Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996
Subject: COMMENT: Physical Standards for Military Service
From: W. L. Salvatore

Then I trust everyone here agrees that standards in the military must be *absolutely* equal ... with no discrimination in combat pack loads/weights, as just one example, between the sexes.

?? :-)

Lou Coatney, right, Lou, it's just a matter of who can get the job done most effectively; frex if smaller people tend to have faster reflexes and (clearly) require less weight in the way of seating/anti-g/ejection systems, life-support equipment, and so forth, that has to be balanced against any putative advantage male pilots might tend to have in spatial visualization, in deciding whether the Joint Strike Fighter should be designed to allow for an average pilot height of (say) 5'8" as opposed to one of (say).5'5". or a muscular woman of female-average height might make a better ammo loader in a tank crew than a muscular man of male-average height, so given appropriate recruitment incentives the pool of potential ammo-loaders might be larger among women than among men.

also, the requirements need to be reasonably related to the job, for instance the fact that the difference between the within-body position of CG makes it harder for a woman than for a man to do leg-lifts likely has no bearing on ability to do key-boarding, so it's not clear that some arbitrary standard (legitimated only by hoary tradition) for number of leg-lifts, which men in general find it easier to satisfy than do women in general, is relevant in today's more technical military (of course some minimum standard demonstrating reasonable physical fitness might well still be appropriate), although i recognize the potential for relevance of the position that everyone in the military needs to be able to be of use in the conducting of a last-ditch or emergency defense.

remember, the American eagle is not the one whose combat against the Bear will likely get the more simulation from now on .....
W. L. Salvatore (known to Bruno Sinigaglio as "Cannon Fodder")

Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996
From: Val Eads

Will Lou, or some other knowledgeable person, please explain to this benighted civilian how males who range from 5' tall to 6.5' tall and from skrawny to beefy all pull or carry the same literal weight? I think Carbajal was better, or at least more sophisticated and interesting to watch, than Tyson [both Michaels FYI] but for obvious reasons you don't make a direct comparison between them in the ring. If a difference of seven lbs constitutes a weight class for male boxers, it would seem necessary, not to mention rational, that soldiers who may differ by more than 100 lbs would require a gradation in the physical demands placed on them. This is a point that has nothing to do with the sex of said soldiers, but one assumes that you do want to get them to the front alive.

Spare me the Steve Prefontaine syndrome please. [A runner. When Francie Larrieu set a record he felt compelled to remark that he could run several times the distance at her pace.] Val Eads

Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996
From: Lois Shawver

I think that even if people agree that the miliary must be *absolutely* equal in its treatment of men and women, it would be intersting to explore the difficulties, or disadvatages, of having the military be absolutely equal in their treatment of the genders. For example, does it set up women who achieve equality to be treated as not a real woman? Can that ever be a problem in today's military? And, looking elsewhere, if women have to work harder than men to achieve that equality in terms of performance, does that ever cause resentment?

..Lois Shawver

Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996
From: Lee R. Unterborn

In reading all this discussion about height, small size and strength, I have to remind people that Audie Murphy, the Congresssional Medal of Honor winner in WWII, just barely made it into the Army because he was very short and scrawny. It didn't seem to matter in combat for him. Also, for many years, the Soviet Army had to use short soldiers in its armoured forces because of the low height and cramped space of its tanks. In Vietnam, small American soldiers were often selected as tunnel rats because their small size was an asset in the job. Also remember in past centuries soldiers and sailors were considerabley smaller in size on the average than the population today. So unless a person is the height that would make them a "little person"(gee I am so politically correct) height to me is not a controlling factor in most cases on the battle field. Overall physical strength is a far more important factor. Its true that many women lack physical strength, but this is something that is probably do more to cultural factors than gender itself, our culture is not a physically fit one anyway, and in the case of women it does not encourage them to be muscular. Physical strength can be increased through diet, exercise and proper training, and if women applicants to the military are given this there should be little problem about their physical strength on the battlefield.

Lee R. Unterborn

Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996
From: Val Eads

In response to questions asked: "Fellow" is not a sex-specific word. Its original meaning was companion [fellow is a genuine English word; companion was Latin]. In Middle English it was still used clearly of either sex. I can't remember when it changed.

