English Composition II
2 November 2017
“Women In The Military In Combat Roles”
Allowing women to serve in the U.S. Military has been one of the finest decisions past leaders in the Armed Forces have made. Women have positively impacted the armed formed. They have become outstanding soldiers, sailors, marines, coastguardsman, and airman, who have served our country proudly and through their dedication made our military the most powerful in the world. However, the title of being the number one military in the world is being jeopardized due to an old idea of revamping our standards resurfacing in our society. Many have brought up the issue that females should be allowed to have combat roles. They believe that not allowing women to do whatever job they want is discriminating and destroying the unity in our military. However, women in the armed forces should not be allowed in combat roles because they don’t meet the physical standards, are too emotional, and are more prone to victimization than men. Issues such as the ones mentioned above can potentially destroy our military’s prestige and pose a huge threat to National Security.
Females in the armed forces should not participate in combat roles because they do not meet the required physical standards as per the Department Of Defense. In the military, members are expected to be able to deal with rough situations for a long period of time. A retired Special Forces Colonel says “Most females just aren’t physically or mentally prepared to live in the woods the way we do; they can’t shower; they’ve got female problems every month.” (Simons) Living in a room with one bed for 10 soldiers and living OUTSIDE eating MRE’s for 20+ days are just a few of the many situations members of the armed forces are required to deal with. However, when in a combat specialty role, these situations are the norm. Biologically, men perform at higher physical standards than females do. Men are able to exercise for longer periods of time with less strain, which place them on a higher performance scale than females. For example, in the United States Marine Corps men are required to do pull ups while females only have to do a pull up hang for a minimum of 30 seconds. The Marine Corps is well aware that they have the toughest females in the armed forces, but they are also aware that they do not perform at the same level men do. A Marine straight out of Marine Recruit Training can easily knock down 15-20 pull-ups. However, after all that intense training, a female can do about 3 or 4. Stew Smith states “55% of the female graduating class at boot camp failed the three pull up minimum” (Smith) which shows females are not at the same performance level that most men are.
In addition, military personnel in combat roles are required to carry backpacks of up to 150 pounds on their back, along with their weapon which weight up to 12-15 pounds with no issues. However, Just the task of carrying the backpack is much harder for a female because they have less upper body mass than men do. Rachael Rettner states that “MRI studies show that women have about 40 percent less upper-body mass than men do, Hewett said. This means that, in general, a woman’s natural upper body is only about 50 to 60 percent as strong as a man’s.” (Rettner) Adding any additional weight to a female’s body can pose a serious bodily injury. While some might argue that there are females who can do this, the number of females who take on the challenge of specializing in combat roles is not very high. Anna Simons stated that “Even young ROTC cadets who have been raised to regard women not merely as equal but “the same” usually begin any discussion about gender integration by citing women’s lack of upper-body strength. Combat veterans invariably do. They know how important it is to face fire with people who can carry out the wounded and sling heavy guns or sandbags in a hurry.” (Simons) Because females aren’t physically prepared to deal with this type of training, putting them in combat oriented roles would greatly jeopardize the effectiveness of our military units.
The Marine Corps decided to try an experiment of training women and men in the same platoon, or group of military personnel, to see if the effectiveness of the platoon would change when adding females in the mix. At the end of the training, the Marine Corps agreed that this platoon performed worse than the other platoons that were split by gender. Brigadier General James Bierman Stated that gender segregation is necessary during training because young men and women become distracted very easily. (Schehl) With that being said, drill instructors form bonds with their recruits and are able to hold conversations that would be awkward or weird, if members of the opposite sex were part of the conversation. Because most combat roles are all men, adding females into the mix would worsen our combat units.
Females in the armed forces should not be allowed in combat oriented positions because females are more emotional than men which can pose a danger in combat. Marines and Soldiers go through recruit training for one purpose: to learn how to kill. When in combat, feelings of despair, sadness are all put to the side because if it isn’t, there is a great chance someone will get hurt, or even worse, killed. Females are biologically more emotional than men which is why they were previously not allowed to be in any combat related MOS (military occupational specialty). Roisin Parkins explains how “many studies have been conducted, examining emotional expressiveness in males and females and there is a fairly substantial body of research demonstrating that women are the more emotional gender” (Parkins). Because many females tend to rely more on their feelings rather than the facts at hand, having them in combat leadership positions can jeopardize the effectiveness of that combat unit.
Furthermore, females that are in the military already make up a high percentage of veterans who experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to the rough lifestyle of being in the service. Placing them in combat positions which are very demanding will increase the amount of females who have PTSD. The article “PTSD Plagues women at war” states “that “recent studies suggest that female combat troops and veterans of the war in Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder more severely and at nearly twice the rate as their male counterparts.” I have met many male veterans who have cried in my face about the horrors of war. As previously stated, men in combat roles cope with stress and emotion better than females. If a male, who was trained to deal with these rough combat roles was crying due to the Post Traumatic Stress, imagine how terrified a female would come back.
Females in the military should be prohibited from taking part in combat positions because they are more susceptible to victimization. As a prisoner of war, military members are treated harshly. Prisoners of war are poorly fed, only given an apple a day or sometimes nothing. In addition to that, they are tortured in many different ways. The US Armed Forces already has trouble dealing with women being victims. Adding women into combat roles would increase the chances of females getting seriously hurt because this is the position where most armed forces personnel become prisoners of war. Furthermore, men who are in combat roles are usually between the ages of 18-25 which is also the stage where men’s hormones are at the peak of height. Adding women into combat roles would increase the chances of females being raped or sexually assaulted by their own unit members. A platoon is usually a group of 30-36 men. Adding 4 or 6 females would make the ratio 30-32 men, and 4-6 females. In a group of 30-32 men, it is more than likely that something would happen to one of these females. Kate McGraw states that “Sexual assault impacts not only victims, but also the entire unit, as long term consequences of sexual assault may disrupt functioning of victims, offenders, and bystanders, causing mission degradation because of unexpected absences of involved personnel.” This is a problem that combat units would not have to deal with if we chose to eliminate females from participating in combat roles.
In conclusion, females have made a huge impact in our military. Without them, we wouldn’t have the military we have today. However we must take care of them and ensure that they are able to serve without worrying about being prisoners of war. Including women in combat roles increases the risk of this happening, and we should not let this issue escalate any further.
Works Cited
Schehl, Matthew. "Marine 1-star Defends Gender Segregation at Boot Camp." Marine Corps Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2017.
McGraw, Kate, Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, and Elspeth Cam Ritchie. "Women In Combat: Framing The Issues Of Health And Health Research For America's Servicewomen." Military Medicine 181.(2016): 7-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Oct. 2017.
Simons, Anna. "Women Can Never “belong” in Combat." Orbis 44.3 (2000): 451-61. Web. 20 Oct. 2017.
"PTSD Plagues Women At War." Off Our Backs 35.5/6 (2005): 4. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Oct. 2017.
Rettner, Rachael. "Why Pull-Ups Are Harder for Women." Live Science. Purch, 3 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2017.
Smith, Stew. "USMC Pullups and Women." Military.Com. Military Advantage, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2017.
Parkins, Roisin. "Gender and Prosodic Features in Emotional Expression." (n.d.): 1. Griffith Edu. 2012. Web. 20 Oct. 2017.