Well, actually, it's the British Army that's finally facing reality.
Posted on 11/06/2005 5:53:18 PM PST by Plainsman
The Army is abandoning mixed-sex training units because too many female recruits are getting injured trying to keep up with their male counterparts.
From next April, women will be placed in their own platoons and although the training regime will remain the same, it will be conducted at a pace 'sustainable and commensurate with their physical profile'.
Army chiefs hope the changes will greatly reduce drop-out rates among women after research showed female recruits are up to nine times more likely than men to be discharged through a training-related injury.
Dr James Bilzon, the Army Training and Recruitment Agency's senior scientific adviser, found that women are getting hurt as they try to match men in arduous drills and marches wearing full combat gear.
His research showed that, in general, women are less able to cope with the sudden introduction to the exhausting exercise regime demanded by the Army.
The most common complaints are stress fractures to the shin and thigh bones, and pelvic injuries caused by attempting to keep up with the longer stride patterns of men.
'Men are stronger and more robust and it's silly to pretend otherwise'
Dr Bilzon said: "There is a high incidence of training-induced overuse injuries and associated medical discharges among trainees with lower levels of aerobic fitness, particularly females."
He added: "Female recruits are three-to-four times more likely than males to be medically discharged with a training injury, a figure which may be as high as nine times in some training units."
The changes will end a decade of mixed platoons and are a rebuff to modernisers who insisted women soldiers should be treated equally.
Confirming the move away from mixed-sex training, Colonel David Eccles, Chief of Staff at the Army Training and Recruitment Agency, said: "From spring 2006 all initial training for the British Army will be organised along the lines of single-sex platoons at the Army Training Regiment at Pirbright."
Colonel Bob Stewart, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his service in Bosnia in the early Nineties, said it was "hardly surprising" the Army could not train men and women together.
"Men are stronger and more robust and it's silly to pretend otherwise. It seems that at last the Army has woken up to the fact that women are different - something blatantly obvious to anyone," he added.
The Adult Learning Inspectorate, which assesses training standards for youngsters, had urged a rethink of the Army's 'gender-free' policy.
It found that shin bone fractures in women had risen from 12.6 per 10,000 personnel to 231.2 since the introduction of mixed-sex training, while all injuries among women rose from 467 to 1,113 per 10,000. Women currently serve alongside men in all aspects of Army life apart from infantry and tank units and last year 815 women enlisted.
Well just...Duh.
This has always been the main problem with a mixed military IMO. If you train men and women together, one group will suffer. The real worry for me was that the men would have to dilute their training regimine so as not to make it impossible for women to train with them.
I wanted the men to be the best prepared they could possibly be, physically. This stands for the women too, but men and women are different and training different groups with differing abilities was problematic.
I should state that I have not been involved with the military and would appreciate the views of those who have been, with regard to whether my concerns were valid or not.
Something the Marines realized from the beginning. Good to see the Army is finally facing reality.
Maybe the armed forces should be like golf courses and have ladies rules for combat. Even better, have a ladies winner in warfare like they do in marathons.
New name..."This ladies army"....Hehehehehe
No kiddin' there's a different physical profile? What morons!
'Men are stronger and more robust and it's silly to pretend otherwise'
Cool! Step 2 is to get an agreement from our enemies to go easier on the women.
Well, actually, it's the British Army that's finally facing reality.
"Something the Marines realized from the beginning. Good to see the Army is finally facing reality"
Unfortuneately, it's not our Army that is making this change, it't the Brits.
Good to see political correctness being thrown out the window. Zut Alors! You mean women have different bodies than men do?
You betcha. Men need 20 mile hikes with packs on to strengthen legs, ankles, hips. Women are naturally stronger from the top of the hips down. They need to work on upper body conditioning and strength if they are gonna be warriors.
Ask Olga from Michigan!
This is the way I read the story as well. Yet I suspect the statistics apply anywhere some planner comes up with the same training regimen for both sexes unless the regimen is designed strictly for the lasses.
This can't be true! A woman can do anything a man can do.
I know this because that's what the media has told me for the last 30 years! And, you know, everything reported in the newspaper and on television is correct.They can't lie
it's against the law. yeah right
Will the enemy only send other women to fight there women?
Marine Corps to Army: We told you so.
"Girls and boys are different"
signed, any Kindergartener
There are probably a bunch of pansy men that don't want to be outdone by a girl...
There are virtually no sports where women compete directly against men, yet liberals want women to fight men on the battlefield.
'Men are stronger and more robust and it's silly to pretend otherwise'
Who didn't know this?
Follow the Marines and the Army will be alright.
I am sure that retired Dim Senator Pat Schroeder is
pulling out what hair she has left !!
Ha Ha !
If I promise to go easy...can I play with the girls?
I will risk committing the grievous thoughtcrime of political incorrectness and state the next logical question, why does the military discharge men who can meet the female physical standard? Why not restrict them to the jobs that women are allowed into?
owowowow don't hit me owowowow
Will they also just fight against other women? Just wondering.
Hopefully when they go to battle the eneny will have the courtesy of only using women soldiers against them.
Uh, no.
Slow learners - the Army that is.
I think it is the British Army. Ours is mired in PC think.
They just have to ask any married man.
He's quite right.
Damn!
At first glance, I thought; My Army, The US Army. Outstanding!!!
Just, Damn.
I don't think they have women's matches in war.
Technically, the US Army (the senior service) realized this from the beginning (1775). It was only in the mid 1980s that politicians locked targets on the largest service and politicized General Officer careerists caved in.
Some day, we may rightly return to single-sex training for the sex-integrated branches.
(The military simply needs to figure out what women do better than men.)
I am noticing that men are disappearing from the banking industry. I think that's because women are better than men for work that deals with details and organization. I'm sure there are a lot of jobs in the armed forces that require those skills.
If that were the case, black soldiers would not have been integrated into US Army units until the Korean War, when the USMC grudgingly accepted them into the "Stewards Branch" (wow).
Instead, my Army began integration during late 1945 and SET THE STANDARD for the other services to follow.
Admittedly, we went too far with same-sex training and the USMC kept doing it right.
That's one of the problems I had with the alien movies. It is the type of movie where the male marines quickly get massacred (well, there was one woman among them), while the female lead ends up saving the day. Particularly galling is when the marines start getting massacred, and the support people are frozen into inaction. The female lead gets disgusted with them, takes over an armored personnel carrier and goes in and saves the marines. Aaaaaaagh!
I believe my platoon in Basic Training at Ft Dix in 1979 was one of the first male/female platoons.
They announced it to us. They also announced that we were to no longer call them "Drill Sergeant" but simply "Sergeant".
Oh, they were not happy about that at all. But it was the only slip-up we could do that didn't result in push-ups - to call them "Drill Sergeant".
Later on I just assumed this was more Carterization of the Armed Forces as things continued to go downhill from there.
My frame of reference is a little off.
I did Basic in 1985, but we didn't have womens in combat arms back then.
The US Army has led the way on a lot of things, but we screwed the pooch on this one. There should have been plenty of GOs ready to stand up to Pat Schroeder and the RATs, but they didn't.
It's not a question of the women "keeping up with their male counterparts."
It's a question of the women keeping ahead of the enemy.
That's the race they can't afford to lose.
Well whaddaya know?
Women really DO have to be twice as good to be considered equal to men ;^>
Aw, come on. It's standard Sci-Fi. Write a man, and have him played by a woman. Kira Nerys-DS9, Ripley-Alien(s), Zoe-Firefly/Serenity, et al...
Let the weenies have their fun.
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