Quote from: shadowedge on Aug 16, 2012, 10:37:23 PM
Very clever.
I a just curious, is the American military equal when it comes to men and women? Or is any country equal yet? I know that there are some females in the armed forces here in the States but i do not know how they are treated in relation to the men or if they get the same benefits and stuff.
I think we have a woman in my hometown who is a Colonel.
It's... A bit of a sticky area, to be honest. Obviously, there are concerns about things like upper body strength, although, obviously, if a woman
could pass the initial test for that, then so be it. From what I remember, though, the Israelis did studies on mixed gender front-line combat roles and human psychology has an unfortunate habit to enter operational procedure. Men are programmed to be more protective of female colleagues, for example and will take more risks to rescue them - and be plagued by more frustrations/stresses which can distract them, if female members of their unit are captured. This essentially leads to personnel being off their game, so to speak (and can even lead to motivations of revenge creeping into combat engagements and ignoring the recognised rules of engagement).
There's also the topic of fraternisation, which
does go on, even though it's not meant to. If you've ever witnessed an office romance and the negative consequences of that, this can be writ large in a life-or-death environment, where favouritism will tend to be
suspected by others who are aware of the relationship, leading to trust issues, even if the pair, themselves, are somehow actively trying to avoid it and keep things strictly professional (although, again, considering human nature, favouritism is a real possibility).
To a certain extent (it's not purely sexual, after all - people can have vested romantic feelings and be in a relationship
without sex being involved), this latter problem can be eliminated, due to sleeping arrangements being separated (something which can't be done when bisexual/homosexual personnel enter the equation, for obvious reasons). But the first problem is still a risk to efficiency.
Unless policy has changed, I
think the Israelis still have women in front-line combat units, but got around it by making them female-exclusive.
The unisex barracks/showering arrangements depicted in '
Starship Troopers' won't be happening any time soon, clearly, unless the Pentagon is allowed to implant mind-control chips in recruits' brains to rid them of basic human emotions.
Yes, female personnel are frequently involved in firefights in support positions, but this is unavoidable. It's not the same thing as deliberately tempting fate in front-line 'dirty' infantry combat (and, it should be kept in mind, female personnel would be priority targets for militants trying to exploit these very psychological weaknesses, in the same way as innocent Jewish tourists are unfortunately more of a target for terrorists).
That's why I think games which revolve around the Colonial Marines
should be authentic and allow for female personnel, since the source material has been portrayed that way. But why I also have issues with the slightly self-righteous nature of the Twitter quote. Because there are are genuine psychological issues to take into account, which have absolutely nothing to do with sexism or assumptions about potential sexual assault, when discussing the pros and cons of having mixed-gender combat personnel units.
With all that said, I love female military characters and own copies of the excellent '
Love My Rifle More Than You' and '
Dressed To Kill', which are the biographies of two female soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan and are very enlightening. One of the fiction novels I'm in the process of writing also centres around a female gunship pilot, set in the future, so... I'm all for more of this stuff being represented! But also of applying realism where possible!