Senator Mitch Fifield has advocated "Women in front line combat positions"

He adds the disclaimer 'If they meet the same requirements as the men'

which is a cop out. The REQUIREMENT should be that they go at each other until only one is left standing.

As a student of kickboxing, in a group which has around 4 girls among about 10 blokes, and having sparred with the girls as well as the guys, I remain unchanged in my view that 'females are weaker physically than males'.

Girls would stand a snowflakes chance in hell of surviving serious combat with a bloke, unless she got a lucky kick in.
I have to pull back to about 20% of my capability when sparring with a girl.

It is IRRESPONSIBLE to suggest involving women in front line positions where the outcome of a battle may (and often does) depend on hand to hand combat. That battle could be the determining one of a war, which in turn decides who is now in charge of your country and YOU.

I TOTALLY SUPPORT the full training of females in hand to hand combat, for 'last resort' operations.
After we blokes have spilled our guts on the battle field, and the enemy is still raging in, it would depend on them to make a final stand. Unless they simply want to be 'those who your right hand posseses' and become sex slaves of some invader.

We DO need to work together in defense of our lands, but in ways which promote victory, rather than defeat. Females can be of great help in many roles which do NOT involve direct hand to hand combat,
Thus freeing up more blokes for that role.

Totally agree Boaz there are other things during war/combat that females are better suited and these roles are necessary during war etc. It is ridiculous to even suggest that women should take the place of a man in the front line.

honest truth i think with the right training wemon can b just as good as men at anything oncluding combat, i have seen female blackbelts beat male blackbelts n i have beatten my up b4 and im only 1 of 2 girls out of a family of 8.

so i belive that wemon can b just as good as men BUT i really dont want them to b placed in the frount line

rizz

Probably so Rizz but I am saying that there are roles that women can play in war that are more suitable. In other words I would rather see men in the front line than nursing the wounded or cooking etc. See my point.

Yes, yes, yes ladies. Starting first with Amanda Vansfeld, Jodeen Carney and the others who should put their lithe, battle hardened, eostrogen fuelled bodies where their mouths are.

You wimmin support the War on Terror, & you want 'equality'. We know, because we listened to your eloquent & fervent speeches in Parliament, in 2003.
How patriotic! How jingoistic! How tragic!

Yep - now train em up & stick em on the front line, and see just how good it all is! Don't come squealing back when it's all too hard though - because you've asked for it! Like it or not, the ADF will have to cave in on these demands, as did they with gay troops a few years ago.
Unless some sanity prevails in the meanwhile.

Again I reiterate, the tide of opinion will turn when C130's start returning to RAAF bases with the body bags and caskets onboard.

It is emotive enough when women are caught in any conflict. We don't want, or need the 'flower' of our Australian people employed as prospective fodder in the military meat mincer.

Let's for one moment imagine the scenario of post WWI & WWII, and the loss of menfolk it occasioned. Put into this non gender specific roles, and we would arrive at a wonderful method of 'controlling' our population. Not to mention the social issues from competitive 'macho' being exhibited by the over-abundance of males.

Of course though, it's just another experiment after all.

Wow, there are a few women I'd like to see on the frontline. Too often women demand equality but only as it suits them. Notice women fill al the clean airconditioned jobs while the men still do the dity and dangerous stuff. Feminist Hypocrites.

Just another tiny but relevant point....

All female soldiers captured during the Iraq war (first one) were either raped or sexually assualted.

This is actually allowed under the Quranic rules.

Sura 23:5-6 "those your right hand possesses"= Female captives.

Sharia law is very clear 'They are a possession' and a possession gives you the legal right to do as you wish.

But I must not digress :)

I hope some girls who actually DO think gals should be in front line combat say a few words, but I also hope they can be sure of winning 9 out of 10 fights with a typical average bloke :) and if they can, I doubt they'd be very ladylike. (now that should wrankle some neck hairs :)

From the point of view of a veteran of WW11, Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam, I believe that female soldiers have performed well in support units and so allow male soldiers to be transferred from support to combat units.
I have a big problem in seeing them in a combat role. I have no problem with females entering combat areas in the performance of their duties re resupply etc.nor do I have any real concerns with them undertaking "peace keeping" duties where combat situations are rare and would be unlikely of the "hand to hand" type. But I shudder to think of them being members of a fighting Platoon where the likelyhood of being exposed to torn and bloody bodies, both of their fellow members and the enemy is great.I hope I am not offending members of the opposite sex when I say that women are not physically or emotionally built to withstand pressures of that kind.I would not be comfortable to have a female soldier watching my back in a combat situation and this has no relation to bravery (or lack of it) on the females part.

