A woman trained in the use of a rifle and holding a rifle is no more or less dangerous than a man trained in the use of a rifle and holding a rifle. They're extremely similar in the "shit just got dangerous" category. Why on earth would it be okay to shoot one but not the other?
I play gears of war 3, online. I play as a female character. I shoot and kill male and female characters, all who are armed soldiers in full body armour, and I'm ok either way.
This is what we need - female characters who are presented just like the male ones in how they are attired, fight and act.
the only time mysogyny enters in gears 3 is when other players bring it... and thats not the games fault.
I like that article. Especially where she saves face on her "sister service." She is a Marine. That's funny. (not in a sexist way, in the fact that gender actually doesn't matter, inter-branch shenanigans knows no rank, gender, creed or color. *M*uscles *a*re *R*equired, *I*ntelligence *N*on-*E*ssential)
She raises all the same points I do. Women don't belong in Combat Arms branches in the Army no more than in Infantry positions in my... sister branch of the Marines. I saw all those injuries on two tours in most, if not all, my female counterparts, officers and underlings. One Specialist in my squad actually was laid up for a week because of leg atrophy, and as MP's, who do *alot* of mounted patrols and route security, this is a crippling problem. Women do not belong in these units, they simply cannot sustain the physical capacity to do. They may want to, but they can no more keep up with male counterparts than we can walk on water.
As such seeing them in a videogame would just further send the wrong message to the wrong people. People who think they know more about what you do and what you *should* do, when they totally lake any experience of their own. Women don't belong in that type of unit and as of now, that's the units that video games are made about.
That's not what he meant and you know that's not what he meant. Bringing children into the world has nothing to do with one's ability to properly function in a combat situation which is all this debate is about.
And yes you can pick and choose which things are okay. If we didn't, we as a society would have no art, no mediums, and definitely no video games. You have to separate good ideas from bad ideas. There will never be a time where video games don't have to make certain realistic sacrifices in order to remain entertaining. A game that would be 100% realistic would not be entertaining, as that's called reality, and if were playing a game, i.e. an escapist form of entertainment... well you see where I'm going with this. Even if say, virtual reality exists, you'd still have to "cheat" and allow the player say more endurance then they possess in reality. That's a big one in FPS's of all shapes and sizes.
Ah, so having men with more endurance than they possess in reality is an acceptable sacrifice of realism for entertainment (and not at all conducive to children getting a warped view of what humans are capable of), but portraying women as having enhanced physical strength is offensive?
As for space marines: Games Workshop has explicitly said, since day one, that Warhammer is an inherently creative product that allows and even encourages players to create new worlds, armies, character styles, within the rules and even (with their opponents' agreement) beyond the rules. And nowhere in the Black Book is it stated that Space Marines must be male (that entire rule comes from an early White Dwarf article that was partially added to a compendium circa 1989 [http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/roarsgirls.html] and hasn't been referenced in any official material since even though the rules and official storylines have been drastically altered since then). Oh, but you're applying Real Science as your excuse? Yeah, right, we're on the verge of genetically engineering superhumans [http://www.cracked.com/article_19850_5-absurd-sci-fi-scenarios-science-actually-working-on_p2.html] and you're claiming that there must still be patriarchal gender roles in a science fiction setting?
I'm not against women characters but let's be honest cod and moh bf3 are more about the modern military and reflects on modern warefare, meaning women are not currently front line combat fighters or special forces, atleast not yet. So why should games that are built around current military just invent it? I say they should stay out of the political idea of it. However mass effect series controdicts this whole thing but then again mass effect universe is a sci fi futuristic game , not real life based as cod, bf3, or moh series.
Little historic anecdote: Back in 1993 the German army released a neat little propaganda game called "Helicopter Mission". At start of the game you get the choice between male or female pilot, when you select the female one you get a text box telling you women can only become medics or part of the military band in the German army, the male pilot is automatically selected after that little educational lesson.
I guess I can't speak first hand on how military operations work, but everyone I know who can seems to echo a single thought on the matter: Using enemy weapons is a good way to get shot at by your allies. I suppose it might be slightly less of a problem these days due to the greater communication capabilities of armed forces. Plus, there are historical instances of certain forces using enemy fire arms to confuse enemy combatants. However, the player in the call of duty, battlefield, and medal of honor games are capable doing so even when it would both be entirely pointless and negligent (especially considering the fact that picking up an enemy weapon means dropping yours, which is a good way to get charged with destruction/loss of government property.)
are frequently ordered to carry out combat duties that make no damn sense
The modern military shooters frequently require the player to run through hostile territory or clear hostile buildings without the assistance of a partner or under covering fire. They frequently force the player to take on way more roles than they would feasibly be required to when there are plenty of more highly qualified personnel in the player's immediate proximity. While this serves gameplay purposes, it doesn't bode well for the air of authenticity that the game seems to be going for.
and ride fucking snowmobiles while firing a machine pistol gansta style...
But that's not the point. It's not that people are physically unable to use enemy weapons, charge enemy machine gun nests without cover, or shoot clearly not Ordinance department approved weapons using incredibly impractical shooting platforms. It's that someone in the military, especially one with incredibly extensive training, and especially facing a life or death circumstance, wouldn't do that.
You are, however, not going to find women in front line combat branches. And specific FPS games, the ones that dominate the FPS market, that must make exceptions in order to be playable, (regenerating health...) although they are trying to convey real world combat, it totally doesn't make sense why they don't include women as combat troops?
... Oh I don't know, because they don't do that in the real world yet?
