Time to end the ban on women in combat?
In the Daily Beast, Megan H. MacKenzie writes that integrating women into combat is the same thing as the Army’s desegregation in 1948, when they, in my opinion, corrected a wrong and allowed Black soldiers into white units. Somehow, Mackenzie thinks this is just a natural extension of social justice. She cites the instances that women have been awarded Silver Star Medals as some sort of justification for this.
She runs through a litany of the weakest arguments against allowing women in combat, like destroying unit cohesion, and that women distract men. then something about “feminizing” combat units. I’ve never put much stock in those arguments – I’m pretty sure that soldiers under fire can keep it in their pants, and I don’t believe the canard about unnecessarily putting their lives at risk to rescue a woman who might be injured more than they would for another man.
And unless she means “feminizing” combat units to mean a lowering of standards, I’m not worried that guys will start wearing cologne and products under their K-pots.
But what she fails to address is that women are normally weaker than men…that’s not me talking – it’s science. But that doesn’t stop her from making social judgements in regards to men.
In her analysis of gender integration in the military, Erin Solaro, a researcher and journalist who was embedded with combat troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, pointed out that male bonding often depended on the exclusion or denigration of women and concluded that “cohesion is not the same as combat effectiveness, and indeed can undercut it.
“Male bonding” has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion. MacKenzie thinks this is a social issue and not a national security issue. But somehow, MacKenzie acts like we’re trying to exclude women from our little club of infantrymen.
She goes on and on about desegregation, as if it is an important part her proof. It’s not.
Just as when African Americans were fully integrated into the military and DADT was repealed, lifting the combat ban on women would not threaten national security or the cohesiveness of military units; rather, it would bring formal policies in line with current practices and allow the armed forces to overcome their misogynistic past. In a modern military, women should have the right to fight.
“Current policies” in the non-military world are out of step with the realities of combat. It really is about carrying a wounded 200-pound M60 gunner out of the line of fire. It’s not about calibrating the military to social norms.
And all of this idiot blather about having to integrate women into the combat units fails to address the one point that is most important – how will the integration of women into combat make the military better defenders of our nation? If they can’t answer that simple question, why are we even having this discussion?
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Military issues
WOTN, I am personally grateful that men and women are different. Life would be much less rich if we were all the same.
Wow… where’s that popcorn eating emoticon thingie?
Screw statistics, Monty Python is more appropriate. To wit, a line from The Life of Brian: “…it’s symbolic of his struggle against reality.” Which is exactly what the discussion of women in combat MOS is-a struggle against reality.
Females have an important place in some places in the Army, Civil Affairs comes immediately to mind, but they don’t belong in the infantry. The Army doesn’t need women in the infantry, they don’t bring anything to the table to improve the infantry, and it’s now merely a political football. Whether or not they could hack it, equality aside, the professionalism and ability of our troops to keep it in their pants aside, we do not need women in the infantry.
I have never once heard an argument why we need women in the infantry, just why we should let them be in the infantry. There is no need for gender diversity in the infantry, and we should not try to force it.