{"id":57668,"date":"2024-12-16T13:42:07","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T18:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=57668"},"modified":"2024-12-16T13:42:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T18:42:07","slug":"women-in-combat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=57668","title":{"rendered":"Women in Combat???"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author:\u00a0 R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s nominee for Secretary of Defense has indicated that he is opposed to women in the military serving in combat roles.\u00a0As a combat veteran himself, Pete Hedgeseth must have sound reasons for this opinion.\u00a0Let\u2019s take a look at how we find ourselves dealing with this issue in the first place.<\/p>\n

Throughout history, war and combat have been the prerogative and responsibility of men.\u00a0\u00a0As the physically stronger and more aggressive gender, this was rational and culturally mandated.\u00a0Why the change?\u00a0Women have been in the U.S. Military increasingly since World War II, but exclusively in non-combat roles.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, until 1994, the military followed what was termed the Risk Rule, that excluded women from roles that were at high risk for injury and death.\u00a0However, during Democrat Bill Clinton\u2019s presidency, the Risk Rule was revoked and women were allowed in most roles, except direct ground combat and submarine service.\u00a0Finally, during the Democrat Obama administration in 2015, all restrictions on women were removed, making them eligible for direct combat roles.\u00a0Why did two Democrat presidents make these changes?\u00a0Was it because women were needed in these roles due to a lack of men? Or, was it part of a social experiment prompted by the women\u2019s equality movement?\u00a0I believe it was due to the latter.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that the overall percentage of women in the military has increased dramatically since 1970 when it was 3% to 17% in 2021. Some people will not be satisfied until the percentage of women in the military has reached the same as in overall U.S. population.\u00a0This is a typical objective, as seen in most other DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) goals, that disregards the effectiveness and suitability of people for the roles in question.\u00a0The overriding issue must be whether our military fighting force is made stronger or weaker by having women in direct combat roles.\u00a0Lawsuits have been brought to force the military to include women in combat roles without restriction.\u00a0There are also some efforts being made to include women in any future Selective Service draft program.\u00a0Other countries such as Israel, Germany, Australia, Canada, etc. allow women to assume most other roles in the military although direct ground combat and submarine service may still remain restricted.<\/p>\n

How do women perform in combat roles you might ask?\u00a0Undoubtedly there are some who do very well. However, recent data on attrition rates in training programs show a significant disparity:<\/p>\n

Attrition Rates for Training Programs:<\/p>\n

Men<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Women<\/span><\/p>\n

Infantry\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 18%\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 49%<\/p>\n

Field Artillery\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Less than 1 %\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 11%<\/p>\n

Armor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 17%\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 72%<\/p>\n

One should also consider the psychological and social aspect of mixing the genders in combat situations.\u00a0While never in direct combat myself, I completed basic and advanced infantry training and can assure you that the presence of women would have had a dramatically complicating impact on the behavior of the soldiers.\u00a0The bottom line is that the decision to include women in direct combat roles should be based on a thorough understanding of the impact on military preparedness and effectiveness and not on some social equality or DEI objective.\u00a0Let\u2019s hope the new Trump administration gets it right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author:\u00a0 R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D. President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s nominee for Secretary of Defense has indicated that he is opposed to women in the military serving in combat roles.\u00a0As a combat veteran himself, Pete Hedgeseth must have sound reasons for this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14945,17483,17482],"class_list":["post-57668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alan-harrop","tag-pete-hedgeseth","tag-women-in-combat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57669,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57668\/revisions\/57669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}