rrandall@zach.fit.EDU (Rick Randall) (06/04/91)
Muffy Barkocy writes: >Why do you assume that this it is a benefit to women to be >discriminated against by the military? I know of at least two women >of my acquaintance who were upset that they were not *allowed* to be >involved in the combat in the Gulf. The women who do choose a career >in the military are not given the same opportunities, rights, etc. as ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >men. This certainly isn't a benefit to them. > I was just passing through, and thought I would comment on this incorrect statement. I spent four years as an army enlisted soldier and can tell you that WITHOUT DOUBT the army bends over backwards to *try* to make "opportunities" the same for men and women. The promotion system used by the army is about as discrimination-free as any bureaucratic system is going to be. Likewise, benefits and all of that other crap recruiters hype about are kept pretty much discrimination-free also. I you really want to know the details on the Army's bureaucratic systems, send email and I will describe it for you. Note my emphasis on the word "try" in the above paragraph. As things turn out, women in many situations have ADVANTAGES over men. Many [if not *MOST*] soldiers become disallusioned [fed up] with the Army's nonsence at some point in their enlistments. A WOMAN that wants to end her enlistment contract early with NO dishonor only has to do one thing: Get pregnant. I am personally familiar with no less than SIX cases where a women used pregnancy as her "ticket out" of a miserable job or situation that a MAN would simply have to put up with. Since you mention the "desire" of women to be in a combat situation, I would like to shed some light on what that is like: When a unit goes to the field [ie, does their thing in an outdoor environment], the MEN invariably get stuck doing the manual labor of lugging 300 pound tents around, setting the tents up, and lugging crates of supplies around also. Since this has to be done first, female members of units are more-or- less idle during this time. Keep in mind that "going to the field" is not a sporadic event: Some units do it ALL OF THE TIME. I'm sure that some of the readers out there know military wives. The husband might "come in" for a week, then goes back to the field for another 3 weeks. EVERY time that unit goes out to the field, and EVERY time they pack up to come in, the women "get away" with something that irritates a lot of the men. The above paragraph describes just one example. While IN the field, women clearly have more problems [mostly in health/hygiene] on average than men do. For some reason there are a lot of empiracal cases of foot/blister injuries, stomach sickness, etc seem to happen to women when its time for field duty. One thing that afflicts a LOT of soldiers [both male and female] is the painful CUTTING that loaded ruck sacks [ie, big "back packs"] cause to shoulders. Where a females ADVANTAGE comes in the following: You can't imagine how many times on road marches [ie, long walks with aformentined ruck sacks on] that a disproportional number [50-75%] of the WOMEN had men carrying their ruck sacks, if the women participated in the road march at all. Usually, no-one makes any fuss about this state of affairs. On the other hand, a MAN often has to be on the verge of a medical emergency to get excused from a road march or have a fellow soldier "be allowed" to carry the man's ruck sack. Another common occurance of women having an advantage is when they get field showers installed for them while the men sit and STINK for weeks [it happens in training all of the time, it happened in Saudi Arabia also]. "Theres not enough time or water to let all of the men shower", so the excuses go. For the *COMBAT* units at the Saudi border, the excuse was real. So maybe you're 2 female friends wanted to "be in on it" when the US was shooting at the fleeing Iraqis. How would they have felt if they were only allowed to shower ONCE EVERY TWO WEEKS for *six months* prior to that ??? ------------------------- | Rick G. Randall | | rrandall@zach.fit.edu | -------------------------
willis@cs.tamu.edu (Willis Marti) (06/04/91)
As a kind of followup to the postings on women in the military, I'd like to
point out that the debate is focused on the wrong question. The issue
should not be :
"Women should be allowed to be in a combat unit if they so choose."
but rather
"The military should be allowed to assign women to combat units as it chooses."
This would reflect true non-discriminatory policy. For a male in the
military, even if you are in a non-combat unit {excluding legal & medical}
you may be assigned to a combat unit or even changed from being a clerk
to a rifleman *without* his consent.
Women could then volunteer for combat assignments but the military could
then also assign non-volunteers, like it now does men, to combat duty.
