Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
The Department of Defense announced on Thursday that it has begun a review of some 230,000 combat rates, specialties, and positions that women are currently not allowed to serve in, and that by September of 2015 any service that wishes to retain all male combat units will be required to submit a request to be approved by the Secretary of Defense.
The announcement came shortly before Secretary Panetta turns over the reins of Defense, most likely to President Obama's announced successor of choice, former Republican Senator and Vietnam veteran Chuck Hagel.
By requiring a waiver from the Secretary himself, the policy sets the new default expectation that women can serve in all roles, unless some sort of exclusivity can be defended and is actively requested by a given branch.
Since the Pentagon is pondering this, let's do so ourselves: what, today, is a valid criteria for our military leaders to use in deciding whether or not to exclude women from some combat roles?
Since the mid-90s, women have been allowed to serve in a limited number of combat or support roles: service onboard navy surface combatants, as combat pilots in all services, and as corpsman (the "p" is silent, Mr. President, like in swimming). I have served alongside many fine officers and sailors who are women. I support women serving in uniform in many capacities.
So, it is true that, as Army Staff Sgt Jennifer Hunt says:
"Right before the IED went off, it didn't ask me how many push-ups or sit-ups I could do," said Ms. Hunt, one of the women who filed a lawsuit last year to challenge the ban. "Right now the women who are serving are being engaged in combat, so their physical restrictions aren't a barrier."
Though, we hasten to add, stating that women have been exposed to combat is not yet quite the same thing as saying that it is good that this has happened, or that we ought to expand the opportunity for this to be the case.
Some have suggested that whether or not a person has a penis has no impact on that person's ability to shoot straight. Agreed. A woman can be taught to pull the trigger on a modern combat rifle as accurately as a man. However, physical size does matter: a deck mounted .50 caliber machine gun on a naval vessel can be hard for smaller men to control. The same is true with larger caliber machine guns carried by infantrymen.
Others say testosterone plays a role in high stress situations like combat, making it more favorable to men. This is a reality that I won't deny. While women can certainly be fierce, they are fierce in a different way. Moreover, men also have a natural predisposition to be protective toward women. This instinct can alter the focus of a unit in the midst of a firefight. A similar instinct crops up whenever a member of the unit is wounded, but it is amplified in the case of a woman.
A third factor is the rigors of some specialties on the bodies of men and women. The bodies of men and women are built differently; physical activities affect them differently. The question here turns not so much on the quanta of pain a body can endure--most of us guys are very unlikely, even if wounded, to ever suffer the amount of pain a women feels in birth. Rather it turns on the fact that the amount of gear carried by an infantryman takes its toll.
Consider the stress fractures suffered by women who attempted to complete the USMC Infantry course this past year. No one will deny that these were strong women, and mentally tough. If women are, as a general rule, liable to suffer these injuries to a higher degree than men, and are more likely, therefore, on longer rotations in the field to be unable to fulfill their duties as often (through no fault of their own, but simply through the tolerance a body can stand under these conditions) and taking into account the time it takes to build small unit cohesion and the money it takes both to train an infantryman, as well as the medical cost of dealing with the injuries or benefits later down the line, do these factors not merit consideration? (We will refrain from speculation on the impact these rigors might have on a woman's ability to give birth.)
Perhaps you think these notions are outdated because of technological developments. In the future, that may be the case. At present, however, it seems fitting to point to a certain war in a mountainous central Asian country that no one expected but that requires patrols on foot more often than in armored vehicle.
If the objection is raised that women compete in the Olympics, are we not right to point out that mastering one's own body and body weight are not the same as an infantryman carrying equipment, armor, and weaponry into battle (often weighing 100 pounds or more in addition to his weight)?; or those of a special forces soldier under fire carrying another wounded man to safety while exfiltrating from his objective?
Another consideration is some of the physical realities front-line units often must endure. See this article by Ryan Smith, a former infantry officer in the Iraq war. These are the conditions of modern warfare, yes, in 2003:
The invasion was a blitzkrieg. The goal was to move as fast to Baghdad as possible. The column would not stop for a lance corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, or even a company commander to go to the restroom. Sometimes we spent over 48 hours on the move without exiting the vehicles. We were forced to urinate in empty water bottles inches from our comrades.
Many Marines developed dysentery from the complete lack of sanitary conditions. When an uncontrollable urge hit a Marine, he would be forced to stand, as best he could, hold an MRE bag up to his rear, and defecate inches from his seated comrade's face.
During the invasion, we wore chemical protective suits because of the fear of chemical or biological weapon attack. These are equivalent to a ski jumpsuit and hold in the heat. We also had to wear black rubber boots over our desert boots...Due to the heat and sweat, layers of our skin would peel off our feet. However, we rarely had time to remove our suits or perform even the most basic hygiene. We quickly developed sores on our bodies.