Alamo.

Hi & thanks for your efforts in defending the freedoms (diminishing as they are) we still enjoy today. It must p*ss you off no end to have done your bit for King/Queen & Country only to see what is happening today.

Absolutley, the concept of female soldiers serving in the SASR, the Commandos (there is a distinct difference between these unit's roles) or any front eschelon units is nothing more than a 'GI Jane fantasy'.

During my service 1977 - 1988, I met and served with ladies I would have had no hesitation in trusting in a military environment. They were also 'feminine' without being 'feminist'. Some have since gone on to greater things in the ADF and afterwards in civilian careers. This is not to say they would not perform under duress and combat conditions. But, like you, I would be uncomfortable knowing women were in my section, and expecting an imminent 'contact'. Its a 'bloke' thing this wanting to protect your lady compadre, it is also very primal I'm proud to admit. But there it is for what it's worth!

The best example of modern times is the Air Traffic controllers in Iraq - a highly stressful and intense job at times, as is nursing in combat environments. The ladies there are doing a wonderful job! In talking to your fellow veterans, I cannot see why on Gods Earth we would even contemplate exposing women to the horrors of hand to hand combat in its ultimate sense - this fighting "to the death" business of warfare.

To see any mate shot, dragged away, or worse still when the exfil arrives, left to be raped, does not bear contemplation. De-briefings, Post Traumatic Stress issues, all these matters are yet to be broached.

Again the fantasies of some deluded folk spring to mind. I can only hope that common sense prevails.

It is an absurd fantasy. All this female rights stuff is just getting out of hand. Hey why dont we sent Germaine Greer to see how women fair first and then if she makes it back we can think more seriously about it ha ha You have to agree it is an appealing thought.

Like Albie Manton says,

If you kill off all the young fertile women in a war (and I dont suppose they'll be sending old women to fight) then how are you going to repopulate the country.

A harem with a thousand men and one woman can only produce one baby every year. It would take twenty years to have 20 babies that is if the woman is up to the feat.

Sharky... *exactly* :)

some people are pretty thick.

Last night at Kickboxing, I met a newly arrived English girl who has just joined our group. She is quite solid, and appears under the impression that she is as tough as we guys :)

The instructors still pair her up with another girl. I think she has just swallowed the 'party line' about female strength and ability to confront a male.

If she and I ever have a spar, I'll update on how she goes.

Perhaps the Army could solve the feline combat troop problem by forming a GFN Batallion to be known as the 'Femobats' .

Then we woudn't have to loose the feminine bueaties to battle; and we woudnt have to marry the man haters that are left.

Attention Defence Minister; front and center Femobats!

Gadget ha ha -- that was pretty funny -- Germaine Greer isnt married is she? Now there is a beauty for you. I just cant seem to get off the germs thing can I -- oh well :) :)

What really would be so wrong about female soliders? Many of the young men sent off to war were not particuarly buff, if my images of WW1&WW2 are correct?

The concerns seem to be:
1) Women are too physically weak to beat a man in hand-to-hand combat
ans: probably true in many cases. But if there were 'standards' to be reached, only the women strong enough to reach them would be involved.

2) Women soliders are likely to be subjected to rape if captured
ans: Indeed, a serious issue, and one I do not have an answer to. I suspect some male prisoners have also be subjected to rape, but clearly female capture-ees are more likely to suffer this.

3) Women should not have to see bloody violence
ans: Hmm, I guess we'd better get rid of all female emergency services workers, ER doctors & nurses, police officers, etc. Frankly, if you're prepared for women to be nursing the results of war, you cannot have issue with them seeing how those wounds got there.

4) Women are needed to repopulate a society after massive loss of life.
ans: So, what, ALL women need to be protected from loss of life, but NO men need to be? If your society has lost such numbers that it cannot easily repopulate, then it has probably lost the war and will not be ALLOWED to repopulate.

5) Women are 'emotional'
ans: Surely we've learnt in recent years that men are not all stiff upper lip anyway?

6) Women would disagree with being conscripted
ans: Surely all people disagree with conscription? For anyone? And if there WERE conscription, surely having a larger pool of potential conscriptees would be of benefit to the soceity?

7) Women will negatively impact on the 'team morale'.
ans: Well, they're already in the army/navy/airforce, and there dosn't seem to be team morale problems directly associated with women being around, more the problems appear to be mainly structural, not sex-based.

So in sum: if individual women are physically strong enough, and want to, then why should they not be front-line soliders?

Laurie - Hi.

I can just imagine the peurile jokes queing now within the ADF.