In response to questions not asked, but what the hey: "Guy" was also originally from a sex-neutral word, ie, the Norman-French for "guide." Again, I don't know when this changed. While we're at it, a thousand years ago one could honestly say that "man" meant the whole human race; there were specific words for males and females when one wished to specify sex. There were also compounds equivalent to male-man and female-man; this latter is till with us in the form "woman."

Sex (as though this had to be explained) is what you're born with. It is a sexual characteristic that women tend to be smaller, less muscular, more fuel efficient than men. This related to the primary sexual purpose of motherhood.

Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996
From: Dorothy H. Mackey

I believe this strength thing is over rated. The AF requires women to be able to lift 70 lbs over their shoulders to be able to get into aircraft maintenance or a bomb loader. I have loaded bombs with my former troops, its a group effort, and maintenance troops have little wagon carts for their tool boxes. Technology wise since the 80's the development of plastics has made planes stronger and lighter. The weight of the packs aren't the point.....maybe its just an excuse who's rational is coming to an end. Let's hope so. If the pentagon leadership continues to find ways to lock women out of jobs

that they are qualified to do based not on the current lame excuses of; lifting weight, protecting females, they should be at home....maybe it's time for them to step down. One of the basic principles of war is get the best and the brightest to win the war decisively. I am not sure what is blurring the military leaderships vision on women in combat but they need to review the ultimate goal, and unfog their brains. Dorothy H. Mackey

Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996
From: Dorothy H. Mackey

First, you are making presumptions that don't apply. Sorry, but from my experience most military women have run circles around their male counterparts. It was said in service, that it took a women twice as much work to be recognized the same as their male counterpart. There will always be the woman who use their bodies, or who don't care. But, from observation and experience women did do everything that the men did. I witnessed that being a competent women has nothing to do with giving up your feminine attributes. That is a stereotypical view. I have found that both sexes strengths and weakness' were a perfect melt, what the men did not have to pull off the job, the women contributed, and visa versa. It is no different with all male units, not all males were equally talented.Team work is just that, and many of the men and women in service with leadership that supports providing the best military forces realizes the contributions of both genders to a unit. Let's take a step back and see this in a new light. Dorothy H. Mackey

On Thu, 27 Jun 1996, Lou Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu wrote:

Then I trust everyone here agrees that standards in the military must be *absolutely* equal ... with no discrimination in combat pack loads/weights, as just one example, between the sexes.

It think that even if people agree that the miliary must be *absolutely* equal in its treatment of men and women, it would be intersting to explore the difficulties, or disadvatages, of having the military be absolutely equal in their treatment of the genders. For example, does it set up women who achieve equality to be treated as not a real woman? Can that ever be a problem in today's military? And, looking elsewhere, if women have to work harder than men to achieve that equality in terms of performance, does that ever cause resentment?

..Lois Shawver

Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996
From: Gene Moser

Thanks for the support, Val. Actually I'm aware that "fellow" is gender neutral. I'm also aware of the misuse of "gender". People do not have "gender" - words do. Specifically "gender" refers to the masculine, feminine or neuder designation of pronouns (and a very few nouns) in English and in nouns, pronouns and articles in many foreign languages. It has some very strange inconsistencies - as an example the German word for "girl" is neuder. This is one of the things which bother me about doing away with "he" as the pronoun of choice when one doesn't know. The current PC "he/she" is awkward; the use of "their" is grammatically incorrect. Yet I understand the female point of view because whenever I hear or read "A teacher may do whatever "she" wants to..." I want to say "Hold on " This is totally off base for Minerva - but what we need is a new pronoun which is gender neutral - not"it", which refers to inanimate objects, but a pronoun which refers to living, sexual creatures but refers to them in a sexual vacuum.
Gene Moser

Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996
From: Carol Kocian

Lee R. Unterborn wrote,

... Also remember in past centuries soldiers and sailors were considerabley smaller in size on the average than the population today.

Sorry for the tangent, but a comparison of soldiers' heights from the American Revolution against heights of the late 20thC has been made. Rev War soldiers were only two inches shorter on average. "People were a lot shorter back then" is a frequently repeated myth. People were only a little bit shorter back then.

-Carol Kocian

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