The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[xoxoxoBruce]

Isn't it all about using politics to control? Maybe politics reflect culture, thereby becoming a tool of the culture to reinforce itself.

I said before I don't think this thread has developed as Dana envisioned it, but following the time honored tradition of drift(he said guiltily), it has veered back to the track repeatedly.

Dana, I recently read from 2005 to 2012, India created 27 million new jobs, and 55 million new workers. They're now adding 1 million workers a month.
To you think there is any grass roots interest in making it easier for more women to go to work? If they did make it easier, isn't there the danger of household A having 2 employed, living well, and household B destitute, rather than both households having 1 employed and getting by?

[Clodfobble]

The inherent followup to "women work" is not that the same number of jobs are redistributed, but that more gets done, which means greater prosperity on a large scale, but also an individual one. When both people in household A are making money, they have more to spend, which means they're going to want someone from household B to perform a service or create a good for them. If nothing else they'll ask B to clean their nice big house.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Walmart can handle the increase in sales, without adding help, while still killing any entrepreneurs who challenge them.
Not hiring B, if someone from household C will do it cheaper. Such is the flaw in the free market when it comes to helping the poor not be.

[Clodfobble]

Yabbut, if they really didn't want the workforce/customerbase to double, then by that logic Walmart would be even happier if half the population died. I mean, putting twice as many men into the workforce is making things hard, right? Better if we only had half the men. Or half of that. Or half...

I mean transitions have to be eased into, sure. You can't just magically dump all of the women into the workforce overnight. There's economic infrastructure that has to be built. But the bottom line is it's always a good thing to add more people into the economy, right up until the moment the natural resources run out--and then, of course, everyone's fucked.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Walmart is reactive, not proactive when it comes to population. At least I hope so.

Dr Dana, lookie lookie...
A Day In the Life of an Empowered Female Heroine

She woke up like she did every day: slowly pulling her motorcycle helmet off, then shaking her head slowly back and forth to reveal a long, blonde ponytail. Everyone gasped. “That’s right,” she said, kicking the winning football goal before sliding into a sheer, sexy camisole under a blazer and playing as hard as she worked, “I’ve been a girl this whole time.” One of the guys, the real sexy one, shook his head in slow motion, as if to say “wh-wh-wh-whaaat?” You know the kind. His mouth was kind of open while he did it. He was totally blown away.

[sexobon]

They done did it ...

U.S. military opens all combat roles to women

[xoxoxoBruce]

I saw that on the news.

"Secretary Carter's decision to open all combat positions to women will have a consequential impact on our service members and our military's warfighting capabilities," Senator John McCain and Representative Mac Thornberry said in a statement.

Now that's about as non-statement as you can get, neither yea nor nay, as clear as mud but it covers the ground.

What do you think Sexobon, is it smoke and mirrors? Nobody but GI Jane has a chance even with the positions officially open, except for positions that aren't real gung ho macho.

[sexobon]

As long as the females concerned can meet existing standards it's not an insurmountable problem. Problems occur when standards are lowered to meet quotas, which inevitably come about, so politicking generals can wear their equal opportunity merit badges.

You've already read about the recent female Ranger course graduates. Few know that Special Forces did an ad hoc feasibility study back in the 1980s by putting a female captain through its qualification course. This was done for reasons mentioned earlier concerning female soldiers' reach to females in indigenous populations. I ran across her in passing at Special Forces Schools where she was assigned to a support position. The word I got was that she acquitted herself well; however, she was only permitted to audit the course and not become SF qualified due to public policy at the time. There are legal ramifications to becoming SF qualified. It would have made her a combatant just as I lost my medical personnel Geneva Convention status when I became a Special Forces medical specialist and I mean my status was actually changed on my military ID card.

There can still be gender segregation in classified organizations. They can be all male; or, all female as missions require. Soldiers in those units are dropped from the roles of the regular Army. If you ask the Army about one of them, the Army will say they never heard of 'em. All civil-military interaction goes through innocuous cover organizations. If they think they need to segregate, they still can albeit on a much smaller scale.

What this is going to do for office romances when the office is a poncho hooch out in the boonies is hard to say.

[xoxoxoBruce]

So you feel the officers on down the line will follow the directive for the most part. I'm sure there will a couple hardasses who will do everything they think they can get away with to disqualify applicants, but they'll get weeded out. Everybody in the military has a boss to answer to.

