Elinda wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I'll echo early sentiments. I have no problem with it as long as the treatment is actually the same. So signing up for the draft, held to the same physical conditioning requirements, competing for the same advancement routes, etc. Unfortunately, for all the claims of equality and whatnot, women in the military are not held to the same standards as men, and have vastly easier advancement tracks. I've always felt that was insulting to the truly capable women who wear the uniform, and would love to see a real gender blind military.
How are their advancement tracks easier?
Because their current restrictions from direct combat roles is "balanced" (in theory) by not placing such a requirement on mid/high tier advancement. It's much easier for a female officer to obtain the rank of Major or Colonel by following a non-combat track than a male officer, for example. Obviously, part of that also comes from the fact that there are far fewer women in the military as a whole and there's a push (again mostly in non-combat, but high profile/political positions) for more visibility of female officers. If you don't think there are aspects of affirmative action going on in the military (especially at the Pentagon), you are terribly deluded.
I'm not claiming that those women who hold those ranks are not qualified for them or do not deserve them. What I am saying is that there is less direct competition for those positions and ranks if you are a woman than if you are a man. Put another way, an extremely capable female officer is likely to be one of only a few such extremely capable female officers in consideration for a given position (with presumed good advancement potential), while an equally capable male officer might be one of several hundred similarly capable male officers in consideration for an equivalent position with equivalent advancement potential.
Right now the one advantage men do have is that combat experience tends to open up tracks of advancement (and some high rank positions) that are not available via a non-combat track. This is why I applaud this idea (and have for as long as I've posted here certainly). By eliminating this restriction, then we can eliminate the current messed up imbalanced system and allow both sexes to compete and work together as equals. But at the same time, we have to eliminate even the hint or suggestion that some favoritism may go on (in either direction). I think we can all agree that we want our military personnel to be advanced based on completely equal consideration of their abilities and without any consideration of their gender. That's currently not the case.
So a step in the right direction, one can hope.