DoD lifts ban on women in combat

[Deberg_1990]

Does this mean that women will now have to register with the Selective Service as well?



http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/art...ds-4218940.php






In a historic action, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today will remove the ban on women in combat that has excluded them from jobs ranging from infantry squad leaders and tank gunners to commandoes.

The decision, praised by women's advocates but denounced by the conservative Family Research Council, ends a 1994 Pentagon policy that barred women from high-risk ground combat jobs.

Women often have seen combat anyway over the past decade, as 283,000 of them went to Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a Congressional Research Service report, with 144 killed and 855 wounded.

“I remember in 1990 when we went into the first Gulf War, there was an uproar about women going to the front lines and talking about women being taken away from their children and having to go to war, having to go into combat,” said Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau, a retired Air Force major general.

“Then when we went into the Iraqi war (in 2003), there were no longer those kinds of issues,” she said. “Those issues weren't raised because people were recognizing that we've done this for a long time, women are trained to do this.”

Military officials said Panetta would unveil details in a news conference this afternoon.

An implementation period is expected, though details of how the service branches will phase in the policy weren't clear.

Anu Bhagwati, executive director of Service Women's Action Network, which joined three officers and an Army staff sergeant in lawsuit led by the ACLU to overturn the policy, called the decision a historic moment.

The policy, and laws before it, were rooted in a military long segregated by color, ethnicity and gender. But barriers to women had fallen over the decades, especially after the Women's Army Corps was disbanded in 1978.

The combat exclusion policy had barred women from serving in around 238,000 jobs, said Bhagwati, who noted that many of those positions set the stage for higher-ranking assignments. Giving women the chance to compete for combat roles, she predicted, would improve retention and recruiting.

Women make up 14 percent of the 1.4 million troops in the armed forces



Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/art...#ixzz2IuPbDodW

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Pew: 66% support for this move.

Majority opinion does not mean this won't affect morale of forces in combat. This is herd mentality here.

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

The Feminist Objection to Women in Combat

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/arc...combat/272505/

From the article -

"This week the Pentagon altered its policy prohibiting women from serving in combat roles in the US military. This has generally been seen as a win for feminism by feminists themselves. It's also been seen as a feminist victory by conservative folks like Heather Mac Donald at National Review, who declares with hyperbolic outrage that "the only reason to pursue [the policy of women in combat] is to placate feminism's insatiable and narcissistic drive for absolute official equality between the sexes." "

So even when they win, they lose. Lol, some people just refuse to be happy.

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and think that the women that actually ever do end up in live fire combat wanted to be there, and weren't forced against their will to be there in the first place.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Bowser

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and think that the women that actually ever do end up in live fire combat wanted to be there, and weren't forced against their will to be there in the first place.

Per a poll I saw on military women it was something like 70-89% opposed to being in front line combat. I doubt we'll see massive quantities trying to get put there.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Bowser

From the article -

"This week the Pentagon altered its policy prohibiting women from serving in combat roles in the US military. This has generally been seen as a win for feminism by feminists themselves. It's also been seen as a feminist victory by conservative folks like Heather Mac Donald at National Review, who declares with hyperbolic outrage that "the only reason to pursue [the policy of women in combat] is to placate feminism's insatiable and narcissistic drive for absolute official equality between the sexes." "

So even when they win, they lose. Lol, some people just refuse to be happy.

Uhm....the title says: The Feminist Objection....

The problem is, feminism has never just been about equality. Many feminists have written about the need for women to have the same opportunities as men. But many have also written about the need to criticize male patriarchal values and ideals. And one of the male patriarchal values and ideals that has been consistently criticized and questioned by feminists is war.

though many instincts are held more or less in common by both sexes, to fight has always been the man's habit, not the woman's. Law and practice have developed that difference, whether innate or accidental. Scarcely a human being in the course of history has fallen to a woman's rifle; the vast majority of birds and beasts have been killed by you, not by us; and it is difficult to judge what we do not share.

How then are we to understand your problem, and if we cannot, how can we answer your question, how to prevent war? The answer based upon our experience and our psychology—Why fight?—is not an answer of any value. Obviously there is for you some glory, some necessity, some satisfaction in fighting which we have never felt or enjoyed. Complete understanding could only be achieved by blood transfusion and memory transfusion—a miracle still beyond the reach of science.

Now look at the photo:




That's the feminist objection.

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Per a poll I saw on military women it was something like 70-89% opposed to being in front line combat. I doubt we'll see massive quantities trying to get put there.

