Yes! And I say this as someone who served in an army that boasts about its female soldiers.
Beni Habzay. Former Infantry soldier.
So I hope that even if you disagree with me, you’ll bear with me and read till the end…
FACT TIME
- The Israeli defense forces stopped using actual female combat soldiers after 1948. This was when they noticed that coed combat units suffered close to 50% higher casualty rates than all male units, and were worlds less effective when it came to mission completion.
- Due to this fact, women were barred from all combat roles in the IDF until several co-ed units were created in 1990 at the behest of progressive politicians.
- The remaining co-ed infantry units in the IDF are purely ornamental.
- The males who joined these units join them because they couldn’t cut it to be in the regular combat units, the females who join these units are the cream of the crop and still are outperformed by the substandard males.
For example, BaHmas obstacle course; a soldier from a regular infantry unit is given 11:00 minutes to complete it in order to qualify. A male soldier in a coed unit gets 16:00 minutes. And a female in that same unit gets 18:30 minutes to complete it, and is excempt from some of the harder obstacles.
- These ornamental units are far beneath the standard of any regular combat unit.
- The IDF Chief of staff has made sure to keep these units only in the safest possible areas where they are incredibly unlikely to see combat.
- Caracal is the oldest and largest of these units. It was stationed on the quiet part of the border with Egypt. If the woman of this unit see any illegal border crossings, they are instructed to not engage, and contact the nearest regular combat unit (usually givati)
- A disproportionate number of girls who join these units end up dropping due to debilitating and often permanent injuries from the training. And this is in spite of the fact that the physical demand on them is far less than the physical demand on the boys.
- Girls who want to join any of these units have to sign a waiver stating that they will not be able to sue the Army if they are unable to become pregnant afterwards.
That last rule was put in place due to a certain incident where a female caracal fighter was surprised by three infiltrators. She shot them in a panic, but could not be found for the next 3 or 4 days. Finally she was found hiding in a small crevice in the desert. She had nearly died due to dehydration, and had to be hospitalized due to a severe infection from sitting in about 4 days worth of her own filth. This poor girl was put in a situation she should have never have been placed in, survived by sheer luck, and had completely lost her senses. Should the worst have happened and she had been captured, more Israelis would have died in order to rescue her.
Which brings me and my good friend skeletor to part two of inconvenient fact time.
To reiterate the gravity of that last part; girls who join these units have to sign a waiver stating that they will not be able to sue the Army if they are “debilitated for life’’
And I am of the conviction that asking that question of an 18 year old girl, knowing that she will serve no purpose in her service other than optics; is evil, and these army recruiters who do this have a lot to answer for.
But this doesn’t mean that girls should not join the military.
The Israeli Army, Air Force, Navy, and border guard still finds many useful roles for women, such as fitness instructors, shooting instructors, logistics officers, social workers, and even Hebrew teachers.
One particularly important role that many of these young ladies not only fill, but do far better than any man could is the Mashaqit Tash. (Not exactly sure how that translates into English)
Note the purple Aiguillette.
Their job is to make sure that as a soldier, your rights are not being violated too hard. To your average grunt in basic training, who’s sergeants and commanders remind him every day that he is scum and push him beyond the point of exhaustion… the young lady who comes to help you with your home affairs, does it with a smile, and talks to you like you’re an actual human being seems like an angel descended from heaven.
And these non-com women will still receive some combat training. They’ll still learn how to shoot a rifle, and how to share a room with two dozen others. But they will not be broken, they will not receive scars from which they will never recover, and they will not be put In harm’s Way.
Final thoughts: Men go to war in order to protect women. In my scariest moments, I remembered my mother. Many others did the same.
I could go on and on about the inherent biological differences making men stronger and more durable than women, but at the end of the day, the biggest factor is our biological programming to be protective of women, not the fact that we can lift more than they do.
If a tribe or a village loses half its male population in a war, they can bounce back. But if that same tribe or village loses half of their female population, then they will not survive the next generation. I would even make the case that man’s desire to protect his mother, his wife, his children and grandchildren born and unborn; are our biggest driving factors for putting ourselves out there and doing it dangerous job because it needs to be done. Things like nationalism and religion we’re only built with that innate protective instinct as a base. Why should we willingly put our wives, our mothers and our daughters in such dangers just because it is trendy? Any man who is not completely worthless knows deep down, that should the worst happen, he has to be the one to go out and do what needs to be done, because that is his duty as a man.
Comments:
Clay McAlister
The USMC did a pretty large study of integrating women into infantry units. No one hears much about this study becuase the results were not what the politicians wanted. This was not men vs women, this was all male units vs gender integrated units. The results were not good. Basically, women performed the tasks slower, not as well, don’t shoot as well, tire more easily, have difficulty moving under heavy loads and get injured more often (which means they are not deployable for missions). Pretty much what common sense would lead to believe.
The shooting part surprised me bit as I did not think that gender would really apply to that. Until I saw how they did the shooting. The shooting, like pretty much all the tasks evaluated, were structured to be more like combat, not like just going to a range and shoot. So, the shooting was done after long movements under heavy load. And if you tire more easily, then that affects your fine motor skills that are needed to shoot effectively.