[sexobon]

The problem won't be so much with some trying to disqualify females as it will be that after qualification females will get shuffled into lesser priority positions within the higher priority units. In Special Forces for example, it's long been said that it takes 6 years after the initial qualification course to make a good Special Forces soldier. There's mandatory cross-training in a second SF specialty (cross-training in a third SF specialty for SF warrant officers), training in one or more foreign languages, military free fall, scuba, various survival courses, SERE, SOT ... etc. On top of all that, Special Forces teams are area specialists who've done country studies and are continuously updating them with concentration on their specific area of operation.

How do you replace someone with all those capabilities and specialized knowledge if you have to deploy an SF team; but, one of them is pregnant? You don't. You may be able to put another warm body with the basic qualification on that team but it won't be as effective and they all know their lives depend on that effectiveness: they're not a sports team. It used to be up to chance that someone might become non-deployable because of something like an accidental injury. Now they have to plan on it being a deliberate act.

It doesn't cost them anything in terms of deployability to put females through a qualification course; so, I think where they'll be getting really creative is in how they assign females afterwards even to the point of creating low priority teams around them depending on the individuals they have to accommodate.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Thanks for the insight, I can see where Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance takes a lot of practice and trust.

[Undertoad]

How do you replace someone with all those capabilities and specialized knowledge if you have to deploy an SF team; but, one of them has an ACL tear?

SHIT SHIT SHIT WE DIDN'T THINK OF THAT! "MAN DOWN" OR WHATEVER THEY SAY

ABORT MISSION!! AH SHIT SHIT DON'T SAY ABORT

Did you all realize how terribly FRAGILE the SF are? Fuck, they can't even plan their way out of simple personnel issues that are understood and can be planned (it's 2015 and they have pills and devices to prevent pregnancy now!) and known about for MONTHS in advance! WHAT TOTAL PUSSIES! One of 'em goes down for 6 months and it's like, ah, mission cancelled I guess. Beginning to understand why it took a decade to get bin Laden.*

Do we really need these people or can they be replaced with drones already. Could have bombed that site in Allottabad just as easily. Might have not risked guys and expensive elite copters to do it.





*i know that was the seals, point remains

[infinite monkey]

So, special forces are, like, soccer players?????

[sexobon]

I see UT is on the rag. I'm tempted to do a Lamplighter and twist UT's words, "(it's 2015 and they have pills and devices to prevent pregnancy now!)", into his inferring the military should impose birth control on female soldiers. Sorry these changes didn't come about early enough for you to get into SF UT. You would've made a fine PUSSIES OF ONE.

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

So, special forces are, like, soccer players?????

More like world championship playoff game soccer players only if you lose, you die. These teams can be required to operate at the limits of human performance. Take a member off the team when there's insufficient time to fully integrate a replacement and they're not world champions anymore; although, they can still play soccer. Question is, with lives at stake, who wants to be on that team when it goes to the playoff? Who wants to send it there in the first place? It doesn't matter why a member was taken off the team (e.g. torn ACL or pregnancy), the affects are the same.

When something like that happens in the military, the team gets an uninitiated replacement and assigned to lesser missions; or, it goes into a training cycle. The individual who couldn't perform may be put into individual training commensurate with their capabilities (e.g. sitting on their keister in language school); or, given a desk job depending on how much advance notice the command has and what options are available at the time. Males who are repeatedly non-deployable due to injuries resulting from their choices in personal activities can be reassigned to other units. Will they do the same with females who want to have several children? Individuals who are going to be out for more than 6 months can be reassigned out of high priority units. Will they do the same with females having post partum complications? All those who are going to be out for more than a year can already be medically discharged from the military.

Neither those who volunteer for high priority units nor their chains of command aspire to be held back by anyone. The military will now have to give equal treatment to non-deployable males that it will be giving to non-deployable females. It forces them to lower standards; or, create redundancies that taxpayers will pay for. We the people ... have chosen the latter. The military will be getting more creative about assignments within high priority units until the taxpayers pony up.

[xoxoxoBruce]

We the people ... have chosen the latter.

We the people have no say in the matter. The few who own the politicians decide how much to give the Pentagon, and they decide how many high priority special forces units, how many bombs, and how many golf courses.

There's no difference between a soldier who shoots himself in the foot and a soldier who is pregnant. It's a choice that would keep them from doing their job... your fired.