From: clarka@netcom.com (Andrew Clark)
Subject: Women In Combat (long post with rebuttal)  
Followup-To: alt.war 
Summary: women should be permitted in combat 
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Distribution: worlD 
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 00:20:41 GMT

----- c34657b@saha.hut.fi (Tuomas Viljanen) writes:
>About this men vs women in de bashin', shootin' an' ackin' fing...

>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.  

True.  But a professional military is not made up of _average_ people.
I can see why a draft unit would be male-only, but if there are women
who can be excellent soldiers -- why exclude them because there aren't 
as many of them as men?  

By the way, there should be people in a military who are NOT cold-blooded
and aggressive -- enough to act as a limiting factor to prevent
atrocities and unnecessary battles that get in the way of the objective.
 
>   In addition, 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 frendship 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_.

Boot camp is designed to turn civilians into hierarchical creatures.  
Everyone (male or female) would operate on a hierarchical basis without
exception.  Females are equally capable of obeying orders -- and not     
incidentally, giving them.   

>   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.

This is true.  I disagree with your conclusion that women are (on the     
average even) incapable of serving under harsh discipline.

>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 ?

The military should have regulations preventing relationships in the chain
of command.  The US military has them today.    

>   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.

The image of anyone getting hit in front of you is searing.  This problem
should be addressed in training.  If men and women work together as equals
and members of the team, it's going to be a problem no matter who gets
killed.  Discipline (which is essential to any army) keeps morale from
breaking under these circumstances.  Men and women alike should recognize
that people really do die in war.

I wonder what would have happened to the US military in the Gulf War if 
it had taken 10,000 casualties as predicted.  Would units have crumbled? 
I don't think the kinder, gentler military theories have ever been 
tested on a wide scale in actual combat. 
 
>   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.

Guess what?  It happens with homosexuals in all-male forces too.  A well-
regulated army has both official and unofficial ways to deal with
disputes of this nature.  

>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.

>   A man can always kill his conscience as to explain
>   the raping of an enemy woman warrior as a personal revenge. 

On the other hand, the morale of (presumably macho) enemy males sinks to
all-time lows when a mixed unit kicks their collective asses.  Geneva
conventions aside, prisoners can expect no mercy from the enemy.  Male
prisoners can be raped as well (it doesn't happen as often, but it's
often even more devastating to the victims.)   
 
A unit with women in it will presumably fight harder to prevent this 
calamity from happening, by the way.  It also inhibits the temptation to
surrender even if the enemy guarantees your lives. 

>Things to consider are also the greater raw physical power of the average men
>vs. average women.

Your military should not be constructed on averages, but on requirements.
If a woman can carry 75 kg and move 30 km a day in dense forest on foot,
then she should qualify to be in your engineering unit.  There might not
be many of them . . . 

>the different physiology (the men don't menstruate nor ovulate 
>nor do they get pregnant and it's much easier to pee if you are man 
>than if you are woman (lesser chances to catch any diseases 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. 

Menstruation: not that big a deal.  The sanitary problems are trivial
     compared to everything else that has to be lugged around (and 
     sanitary napkins make excellent emergency bandages.)  One
     exception: women aren't likely to be in SEAL or underwater 
     demolition teams anytime soon for this reason.  Even small
     amounts of blood attract sharks . . . 
Ovulation/pregnancy: require female soldiers to wear Norplant
     anti-pregnancy implants and kick them out if they get pregnant.  
     Alternatively, make getting pregnant a court-martial offense.
     (It's the ARMY, you give up most of your rights when you join.) 
Urinary tract infections: good point.  Women do require a greater     
     degree of medical care (according to US Army medical statistics)
     that increases economic cost and downtime.  I recall that the
     difference is on the order of a few percent. 
Greater endurance of men: again, soldiers should be selected according to
     individual capability not averages.  Imagine the outcry in the USA
     if blacks were favored over whites in combat arms "because on the
     average, they're more violent."  [Flame disclaimer: I don't believe this
     this is true, I'm making a point.]   
Female nervousness: a cultural belief.  You can screen for hysterical
     soldiers during training, but combat does unpredictable things to
     people.  Some "macho men" fold, while the most unlikely people 
     turn out to be born warriors.  Armies have been notoriously poor
     at sifting the warriors out of the general population.

>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.

In prehistoric times, yes.  Women were essential to population replacement.
Modern warfare is over in days or weeks, not the fifteen years it takes for
a woman to produce another (male) warrior.  In modern battle, you are
fighting for something other than national survival -- in which case this
doesn't matter.  Or, like the Israelis, if you lose the battle your
nation will be annihilated -- at which point you'd better have everyone
you've got in battle while you still have a country to fight for.  

Now since there are disadvantages to having women in your force: to wit,
greater medical expenditures and an increased demand for training -- what 
advantages are there to having women in combat?

1) By including women in the pool of prospective soldiers, you get a larger
force than you would otherwise.

2) Women tend to learn quicker than men and don't have any military habits
to unlearn.  (Ask a US Marine Corps drill instructor sometime whether
women or men do better on the M-16 range.  Women, on the average, are
better shots after the same amount of training.)

3) You can take advantage of the cultural foibles of your opponent.  
Iraqi POWs were very respectful of female American MPs.  A special      
operations element composed of women can play civilian and escape notice
when guards would be instantly suspicious of several military-age men.

4) Female leaders use a different but equally effective management style.
In some ways, a female leader's greater compassion for the personnel
under her command is reflected by increased loyalty and morale.  There
is a delicate balance to be struck, but leadership is always like that. 

5) The political leaders of your military become painfully aware that
they cannot afford (for purely political reasons) to throw away 
military lives without a corresponding strategic or tactical advantage.
It's easy for politicians to say "they were doing their duty," where
males are involved since men like to fight anyway.  It's a bit harder
to explain why four women and seven men died because a politician 
screwed the pooch.  When casualties are broken down by gender, it
reminds people that military personnel are not mindless faceless goons
happy to die for their country. 

6) Women, on average, are potentially better pilots due to greater
resistance to G-force effects and better manual dexterity.  In spaceflight
where every pound of mass counts, women take up less weight and
consume fewer resources for the same amount of brainpower. 

I know this post has been long; I hope it was worth reading.  

>                     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.     ++
                                                          ^  
I'm curious.  What does this mean?    ---------------------
-- 
clarka@netcom.com     Andrew Clark     My ignorance is my own fault.
"We have virtual reality today: Pete Wilson lives in it." | Bad cop! 
"Macs are to computing what television is to journalism." | No donut! 
Secondary account at aclark@UCSD.EDU -- prefer mail at netcom site.   
Newsgroups: alt.war,soc.women,alt.war.vietnam