Some key findings of the study:
Performance
- 48% (124 of 257) of ITB (Infantry Training Battalion) females were physical performance drops
- Height & Weight were significant predictors for 03xx (Infantry) graduation
- 97% (28 of 29) of IOC (Infantry Officers Course) females were physical performance drops. Since IOC was opened to women in 2016, only 2 have completed it.
Injuries
- ITB females had a 13% injury rate versus a 2% male injury rate
- 27% of ITB female injuries were attributed to marching under load
- 28% of the hike-related injuries resulting in a course drop
Speed/Tempo
- All-male squads, regardless of 03xx MOS, were faster than the gender integrated squads in tactical movements. The differences were more pronounced in non-0311 squads that carried the assault load plus the additional weight of crew-served weapons and ammo.
- Integrated 03xx teams and squads did not meet the hiking standard of 4 kilometers per hour, with the exception of the 0311 integrated squads
- Integrated 0311, 0331, and 0341 squads took longer than their all-male counterparts to complete their movement to the limit of advance during the live-fire attack
- Casualty evacuation rates were higher in all integrated 03xx MOSs, except where male compensation was the primary factor
- All-males squads were faster than integrated squads on hikes, gorge crossings, and cliff ascents during the assessment in different environmental settings at MWTC
- When negotiating an 8ft wall, females were noted as having required assistance from male squad members to get their packs onto the wall
- The movement and emplacement of the machinegun took longer with both low and high density gender integrated teams when compared to all-male teams
Lethality
- The all-male 0311 squads had a higher probability of hits compared to integrated group for the M4, M27, and M203.
- There is a difference between genders for every weapon system within the 0311 squads.
- Male provisional infantry had higher hit percentages than the 0311 females
– M4: 44% vs 28%,
– M27: 38% vs 25%,
– M16A4w/M203: 26% vs 15% - Integrated 035X squads took longer to engage targets and registered fewer hits on target as compared to the all-male squads during the engagements. The combination makes the integrated squads more vulnerable and less lethal than their all-male counterparts
Injury Rates
- Recruit Training: Female injury rate of 6% vs. a 3.6% male injury rate
- MCT: Female injury rate of 3.17% vs. a 0.4% male injury rate
- ITB: Female injury rate of 13% vs. a 2% male injury rate
27% of ITB female injuries were attributed to marching under load vs. 13% of male injuries
28% of the female hike-related injuries resulted in a course drop
ITB females shipping weight – female 95th percentile = male 24th percentile
GCEITF Volunteer Physiology
- Anaerobic Power: Females possessed 15% less power than males; female top 25th percentile overlaps with bottom 25th percentile of males
- Anaerobic Capacity: Females had 15% less capacity; top 10th percentile of females overlaps with bottom 50th percentile of males
- Aerobic Capacity (VO2Max): Females had 10% lower capacity; top 10th percentile females overlaps bottom 50th percentile of males
- Medicine Ball Toss (upper body power): Females 26% shorter tosses
- Broad Jump (lower body power): Females 20% shorter distances
GCEITF Injury Rates
- Females were 19% more likely than males to incur an occupational-related injury
- Percentage of overall load (81lb fighting load + BF) was less than 100% of lean body mass for almost all of the males; percentage of overall load (81lb fighting load + BF) was over 100% for
75% of the females - Musculoskeletal Injury Rates: 40.5% of females vs. 18.8% of males
- Injury rate for hiking MOSs (03XX, 1371) was 45.3% while vehicle MOSs was 11.1%
- Of the females’ 21 preventable, time-loss injuries, 19 were lower extremity injuries and 16 occurred during movement under load
- GCEITF Marines who possessed higher amounts of fat-free mass had lower injury rates
You can read all 978 pages of the study here if you want: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2504584/mcotea-loe-3-gceitf-final-report.pdf
Mark Andrew
We certainly can’t let the facts get in the way of political correctness!
Rumen
I’m gonna copy/paste my reply to one feminist under the original OP’s answer.
Fundamentally men are built to be fighters, protectors, hunters. In other words – killers. Under dangerous conditions it’s proven that men are way more calm and clear thinking than women. Our bodies evolved in such a way that it perfectly fits what we are built for. If i find the study I’ve read couple months ago I’ll update this reply for you to see that even wounds heals up way faster in men than in women too.
But the single most important thing a soldier can have on the battlefield is the high morale. It’s tightly connected with the clear purpose of why I’m risking my life and usually this purpose is to protect the women and the kids, and then the country. If i have to worry that some female soldier will be raped/tortured/killed if caught during the operation this makes the whole team’s success less likely to succeed. I wont even start talking about the importance of testosterone and its role in the aggression, courage, speed, strength, etc., and that in men it’s 20 to 50 times even more higher than in women.
So, women on the battlefield next to me is a no go. Women speaking to me through comms, giving me orders, updating the intel, etc., sure.
Ken Church
That POW ‘thing’ was always something that concerned me too. I always thought that the males of a unit (especially under attack) would worry more about their female counterparts being captured than attempting to carry out the objective of the mission.
Mordechai Guez Messauda
As someone who served in the IDF, I confirm every word in this post.
Sibyl Saint
I got called a sexist and dumped on terribly on this site, when I said once that seeing women get shot or blown-up would be more traumatizing than seeing men get shot or blown up. But I stand by it.
Lea Marie
When a man doesn’t qualify, he doesn’t get the job either.
