[Way OT] Military opporutinities for the fairer sex

[Hand of Evil]

Talk to a rep of the Army, they would have a list and details.

A Xerox contact of mine was in the signal corpe mostly dealing in codes and battlefield communations.

 

[giant catfish]

I notice that you have a joint canadian citizenship. In Canada, legally the only military career that a woman can not(legally) gain employment in is submariner, which is just as well since the submarines we bought from the british leak. There is, however, a great deal of predujice against female officers for infantry, though you can generally find women enlisted as infantry men. Send me an email if you would like to know more about the canadian military.

 

[Rashak Mani]

I still dont get why you dont join the Finnish armed forces... they do have a good historical past Dont know in relation to women thou.

As for the women in combat positions... remember that its not possible mostly due to us men being too much into Males protecting females attitude. Israel tried and failed in this respect. If those tough and rude women of israel cant make it in combat... who can ?

Only solution would be to put all-women units into combat... but then the Male protection would make High echelon commanders NOT put that unit into danger.... and so forth.

I hope your tech skills are high... nowadays military jobs are less and less grunt type stuff and more and more technical. If you have good technical skills or computer knowledge its much easier to get a job.

 

[Xaven]

I can help out for the Army. People have been saying that you could join the intelligence community, or be a linguist. I am in intelligence, and I know for a fact that you CANNOT get a security clearance if you have citizenship with another country. Both intelligence and linguists require clearances, so that takes you out of those pictures. Same with working with signal. Requires security clearance. Basically, the only jobs that someone with a dual citizenship could get is supply or combat arms, and seeing as you are a female, the combat arms is not an issue. Which basically leaves you with supply. I don't think you would want to join for that, so it would probably be better off finding military experience somewhere else. Those are the options for the army, mind you, I am not sure how the rest of the branches work it, but I know that you would not be able to get a clearance, no matter where you went.

DM Matt, you hit the nail right on the head: morale. I have no problems with females being in the military. The issue is that females are not required to do anywhere near the standards of males. Plus, the military has taken Equal Opportunity to the point where it is the exact opposite: females can do whatever thy want, but if a male makes a joke, it is over. It really is that bad. As another bullet, most of the females that I have met (not the officers, surprisingly) have this sense of self-importance, as if they honor the unit, or anyone else for that matter, by being in that unit. I argue over this with my best friend that I work with (who is female, btw) about how she subconsciously expects to be treated better that the males that we work with. The fact that it happens is another bad thing. She doesn't honestly try to get over on things, but she gets upset when she doesn't.

I know I was rambling, but you would be better off not joining the military, go for some kind of a civilian job.

 

[Celebrim]

"Its too bad that you might have some useful comments to contribute, but you tag yourself as a ideologue to be ignored like this."

Well, I'm sorry I don't agree with your ideology, but I think it is highly unfair and somewhat tragic to label me an ideologue for stating that women physically are not designed like men. Am I the one defending an ideology in the face of all logic? I can remember the third string varsity squad playing a pick up game against our state champion women's team and absolutely dominating them. Does _you_ think that this lessens the accomplishment of our state championship women's basketball team? There are no women players who would look anything but foolish forced to guard an NBA center like say Shaq - which is why you don't see morale boosting games where the WNBA plays a college team for the good of women's sports. (For that matter there aren't many men who look anything but foolish forced to guard Shaq, but that is precisely the point.) The same reasoning motivates the Serena sisters to decline to play the Senior Men's champion. In too many eyes - even women's eyes - it would belittle their otherwise obvious talent and in this still fragile social age provide too much ammunition to the small mind people still judging a person solely by the content of their biceps.

Perhaps I may be surprised and there may yet be a day when a woman plays in the NFL, but it certainly won't be in the position of Defensive Linemen. I'm sorry if you find that hard to take. At such time as women can compete with men in every physical position on equal terms, I will apologize for assessing what ought to be obvious any time one watches the Olympics. But until such time, I will continue to hold an opinion which to the best of my knowledge is grounded in fact not fantasy. I would be overjoyed to be found wrong, for it would greatly simplify the logics of equality so necessary to our social health - for instance I wouldn't be insulted by people like you and you in turn would not be insulted by me. Am I truly the one unduly emotionally attached to a position, or am I the one being dismissed because my thinking is 'so like a man'?

