From: julie@pascal.org   
      
   On Monday, July 28, 2014 8:02:30 PM UTC-6, bre...@sff.net wrote:   
   > On 7/28/2014 6:59 PM, J.Pascal wrote:   
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   > > On Monday, July 28, 2014 4:49:41 PM UTC-6, Shawn Wilson wrote:   
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   > >> On Monday, July 28, 2014 3:30:55 PM UTC-7, J.Pascal wrote:   
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   > >>>> Excuse me, but in the 21st century combat jobs are limited to men as   
   well.   
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   > >>> Only true if you don't count most of the combat jobs.   
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   > >> Infantry, Armor, Artillery, Special Forces, Combat Engineers, all men   
   only.   
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   > >> What combat job do you think admits women?   
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   > > Pilots.   
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   > > MPs (mounted.)   
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   > > More pilots.   
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   > My daughter is an MP in a CID battalion. They are running around    
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   > Afghanistan, turning over rocks to see what trouble crawls out.   
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   > Brenda   
      
   I don't know why I thought she was flying helicopters.   
      
   In any case, I think there have been some rule changes lately over where women   
   can serve.  I'm not sure exactly what those are.  Previous, though, the rules   
   were "no women in combat"... and we found that old definitions of what combat   
   was and wasn't    
   really didn't work anymore and MP's in particular did a number of tasks that   
   were clearly "combat".  I think it was the Marines who attached women to   
   infantry door-kicker squads, officially, so they could search houses and the   
   women in them without    
   making situations worse than they needed to be.  And then Congress found out.   
      
   No one will see me arguing that women should be infantry or special forces   
   because the amount of gear that has to be carried is such that size and   
   strength dictates that the people in those roles are male. (And in general,   
   modern militaries with women in    
   those roles do not deploy.  I'm sure Swedes have an inclusive military but   
   when is the last time they went anywhere?)   
      
   However, we're talking about science fiction and fantasy.  If the parameters   
   change, what makes sense to do also changes.  Maybe all the space commandos   
   will be 100 pound women between 4'10" and 5'3" because someone decided that a   
   trigger-pull of 8    
   pounds didn't require a 6' 200 pound man and cutting biomass by 50% also cut   
   cell metabolism and oxygen use by 50%... a la Cold Equations.   
      
   "All of our commandos are very large and scary men" isn't a wrong answer.  But   
   it's not the only right answer either.   
      
   -Julie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)