Should women be in the military?

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All I know is that women are allowed in all positions in the Canadian Armed Forces, including serving on one of her Her Majesty’s submersibles. So far, our military hasn’t imploded and men havent’ been driven to distraction by it.

OTOH, underfunding is causing our military to implode.
 
Women should be kept strictly to a role of non - combat support. This incudles, medical, KP, administraive ect.
 
I vote yes but no combat roles. It’s bad enough we have to send the boys off to die why do we have to kill off the women too?

The reason women are a distraction to men in combat is think of it this way. When you are captured by the enemy they try to get information out of you. If they tell a man to tell them the information or they will kill the woman soldier that is with them I guarentee the man will give up the info almost all the time.

Women in non combat roles is fine but I don’t think they should be in combat.
 
Honestly, there are some women out there who make amazing soldiers. But with the majority, women were not made for that kind of involvement. We have a different mental and physical makeup that is not intended for war. I know that, personally, even if I could handle the physical demands, I would lose it with the mental part…I couldn’t handle it…and it’s my belief that that is the way it is for most. God did not make women to be the defenders, that’s why men are physically and mentally more, i guess, built than we are.

Like I said though, there are some women who could take on a man anyday, but those are pretty rare cases…they’re becoming less and less rare, but still rare nonetheless.

In Him,
Britty
 
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David_Paul:
The worst problem is what it does to men. Israel found this out and pulled women back from combat. Bad enough when a guy sees his buddy torn up. Seeing women in that condition makes men insane.
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I think this is a very strong argument to exclude women from combat. Like many of us, I grew up in a society where “discrimination” and “exclusion” are dirty words, but we have to wake up and realize the fact that it is necessary in certain circumstances to limit the roles people are allowed to occupy, and war happens to be one of the most pronounced of these circumstances.

If young men are dying together in intense combat situations, or stationed together in severely physical/mental traumatic environments what becomes necessary are reasons to hope; reasons to keep on through the hell that they are experiencing–and I believe that with young men one of these reasons are women. When soldiers are suffering with their comrades amidst that awful, masculine carnage, anything feminine becomes idealized; an escape from the daily nightmare of battle. If women were right there dying beside them I think it would make the despair that much stronger. It’s damaging enough that Peter has to watch his friend Billy blown to bits beside him, but to watch his friend Jane–for whom he may have had romantic feelings–ripped limb-from-limb by a grenade… I don’t see how any man could muster the courage to keep fighting.
 
perhaps the topic should be “should women WITH CHILDREN be in the military?” that would make for a clearer discussion.

personally I think woman being able to drive has been partly responsible for the taking women away form the home, I mean sure, to the supermarket, but nowhere else. Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in Iran or Saudi Arabia where women are literrally the property of their husbands?.. I mean why would women bother getting educated at all if all the only christian option for women is staying at home, whether married or not…isn’t this all just to please men?..
 
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cynic:
perhaps the topic should be “should women WITH CHILDREN be in the military?” that would make for a clearer discussion.

personally I think woman being able to drive has been partly responsible for the taking women away form the home, I mean sure, to the supermarket, but nowhere else. Wouldn’t it be great if we lived in Iran or Saudi Arabia where women are literrally the property of their husbands?.. I mean why would women bother getting educated at all if all the only christian option for women is staying at home, whether married or not…isn’t this all just to please men?..
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Call me crazy, but something deep inside is telling me this is a sarcastic statement… :hmmm:
 
Should I create a poll on “Should women with children be in the military?”?
:nope:
 
My daughter is currently in the Air Force stationed in Las Vegas, Nevada, and just recently (May 28th) got married to a wonderful man who is also in the Air Force. There are many jobs to be done in the services, besides combat and medical, that either sex can master. She chose the Air Force to earn money for college. Her ultimate goal is to be a teacher or to provide day care to other military families. Although she still has two years left, if she should become pregnant, she will be allowed to exit service early, if she chooses. If she chooses to stay in, even if they have a child, she and her husband work opposite shifts. Their supervisors are very good at doing whatever they can to keep family life as good as they can. I understand the difficulties that being deployed overseas can be, but I don’t see a reason to completely exclude women altogether.
 