I honestly think that Hollywood, whatever it's good motivation may be, is doing women a disservice by teaching them that they are the equal of men because they can equal or best the physical accomplishments of men - as if physical accomplishments were the best judge of what was valuable in a person. Isn't that the basis of the chauvanistic socially corrosive philosophy that we are still trying to overcome?

 

[Sixchan]

"Its too bad that you might have some useful comments to contribute, but you tag yourself as a ideologue to be ignored like this."

Well, I'm sorry I don't agree with your ideology, but I think it is highly unfair and somewhat tragic to label me an ideologue for stating that women physically are not designed like men. Am I the one defending an ideology in the face of all logic? I can remember the third string varsity squad playing a pick up game against our state champion women's team and absolutely dominating them. Does _you_ think that this lessens the accomplishment of our state championship women's basketball team? There are no women players who would look anything but foolish forced to guard an NBA center like say Shaq - which is why you don't see morale boosting games where the WNBA plays a college team for the good of women's sports. (For that matter there aren't many men who look anything but foolish forced to guard Shaq, but that is precisely the point.) The same reasoning motivates the Serena sisters to decline to play the Senior Men's champion. In too many eyes - even women's eyes - it would belittle their otherwise obvious talent and in this still fragile social age provide too much ammunition to the small mind people still judging a person solely by the content of their biceps.

Perhaps I may be surprised and there may yet be a day when a woman plays in the NFL, but it certainly won't be in the position of Defensive Linemen. I'm sorry if you find that hard to take. At such time as women can compete with men in every physical position on equal terms, I will apologize for assessing what ought to be obvious any time one watches the Olympics. But until such time, I will continue to hold an opinion which to the best of my knowledge is grounded in fact not fantasy. I would be overjoyed to be found wrong, for it would greatly simplify the logics of equality so necessary to our social health - for instance I wouldn't be insulted by people like you and you in turn would not be insulted by me. Am I truly the one unduly emotionally attached to a position, or am I the one being dismissed because my thinking is 'so like a man'?

I honestly think that Hollywood, whatever it's good motivation may be, is doing women a disservice by teaching them that they are the equal of men because they can equal or best the physical accomplishments of men - as if physical accomplishments were the best judge of what was valuable in a person. Isn't that the basis of the chauvanistic socially corrosive philosophy that we are still trying to overcome?

Well, can you prove that there is no one woman on the entire Earth that could not meet the Physical requirements of being a SEAL?

 

[Celebrim]

Of course not. But, if there was one, she could certainly make a fortune in show biz, even if she was a worse actor than Arnold. There would be no shortage of women and men who would pay to see a women tear off handcuffs with her bare hands, snap bundles of little league sluggers, defeat the local Gold's Gym in military press competitions, crash through block's of ice, rip in half the New York phone book, and run up flights of stairs with three hundred pound logs on their backs (etc.).

Let's just drop it. With no way of actually knowing me, or who I am, I have no way of proving that I shouldn't be swept over into the classification box of narrow minded bigot. Sooner or later, I'm going to hurt someone's feelings, or someone even more insensitive than myself is going to spam us with a lengthy message of real hate.

 

[hong]

Daily Slayers Lyric post, part the 7th

or someone even more insensitive than myself is going to spam us with a lengthy message of real hate.

Kujikenai Kara!
Megumi Hayashibara and Masami Okui

Uruwashiki STYLISH monku no tsukeyou mo nai wa
Gokujou no SMILING tsubura na hitomi wa tsumi ka na
Doji na bamen datte ururu to kawashitara
Dare mo ga ichikoro de yurushitaku natchau watashi no bitoku

Hokorashiki MY LIFE itsu mo pojitibu ga porishii
Dare yori mo MINDFUL megumareta kono sainou de
Yoyuu no mainichi wo sugosu sono tsuite ni
Warui yatsu wo katazukete yuku watshi wa ochame na hiroin

Kujikenaikara! MY HEART
Ashita e tsukisusunde yuku
Kujikenaikara! MY HEART
Mune ga kibou de afureru
Yuzurenai nagasenai owarenai yume e to
Neraisadamereba kitto
PEACE OF MIND, TO BE

Kaguwashiki DELICIOUS utsukushii hodo no shokuyoku
Saikou no DIAMOND ai yori okane ga genjitsu
Bishoujo da kara tte suriyotte kita nara
Itadaku no wa watashi no hou yo, kakugo shite nogashite agenai

