Insomnia ([info]insomnia) wrote,
@ 2005-03-14 14:14:00
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Dubious equal rights in Iraq.
An interesting report on NPR today regarding women serving in Iraq had some sobering statistics that are rarely reported.

- One in seven U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq is female.
- 35 female U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq as of March 2005.
- 261 female U.S. military personnel have been wounded in Iraq.

So, yes, there are a lot of women in Iraq, and many *DO* come home dead or wounded. That said, given that one in seven female military personnel in Iraq are women, and given the rate of fatalities, we can calculate their risk of dying as approximately 1/6th as much as male soldiers.

Both men and women are risking their lives, but not even equally, due to military policy. These policies grate at many of the women serving in Iraq, but if they weren't in place, approximately 200 female U.S. soldiers would have died in Iraq by now.

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[info]kc724
2005-03-15 12:08 am UTC (link)
Not to put down women in any way, but those statistics are taken as a whole. Women, as a general army rule, are not permitted to be in any combat arms job. They by law can not kick down doors to do cordon and searches, raids, attacks etc. That said, the chances of a women dying at a brigade headquarters compared to 'joe' is consideriby lower.

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[info]aramis307
2005-03-15 05:44 am UTC (link)
Your statment ignores the fact women do run on supply convoys, fly helicopters, and serve as MPs, which patrol the city. The people being wounded and killed are not those who are doing the door kicking. It's those who are out driving around. It's also those standing in the wrong place when the rocket lands...of course, there isn't a whole lot one can do about that....

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[info]kc724
2005-03-19 09:33 am UTC (link)
I agree, however the percentage I can say with good certainy is that the 1 to 6 ratio of women to men increases almost exponentially when it comes to women running supply, fly, work MPs, etc. Having served in a line unit we had at most 5 or 6 women total. Most of them were aid station medics, one was a mechanic and the other woked intelligence.

I almost hate to say it, America just doesn't want to hear about women dying in this war or any other.

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[info]feyandstrange
2005-03-15 01:29 am UTC (link)
Most of those policies that decide what is and isn't a combat position date to Viet Nam or worse. Pfc Lynch wasn't a 'combat' soldier, and neither are a lot of other women doing the jobs in Iraq where statistically the most casualties have occurred. Who's getting killed most in Iraq? Not 'combat' soldiers; truckers. People in 'noncombat' positions at a brigade headquarters or other major bombing target are sometimes *more* likely to die, in modern warfare, than front-line soldiers.

So what the stupid rules boil down to these days is: women can die almost as often as men, but they won't get combat pay or promotions.

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[info]aramis307
2005-03-15 07:09 am UTC (link)
Actually, everyone in theatre gets combat pay, and promotions have more to do with a soldier's skill in his/her specialty rather than combat experiance. There are reasons the law is written the way it is. It has nothing to do with ability. It has to do with keeping soldiers from sleeping with each other. The absolute worst case scenario is that you have a woman (or man, for that matter) playing men against each other. That sort of thing would cause combat arms units to cease to function in an effective manner.

Is it unfair? Yes. But I would rather be unfair in this case than have combat arms units able to fight the enemy because of petty infighting. It's bad enough when it happens in a support unit, and it happens all the time. This isn't an issue where everyone should have an equal chance. This is an issue where we need to put forth the most effective fighting force possible. That means someone, either men or women, has to be excluded from the combat arms.

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[info]feyandstrange
2005-03-15 07:51 pm UTC (link)
Seems to be a load of male armed forces poop to me, since fully-integrated units in other services don't have these problems. It's the same excuses they made about integrating blacks, and about integrating gays now, and it's all a big load. The British military had to integrate queers recently under EU law, and they were surprised at how smoothly the whole thing went.

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[info]aramis307
2005-03-16 08:31 am UTC (link)
The issues surrounding the integration of blacks were different. Yes, the same arguments were made. The case is not the same, however. You can say that sounds like a load of poop, but the fact is the issues surrounding soldiers having sex with soldiers of the opposite gender do exist. You can see it in virtually every unit which is gender integrated. That problem doesn't only exist here in a combat theatre, but also when units aren't deployed. If you've been in or spent any length of time around the military, you've seen it. Hell, you can just check the numbers of women MEDEVACed from combat theatres for pregnancy.

You think it sounds like a load of poop. Fine. It doesn't change the fact that it goes on.

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[info]tongodeon
2005-03-15 03:55 am UTC (link)
To play devil's advocate, it could ALSO be that women are so much better at being soldiers than men are that they're wounded at a lower rate.

I'm not saying this is the reason, or that your conclusion (women are not risking their lives as much due to military policy) is unlikely, I'm just saying that there are many such factors which can influence statistics individually or in sum.

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[info]giantlaser
2005-03-15 05:28 am UTC (link)
I very strongly believe in equal rights, but being an infantry soldier is not a right. It's a job, and jobs have restrictions and limits to who can do them.

Every single infantryman, every single former infantry, and every single special forces soldier I have spoken to here is categorically against women in infantry roles for a number of reasons. It is not a matter of political correctness or oppression. Most of them agree that women are in fact better killers - they are ruthless and capable. The problem is that mixed infantry leads to many, many problems on the battlefield. Men do not respond well to the sight of dead or injured women, and their response leads to even more dead.

Perhaps there will be a time when our cultural and deep-set biological responses can be set aside. In the mean time, I would rather the infantry be able to do its job correctly.

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The only argument I can approve...
[info]cuivenar
2005-03-15 07:00 am UTC (link)
against women in combat and combat support roles...

It's bad enough that we must send men to be wounded and killed alongside their brothers, do we really have to force them to watch their girlfriends, wives, and sisters die too. Isn't there any end to the inhumanity we will go through for 'equality'.

Women shouldn't go into combat, not because they are weak, but because men are.

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