I think the point is not to focus on what we believe women should not do, but what we can do. Why is it okay to work and be a mother? Why is this even acceptable to us as women. I have seen so many of my friends, in the military and out, take care of their children and husbands as a mother and wife, AND have a full time job outside of the home. Why is this okay? Why can’t we choose one or the other?
I once heard that if women took care of their children like they take care of their subordinates and were as dutiful to their husbands as they are their bosses…our families would be much better off.
It’s hard enough being a women, and a mother, and a wife… why throw a job in the mix…especially a military job!
Having said all of that…I know that circumstances arise where women have no choice, but to work. And some women really enjoy being in the military. When I was in, I met many women that chose to have careers in the military, so they didn’t have children, and I was one of the those women until I converted to Catholicism, and changed my mind about some things.
I just challenge the women out there to ask themselves why being a mother who stays at home and takes care of her family is not exalted, and how we’ve come to the point of viewing being a wife and mother as an addition to our lives rather than the focus our lives. We are accepting an idea that should be unacceptable. When we’re on our death beds, whose going to be there? Not your boss!
 
I liked cynic’s response.

My simple answer is yes to the military for women. We are all able to serve our country. I think that it might be more difficult once a woman is married with children. What isn’t, once the children come along. Decisions can be made at that point to put a carrer on hold, just like if a woman were working in an office.
 
I think that we cannot disregard the good done by women such as Molly Pitcher and Clara Barton, but men don’t like their wives being shot at
 
“women shouldn’t be given front line combat duty because of practical reasons, they are weaker, men will want to protect them more than their fellow men, they would be raped if captured and as you said it’s a distraction”

I agree. I voted “yes, but exclusive of combat” for all those reasons.

Some posters drew a distinction between women with children and women without. But any woman CAN become pregnant, whether or not she is currently. If a man is raped in war, its bad. But if a woman is raped in war, she could become pregnant with the enemy’s baby. What a tragic psychological conflict for woman and baby!

Besides, even without rape…a woman soldier COULD be in the early stages of pregnancy, and we might not know if for a while. I dont mean to suggest that lots of military women are having unprotected, premarital sex…but some could be getting secretly pregnant, and I dont want to put babies in danger too.

The woman’s merely POTENTIAL of pregnancy makes putting her in combat unwise.

Women represent fertility and birth…you kill a man, and you kill a man. He may be a father or provider…but you kill him alone. You kill a woman, and you could also be killing her unborn baby.

Women, by their very nature, represent more than one person…there is also the other, the baby, which they have such a capacity for. Even if it is only a hypothetical…it must be considered carefully as a possibility. Babies should not be sent into combat, and niether should women who could carry one, or come to carry one.
 
Maybe I should have phrased the poll question more clearly… This is not a question as to if women are capable of being in the military. They have proven that. My question has to do with their very nature, unique in character and purpose. Now, understanding the nature of women, do you really think God intended for women to be in the military - a career thats sole purpose is to fight and defend our country? Or is it that a woman’s role is not compatible with the military, though her vocation as a woman is equal in importance and value.
Some questions to keep in mind…
Does the military help a woman become more feminine and nurturing (i.e. like Mary)?
Does the military prepare her or help her in her call to motherhood?
This is the intent question, and I have yet to find a response to this poll that answers this question.
 
Some questions to keep in mind…
Does the military help a woman become more feminine and nurturing (i.e. like Mary)?
Does the military prepare her or help her in her call to motherhood?