Kujikenaikara! MY HEART
Doko e mo tsukisusunde yuku
Kujikenaikara! MY HEART
Kono mi wo kaketaku naru no
Yuzurenai nagasenai owarenai yume e to
Neraisadamereba kitto
PEACE OF MIND, TO BE



Hong "even more insensitive than Celebrim" Ooi

 

[Green Knight]

In the United States women are allowed to do anything but be in frontline combat. We just recently were allowed to fly fighter jets. We're not allowed in the special forces either like Navy Seals. So for country that emphasizes equality, there's not much for women in the military.

The US Military isn't supposed to be a social experiment. It's got one purpose and one purpose only: To defend this country. And women in frontline combat detracts, not adds, to that ability.

I don't know about you, but it doesn't matter what gender you are, the gun doesn't care who fires it. Also if you know martial arts very well, its not strength that makes the best fighter, it is speed, agility, and intelligence to know where to hit for maximum damage with little effort.

Somebody else already tackled the ridiculousness of this statement. Suffice to say, the average male enemy soldier, when he gets in close with a female soldier, will absolutely cream her. There's more to war then just pointing and shooting a gun. As someone else pointed out, there's also carrying around an 80 lb. pack for hours on end. And just because this is the 21st century doesn't mean the combat doesn't ever get close up and personal. And in such instances, you're pretty much dooming the female soldier to certain death.

Somebody else made the inane comment that women being smaller is a good thing, as they're smaller targets. Tell that to their 200 lb. compatriot, who's been wounded but can't be taken out of the battlefield because the female soldier is to small to carry him out.

There's also 2 little known (Apparently they are little known, as they haven't occured to anyone on this thread) physical conditions which are unique to women. Periods and pregnancies. What good is a woman in combat who's currently having her period? Bad enough having a women lug around an 80 lb. pack, but how far do you think she'll be able to march while she's having her period? How well will she fight during that time? Will she need to carry extra weight in her pack? Gotta carry some spare tampons, after all. Gotta worry about infection, too, especially when wading through some nasty river in the middle of a jungle.

And if you got a woman who gets pregnant then she's out of commission for pretty much a year, if not more. There's a perfect example of this during the Gulf War. A war which only lasted a handful of months, yet one Navy ship which had over 30 women onboard came back with ALL BUT TWO of those women pregnant (Believe the number was 32. Definitely low-30's). So exactly what good were they to the Navy after they became pregnant? Can you imagine if this had occurred during a major conflict? That ship would have had to have offloaded those pregnant women somehow and taken on a replacement crew (which would have to be male in order to avoid repeating the same incident a couple months later).

So somebody want to tell me, again, how women in the front lines is a good idea? Women have roles they can both fill and excel at in the military, certainly, but frontline combat is NOT one of them. And I haven't even gotten into the psychology of it, like female soldiers being raped by enemy troops (Which HAS happened to female pilots shot down during the Gulf War).

There was a time when women fought with men in battle or commanded men in battle (see Vietnam 10AD) but then religions that did away with the female god to fill it with a male god kind of killed it.

Uh huh. Has nothing to do with said armies getting pasted on the battlefield. Right. There's a reason females on the battlefield isn't a common occurence in history, and it has nothing to do with Judaism/Christianity and everything to do with the reasons outlined above.

Well, I'm all for the integration of women into the military, including combat roles. For many of the requirements of modern combat, a women can do the job as well a man - especially a modern women raised in sports, to control her emotions, and to value herself as the equal of a man (in other words raised equally with men).

It isn't about a woman's "emotionalism". It's about whether they're physically capable of doing the job. And the fact is, no matter how much people like that feeling of "enlightenment" by imagining it isn't so, they can't.

However, there seems to be some resentment despite this, which I find completely impossible to understand.

No resentment on my part. I'm not a woman-hater. The only resentment I feel is towards the fools who think it'd be a swell idea to put my family in danger as well as needlessly sacrifice the lives of female soldiers in the name of Political Correctness.

And yet it seems a good chunck of american males consider it their right or even responsibility to 'hurt' females they are dominant over. Can we get a little bit of middle ground between men who think women are tiny fragile flowers who's deaths are a massive tragedy and those who think women are property whose deaths can be kinda erotic?

