hedwards: I strongly disagree with that. I've known some women that could beat up professional football players. The blanket policy of banning them all was never really a particularly good idea. It always should have been handled like firefighters or police officers, anybody capable of doing the job should be eligible.
anjohl: Actually, you completely agree with me, you just don't understand that you do.
I said that:
1) Women are weaker than men, and thus, less suited to physical tasks. This is demonstrably true.
2) Not all women will fit the average of course, no more than all men will be strong. So, as I explained, any woman that can meet the standardized criteria for a job should be able to do that job, as long as her feminine realities don't preclude her (IE, I understand the "no women on nuclear subs" limitation that many countries still impose).
That's mostly because you stated it as an absolute. I only disagree with that aspect of it. Most women probably couldn't live up to things like the Marine Corps tests, but then again, they have a fairly high burn out rate for men as well.
Trilarion: On physical abilities in the army: My impression was that modern warfare requires less and less physical abilities and more psychological or technical abilities. Like staying awake for a long time and programming rocket target coordinates. I guess except for the Navy Seals women are probably well capable of doing these jobs.
AlKim: It's true that modern militaries rely on technology quite a bit, but I'll let you in on a couple of widely-known secrets:
1) Common military hardware is not particularly difficult to operate because they have been designed to be used by people of varying intellectual capacity.
2) Yes, there are more complex devices, but just as there are physically strong women there are smart men. Because women and men tend to be interested in different kinds of things, I suspect militaries have no problem finding men smart enough to operate fighter-bombers and ballistic missiles. Often these people aren't much use without someone on the field, though, and
3) in the field, everything is steel and heavy. A basic LV 217 short-range field radio is relatively simple to operate if you've got half a brain to yourself, but the damn thing weighs over 10kg which does not include the weight of spare batteries and other ancilliaries like
text-messaging devices and their spare batteries and what have you. Add this on top of your combat harness, weapons, protective equipment and all that.
I can tell you right off the bat that my task in the military mostly involved sitting down for long periods of time (up to sixteen hours), paying attention and multitasking. Probably doesn't sound too bad, but suffice to say that when you're expected to know how to operate an MRL or a massive radio, you're damn well expected to do all the physical work involved, like changing a wheel or erecting a radio mast.
Doesn't surprise me at all, people tend to get rather peevish when the people they're radioing for help drop agent orange on them. Yes, that's not something that happens any more, but purely because I don't think agent orange has been used at all in the last couple decades.