Sounds reasonable.

Hell, even in the Air Force we had a fair share of "Conscientious Objectors" around the time of the first Gulf War. The question would always be asked of those people "Why are you even in the military?", and most often the answer would be "I'm in for the college money. I never thought I'd actually have to go to war!"

[Cheater5]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Pew: 66% support for this move.

Considering .67% of the population actually serve in the military, MOSTpeople don't know what the F*^K they are talking about.

Let the people who do the warfighting make decisions about whom should do what. Rote amateurs with nothing invested in the matter should step aside.

And this includes general officers who haven't been involved in direct ground combat in...maybe ever.

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by Bowser

Sounds reasonable.

Hell, even in the Air Force we had a fair share of "Conscientious Objectors" around the time of the first Gulf War. The question would always be asked of those people "Why are you even in the military?", and most often the answer would be "I'm in for the college money. I never thought I'd actually have to go to war!"

When my section returned from the briefing in which we were told to prepare to deploy to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield we actually had a female sergeant break down crying that she, “didn’t join the Army to go to war.”
Seriously. A sergeant.

[Cheater5]

No sh*t. How does this decision make us more lethal? How does it enable us to destroy the enemies of our country more efficiently? So millennia of warfare in which men were the primary combatants FOR A REASON (psst- we are better at it/more capable) are suddenly pushed aside.

Allowing women to achieve higher rank (via combat commands) is more important than fighting and winning our nations wars. We are fecking idiots.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

They already have been, and it's been widely accepted throughout human history that the man/boy goes out and serves in the military...mom/girl stays home and raises infants and watches the family/home.

I sure as hell don't think women need to be in combat.

Don't think they need to be police officers either. Just personal opinion.

If a woman is capable then her sex should not exclude her. A woman should not be in combat for the sake of putting a woman in combat.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Cheater5

No sh*t. How does this decision make us more lethal? How does it enable us to destroy the enemies of our country more efficiently? So millennia of warfare in which men were the primary combatants FOR A REASON (psst- we are better at it/more capable) are suddenly pushed aside.

Allowing women to achieve higher rank (via combat commands) is more important than fighting and winning our nations wars. We are fecking idiots.

I think you're being quite dramatic.

[Cheater5]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

I think you're being quite dramatic.

So you think. What's your investment in the matter?

I have 22 years of my life dedicated to being an Infantryman. Whether you have any grasp what that entails I don't know. What you may think you know about ground combat, and what it actually takes to train and prepare for it are probably pretty far apart.

That's what I think.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Cheater5

So you think. What's your investment in the matter?

I have 22 years of my life dedicated to being an Infantryman. Whether you have any grasp what that entails I don't know. What you may think you know about ground combat, and what it actually takes to train and prepare for it are probably pretty far apart.

That's what I think.

What is my investment in the matter? Well since the majority of my family are or have been serving I have some investment, obviously not as much as you. I think if a woman is capable of performing the job then her lack of a dick shouldn't matter.

I don't think it should be show and tell, but I don't think it should exclude a qualified person either.

Now please go on to tell me that no woman, ever, has been qualified.

[Aries Walker]

Folks, it's been done before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachidamia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Pingyang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_arc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakano_Takeko
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dahomey.html
http://www.serialno3817131.com/index.html

And their empires did not fall.

As long as we can trust our NCO's and officers to maintain morale - which I think we can - I don't see a problem as long as we don't subject women to the draft. If we do that, and we institute that draft for (let's say) another ten-year war, that would have the possibility to devastate our population levels.

Otherwise, unclench. It's not the end of the Republic.

[BucEyedPea]

"Now That Women Can Fight in Combat . . . the only ones left who can't or won't are the neocons."

(Thomas DiLorenzo paraphrasing Florida Campaign for Liberty activist Kristi Dunn).

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by Aries Walker

Folks, it's been done before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachidamia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Pingyang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_arc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakano_Takeko
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dahomey.html
http://www.serialno3817131.com/index.html

And their empires did not fall.

As long as we can trust our NCO's and officers to maintain morale - which I think we can - I don't see a problem as long as we don't subject women to the draft. If we do that, and we institute that draft for (let's say) another ten-year war, that would have the possibility to devastate our population levels.

Otherwise, unclench. It's not the end of the Republic.

A handful of exceptions to the rule, prove the rule. However, I don't see anyone here claiming the empire would fall.