Pros And Cons Of Women In Combat

Women have come a long way in the last 50 years thanks to the continuous fight toward equality of the sexes. None the less, there will always be some type of speculation as to if women can do the same jobs as men whether it be physically, mentally, or even emotionally. Over time, women have been able to “qualify” for the same jobs as men, but sometimes have different acceptance standards. Without anything sounding sexist, it is hard to put up a decent argument to why women can or can’t do certain jobs, and it is usually the argument of if women are physically able to do the job at hand. One example of this would be women in the military, specifically women in combat. There are many pros and cons about the subject and frankly, it could be considered a controversial issue because there are so many different viewpoints on it. After doing extensive research on the subject, I’ve found a few articles that state both pros and cons of women in combat. It has been an eye opening subject to read about after knowing that there are some articles that have been written by actual women that were in combat at one point during their military service. First, let’s start off with some of the pros of having women on the front lines. After reading an article on sistersinarms.ca, I was able to find many quite a few pros defending a woman’s right to be able to serve her
country in combat. The article states that traditionally, military training has been required to facilitate, or make the integration into combat units “easier” for women. That specifically sounded like a con after first reading it, but it also continues to say that because of this facilitation, women have been able to retain certain jobs in the military that were once thought as masculine. Another pro for women in combat is the opportunity for career advancement. Every branch of the military requires combat duty as a type of prerequisite for promotion to senior officer positions. If any female personnel is not offered this type career advancement opportunity, it is ensuring that very few women would ever reach the highest levels of ranking in the military and would also be severe sexism. Continuing with a few more pros on women in combat, there is also the subject of cultural differences and demographics. Allowing women to serve in combat zones can be beneficial because in some cases, women can be more beneficial than men. If women are trained and ready to go overseas, it broadens the range of “talent” that could be used in sensitive jobs that require some social skills that not all soldiers have. Thus, creating a wider personnel base that allows all branches to have the best soldiers working together to end any conflict as quickly as possible. There will also always be an argument about ability vs gender. Contrary to what people may think, it is easier for the military to recruit and deploy women into combat zones rather than men who may be in lesser shape. In addition to that, extra strength training for women could also help reduce the rate of personal injuries. In this day and age with war becoming more technological than in the past, technical expertise and higher levels of decision-making skills are becoming increasingly more valuable than just pure strength. Also, with military readiness always in need, it is important to have a mixed gender force to keep the military strong. If more jobs are opened up and not considered gender specific, there will be more recruits that are willing to go the extra mile and sign up for a job that will be sent into combat. On the other hand, there are also equally as many reasons against women in combat. After reading further in the article on sistersinarms.ca, the main concern is physical ability. The majority of jobs offered in the military are open to both male and female personnel, however, there may be some jobs that women just aren’t physically suited for. That being said, the standard for physical fitness is different for men because if women tried to reach the same level of fitness, many if not all would eventually over-stretch themselves resulting in injury. Another con is also about military readiness. The article states although a mixed gender force helps to create a stronger military, pregnancy can also effect a deployed unit and cause it to be understaffed. In another article on westernjournalism.com, there are many more cons discussed.
With physical ability being brought up again, but more in the aspect of a woman’s body. For example, PMS symptoms often cause a women to lose half of her strength a few days before actually starting her period, making it even harder to be able to carry 50-80 pounds of gear on her back and still be able to keep up with the rest of the unit she is with when away from the base. Physical attraction is also mentioned, saying that there have been women who get deployed with a unit only to return home early because of an unexpected
pregnancy. After much research, there was an article on ic.galegroup.com which states that excluding women from combat is ethically wrong. The Combat Exclusion Policy of the army has two pernicious results. First, the exclusion stigmatizes servicewomen as second class and untrustworthy in a fight. This type of stigma leaves women to be more vulnerable to disrespect, harassment, and assault. The second pernicious states that servicewomen are far more vulnerable to the attention of the enemy than the enemy is to theirs. This isn’t something that has happened just in recent years since the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it started as early as the 1980s during the Cold War in Europe. At this time, women were grouped in high-value type targets such as intelligence units, headquarters and logistic depots. Being grouped like this would mean that women would be killed in large numbers if that war had gone hot. When the military stated that the women were in non-combat positions, it was meant that the women were excluded from learning how to fight and being able to kill on the frontlines, but not from actually being killed. That being said, it is extremely immoral to force women, simply because they are women, to be more vulnerable to the enemy than the enemy to them. Since then, the military is continuing to rely on women to take part in ground combat. However, there are still some that refuse to acknowledge that women are in fact engaging in combat and also deserve equality in every aspect. After researching this toping thoroughly and reading many different pros and cons, I believe that there are more pros to women in combat than there are cons. That does not mean that I didn’t agree with some cons such as physical ability and unexpected pregnancy, I just feel that the pros outweigh the cons. Women provide the military with a mixed gender force in a combat zone which ultimately make the military a stronger unit. Another reason is that women also deserve the opportunity to achieve high rankings along with men, and many would not get the chance to do that if they were not sent into a combat zone. In the end, I feel that women deserve the same opportunities as men and should be able to obtain jobs in the military that will be sent into a combat zone. With the world around us changing everyday, it’s time we start looking for reasons why to do something instead of reasons not to.