The issue no one has really touched is: why would we want to put our ladies - butch, beautiful, feminine, feminazi, 'femobat' or other on the chopping block. As I indicated in an earlier post on this thread, there are many capable women out there who could no doubt do the job of 'killing'. I don't question that point.

Granted, an enemy (of the state?) is just as dead if shot with a bullet fired from a weapon whose trigger was pulled by a woman as they would be if a man pulled the trigger - that is the lowest common denominator the proponents want it taken down to. That precisely is what we all want to avoid. De-sensitisation by exposure.

Do we really want or need a repeat of the Changi POW Camp/ Burma Railway - this time played out with our women ADF in the picture?
Do we want to see Abu Grahib repeated with female forms in living, pixellated vision on the 7.30 news?

I must reiterate the statement of the whole thing being nothing more than someones GI Jane fantasy which is being orchestrated by faceless, nameless bureaucrats and bent minded social engineers.

Laurie. At first I did not intend replying to your post, but after discussing it with my Grandson,who is a serving soldier, I decided to take issue with you on some of your points;
" Many of the young men sent off to war were not particularly buff if my images of WW1 WW11 are correct" They were just average young men with average mixture of characteristics. However, their performances at Gallipoli, Tobruk, Kokoda, Long Tan etc.etc. were inspirational to the Nation and you do yourself no credit with your remarks.
In reference to "standards" you say that "only women strong enough to reach them would be involved". I appreciate that, but the danger inherent in a policy of women in a combat role is the tendency to drift into "token" females in a combat unit with the inevitable drop in standards.You wrote" Surely we have learned recently that men are not all that stiff upper lip anyway" Well my answer to that is"I hope not" as compassion is part of the makeup of a decent man.My point is that it is extremely traumatic to have a fellow soldier killed alongside one and one can spend the rest of his life wondering if you could have done or not done something which would have saved him/her.
So,Laurie, to align that to trained nurses,doctors SE members and police is not really fair, as much as I admire those people.As Albie rightly put it "Why should we want to put our ladies on the chopping block"

Alamo - I was commenting that many of our soliders in the past have not been especially physically strong, at least on first appearances. That in no way links to any dismissal of their achievements.

And I don't believe that 'tokenism' would lead to any lowering of standards, unless people wish it to happen. Lately standards in the ADF have been offically lowered anyway, which has nothing to do with whether or not women should be allowed in the front line.

To your final comment around why would we want young women killed? Well, why would we want young men killed? Surely it is just as much a tragedy, someone's brother/husband/son/father being killed as it is a sister/wife/daughter/mother? All war involves death and horrible consequences, I simply do not see that young women (of whom I am one) should be anymore protected from this reality than young men. I would think our society should be valuing the lives of its young men and women equally, or indeed, tossing them away equally.

Laurie, your comments are noted. I could present you with many scenarios to strengthen my case against women in front line units, but it would be a futile exercise. You have your view and I have mine so let us agree to disagree, rgds

Sharkfin kind of put the whole thing in perspective right there?

Good question and right on.

Dear Laurie

Let me be very clear, if push came to shove, and we needed all hands on deck to survive, I'd be as appreciative of any female help I could get, including in combat. I see no reason for females not to be given full 'readiness' training including weapons and unarmed combat familiarity. I'll be happy to train them :) I've seen females deal a kickboxing style knee to the face which put a bloke out for the count in one go.

But being male, and aware of my own condition, and the situation of being in isolated locations with a bunch of other guys, toting guns and backpacks,..... somehow a female just doesnt' fit. Guys tend to think a LOT about the opposite sex when they are isolated, and R&R during Vietnam saw the 'cat houses' very well patronized by young sex starved (dare I say 'crazed'?) men.

If a female was attractive, and fully qualified according to the criteria specified, and joined a front line platoon, I think it would be about 5 microseconds before the 'guys' were polarized, panting and making a play for her affections. I cannot think of anything more destructive to the fighting cohesiveness of a bunch of guys.....
except... this. If she found herself attracted to some bloke and they actually DID 'do' something naughty, wooo..I think that would be the end of morale.

At the end of the day, we are still males and females.

War is an obscenity - it is simply more obvious when we imagine women engaged in it. I never see hand to hand combat anymore and women are certainly just as able to pull a trigger as men. Also 60kg men would be easily overpowered by 120kg men but small men are not refused front line duty because they are easily overpowered by bigger people. I think the repopulation argument is perhaps the most logical but with so few women having children these days...

Boaz..you are right when you say 'at the end of the day we are still male and female' .

A female is snot as strong as a man, even at the same size,thinks differently..war is not about emotions its about logic etc...

The battlefield is no place for women.