women in the military issue

     Women in the Military
 
Women in the military has been a large controversial issue for about 25 years. Those who support women being in the military argue that putting women in war makes them aggressive physically and that leadership and training did not harm unit cohesion. Most importantly, supporters argue that women can perform as well or better than men in combat positions. However, those who oppose women in the military argue that there is more of a chance that they will get sexually harassed and they are less willing to take risks. Furthermore, the opposing sides argue that women lack physical ability, they are much weaker than men, they are more prone to injury, they are less aggressive and they are less tolerant of pain.
Women have been in the military for many years now and it started in 1942. At that time, there were 350,000 women that served in World War II. Women were also in the air force. But by 1948, President Harry S. Truman had issued an order that desegregates the armed services by race. The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act had put a 2% cap on how many women are allowed in the military. This act was passed after 300,000 women were in non-combat positions ranging from a telephone operator to a translator to a nurse. The women who were enlisted, had jobs consisting of clerical, administrative, and health care. There were a few women that did become pilots during the war, but none of them flew combat positions. By 1967, the military had removed the 2% cap on women. Then in 1972, there were the first women to ever enter the reserve officer training corps. About a year later, the military services required to have admitted many more women to fill their ranks. Three more years later, the first female cadets were admitted to the military service academies in WestPoint, N.Y., Annapolis, M.D., and
Colorado Springs, Colo. In 1978, they began creating gender-integrated branches, meaning that women are beginning to be assigned to jobs the same as men. One of these branches was on the Navy support ships. Within the 1980’s, many more women began to join the military. There were nearly half a million troops in the Persian Gulf War that were deployed and 35,000 were women. That was the largest deployment of U.S. service women. Defense secretary Les Aspin ordered the military to allow women to serve as combat aviators and on service ships. Lastly In 1999, the first women combat pilots to see military action were deployed in the Serbian Province of Kosovo in Yugoslavia.
Supporters of women in the military claim that women can perform as well or better than men in combat positions. Most people argue that because most women do not have the physical ability, they are not fit to hold the position of being a soldier. Physical strength is only one part of being a soldier. Rhonda Cornum, a former Army Helicopter Pilot, agrees with this and she said, “The qualities that are most important in all military jobs, things like integrity, moral courage and determination have nothing to do with gender”, (Women in the Military Update). A study shows that the integration had very positive effects. Most of the time, people come to the idea that women are somehow unfit for combat because men are much braver than women. “Many women are excellent shots with pistol, carbine and automatic weapons, many men can’t hit a cow with a target painted on it”, Wilson, a 22-year veteran of the Air Force, pointed out, (Women in the Military Update).
The second issue people argue about is the fact that women become aggressive physically when put in face of danger. A large amount of people claim that women do not
possess the “killer instinct” concluded to be effective when fighting. According to
supporters, that’s not that accurate. “I have known some pretty weak men who couldn’t protect the back of their own mother in a crisis or combat situation and some strong women who would go to the wall for a total stranger in the trenches--and vice versa. But when it comes to the trenches, fox holes, convert operations, guerrilla warfare, etc., I think it takes a particular personality type--almost on the edge of a pathological one--to even want to become a trained killer”, explained Wilson, (Women in the Military Update).
The last supporting reason is that leadership and training did not harm unit cohesion. Unit cohesion is the bonding between soldier to soldier to raise the cooperation level to have a more effective military. Gender had absolutely nothing to do with unit cohesion. Raising women in ranks did not change this bonding. All it did was improve the military.
The large reason why people argue that women should not be in military is that most women lack the physical ability and strength to defend their country. “The facts indicate that the complete integration of men and women in all aspects of military life has proven to be a disaster”, wrote Rep. Robert Livingston, (Women in the Military). Most of the time, women are weaker than men and do not have the ability to lift and carry large backpacks and weapons for a long period of time. “Because women are on the average five inches shorter than men, are generally lighter and possess half of men’s upper-body strength, they are asked to perform different physical standards than men, (Women in the Military).” Women are also more prone to injury and are less tolerant of pain. Men can
normally take pain a lot easier and do not get hurt as easily as women. “Integration of combat forces would inevitably lead to a less effective military”, says Kingsley Browne, who is a law professor at Wayne State University and the author of Co-Ed Combat, (Women at War).
Another issue people argue about is that when women go into the military, they have more of a chance of getting sexually harassed when captured. Once this happens, the U.S. military becomes weaker because if they become pregnant, they must leave and cannot come back until the child is old enough to take care of his/herself. Thus there are less people, so they have to bring in another person. Most of the time, it’s a new recruit who is male and less skilled than the woman they lost. “No other nation has ever put so many women in combat or near-combat, and children are paying the price”, said Allen Carlson of the Family Research Council, (Women in the Military Update). Not only does the military lose the pilot, (when referring to air craft) they have to pay the price. To train a pilot, it costs $3 million but if a pilot is absent for a significant amount of time, that pilot must be retrained at a cost that could come to $250,000. Sixty-one percent of people said that they felt sexual harassment would increase if all combat roles were opened to women.
Another problem is that when the military makes the obstacle courses, they have to make them suitable for women. The suitability for women is a lot less intense than what they would originally have for men. Since the military wants to use the same equipment for both men and women, the men aren’t being challenged enough and working to their full ability. According to many critics, allowing women to meet lower
standards may endanger the lives of U.S. citizens because there are no standards when fighting and the women’s bodies might fail them.
As stated above, women participating in the military is a very controversial issue. In my opinion, I think that women should be able to participate in the military. To begin
with, women should not be left out in any physical activity or job just because they are women. Though there are women who are not physically capable of working at this type of career, women should be able to make a choice at going or not. In spite the fact that according to science, men are stronger than women but there is an ability that women possess that men do not and that is that most women are mentally capable to fight in war. Women in the military is still a large controversial issue that people argue about today.