2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumGOP Congressman: Women In Infantry Roles Could ‘Impair’ Missions Because Of Their ‘Nature’
By Zack Beauchamp posted from ThinkProgress Security on Jan 9, 2013 at 11:30 am
Women are physically unfit to serve in combat, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) claimed during a Tuesday appearance on the Laura Ingraham radio show. Cotton, who was last seen suggesting that Iraq might have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, recognized female accomplishments in non-infantry combat roles like helicopter pilot and that women have fought and performed well in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Cotton nonetheless concludes that women should be legally prohibited from competing with men for infantry combat positions:
Listen:
-snip-
Cotton appears to assume that allowing women to serve in the infantry would necessitate a double standard in physical testing for male and female soldiers, but thats not so. A Marine pilot program training women as combat officers subjects them to the same grueling physical training as their male classmates. Though the two women in that program didnt pass (along with 26 of the 107 men enrolled in the course), many women are more than physically capable of performing in combat roles. Indeed, a survey of several NATO allies that allowed women in frontline roles in Afghanistan found that female officers caused no significant problems, and actually performed better than their male counterparts in intelligence-gathering roles. Preventing women who pass the same physical tests as their male counterparts from serving in the combat infantry is sexism, plain and simple.
When the Department of Defense loosened its prohibition on women in combat in early 2012, then-Presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA) said he had concerns about women serving in combat roles because of the emotions that were involved.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/01/08/1418451/gop-congressman-womens-nature-means-they-should-be-banned-from-infantry/
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)They just keep digging a deeper hole with women....
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)to serve in congress.
MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)Neither should men.
yellowcanine
(35,702 posts)Newt Gingrich's Merry Giraffe Hunters
"If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes."
http://www.rusbasan.com/Humor/Newt.html
A visit to this link is well worth it just to see the "informal poll" which is hysterical.
NewJeffCT
(56,829 posts)does that mean I'm really a woman? Or, I'm gay and didn't know it? And, how do I go out giraffe-hunting if I'm wallowing like a pig in a trench for 30 days?
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)And this explains the utter lack of giraffes in my neighborhood. I've just been doing my part.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)We have the best men in the world here. I haven't seen a giraffe walking down the street in ages!
yellowcanine
(35,702 posts)Still funny though.
Paladin
(28,277 posts)You can work on the 21st century a little further down the line.
These numbskulls just can't help themselves, can they?
alp227
(32,065 posts)Paladin
(28,277 posts)all american girl
(1,788 posts)Women go with combat troops now. They are in convoys moving stuff from one place to another, with the men, getting shot at. They wear the same armor gear that the men wear and carry the same weapons. Get over yourselves.
Rant off.
grilled onions
(1,957 posts)You used to read stories from GI'S in the "Nam Zone and they had first hand experience with the females of the land. They were mean,ruthless and got the job done without a fancy uniform,fretting over hormone issues or worrying about the man/woman pecking order of the day. What a woman does not excel in one area she can make it up for in another. The "barefoot in the kitchen" crowd seem to look for any excuse to keep women under their thumb. Independence is a threat to their little world.
Rozlee
(2,529 posts)to do with being able to carry out the mission of killing? It's like the fuckin' NRA says. A gun is the great equalizer if you're small or a woman. It doesn't take a steroidal pumped up guy with shoulders as wide as a damn door to kill the enemy. We got our asses kicked out of Vietnam by guys that were a lot less bulky than ours were. While our guys were doing pull ups, theirs were learning how to stalk the jungle quietly without sounding like a herd of rhinos. I was only a nurse in the Gulf Wars, but I didn't see how push-ups and upper body strength helped those guys that went through our evac out any. In my opinion, you stood a chance of making a better target if you were big and pumped rather than small and with less mass.
LiberalFighter
(51,170 posts)Always Randy
(1,060 posts)and most yoga practitioners can hold an asana longer than most military strongmen----and it means more to have that lean strength
cecilfirefox
(784 posts)And some of it is, I think, not totally illegitimate. Issues arising of fraternization, what happens when the soldiers are captured, what sort of degradation might an enemy put upon female soldiers, and how that violence on the female soldiers can be used against male captives, etc. You get my idea. Although I think Representative Cotton is an asshat on most of his general views, and I'm not particularly against allowing women into infantry positions, I think there are some legitimate issues to be raised.
* Ducks for cover! *
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Jakes Progress
(11,123 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)craigmatic
(4,510 posts)like the men? If you put on that uniform you should have to face the same dangers as everyone else. If you're not willing to then you shouldn't be in the military.