When we did reach Baghdad, we were in shambles. We had not showered in well over a month and our chemical protective suits were covered in a mixture of filth and dried blood. We were told to strip and place our suits in pits to be burned immediately. My unit stood there in a walled-in compound in Baghdad, naked, sores dotted all over our bodies, feet peeling, watching our suits burn. Later, they lined us up naked and washed us off with pressure washers.
I leave you to take from that what you will.
A final exigency is the sexual. In my experience, it is impossible to place several hundred young people of both sexes in high stress positions and send them to sea for months on end and not know, somewhere in your heart of hearts, that at least some of them are sexually active, and that this can have consequences for unit readiness, both physical and psychological, and might undermine the chain of command. These conditions can be mitigated, but not eliminated.
This list is not exhaustive, and clever Ricochetti will add their own to it.
Ultimately, I see questions like this through the following lens. At the very beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle reminds us that "Every act aims at some good."
If this is so, what good is being aimed at by the policy? Can you tell me with a straight face that it is improved combat effectiveness?
[H/T to Ricochet's King Prawn for breaking the news to the Member Feed]
*If you are among the members who knows enough Latin to know that the proper plural of phallus is not phalluses, gold star, good for you. But, really, don't write about it in the comments....
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Comments:
Oct '12
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
I didn't know that, but I LOVE alliterative titles!
May '12
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Great post, although you are an early nominee for 2013's War and Peace award.
Questions to address the post:
Full disclosure: I served in the first U.S. Navy F-14 squadron with women and deployed to Operation Southern Watch in Iraq.
I think yours is a phenomenal post, but like most things in our nation we have lost the courage to ask the relevant questions and start the debate from its logical starting point.
Nov '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Thanks. I was hoping to hear from some of you military folks about this. It sounds like a terrible thing to me.
Dec '12
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Full disclosure: I am a retired USMC Infantry Officer Mustang (that is prior enlisted - so got to go to boot camp twice, Paris Island & Quantico). Also did one tour of duty with Blackwater in Afghanistan. Most Blackwater patriotic mercenaries were former Marines (recon/grunts), SEALs, and Green Berets.
Apparently the ovary does not do well in front line units - so at the end of the day this may not be about the penis. If you think we need women in all career fields (MOS) then please link to this article written by a Marine Captain describing what her deployment to Afghanistan did to her body - one change is that she is now infertile. I could just maybe understand women in the infantry if all male U.S. citizens were dead.
http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal
As mentioned in the post, USMC experimented by allowing two female LTs to attend Infantry Officers Course. One did not finish the first day and the other was dropped because she could not complete two required training events “due to medical reasons.” See no national security advantage by this social engineering.
Semper Fi
Edited on January 24, 2013 at 1:12pmMar '11
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Guilty as charged on that count--I violated my own ~700 word rule on this one post. I won't make it a habit.
Mar '11
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Simon Templar: then please link to this article written by a Marine Captain describing what her deployment to Afghanistan did to her body - one change is that she is now infertile. I could just maybe understand women in the infantry if all male U.S. citizens were dead.
http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal
Having heard stories like this myself, I merely alluded to them in the piece above (it was long enough already), but I know that this can be a factor for some women.
Dec '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
I can't find a picture of a missile tube access door on a Trident submarine, but let me describe it for you. It's a hole about 20 inches in diameter. Just inside the hole, about an arm's length up is where one of the missile electronics packages is mounted in the missile. This particular package is required to be removed when not at a higher state of readiness. Because of safety and security reasons, any time a technician does work inside a missile another must watch everything he does. Of course, the watcher must be watched as well, and to verify he isn't doing anything he's not supposed to, his hands are physically on the person he's watching perform the work. The guy doing the work is laying on his back working overhead. The guy watching is laying on top of him (both sticking torso into this 20 in. hole) with his hands usually in the chest or shoulders of the worker. As men (some even homophobic) it takes all our professionalism to do this. I can't imagine doing this job with women.
Jul '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Unfortunately, this is purely political. There is not a shred of evidence that women can endure the tribulations of infantry action. It isn't the movies.
Which, unfortunately, taint reality all over the place, with almost every one having some "courageous woman" as part of the unit, fighting for truth and justice. The real world is simply not like that.
Physical difficulties are addressed elsewhere. But there is a psychological one also. Killing isn't a "fun" thing. Most men have to have special training to be capable of the kind of killing an infantry unit is required to do. Women can perform the more impersonal killing (Apache, F-18, cannons, tanks); that doesn't require the personal, individual involvement in killing a human. Infantry does. This is not an easily described issue, but terribly important. Women bring life into the world; men don't. Taking life is more difficult for women's psyche than man's.
