SAS hell week

[80schild]

I am wondering why there is not a thread about this programme in feminism. I am sure you have all heard of the SAS and the fact that women aren't allowed in because they are not considered strong enough.

So I have been following this programme, with particular reference to one woman. She entered to prove that women could compete with men (surely something that feminism would be proud of) - well guess what, she won, against 25 blokes and 3 other women.

Surely, this is a feminist issue - that a woman should at least be able to try for the SAS on a level playing field (i.e., no adjustments made for sex), if she wants to.

See - I think this is the REAL issue, something cultural in the military about the way men behave differently around women, and the naturalisation of this as in some way inevitable. So women are disadvantaged because of perceptions about male reactions.

Basically, as far as I can see, it comes down to some testicles of objectivity shite about men 'inevitably' being protective of women rather than this being a reaction that is every bit as subject to discipline as any other (e.g the urge to run away from an aggressor). I don't buy it at all. I see women paramedics, firefighters, police officers all bringing their own excellences to those jobs, and I'm damned if I can see any rationale for special pleading for the military.

Plus, if madwoman and playswell are right (and I have no reason to think they are not)- this is all bollocks because women are actually there already. Everyone seems to agree on this, and no-one seems to think that this represents some kind of a crisis.

x-post with lurky

So women are disadvantaged because of perceptions about male reactions.

Having served in the Army & working with women doing the same role as myself. There were women who could do the same things as most men, but there were also some who were bloody useless & would play on it "pleeeese help me, I can't do it" and that unfortunately tarred all women with the same brush for some people.

Who are the ones that stick in the mind? It's always the moaning, useless people - the ones that just get on & do it are forgettable....

And of a course there were never any men who bloody useless were there? The difference being they were simply bloody useless and were never taken as an identifier for all men in the way a bloody useless woman would be taken as an identifier for all women.

There were loads of useless men, didn't say there weren't.

But it's a (wrong) negative image that plagues women in the forces today because a lot of the senior officers that are making decisions are from the generation that had this image & don't seem to realise it has changed.

this is all bollocks because women are actually there already. Everyone seems to agree on this, and no-one seems to think that this represents some kind of a crisis.

This^^ exactly! Women are already right there on the frontline alongside those men who are supposed to have been rendered incapable due to proximity to a vagina is it happening?

this is all bollocks because women are actually there already. Everyone seems to agree on this, and no-one seems to think that this represents some kind of a crisis.

Yes it may be happening in the 'regular amy' etc but it it happening in the special forces, which is what the OP was about.

lurky a bomb disposal expert has a different skill set than infantry. You can't so easily compare the two.

With regards to responses to my post, I should have been clearer. My brother has noticed that when training at high intensity like they do women tend to have more injuries abd this is why they struggle to maintain their fitness. My brother has had some horrible injuries such as falling 30ft and breaking vertebrae. He literally bounced and the damage was limited. He got up and carried on. Any normal person would have been lying there passed out. These people who pass selection are really exceptional.

Careers in the Marines extend beyond 5 years so to say you are only in for 5 is not accurate at all. I know for the SAS certain people I know through my brother have been there far longer than 5 years. They do rotations with other units to give themselves a break and also help train up the units they are assigned to.

Also, my brothers opinion is that the army are not ready to deal with the fallout of a female under their command being raped as a PoW. My brother also made an interesting point that until fairly recently they were trained to treat women and children differently. This was done to minimize civilian casualties. He said that training had changed but what he has seen in the front line it is women and children who are in very vunerable positions and I know when he was in Afghanistan it was this aspect that really affected him. He ended up going back to old training manuals to get his guys up to speed on how to manage this aspect.

I would love to see women have the opportunity to be on the front line and equal to the men that are already there. It will happen and the army are slowly getting there. It doesn't help that right now the army are reducing headcount dramatically and they don't have enough jobs for those who are there let alone those who want to join.

We're going round in circles.

To recap (from my perspective) - we've discounted the 'women are physically incapable' argument by pointing to all kinds of strong women who out-compete men.

Then we moved on to the 'men will want to protect women and this will put everyone in danger' argument. And we discounted that on two grounds: firstly, that it's disadvantaging women because of male reactions that can be controlled; secondly, that women are already there in front line positions in fact, even though this is not officially recognised and this has not caused chaos. Interestingly, the view from dadwashere on the last page seemed to be that this objection didn't apply so much to special ops as to regular infantry.

So why are we going back to 'Ah, but can women be in the special forces?'

So why are we going back to 'Ah, but can women be in the special forces?

Because some people literally cant, and never will, get their heads around the idea of equality. They cannot bring themselves to say its possible, and that it would be absolutely fine!

This discussion shouldnt even exist. In 100 years they'll laugh in disbelief that it even happened. Like how unbelievable the objections to the post office were on the basis that women would have unsupervised contact with men

To recap (from my perspective) - we've discounted the 'women are physically incapable' argument by pointing to all kinds of strong women who out-compete men.

This is just not true. Look at the top athletes competing at sports like iron-distance triathlon... There is a gulf between the winning times of men and women.

That Ninja Warrior programme in the US, which is like Total Wipeout on steroids. In 7 series, they've only had 1 woman complete the course, let alone win the series.
The Marathon des Sables finishing times as well, the list goes on. I can't think of a single endurance athletic event where the women finish within a few % of the male winners time, let alone beat them.
Even in my local Cross Fit gym, comparing the men vs women who are totally and utterly committed to their training, they aren't even close on what they can do and the weight they can lift.

