US Women: Would you sign up for the selective service if required?

[SuicideBlonde]

I said no due to lifelong health issues.

 

[kibbleforlola]

You're right, ledboots. Nobody would want a damn woman doing anything for them. Why are we allowing women to work, anyway?! Taking the jobs of hardworking men!

 

[ledboots]

You're right, ledboots. Nobody would want a damn woman doing anything for them. Why are we allowing women to work, anyway?! Taking the jobs of hardworking men!

Yes that is of course exactly what I meant.

I will go back to being PC and pretending that every single thing is equal between men and women. Have a nice day!

 

[ledboots]

I said no due to lifelong health issues.

The military decides whether your health issues are major enough to keep you from the draft, not you.

 

[kibbleforlola]

I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible: ledboots, you have quite a bit of internalized misogyny you have to work through. If you ever want help finding a place to start, we can help.

 

[Envy]

But will it improve our fighting forces? Will having marines or soldiers in battle who are not as physically strong be a good thing? Women *are* as a whole smaller, and are not as physically strong, especially in the upper body. Will the women have to meet the same standards as the men?

In my home town years ago, we were very happy when they allowed female firefighters to join the force. For three years, no female could pass the grueling physical requirements (the same ones that had been in effect for years), especially carrying a 200 pound dummy out of a building. The Fire Department lowered the standards. Who would you want to rescue your disabled husband from a fire? Someone hired before the lowered standards, or after?

Just get rid of the lowered standards then.

 

[ledboots]

I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible: ledboots, you have quite a bit of internalized misogyny you have to work through. If you ever want help finding a place to start, we can help.

I guess it isn't here. Because, you know, honesty is insulted. If someone holds opinions diffetent from the board's, someone is either called a misogynist, or made fun of for being a conspiracy theorist.

I will get back to just commenting on the food and lovely recipes here.

Back to the kitchen, as it were.

 

[mlp]

The Fire Department lowered the standards. Who would you want to rescue your disabled husband from a fire? Someone hired before the lowered standards, or after?

I wouldn't care, as long as they are able to get them out.

IME, grit and tenacity and a certain kind of sheer bloodymindedness compensates for a considerable degree of ordinary physical strength.

My view has been colored by growing up in a family in which, for generations, the women were the tough ones, neither giving or expecting any quarter. In comparison to them, I have always known myself to be a wimp.

Take, for example, my parents. My mother was 5'2" in her prime, with biceps she could flex. My father was 6'1". He was certainly the physically stronger of the two, and no wimp. But which one would I have relied on in an emergency? My mother, because she wouldn't have thought twice before launching herself in to save someone/something she cared about, no matter the danger.

I've had the privilege of knowing some strong (in every sense of the word) women, not just in my family. The individuals I've known who I could/would count on in any circumstances to have my back have all been women; my views are influenced by that.

I remember my father commenting, many years ago, on the fact that one very rarely hears of a house fire in which the mother flees to safety while the children die in the burning house, but that it's quite common for the father/husband to survive while the rest of the family perishes.

 

[Lord Snot]

I guess it isn't here. Because, you know, honesty is insulted. If someone holds opinions diffetent from the board's, someone is either called a misogynist, or made fun of for being a conspiracy theorist.

I will get back to just commenting on the food and lovely recipes here.

Back to the kitchen, as it were.

Seems to me if someone has an unpopular opinion which others disagree with, they claim they've been "piled on" and are a victim of the "PC brigade" etc. Maybe if so many people disagree with an opinion, that's because it's a bad one.

 

[ledboots]

Seems to me if someone has an unpopular opinion which others disagree with, they claim they've been "piled on" and are a victim of the "PC brigade" etc. Maybe if so many people disagree with an opinion, that's because it's a bad one.

Yes my opinions are all bad; in fact I am probably the only person on Planet Earth who has them! How embarrassing for me, I will attempt to change them all right away!

 

[kibbleforlola]

Seems to me if someone has an unpopular opinion which others disagree with, they claim they've been "piled on" and are a victim of the "PC brigade" etc. Maybe if so many people disagree with an opinion, that's because it's a bad one.

Indeed.

Plenty of people here have opinions that I don't necessarily agree with, or make me go "huh?". But excusing blatant misogyny with "it's just my opinion!!1!!eleventy!" is not acceptable.

 

[Lord Snot]

Yes my opinions are all bad; in fact I am probably the only person on Planet Earth who has them! How embarrassing for me, I will attempt to change them all right away!

...or they put words in your mouth, get all defensive and sarcastic, I guess.

 

[kibbleforlola]

Yes my opinions are all bad; in fact I am probably the only person on Planet Earth who has them! How embarrassing for me, I will attempt to change them all right away!

No one said that, and plenty of people hold similar. This is why it's been such an exhausting battle for women to simply be seen as capable.

 

[kazyeeqen]

But will it improve our fighting forces? Will having marines or soldiers in battle who are not as physically strong be a good thing? Women *are* as a whole smaller, and are not as physically strong, especially in the upper body. Will the women have to meet the same standards as the men?

In my home town years ago, we were very happy when they allowed female firefighters to join the force. For three years, no female could pass the grueling physical requirements (the same ones that had been in effect for years), especially carrying a 200 pound dummy out of a building. The Fire Department lowered the standards. Who would you want to rescue your disabled husband from a fire? Someone hired before the lowered standards, or after?

I agree with you that it is complicated. And that out bodies are different, both between men and women, and among men and women. I prefer them not to change requirements that are necessary for the job, because that doesn't do anyone any favors, but if it's possibly to change the way they are doing things so that they can utilize people's strengths that would be great.

I remember filing out the fafsa form and realizing the disparity between men and women and I would have signed up. I think some mandatory military service can actually be a good thing, especially if it means less need for a standing army.

I think I'm pretty strong (ahem, for a woman...) But I can do no pull ups. I can and do lift boxes up to 70lbs repeatedly.

 

[ledboots]

Indeed.

Plenty of people here have opinions that I don't necessarily agree with, or make me go "huh?". But excusing blatant misogyny with "it's just my opinion!!1!!eleventy!" is not acceptable.

What was blatant misogyny that I said??

 

[mlp]

I hold some unpopular opinions. I realize it and am prepared to *defend* my positions because I believe in them, having given them a great deal of thought. It's possible to do that.

 

[ledboots]

Just get rid of the lowered standards then.

Then no women could have passed, and they wanted to hire women. Many men who weren't strong enough before they lowered the standards became firefighters, however, so I guess the standard-lowering helped weaker men as well as the 2 women who joined.

 

[mlp]

I think that the decision to permit women to occupy combat positions has also come about because the nature of warfare is changing - very little hand to hand combat, much more reliance on technology and skills.

 

[ledboots]

I hold some unpopular opinions. I realize it and am prepared to *defend* my positions because I believe in them, having given them a great deal of thought. It's possible to do that.

Yes, I can tell you do that, and quite well.

 

[Moll Flanders]

I think that the decision to permit women to occupy combat positions has also come about because the nature of warfare is changing - very little hand to hand combat, much more reliance on technology and skills.

I logged in to make this same point.