Does this restatement of the issue change/affect anyone's opinion?muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) (06/05/91)
In article <2590@winnie.fit.edu> rrandall@zach.fit.EDU (Rick Randall) writes: Muffy Barkocy writes: >Why do you assume that this it is a benefit to women to be >discriminated against by the military? I know of at least two women >of my acquaintance who were upset that they were not *allowed* to be >involved in the combat in the Gulf. The women who do choose a career >in the military are not given the same opportunities, rights, etc. as ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >men. This certainly isn't a benefit to them. > [all sorts of stuff about how women get "special treatment" in the army, some of which is below] The first thing about this article is that it illustrates a point made by someone else, that when people (in this case women) are perceived (rightly or wrongly) as getting "special treatment," the people who do not get this special treatment resent it, and tend to discredit/ disparage the "specially treated" group. This is another argument that the way women are treated by the military is not a benefit to them, since it makes being in the military more difficult for them if they are resented by the people around them, and regarded as "not being able to pull their own weight". [...] I spent four years as an army enlisted soldier and can tell you that WITHOUT DOUBT the army bends over backwards to *try* to make "opportunities" the same for men and women. The promotion system used by the army is about as discrimination-free as any bureaucratic system is going to be. [...] I have not been in the military, so I asked a friend of mine who was in the Marines. He agrees that they do try to make the opportunities the same. However, he also said: * However, even though in theory they are supposed to be equal, promotions * definitely not equal. The problem is with the way promotions are done. * Basically, there are two main ways you can get a promotion. All enlisted * types get something called "pro and con" marks, where you are graded on * your proficiency and your conduct, on a scale from 1-5 (anything below * a 4 is pretty bad; they use tenths as a graduation.) Basicially, you are * promoted by looking at several things -- your time in the service, your * time in your "grade" or current rank, if you have gone to school or have * taken the military equivalent to correspondance classes, your physical * fitness scores, an annual test of some sort, and some other miscellaneous * things I may have forgotten. The problem comes into being with the pros * and cons -- the rest is about equal (physical fitness scores, for instance, * are graded according to your sex and age.) You get the same discrimination * in the military as you do in the "real" world -- blacks, women, etc. all * get discriminated against -- it doesn't take much to not get promoted -- * perhaps a few tenths of a point in your pros and cons, and it happens time * and time again. There's not much of anything you can do, too -- if you * happen to get a good leader above you, and the people above him or her are * fair as well, then you can be as equal as anyone else. The other basic * way to get promoted is if someone "up there" likes you -- you can get * meritorious promotions, or public pats on the back (which also help in * getting promoted), or just get your pros and cons raised because of this. * The commanding officer has the final say on all promotions, I believe, * so if you're buddy-buddy with him or her, you're ok -- of course, if they * are prejudiced or otherwise against you, then this goes back to the first * point. Note here that if, as the previous article maintained, women are seen as not doing the same work as men, it would not be unlikely for them to get less good markes, and therefore get promoted less. [...] A WOMAN that wants to end her enlistment contract early with NO dishonor only has to do one thing: Get pregnant. I am personally familiar with no less than SIX cases where a women used pregnancy as her "ticket out" of a miserable job or situation that a MAN would simply have to put up with. I do not know about your six cases, but I would be very surprised if this was done, or worked, very often. First of all, getting pregnant is not something that most women do casually, despite what a lot of people around here seem to think. Second, getting pregnant is not actually all that easy, even if you did decide to do it. It's particularly difficult to time it for a particular need, such as avoiding something unpleasant. Also, it has a rather great effect on your life to have a child (not to mention how physically dangerous it is). You might as well suggest that it's quite easy for a man to get out of the military if he feels like it, just by chopping off a foot (or whatever would work). Since you mention the "desire" of women to be in a combat situation, I would like to shed some light on what that is like: When a unit goes to the field [ie, does their thing in an outdoor environment], the MEN invariably get stuck doing the manual labor of lugging 300 pound tents around, setting the tents up, and lugging crates of supplies around also. [...] According to my friend, this is not the way it was done in the Marines - people did whatever was appropriate to their position (admin, infantry, etc). In addition: * Plus, men in the military * are so silly -- if a woman is carrying something, they will often help * out their "weaker" brethren. Should the woman refuse this? Some do, * some don't. In the marines, if someone is having trouble carrying their * equipment, then everyone helps out -- the important thing is to keep * everyone together, and at the same pace. There are plenty "slackers" or * "non-hackers" (not talking about the computer type... *smile*) that * seem to always need help -- I've never seen a woman of this type, but * there probably are, nonetheless. [...] So maybe you're 2 female friends wanted to "be in on it" when the US was shooting at the fleeing Iraqis. How would they have felt if they were only allowed to shower ONCE EVERY TWO WEEKS for *six months* prior to that ??? I don't know how they would have felt, but why shouldn't they be allowed the opportunity? Your argument seems to be that they wouldn't like it, so it doesn't matter whether they are excluded from it or not. Well, the men don't like it either, from what I've heard, but how would they react if they were *not allowed* to be assigned to combat postions, while women were? I'm sure some would be happy with this, but I'm also sure that some would object strongly to such a rule. By the way, from my understanding of the military, they go to a lot of trouble to train people to do things their way, and they are allowed to order people to do this. This leads to the question of *why* the military (at least, the army, since the Marines seem to be different) doesn't require women to do the same things as men. This certainly doesn't sound like they're making an effort to treat everyone the same way, does it? If they were, presumably the person in charge would order the women to do their share of the work, just as they would a man who "just sat around" while the other men put up the tents and whatnot, right? It's certainly possible that this is because they don't think women are capable/competent to do all the work - and wouldn't this reflect on their evaluations and promotions? Muffy
mara@cmcl2.nyu.EDU (Mara Chibnik) (06/06/91)
In article <16830@helios.TAMU.EDU> willis@cs.tamu.edu (Willis Marti) writes: >As a kind of followup to the postings on women in the military, I'd like to >point out that the debate is focused on the wrong question. The issue >should not be : >"Women should be allowed to be in a combat unit if they so choose." >but rather >"The military should be allowed to assign women to combat units as it >chooses." [example deleted] >Does this restatement of the issue change/affect anyone's opinion? Not mine. (I believe that the armed forces should not discriminate on the basis of sex.) I should perhaps include the caveat that if the military sees fit regularly to keep combat troops entirely male (or female, for that matter), I might want to look into the reasons for that, and perhaps to protest them. -- cmcl2!panix!mara Mara Chibnik mara@dorsai.com Life is too important to be taken seriously.