( I haven’t figured out yet how to do the quote thing with the box around the text, so I just copied and pasted a portion of snow whites previous reply)

Hi snow white, First I want to say Thank You, to you and to everyone who has posted on this thread. It is hard to sit back and take a 'self-assessment" of ones-self. But I appreciate the manner in which folks have added to this conversation. And I think for most of us females who have served in the military, we know the answers to those questions. When I joined the army, being a “woman” much less having any femine qualities was the last thing I wanted.
Does the military help a woman become femine? No, we are taught to be soldiers ( or airmen, marines, sailors).
Does the military help her or prepare her in her call to motherhood? If the female is a strong individual that can handle being in the military in the first place, sure it can help. Think about all the things you learned in the military that are useful around the house. Dealing with stressful situations (being a mother is stressful at times) the ablility to multi-task ( mothers are experts at multitasking), not to mention first aid and combat lifesavers skills ( used some of those with my kids on numerous occasions)plus basic self defense comes in handy too. If you can be successful at being a platoon sergeant, or being in charge of a group of individuals, being a mother is easy. But I can see the point you are getting at, and it is very valid. But I still wouldn’t discount the value of military service, even for females. The optimum would be for them to serve while they are single. Being in the military brodens your horizens so much.

I am encouraging my daughter to look into the air force acedemy for college. I DO NOT want her going from high school into marriage, so she must do something, pick out some sort of a career. Here’s a question for someone much older than myself to answer ( I’m 41). For the ladies that were graduating from high school in the 50’s, what or how were ya’ll steared towards a “career”. Did ladies really get sent off to “finishing school” to be taught how to be wives and mothers? Please don’t roll on the floor laughing at me, I’m serious. Because as I contemplate the whole issue snow white has brought up, as I’m sure she and most of us realize the whole demographics for what females are expected to do has changed in our society in the last 50 years. So what was it like before the change?

If I could turn back time, yes, I would love to have a man who I could have depended on to be the bread winner and head of household and care for me and the kids and provide for us there by letting me be mom. And I wish that for my daughter too, I just don’t think being in the military ( I really really really would like her to only go in the the air force though)would be a bad thing initially.
 
sgt. pat,
I appreciate your (name removed by moderator)ut. As you are a woman in the military, I can see how your perspective would be different.
I suppose what I am most concerned about that is connected with this topic is that women have become forced to be more like men, and in the process, rejecting what God created them to be. This world cannot survive without women, even if men, in some odd way, could procreate themselves. Why? Because we have charactersitics that are unique from men, charcteristics that remind the world of compassion, love, and courage. We COMPLETE the world, as we are part of the Divine Order of creation. It is not from becoming more like men that we will help this Divine Order, in fact we will harm it, as we already see today. A woman that stays at home with her children is faced with a great challenge everyday. Yet people would not consider her couragous. The vocation of women has become smeared by the women’s rights movement. Respect for motherhood and women in general has declined rapidly since that movement. And I think women are largely to blame for this. Just as I quote from Pope XI, “For if the woman descends from that royal seat to which she was raised, within the walls of the home by the Gospel, she will shortly be reduced to ancient servitude (if not in appearance, yet in very fact), and will become, as she was among the pagans, a mere instrument of man.” I think these are words to be taken seriously. Is it really a good thing that they allowed women in the military? Would we call that progress? C.S. Lewis had this to say in his book, Mere Christianity, " Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the lclock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? But I would rather get away from that whole idea of clocks. We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have takena wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer." It is time we lay down our pride and question if this progress in women’s rights is really progress…in the eyes of God.
 
I am not the same person I was when I joined, not by any definition of the word. Not only have I “grown-up” but after making such a mess of things on my own, God has graciously brought me back home, to His Church ( what a miracle!!). I am going to have a lot of adjustments to make when I retire, for one, I have to figure out all this “girl’s clothes” coordination stuff. I don’t even own a handbag, except the one they issued me in basic training 21 years ago. I have a whole host of ladies ( civilians) where I work who have graciously volunteered to take me shopping. If only they were paying the bill. I was at the mall the other day with my daughter, just looking. Do you have any idea how much the simplest business suit costs? And then you still have to do the blouse thing, AND a slip ( I think) AND shoes AND accessories ( whatever those are). I will have to take out a home loan.

I don’t know, but at least in my little corner of the world it seems that the full time mother is beginning to be viewed differently than it was 5 or 10 years ago. I know I’ve seen it on TV and hear every now and again how the full-time/ stay at home mother is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs, one which should be respected ( AND I AGREE!) I can’t remember, but on one of the shows it had worked up, based on the amount of work and the hours, how much money the stay-at-home mom would make if she was doing the same job for some company. So, at least from down here, I think the honor and respect and yes even couragouness is returning to the career of motherhood.

