Women in combat

Thank you for accepting the challenge. Before I begin, I would like to say that I am not sexist and in no way would like to offend women. First, my opponent addresses physical readiness and argues that women physically capable of serving in combat positions. To support, this he brings up examples of 5 women who were able to achieve great physical feats. I find this almost silly. You cannot base an entire gender off of 5 women who are exceptions. That's like saying that since there are women who do heavy lifting and can lift more weight than most men, then women are stronger than men. In fact, physical standards have been lowered in order to help women get into the Marines because over half of them failed the original test. http://www.thedailybeast.com... "including women in combat roles would not only serve to advance gender equality by removing institutionally discriminatory practices, but doing so would also be 'a valuable enhancement of military effectiveness and national security.'" The military is not made to help genders be equal. The military is made to effectively protect and help a nation achieve its goals. I read the article my opponent provided to support this claim and it is very vague and opinionated. It has no research or data to support the claim that women "enhance military effectiveness" and uses 5 women as examples that women can be on par with military standards. If this was thousands of women, then that would be valid data, but 5 is far too little to draw valid conclusions. Here is a video in which a female marine describes her experiences. She says that even though she performed only a portion of what her male comrades were doing, she still faced serious physical stress. This stress caused her estrogen levels to plummet, which led to her infertility. After her deployment, not only did she stop producing estrogen, but she also lost 17 lbs and had muscle atrophy. Don't forget that this woman was amazing in training (just like the women my opponent spoke of), but her body could not handle real combat. https://www.mca-marines.org... http://www.patheos.com... Here is another female ex-veteran who explains that the battlefield isn't a place for women to be. "The best woman is still no match for the best man, and most of the men she"d be fireman-carrying off the battlefield will be at least 100 lbs heavier than her with their gear on." Even with having to carry 100 lbs less than the men, the women still had a lot of trouble. http://www.westernjournalism.com... On the subject of physical strength, it is also proven that the average woman has 60% of the physical strength of the average man. http://www.bible-researcher.com... Even on a biological level, men are better prepared for combat. Men have thicker skin and grow muscle much faster than women. You can even take a look at nature, it's the males that always fight. Whether it's for territory, or for mates, the males are always the ones engaging in combat. (Except for rare exceptions that I may not be aware of). http://www.menscience.com... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... There is also a problem with mixing genders. It is inevitable that having both genders in such close quarters would cause problems. The battlefield is not a place for relationships and sex, but it will happen no matter how much we try to avoid it. It is a problem that the military does not have to take upon itself if it refuses women access to the battlefield. It sounds harsh, but let's compare this to uni-sex vs. mixed schools. Uni-sex schools perform significantly higher on standard exams since they do not have the distraction from the opposite gender. http://www.singlesexschools.org... Think about the fact that 1 in 10 women get pregnant while in the military. That is very high and sex should be the last thing on a soldier's mind. I'm not saying its always the woman's fault, I'm just saying that mixing the sexes has an obvious negative effect. http://articles.chicagotribune.com... Menstruation must also be considered. This is a process that causes women to lose half of their physical strength and also results in erratic changes in mood/emotional state. This could amount to an absolute breakdown during combat which could not only contribute to the harm/death of the individual, but could also undermine fellow soldiers who were depending on the individual. http://www.everydayhealth.com... http://www.westernjournalism.com... I await my opponent's response.