As admirable as her win on the TV programme was, it bears so litle relation to the actual SAS training that it is a total straw man argument.

we've discounted the 'women are physically incapable' argument by pointing to all kinds of strong women who out-compete men.

Not in the Special Forces there aren't - that's the point, until they prove they can do it, it's all conjecture, which is why I think anyone that thinks they can do it should be able to apply for selection.

As "impressive" as it was, Murphy only won a BBC gameshow, it wasn't any more significant that her winning "Ninja Warrior" in relation to proving anything on this subject...

You can show me as many fell runners, ultra runners etc (of either sex) as you like - but until they can prove that they're elite in more than that one facet of the role, it doesn't mean anything...

Is anyone going to comment on the two women who actually passed the Army Rangers training in the USA? They received the exact same training as the men.

I'm just going to give you the google link, because every news agency carried the story.

www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Women+who+passed+Army+Rangers

Army Rangers is special forces in the US.

Current Ironman Kona (World Champs) course records:
Man: 8 hours 3 mins; Woman: 8 hours 52 mins

Marathon des sables times last year:
Man: 20 hours 27 mins; woman: 29 hours 4 mins

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the men...

No getting away from the fact that it's a tough course, but the fact that there are more American "Special Forces" trained people than there are in the Regular British Army is a bit telling.

They're not in the same league as the SAS, SBS, Pathfinders etc...

There are women who work with the SAS but they are not in any way at the same fitness levels as the men. It's not that they are weak but that their skill set is different. They are often neigotiators and work with intelligence. They are trained to the same level as someone on the front line but they are not if the standard required to go beyond the front line like the SAS and the marines are.

I'm all for women being allowed into the SAS and its why I have challenged my brother. He is now in a position to move the culture forward. Honestly after attending a mess dinner with him I wasn't impressed with the behaviour of the officers. Quite frankly they were not officer material IMO and behaved like squaddies. When I gave them a look they toned it down. I've never had to do that in an Army officer mess for the logistics or rifles.

Some of the US SpecOps variants -

Business Inside Article

When Paula Radcliffe won the London marathon, she didn't just beat all the British women. She beat all the British men in the race too. Yes, there were non-British men who ran it faster. But the point is that nationally (and the army, let's remember, is a national institution), she was the best.

Of course, that doesn't mean Radcliffe would be great in the SAS! I think she's tough as nails for doing what she's done, but elite athlete toughness might well not be the same thing as special forces toughness. Because the point about special forces is that they are NOT all about the fastest and strongest - they are about being fairly fast, fairly strong, incredibly resilient - but also quick-thinking, strategic and tactical.

The point in mentioning these elite athletes is to show that there is no reason why a woman couldn't cope with the physical rigours of the selection - because the top women are achieving far, far more than is demanded of recruits to special forces. Women who want to do so should be allowed to try, to prove what they can do.

(Hooray for the Army Rangers women, proving this point).

spare change Marathon world records: men 2:2:57, women 2:15:25. And that gap is getting closer.

And if I'm not mistaken, your figures for the Iron Man do actually show women within 10% of men?

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the men

I'm assuming the pass criteria for SAS wouldnt be set for women as "acheive within 10% of the best man" i'm assuming it would be a case of "these are the criteria necessary for being in the SAS. meet these criteria whether you are male or female and you are capable"

No?

Shove, the gap is not getting closer.
Paula's record has stood since 2003, with no other woman getting within 3 mins of it before or since.
Where as the men's record time has been consistently coming down year on year, and the top 10 fastest times have all been set in the last 5 years.

And while I have huge respect for the marathon as an athletic discipline (and have run 5 myself), it isn't a great marker for overall physical strength of the sort needed for something like Special Forces - by Paula Radcliffe's own admission, she didn't even have enough upper body strength to do a single press up.

Hence my examples of iron distance triathlon and ninja warrior as being things closer to the sorts of tests that special forces use for physical selection. Even the MdS requires you to carry kit and has stages which include hill running and scrambling.

(Men's Kona record = 483 mins. Women's = 532. 10% of the men's time would be 48 mins. The woman's record is 49 mins slower. So yes, you are mistaken. A woman can't get within 10% of the men's record time.)

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the men

I'll also correct your statement.

"The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the world's fittest and best men".

These arent just your average joe bloggs down the pub man.

SurlyCue
Yes, I'm sure that's what the criteria would be.

And given the SAS's published pass rate is 10%, a cohort who can't get into the top 10% aren't going to cut it.

It is also interesting to look at the pass rates from the US example. Assuming they all had to pass the same test to be accepted onto the training in the first place so are starting on a level-ish field, 25% of men are graduating, compared to 10% of women.

This suggests to me that while women can get up to the required standard of fitness, they find it a lot harder to maintain it.
This would tie in with what I've seen anecdotely while training for endurance events - we just pick up more injuries when we are training on our physical limits

The world's fittest and best women athletes can't get within 10% of the world's fittest and best men

Well yes. They are men competing at the World Championships for Iron Distance triathlons. I'm pretty sure no one things the organisers hand out places at the Dog and Duck on a saturday night