Scallopsrgreat, obviously I failed to make myself clear (although I think you have taken my comment out of context). "Men V women", let me expand. As a middle aged male, with 28 years military service, who happened upon this thread from Arrse; I read posts such as " The argument about unknown effects of female body smells like bullshit to me. Are there any grounds for thinking it might be very different to men, parallels from other fields for ex? Do female weight lifters/athletes suffer more in later life than male? Or is itjust clutching at straws?" or this "War isn't PC full stop. It is created by men, for men, about men. It is racist, misogynistic, homophobic, classist, ableist. You name it." and it strongly suggests to me that these are not reasoned arguments based on analysis of the discussion but rather they are merely affirming the valid position that women must be given equal opportunity to do anything (even if the poster doesn't actually understand what is involved in doing "anything") or in the case of the latter stereotyping all men in the services.
You allude to your training experience and suggest by virtue of your posts that military training is somehow deficient. Are you aware of the 20 year development and modernisation that has taken place since the mid-90s, are you aware of the Defence Systems Approach to Training, Operation Task Analysis, DIF analysis, internal and external validation, etc? The crux here is that the role of the Combat Infantryman and RM Rifleman have been minutely dissected by both the customer, the training providers and of course the accountants. The training has been designed and is conducted to meet that OTA (and importantly that is exactly how it is funded), it is a living thing that is regularly reviewed and changed when validation shows a need. The simplification of the physical differences serves to obfuscate a real issue; proportionately more women will suffer injury undergoing training than men due to the natural differences such as bone density, pelvic girdle construction linked also to ACL issues and muscle mass. I happy enough with that but would not expect to see a rash of claims suggesting that the MoD has neglected its duty of care.
As an aside CTCRM has one of the most advanced rehab facilities in the UK, it has only cut training wastage by around 4-5%.
Finally you make, I think, an important point about sexual violence within the services. I understand that allegation of rape run at approx 25 per year. Obviously 25 to many but it's right to put that in context of the UK as a whole and that means it is approximately 15% of the level in the general population. More does need to be done particularly at Unit level and above. Again if women want to join then let them but it should be on an equal footing with a full understanding what they are getting into and not at the expense of 100s of years of history, an ethos that works and standards that are just that - standard.
IMD