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?

To be fair, it really isn't just the military that is a bastion of sexist behaviour. My friend who was a senior sales manager for a high end car dealer (one of the very, very few female ones) was subjected to some disgusting behaviour and was never able to feel comfortable on any of the staff/Christmas nights out....because they ALWAYS involved a strip club, and generally a few 'pros' taking the boys outside for some 'extras....' I never saw anything like what she experienced in my years in the service, but perhaps the RAF is inching towards a slightly less sexisr approach because of its demographic make-up and role.

i'd love to hear what they are calling female officers now, gwtmh - the least discriminatory version i ever heard was 'lumpy jumpers' and that's decades old.

ah, banter. 'can't take a joke, shouldn't have joined'. i've actually used that, too.

I know scallops, not a good subject to exaggerate on, I apologise.

The comments following the article are interesting actually - what does everyone make of the below? I've edited out sections which I massively disagree with (women being put first when it comes to furthering life expectancy etc) but it's an interesting new angle to the debate, which I think also addresses sexism:

"The idea that women cannot fight on the front line because men will protect them is very very weird.

If we assume that it is 100% true then we can win all wars simply by ensuring that ALL soldiers are female. Seriously we could not lose...the enemy men would be protective of the women and be so traumatised by every victim that each loss we had would result in a psychological loss for them!

The truth is that women are VALUED more by society than men.

What we should absolutely NOT have is a situation where men can be called up but women cannot or where the pay for men and women in very different relative positions of risk is equalised or where men (ONLY) are perceived to be cowards for refusing a call-up to a position of high risk...especially in the context that the women in vastly relatively low risk positions seem to demand "respect" for their sacrifices.

This element of respect and reward for women in low risk, but stigma for men who refuse high risk is the true indicator of inequality. The armed forces is acutely aware that if women are "permitted" on the front line, it will be unable to call up men without women in time of war and since call-ups only occur during high casualty wars it will lead to widespread civil disobedience in time of war.

I conclude therefore that they have chosen this sexist compromise for one reason only...to protect women at the expense of men. If their view was anything else then they would simply choose to have single gender units."

Girlwiththemouseyhair
There are so many parts of your post I disagree with that I found it hard to reach the end.
WOmen are not valued more, which is why 2 women a week in the UK are murdered by their souse AND THE STATS DON'T EVEN GET REPORTED IN THE NEWS.
Women in the UK are dropping like flies, at the hands of men. You can bet if two men were murdered a week there would be an overhaul of the system.
Anorexia, violent porn, mutilation in the name of beauty... all tie in with the current ideology that men matter more

WOmen are not allowed to fight because of sexism, pure and simple, and of men wanting to have the right to push nuclear buttons with their index fingers, while at the same time stopping women from having the power to do so themselves, and simultaneously stopping women from having the power to stop their wars.

The truth is, it is not for the MoD to decide whether women can bear arms, when it is women and children who suffer most during wars. Men, especially soldiers, are the safest people in a war-zone.

my anorexia point meant: anorexia is a female disease. Many many young women die from it. I personally believe if there was an similar epedemic among intelligent, middle class boys , causing them to die like girls do, then government would take it seriously and address it.

Out of all the things I've ever read.... Women matter more .... I'm speechless

Men go to war not to protect women but for: oil, power, money, dick-swinging, and kicks. It has bugger all to do with protecting women.

Throughout history where is often one side that goes to war in order to 'take' but there is just as often a side who have gone to war to protect their land, families their freedom and their very way of life. Yes there are men who kill for fickle things but there are men who die trying to protect all they hold dear.

I really don't think men are valued more men are seen as more expendable in a way. You get hostage situations etc and it is often women and children who are negotiated for first. True the domestic violence statistic is terrible and greater steps need to be made but out of those murdered male figures are almost double that of females, males are are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women. Bizarrely however despite being more likely to be the victim of crime, men are less worried than women about most types of crime.

Society is set up in a very weird manner there is sexism without doubt but there is so many problems intertwined that nothing is quite so clear cut.

I really disagree with your statement on men being the most safest people in a war zone. No one is safe and men tend to be prime targets for torture and death because they are male therefore seen as a threat by default. War is devastating and it affects everyone though women often physically survive, they still experience a social death. As their history, culture, relationships and way of life are gone.

I think we are back to cognitive dissonance.The whole idea of women and children first,and the repugnance with which many people view the idea of women fighting and dying in war just like men sits alongside the levels of domestic violence and rape that exist in our society.

War is an area where I think it is very hard/impossible to see who has it better. "Men" as a political group may have the right to press the nuclear button,but on an individual level the effects of fighting fall on the men.Men(the group) may have gone to war for oil, power, money, dick-swinging, and kicks (which of those would you put WW2 in,sakura?)but individual men have fought because they had to,or because as Saltatrix says,they felt they needed to to protect the things they cared about.And that is often at a big cost to them.
I think it does come down to men being seen as expendable,if you want to grow your community at the most basic level you need plenty of women and a few men biologically,so you preserve the women and children because they are the future.

Now,I think if women are capable of meeting the required standards they should be allowed to serve on the front line,and stopping them from doing so is sexist.But historically looking at conscription and WW1 for example I think you could argue that it was men who were being disadvantaged.

Sakura if you'd read my post properly you'd see it wasn't what I was saying, but I do think it's important to take into account the views of others - I quoted a comment taken from the Guardian comments about the article which this thread is about.

I really appreciate hearing the different points of view from saltatrix and pogleswood

I agree with War being a difficult area to know who has it worst off - and can think of many many women over the ages who would have given anything to have the opportunity to fight for the people they loved and the freedoms they believed in. I agree pogleswood that the idea that men are more expendable than women on a survival of the human race level, so maybe this whole issue is doubly ridiculous because it seems to be sexist towards both men and women.

"Men go to war not to protect women but for: oil, power, money, dick-swinging, and kicks. It has bugger all to do with protecting women."

Sigh...

I tend to agree with sakura. The wars we are fighting now have nothing to do with protecting our women and children. We are in afghanistan and iraq because we are friends with the US. We are there as far as I can see, in one case because teh US wanted to blow someone up after they got blown up (9/11) and the other because george dubbya wanted to "get" saddam hussein. Both conflicts have had a huge number of civilian casualties, had war crimes comitted, resulted in increasing danger to the "west" ie been counterproductive, and ruined life for the people who live there. One of teh wars we went into on the basis of a lie. In both cases lucrative reconstruction projects have been given to american companies rather than local ones. And of course Iraq has all that lovely oil...

Nope I'm with sakura. Out there to protect us my arse.

I also find it sexist that men should be called up and not women. Frankly, I can't think of anything worse than having to go to war. But neither can most men.

george dubbya wanted a crusade against the muslims. He actually used the word crucade, as in "Christians with a cross, against Muslims" but as ISNT said, what he really wanted was cheap oil to bolster the lifestyle of the people in the west.

And lets not forget that it was the U.S who installed Saddam Hussain in the first place. They were bezzie mates for a while.

And lets not forget who installed the Taliban in Afghanistan. The U.S poured lots of money into supporting the Taliban against the Socialist party in Afghanistan in the 1970s. THe socialist party was pro-women's rights, but the U.S didn't care because it just wanted to support anyone who was against RUssia.