From: c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen)
Subject: Re: Revenge of The Women In Combat thing....
Organization: The Nibelungenlied Incorporated
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 22:12:19 GMT

About this men vs women in de bashin', shootin' an' ackin' fing...

During my training in the Reserve Officers' Academy in Hamina, Finland, we
had one lecture about the subject. There were a given a good example of a
country which regularly had used women in actual combat but doesn't do it
any more: Israel. They had quitted putting women into frontline service
because of these three reasons:

1. Psychology. _Average_ men are more aggressive, cold-blooded, less emotional
   and more rational than _average_ women. True, there are women with psyche of
   a soldier but the men outpercent the women multiply in this case. In addit-
   ion, a group of men will very quickly organize itself into a strictly 
   hierarchical structure with a definite pecking order and organization, 
   whereas women tend to work on friendship and camraderie basis. The former is
   more suitable for combat duties, where the usefulness of a unit is directly
   proportional to its morale. And in dire situations, morale can be maintained
   only by strong, perhaps harsh discipline and with definite order of command,
   where each member of the structure knows his place in the hierarchy and
   command chain and obeys the orders of his superiors _without questions_.
   Democratic anrmy is a beautiful idea, but it just don't work in practise.
   And a cold, machine-like crushing army, where the members of the organizat-
   ion are just parts of the machinery, is a heck of a lot more efficient in
   actual combat than a loose group of human beings, where everyone are
   individuals and where emotions are expressed freely. Sad but true.

2. Libido. men and women tend to build emotional ties between each other and
   tend to fall in love. Now couples tend to protect each other and are less 
   willing to put themselves or each other in danger. If you were a sarge, 
   would you put your wife (a private in your platoon) in a special mission,
   which is crucial for the sake of warfare but would give little chances
   of survival for the detached unit ? Also, the very image and practice of
   women getting hit, wounded and killed in front of the very eyes of the men
   is an aqwful shock for the men's morale and the Israelis had too many ex-
   amples of rout for this reason. Third, the chances of intrigue between the
   individuals (remember, an army is, and must be, a totalitarian society,
   where the nerve pressure is high) and possible adultery, triangle dramas, 
   envy, grudges and jealousy are much greater than in a "normal" non-
   totalitarian society. An army, which wants to be an effective fighting mach-
   ine and where everyone march in the same direction, just can't afford this.

3. The enemy. The morale of enemy men rises sky-high when they know there are
   women in the combat thing amongst your troops. It means if they win, they
   have free prizes as prisoners, to which relieve their sexual pressures (in
   plain English: free flesh to rape, and nothing to worry with one's consc-
   cience, for they have shot towards you). The pleasure to rape a woman who
   has shot at you is much greater than to rape an innocent civilian, who has
   done nothing to harm you. A man can always kill his conscience as to explain
   the raping of an enemy woman warrior as a personal revenge. This last 
   chapter is ugly text, but it's still true.

Things to consider are also the greater raw physical power of the average men
vs. average women (in the Engineer Company, we carried usually, in addition
to our 35 kg full equipment, also four anti-tank mines of ten kilos attached
to our combat belts: two on the waists and two on the chest and we could make
some 30 km a day in dense forest on foot), the different physiology (the men
peedon't menstruate nor ovulate nor they do get pregnant and it's much easier 
to pee if you are man than if you are woman (lesser chances to catch any dis-
eases in the urinal organs in the very Spartan field conditions)), the greater
endurance of men than women and the ability to withstand continual pain and
pressure (yes, the pains of giving birth are terrible, but they are not contin-
uous: the Israelis themselves admit, that their woman soldiers tend to break
up more easily under pressure and continuous pain than men; the women can
stand better acute and short-term pain than men), and women tend to get nervous
more easily than men. 

Last but not least: women are more precious for the survival of the nation than
men. Only women can give birth and thus reproduce: one man can fertilize a
hell of a lot women, but a woman can be pregnant only by herself. Therefore
men are expendable and better suited for warfare, where one can easily die;
a nation, who sacrifies its women, is not likely to survive long.

Lt. JG/Naval Engineers/Finnish Navy

--++ Tuomas Viljanen                     ++ For a battle like Crecy, you do ++
  ++ Lahderanta 20 A 19                  ++ not need a military genius like ++
  ++ SF-02720 Espoo FINLAND              ++ Edward III. All you need is an  ++
  ++ 358-0-592175 or c34657b@saha.hut.fi ++ idiot like Duke of Alencon.     ++
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