Fact-checking the debate over women in the military
I’ve been told on the Internet more than a few times since yesterday that the emotional danger wrought by having women in combat is proven by the fact that Israeli Defense Forces allegedly do not gender integrate as a result of male soldiers being more willing to risk their lives for fellow female combatants. I tracked down the source of this, which is in Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s 1996 book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society in which he wrote:
The presence of women and children can inhibit aggression in combat, but only if the women and children are not threatened. If htey are present, if they become threatened, and if the combatant accepts responsibility for them, then the psychology of battle changes from one of carefully constrained ceremonial combat among males to the unconstrained ferocity of an animal who is defending its den.
Thus the presence of women and children can also increase violence on the battlefield. The Israelis have consistently refused to put women in combat since their experiences in 1948. I have been told by several Israeli officers that this is because in 1948 they experienced recurring incidences of uncontrolled violence among male Israeli soldiers who had had their female combatants killed and injured in combat, and because the Arabs were extremely reluctant to surrender to women.
It isn’t a study. It’s based on this man’s discussions with “several Israeli officers” about something that happened in 1948. This isn’t the most valid argument against gender integration.
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holatierra reblogged this from thepoliticalnotebook
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thearcanetheory said:
women totally serve in combat and on the front lines in the IDF, and there are both gender segregated as well as integrated units. so that argument is fallacious anyway
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elizabethlittle reblogged this from thepoliticalnotebook and added:
I never even thought to question this claim (why I dimwittedly didn’t...a subject for...
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watdafuquebro said:
While it hasn’t been studied and it’s pretty much a shit reason, a lot of soldiers seem to agree on this aspect, men and women alike.
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praxidikai said:
I would LOVE for women to be in combat roles. I would also love mandatory service for a particular amount of time, 1-2 years before/after college. Maybe then the patriarchal elites wouldn’t be so quick to enter into ruinious wars.
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