The downside of women serving alongside men in fighting ships, subs, squadrons, etc.

MARSOC gets it's first FET:
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/11/marines_marsoc_111409w/

To add to your examples, the Soviets had several female snipers in WW2 who killed hundreds of men. I'd say that's pretty deadly...

I know this will come across as sarcastic, but you'll have to trust me when I say it is a genuine question...

It seems to me that women make up a significant (if still very much minority) portion of our military. Get rid of them and those positions have to be filled somehow, and it seems like recruiting standards would have to be significantly lowered in order to have enough warm bodies to do that. (I am ASSuming this and I am sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong and the military is turning away enough qualified men to equal the number of women currently serving, and that it is reasonable to assume that the military would continue to make up the difference in perpetuity.) Or, we'd have to start an active draft.

So which is the least of evils: a mixed-gender service, lowered standards for an all-male service, or serving next to people who are only there as a requirement? Or is there an option I'm missing?

As much as it pains my feminist sensibilites to admit it, I can see that a gender-mixed military has its complications. I'm just not sure that there is a realistic alternative that has fewer complications.

Of course it has 'complications'. Your semi-admirable struggle towards 'honesty' is 'complicated' by the fact that you have a personal agenda ... i.e., your self-described 'feminist sensibilities' ...

Your search for 'honesty' mixed w/ a personal agenda runs into a brick-wall conundrum:

Personal agendas NEVER work toward the fulfillment of a common goal ...

Sure, I have a personal agdena of sorts, and I want "mixed gender military" to be the answer to the question of the least bad of the options. But it really was a genuine question, and I'm open to the fact that the answer I want may not the the correct answer. That's why I asked.

If the miltiary decided to get rid of women (which will never happen, of course, but speculation sure is fun!), new, different messes would be created, as best I can tell, and I am really interested to thoughts on that. To me, it seems like a "be careful what you wish for" situation.

I get that you'd rather not have those "complications" that come with men and women serving side by side. But given the alternatives, would you really flip that switch if you could?

Men & women have ALWAYS served in the U.S. military ... 'side by side' on a regular basis ... just not in combat/deployable units. What's so hard to understand about this ... ???

"... given the alternatives, would you (me-- A4s) REALLY flip that switch ... "

I give up. I don't know ... now, which switch would that be ... ???

I'm not enthused by it, I'm frankly appalled by it, but it happens.

This perfectly illustrates my point sir. When we don't feel its necessary, we ignore these congressionally mandated guidelines. Just because those serving don't need them doesn't mean a contractor won't, or that someone on active duty will be injured and WILL need them.

See above. ADA mandates 100% with newly constructed or renovated buildings. (While federal buildings are not explicitly covered, they fall within the realm of "State Government" within the bounds of the ADA. Therefore, title 1 and 2 apply, especially in facilities hiring contractors.) We are most certainly 100% compliant. And I'm not even talking about warships, my examples are CONUS shore facilities with more contractors than military personnel attached to them.

Ask one of your instructors what "due regard" and "MARSA" mean. FAA violations against mil aircraft are sent to the head of the service concerned (CNO, CSAF, etc) who then sends it down through the chain. While most flight violations are considered bad according to military regs as well and appropriately hammered by the CoC, if any level of command determines the rules violation was in the interest of mission accomplishment, etc. they can stop the violation at their level. BTW that's why they tell (or should be telling) you as SDO to not give out any aircrew names over the phone since the FAA likes to poke around to get names so they can take action against civilian certificates.

This. Always used my last name (very common, and I don't have any certificates to risk) until I found out that they would accept "on file" too.

Same thing goes when reserving VR/IR low level entry times - pilot is always "on file" (most of the time with the schedule coming out late you probably don't know the pilot/MC name anyway).

When I was on the Lexington in the dark ages with Brownshoe, moving through the ship was tough enough as it was. Hatches secured, had to move through birthing areas, most Heads secured during flight quarters, I could go on. I guess they got the travel route figured out today so you don't run across a naked Wave. I remember once an old salty Chief was talking about having a field day because of open house. He he. He said "Men, watch your language this weekend because we're gonna have cunt aboard. And no snot on the handrails". And he was serious. I love it...

I always thought that was a translation error from the original. I've been told that the word "kill" actually should have been "murder" ("Thou shall not murder") but got mistranslated a long time ago.

From www.biblestudy.org/question/what-does-thou-shall-not-kill-mean.html:

Oh BTW, looks like that ADULTERY is a crime punishable by capital punishment as well according to the original texts....

Very true ... that's why I chose the KJV for my 'example' ...

Wow!

Gosh, it's gone further than I thought!

*Welcome back Derf.
BzB

I think you've missed the point of what I was saying there. That is exactly the opposite of how the germans have handled things. They're saying "you're welcome to come try, but if your best ain't good enough, we're going to keep looking."

I'll admit that there are a lot of things that hamper the Bundeswehr, and hell, from where I stand, I've got to say that we (the US) are lucky to even have them in theater at all, considering how most of my neighbours here feel about their country's presence in afghanistan. But I sincerely doubt that the very fact that all billets are open to women is a leading driver of failure to achieve mission goals.

My point being, there's a difference between being invited to try out for the team, and being guaranteed a starting position on the team. One may or may not hamper effectiveness, the other almost certainly does.

Amen, exactly the point I was trying to make earlier.

Thanks Hugh,

Looks like I put the wrong vow in berthing. I can see it now though. If we had had females aboard ship in the 60's, Lt. Mike F. wouldn't get much flight deck duty being that he would be spending more time in the "birthing" area. he he.:tongue2_1

Fred

God forbid, these women have done the responsible thing and waited to get to a non-deploying squadron to start having a family. How dare they.

I think it was said earlier in the thread that the FRSs are the place that they send folks who get pregnant, be that their tour or not.

I touched on this a little bit in another thread here, and I think villanelle touched on it a little bit here too.
We don't have enough people in the submarine force.
I don't know if it plays out the same in the surface fleet, but, we were 90 short for officer ascesions last year. They made up some of it by really torquing some people and forcing them to go nuke, and made up some more with NUPOCs, but last I checked NR still wanted another 15 O's for last year, not even addressing this year yet. That's just the officer side. I know they're still paying some zone B and C nukes 100K to reenlist, so I doubt the enlisted side is doing much better, at least in the engine room. I'm all for sending whoever you can that can do the job and support the watchbill, hotdog or taco. I'd bet a lot of people who have been that port and stbd watchstander for half an underway would agree too. Either you integrate or start forcing men to do our crappy jobs, draft or otherwise, I don't see any other way. Even with all the frat problems of integration, I bet politically its easier to integrate to fix manning problems than to push for a draft.

Umm, they are there because they get sent there FROM the deploying squadron because they got knocked up right before the squadron goes on cruise. It's always funny how about a month before a CVW gets underway, VAW-120, VFA-106 and HSC-2 all get a new batch of Geedunk workers.

Et tu, A4s?

:weeping_1

"Kαι συ τεκνον?", Quagmire ... ???

No Habla Quag. Speak english. You're employment requires it.