For someone who so easily dismisses the well thought out opinions of others, this post certainly shows you to be a repellant piece of crap. Military men are wife-beaters, is that it? Whatever.

BTW: Kahuna, the only "ideologues" on this thread are people like you, who spout platitudes and hurl baseless insults at our servicemen rather than looking at the actual, oh I don't know, facts of the situation.

- Green Knight, who sometimes thinks that having even COMMON SENSE is to much to ask of some people

 

[BMF]

And yet it seems a good chunck of american males consider it their right or even responsibility to 'hurt' females they are dominant over.

Ok. Obviously, you don't know much about domestic abuse. Fact is, most men who beat their wives blame their wives, often saying "you make me do this."
They do it for control reasons, but also because society has taught them to stifle their emotions.

And as far as being "dominant".... well there's two sides to that coin, baby

Can we get a little bit of middle ground between men who think women are tiny fragile flowers who's deaths are a massive tragedy and those who think women are property whose deaths can be kinda erotic?

Uh, can we get you to talk about more than 2% of the male population??

But then there's the scarey part - what if some of them are the same men... oh wow, some are...

The protectiveness you feel, and the inferior social position it leads to are not protecting women. I'm not attacking you personally, or saying that you are complicit in domestic abuse, but considering the rates of domestic violence amoung military families, isn't the old "it would destroy moral to see a woman hurt" thing kinda... weird? Not neccassarily untrue, just indicitive of some serious bipolar attitudes?

I'm not sure what the rate of domestic abuse in military families is, but I know the top two are not military, they are Police Officers and religious leaders.

Perhaps millitary is #3. But then, we need to look at the whole picture too. Remeber, two sides of the coin. Why do so many women who like aggressive, dominating men marry into the military??

Or maybe you've never thought about it like that before.....

I hate to say it, but this line removes any respect or attention I might give to the rest of your post. It is simply beyond the pale of useful discussion to make that absolute a comment. Such things have been said many times about many jobs and have been wrong.

Its too bad that you might have some useful comments to contribute, but you tag yourself as a ideologue to be ignored like this.

If you understand psychology as well as you imply, you can see what is wrong with your statement. (hint: think justification and self-esteem)

Fact is, women simply cannot handle the training required for combat. Read about it yourself, here:
http://www.equityfeminism.com/articles/2002/000020.html

Notice that is from a site called EQUITY FEMINISM. Even THEY don't deny the facts of hard scientific research showing that women suffer more injuries during basic training than men. Read it and weep, sugar pie,

The main reason is that biological differences make women, on average, more susceptible to such training injuries. The lower muscle mass on average increases stress on the skeleton of women, women tend to emulate men's generally longer stride in marching, etc. This sort of phenomenon is also seen in injury rates among women athletes, who are generally far more prone to these sort of injuries than are male athletes.

(note the use of the word "phenomenon.")

What was that the researchers said??? "biological differences " and "lower muscle" and "far more prone to... injuries"

Oh yeah, baby.

My advice, kahuna, is that you should see someone about your penis envy.....



edit: added an "on topic" bit:

As for combat - I am not afraid of it. I have worked several years in the Red Cross as a volunteer and I think I have the stomach for the atrocity.

Then you are far more prepared than most. However, one of the reasons I never joined the military was the stories my father told me about what combat is like.

Imagine combing through a field of bodies charred with napalm, and killing any survivors you find.

Imagine picking up the 250-lb body of your dead friend and carring him (and your own gear) at a full run uphill in mountainous jungle terrain while being shot at with machine guns.

Imagine having your own limbs blown off by a mortor that you didn't even hear coming.

Imagine what living though that does to your psycholgy.

Ask yourself again if you are afraid of combat.

Covert operations would be much more rewarding too, I think, and just as challenging as a job in the military. As others have said, your language skills make you a shoe-in at any intelligence bureau in the western hemisphere. The CIA is working hard to recruit women. I know you don't have much of a chance with or opinion of them, but if they are seeking women, then others probably are too. Surely Finland has a secret service of some sort, don't they?

I've looked into the FBI and CIA myself, since I am about to graduate. Its not all translating newspapers and stuff. They really do send covert agents into other countries with false IDs and set them up in businesses and government jobs where they keep tabs on foreign governements and steal secrets.

Much more fun than going through boot camp and wearing a uniform.