This is not a SD issue. Women often defend their young, loved ones, etc. far more vehemently than men - another "protective" psych issue. But that's not infantry.
I am terribly afraid women (and men) will again die on the altar of feminism.
Dec '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Crow's Nest
Guilty as charged on that count--I violated my own ~700 word rule on this one post. I won't make it a habit. · 1 hour ago
Nothing wrong with a longer post if it's written in such a way to make it easy to read, entertaining, and informative. I'd say that this post is all three.
Sounds like a good time!
Dec '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Funny you should mention that. I'm in the process of watching Battlestar Galatica again (so say we all!) and when I read the initial post I thought about Starbuck (who I guess was a guy in the original series?) who is a strong female fighter pilot in the show. Females can take any military role that a man can.
However, the females are all addressed as "sir". Make of that what you will.
Nov '11
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
I didn't even notice the length. I sometimes skim longer posts, but I actually read it all the way through.
Jul '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Britanicus
Funny you should mention that. I'm in the process of watching Battlestar Galatica again (so say we all!) and when I read the initial post I thought about Starbuck (who I guess was a guy in the original series?) who is a strong female fighter pilot in the show. Females can take any military role that a man can.
However, the females are all addressed as "sir". Make of that what you will. · 1 minute ago
Mostly what I make of that is that it's a movie. That's what "special effects" are all about - to create things that can't be done in real life.
And in Castle the female captain demands to be called "Sir" also. But that, too, is film.
Mar '11
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Britanicus
Funny you should mention that. I'm in the process of watching Battlestar Galatica again (so say we all!) and when I read the initial post I thought about Starbuck (who I guess was a guy in the original series?) who is a strong female fighter pilot in the show. Females can take any military role that a man can.
I like BSG for a number of reasons, not least of which is because a lot of the jargon they use is pretty accurate to how the real thing sounds. Somebody got some good advice there.
There are some female fighter pilots now, so I don't have an issue with this aspect of Starbuck's character, or with them serving in our military.
But, as a side note to the main topic, what always drove me nuts re:BSG and Starbuck was that she's not just a great pilot, somehow she's also a commando (same with Apollo et al.) storming enemy ships because she's the fleet's best sniper who can't be left behind.....I know, I know, its a television show.....
May '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
If women are to be in combat, let them do it their own way. Let them serve separately and in accordance with their own capacities. Many have called for equal standards. It makes more sense to me to have all-female units of women who fight like women.
Nov '11
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
May I take a contrarian view?
The seems to have two aspects: the physical, the social and the political.
Human females are, on average, smaller than human males. You see this in other species too (any biologist is welcome to name the word for this which escapes me at the moment). For example, I have two cats, a male and a female, and the full grown male is just larger than the full grown female.
However, there's a huge diversity in the size and shapes of humans, especially in America where our population is so genetically diverse.
My understanding is that the US military has height and weight standards, and that certain military occupations have even higher standards. For example, the special forces schools are more physically demanding. Not every man meets those standards.
However, as a function of statistics in a nation with 300+ million people, there are going to be women who are physically able to meet those high standards.
If the standards remain the same as they are now, which are high for a reason, and overcoming all other barriers, shouldn't a woman be allowed to serve in a combat unit?
Mar '11
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Fred Cole
I didn't even notice the length. I sometimes skim longer posts, but I actually read it all the way through. · 12 minutes ago
Thanks, but this is long for me--I do tend to be long-winded when I write, yes, but I also try to cut it way down for Ricochet. I cut a couple of times and then had to run off to accomplish some other tasks today.
Of course, that's why we're here! But I'm not going to hog up the comment thread, so I think one our other members can address your questions re: the physical standards. If no one does in a while, I'll come back and offer some more on that.
Edited on January 24, 2013 at 4:15pmApr '12
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
Must admit this is a very effective means of disrupting and debilitating our military effectiveness, and I believe that is the objective.
Nov '11
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
The social aspect I understand, and it seems to have two aspects to itself: fraternization and professionalism.
As far as fraternization goes, that train left the station a long time ago. There are women around and people will do what they're gonna do. Frankly, I'm always surprised there isn't more of it.
And if you think that if you put a group of men a long ways from home with no women around and no sexual activity is going on ever, then you're fooling yourself.
With regards to professionalism, I have enough trust in the professionalism of the United States military's discipline to not worry about it. There were concerns before racial integration that there'd be a problem, and those same concerns happened before DADT was repealed. There'll always be incidents, but that's why military discipline exists.
Sep '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies
If women are to be in combat, let them do it their own way. Let them serve separately and in accordance with their own capacities. Many have called for equal standards. It makes more sense to me to have all-female units of women who fight like women.
Edited on January 24, 2013 at 4:20pmSep '10
Re: Phalluses, Phalanxes, and Fallacies