I’m still hoping someone will answer my question from the 50’s, I’m just curious. Because as you mentioned snow white, the women’s right movement and all the rest of the mess that came out around that time period ( mid 60’s and on) is largely to blame for the why our society defined the role of the woman.

So we have identified the problem, the pendaleum is beginning to swing back, but what is our solution? How do we go about directing our daughters as they graduate from high school and begin searching for careers. Ideas??
 
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sgt.pat:
I’m still hoping someone will answer my question from the 50’s, I’m just curious. Because as you mentioned snow white, the women’s right movement and all the rest of the mess that came out around that time period ( mid 60’s and on) is largely to blame for the why our society defined the role of the woman.

So we have identified the problem, the pendaleum is beginning to swing back, but what is our solution? How do we go about directing our daughters as they graduate from high school and begin searching for careers. Ideas??
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I was raised starting out in the 50’s and my mom was stay at home and very nurturing. She never drove until she was 31 and chose to stay home most of the time. WE girls in the family learned to cook, clean and sew. We were also sent to college for my mother herself had finished 2yrs of college and always wanted to complete it.

In the college years the women’s movement changed me. I saw some of the injustices of the world for women. I will have to say, however, once I had children of my own to care for I reverted back to what my mom did for us. I taught them to cook and clean and sew. Yet I also taught them that they could be anything they wanted to be when they grew up. My husband agreed with this.

My oldest daughter did join the Navy after college and is a pilot now in the Navy. My second chose to be a teacher (like myself), and my 3rd daughter is going to finish college in one year. My son is still in HS.

I listen to all the discussion on talk radio about whether or not women should be in combat. I would prefer that they not be in combat, but I go along with all other jobs. I see the good they do and I believe in serving one’s country. I feel terrible when anyone dies in service to our country, male or female. Yet I think that men and women should be able to serve.
 
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snow_white:
sgt. pat,
I suppose what I am most concerned about that is connected with this topic is that women have become forced to be more like men, and in the process, rejecting what God created them to be. This world cannot survive without women, even if men, in some odd way, could procreate themselves. Why? Because we have charactersitics that are unique from men, charcteristics that remind the world of compassion, love, and courage. We COMPLETE the world, as we are part of the Divine Order of creation. It is not from becoming more like men that we will help this Divine Order, in fact we will harm it, as we already see today.
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I think you have some fine points. My daughter that is in the military and her friends are very feminine in their private lives. At work they must compete in basically a man’s world. Yet my daughter insists that it would be no different in any other job that she would have gotten as an engineer. She is not married, and I would hope that when she is married and has children that she can fill that very important role too. When women deny their female role totally I do think it goes against God’s plan.
 
My, my, my…your responses were interesting…I am a female veteran with children. I used to get alot of **** for being in the military with children from people. I served in a non combat role but in a definite “male dominated” field. I was a meteorological and navigational systems technician. Basically this meant that I fixed weather equipment and ground navigational systems. I was required to be able to lift alot of weight, climb high towers, put my hands into things that were 24,000 volts and of course dig ditches…hahahaa. I climbed a 100 foot tower to install a motor the day before my first was born, went on trips without my children, and worked long hours during Desert Storm. Now, with that in mind…
  1. Women are actually better suited to some fields than men.
  2. When you are in the military and are pregnant you are given the choice to get out to be a mom.
  3. While I would prefer to see women in non-combat roles it really depends on the woman doesn’t it? If she can handle the risks and do the job, why must men’s feelings be her fault?
  4. No pregnant woman is allowed to be deployed in or near a combat zone where there is a risk of biological or chemical warfare… which is basically every warzone.
Why are some of you imposing your views of women on a whole country? I was very capable of doing my job just as I am sure Sgt Pat and the other military women are. We sacrifice alot to serve our nation…why not just say thanks? and maybe a prayer for all our service MEN AND WOMEN?
 
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