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Should the Redskins Go Coed?

Why we shouldn't have women in combat
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I was told recently that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) now allow young men and women who have Asperger Syndrome, a mild form of autism, characterized by awkward and repetitive forms of social behavior, to join the ranks. “Aspies” may have difficulties functioning as part of a combat unit, but they are also very good with computers, and that makes them ideal recruits for high-tech jobs in a military force whose task is to fight and win wars.

That is the point one should highlight when the issue of gays in the military or women in combat is being discussed: winning wars. By that criterion, allowing gays to join and fight in the military was a no-brainer to me. The notion that gay men would not fit into framework of a combat unit, a “band of brothers” assumes that those “brothers” don’t already include more than a few anti-social types, not to mention, say, heterosexual weirdos or asexual creeps. Then there are those guys who supposedly would feel “uncomfortable” taking a shower with a gay guy, despite the fact that they are trained be ready to see the body of their comrades being blown up in combat.

Since the Pentagon lifted the ban on women serving in direct ground combat, the spin in the media has been that the debate over the role of women in combat is similar to the one we had about gays in the military, and only cultural Neanderthals would object to the idea of women leading a unit of marines to attack a military base in North Korea. Haven’t you seen “G.I. Jane”?

But guess what? “G.I. Jane” and “Alias’s” Sydney Bristow don’t exist in the real world but are a figment of Hollywood’s imagination, much like the notion popularized by Law and Order and other television cop shows that female detectives confront violent criminals on a regular basis.

Women do serve in the U.S. and other militaries, including in direct combat units, and in a way the new Pentagon rules only makes it official, to ensure that female soldiers serving in Iraq or Afghanistan receive equal pay and benefits. But the main question is whether women serving in combat units make the military more or less effective in executing its mission of fighting and winning wars. My approach to evaluating this is utilitarian, pragmatic, and conservative.

First, let’s get one issue off the table: I really don’t even want to get into the argument that women disrupt the unit’s fighting capability because their presence makes guys horny and supposedly ignites intra-unit rivalry between the men over the relatively few women. Since that is happening in almost every organization and business in America, I don’t see why the military should be considered a special case.

But I do have great skepticism over what seems to be becoming the conventional wisdom: that women as a group have the physical attributes to fight in combat units.

In my gym where I work out and lift weights I occasionally encounter a woman who is younger, taller, and more muscular than me and could probably beat and tie me up. And there are individual women who can and do perform active combat roles. Yet the idea that the goal of the U.S. military should now be “to provide a level, gender neutral playing field” just boggles the mind and reflects the kind of politically correct mumbo-jumbo that liberal pundits like to bombard us with.

Here is a commonsensical counter-argument: why do we continue to separate (segregate?) men and women in almost all sports and athletic competitions? In fact, there are different requirements for men and women in athletic competition, and they will probably be in place until science can change our entire biological makeup and the evolutionary process—when say, men are able to get pregnant.

Until that happens, here is a simple question: would you like to see the Redskins go coed and would you expect such a team to win the Superbowl? Well? That’s what I thought. So why would you want the Marine Corps “to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field” and also expect them to win the next war with China?

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