WingDAd I was quite reassure to hear that you don't have a strong opinion one way or another. I think that's quite a healthy attitude for a man to have towards women taking their right to bear arms in combat.

Having said that, I don't think men bear up better at seeing horrific things than women. THink about it, it's often women who are on the receiving end of horrific events ( read the stoicism with which madwomanintheattic 's describes the horrific assault she endured, for example). There is certain evidence to show that women bend better than men when it comes to mental strain (my DUncle had a nervous breakdown after coming back from Iraq)

Many women would choose not to fight in combat, because they wouldn't want to be complicit in men's war-mongering.
However, it is not for the MoD to make that decision on women's behalf under the guise of paternalism (i.e glorified sexism)

lol TechLovingDad!

sorry, to be clear about women being able to withstand horrific events, look at journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered a few years ago. Her work was based on witnessing and recording the atrocities that the Russian forces systematically commited against Chechen civillians.
Catherine Mackinnon was a lawyer who created a new human rights law to say that rape was a war-crime. Reading her work on Serbia makes you wonder whether there are any devils left in hell, or whether they are all on this earth with us.
I think women are born with an ability to tolerate real life horror

I hate the attitude, still prevalent, from some men of "there, there, dear" when deciding whether women should be ALLOWED certain things. Whether it be equal pay, the right to fight alongside their male colleagues or the right not to be thought of as a walking recepticle for any man's cock.

No one is saying women can't withstand horrific events of course there are women who can but not every woman and certainly not every man can it is not based on gender that's for sure more to do with their personality, both genders receive their own brand of violence which occurs more often to them than the other.

The decision after doing their review would have come from the top of the military and well the people in those positions tend to be older men and most likely their personal views would affect their decision just going to have to wait for younger blood to filter through over time.

Saltatrix, agreed the decision will have come from the top, although the arguements would have come from across the board (I remember being asked when the last Cbt Review took place) and the QMSI at my place took part this time.

My only surprise with this review is that people are surprised! TBH I don't see a day when this will ever change, not even when today's OCdts are serving as CGS/CDS. I don't think the UK in general will ever be accepting of a female Infantryman. I also don't think there would be that much take-up if the role was open to all....look at the disaster that was our 'first marine'

saltatrix, i'd love to think that as the 'young blood' reaches the top that policy will change, but have seen absolutely nothing different in the attitudes of the 'young blood' to the attitudes of the 'decision makers'. in fact, if anything, the young blood is a bit more vociferous in their anti-whatever stance lol. as long as they aren't caught.

institutionalisation is a powerful thing. women in the military are all fine and dandy as long as they stay in their place. (and that might indeed be getting promoted to prove how fine and upstanding the system really is. honest.) actually, i may be being a bitter old hag (not sure why i'm bitter - the system worked pretty well for me) and there has been a lot of improvement. just not enough.

it doesn't matter how much take-up there is tbh, (there aren't that many male primary school teachers or nurses in comparison with women, but men are allowed to do the job, they just choose not to).

I totally agree with your comments about insitutionalism Madwoman, my DB is at Sandhurst at the moment and the number of massive arguments we've already had (he's coming to finishing Inters) about what is acceptable behaviour and language since he got there - things 3 months ago he'd have railed against, including names for women officers, foreign cadets etc - all in the name of "army banter"

The earlier comments by sakura I was going to argue against, namely that all male soldiers rape all female civilians and the general rape of women by men in the army, but feel it's not my place to add to this at all having heard madwoman's story - so sad and disgusted for you. I work in a male dominated industry but have never (and know no other woman) who has been subjected to harrassment or otherwise, it's appalling and I'm angrily disappointed.

Going back to the original basis of the article in question though, this is clearly something the officer cadets have drummed into them when they first arrive at Sandhurst - my brother spouted these ideas at me about men feeling so sorry for the poor feeble women under their command they'd take leave of all sense and put her as they're major priority. I don't understand why men don't see how this is derogatory towards THEM?! As someone earlier said, I'm pretty sure most serving soldiers would be focused a bit more on the task in hand. Also considering the neccessary emphasi placed on bonding and trusting your fellow soldiers, wouldn't most people feel a sense of putting their best mate first in that kind of situation - male or female?

I've realised I've sounded quite anit-military, I'm very very grateful for the women and men who fight and die to protect me and my rights and my family, I just wish it wasn't neccessary (and also terrified of what happens in a year to my little brother)

GirlWithTheMouseyHair - Sakura didn't say that all male soldiers rape all female civilians at all! She said as long as it's a man's game then the raping and killing of civilian women will continue. That is very different and unfortunately probably true.

If women are going to get the right to bear arms then as Saltarix said it is going to have to come from the top. It is institutional wide attitude and behaviour change that is required. However, from what you have said about your DB, GirlWithTheMouseyHair, it doesn't look like the "new blood" is any different.