Women don't see front line combat, but when is the last time you've seen a soldier sporting a desert eagle? Sure, there are very definite reasons for the limited role of women in combat. I'd never dream of contesting that, but there is no law of physical reality that says that having a vagina means the inability to see combat and I would respect the decision to not include women on the basis of realism a hell of a lot more if didn't take so many liberties as is.
Yeah they do go a bit James Bond here and there but it can and quite honestly, probably has happened in the real world before. More than once. Though I doubt they have been very successful stunts considering all the bullets aimed at at you :>.
Yes, people do a ton of crazy shit in real life. However, it usually doesn't end in a triumphant moment with music composed by Hans Zimmer blaring in the background. The more probable end involves a closed casket funeral. Which does Modern Warfare like to delve into more?
Yeah, you can make a bunch of theories up as to why, which seem to mostly range from lazy-ness, to misogynist, however the only reasonable explanation is such... Course the real world isn't so reasonable. So who knows, maybe EA/treyarch/blahblahblah are dominated by misogynistics and all that paranoid-induced crap. (highly unlikely as it may be....) But there is reasonable logic behind such a thing, whether or not that is the specific reason for the situation as is.
I don't really have any idea why they do what they do. I doubt that there are people sitting around at Activision headquarters thinking of ways to keep women in kitchens making sandwiches. With that said, I usually like to be contrarian, but I'm not going to deny the obvious latent sexism that still lingers in gaming.
Khe San was a frontal assault done by the NVA, that is, the Army of North Vietnam. That was the regular Army, same as the U.S. Army, British Ground Army, German Heer, and the like. No women served in any capacity in the NVA. The VC, Viet Cong, were the insurgent forces of the Vietnamese people, obviously consisting both men and women (as well as children and the elderly). Casualty figures also need to be kept in mind. While it's true that strategically, American forces never really gained ground in the entire war, Tactically, American forces remained almost universally victorious (Even the Tet Offensive would be considered Tactically a Victory) That is all to say, Americans by and large always out gunned and thus, out killed, any aggressor in the entire Vietnam war. That's true now. While yes, Strategically, we are doing little to nothing in the mid-east, tactically we win every single engagement. We always kill more of them then they kill of us.
As such to the grander idea, women, even part of a insurgent unit, would not fit in a modern setting FPS as you would ALWAYS be on the losing side tactically. I can't think of a game where your team receives greater losses then the enemy team and you still "win." If anything the casualty comparison is GROSSLY, sometimes in the 100's to 1 range in favor of the player character's side.
Next, speaking as someone who was in the military, leave no man behind is a core concept, but, as with EVERYTHING in the military, their is a hierarchy of needs and orders. Some things supersede others. The Soldier's Creed, which all U.S. Army personel memorize, goes as this:
I am an American Soldier.
I am a warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.
The order is as important as the words. The mission comes *first.* The only thing that can come between you and the mission is doing your duty to the United States. You *can* and may *have* to leave a fallen comrade should the mission demand it. For example, you're mentioning of the Operation Irene. Assuming you've read/seen more than just Black Hawk Down you may know that in fact, *many* U.S. Soldiers were left behind, at both crash sites and isolated pockets of soldiers. Additionally, securing the crash sites of the first, and then the second, helicopter had nothing to do with removing or recovering bodies. Standing military orders demand that *no* property, especially technology and vehicles, can be left to be looted by the enemy. Helicopters have secure satellite and radio uplinks built into them. That needs to be destroyed above all else as it can hurt OPSEC for soldiers any, and everywhere.
For the record, I went to West Point, military history, hierarchy, and strategy is kind of something I qualify as a true expert on. Women do not, nor will for the foreseeable future, have a place on a battlefield of this reality. It's not even their fault. There is no fault to be had, it's just how the pieces lay on the board. You wouldn't expect a quadriplegic to work in a coal mine, women cannot properly be integrated into an *effective* (key point) fighting unit. Rescuing survivors was a secondary, and in the eyes of the Ground Operations Commander. And that's how it always works. If we have a vehcile rollover (which I have hand many). First mission priority is to call the dozer's and flatbeds to recover the vehicle and get it back to base. We have to, in fact, call that in BEFORE, we can call in a CASEVAC.
How does this relate to the grander idea? Leaving no man behind in fact cause a number of extra casualties that were unneeded. The fact such extra resistance was present at crash sites while casualties were trying to be evacuated resulted in *more* casualties for the Americans then would have been necessary. A pilot captured during a failed attempt to rescue him (which resulted in deaths of his rescuers) ended up being returned to U.S. Custody. And that was just between friends and battle buddies. Imagine if it's a romantic interest. To great of a danger for high ranking members of the chain of command to risk. That is the reason we *still* and *will not* integrate women into combat units.
Also it is not presence of women that made the Red Army an effective fighting force. It was the sheer number and mass of people. In fact most military historians would argue the Red Army was probably the least effective fighting force in history, as combat related causalities it received were greater than those of all the major belligerents combined, some ten million killed/captured/wounded. That's *not* an effective fighting force, nor one I'd want to be part of/related to. The Viet-Cong have a similar situation, usually being massacred in any and all engagements. What made them "effective" was their ability to strike on their terms, when and where, which is a very effective Strategic goal to undermine an enemies fighting spirit, but due to their lack of training and poor equipment, they lost tactically every time.
Neither are indicative of a modern setting FPS, nor the world as we currently know it.
"For the record, I went to West Point, military history, hierarchy, and strategy is kind of something I qualify as a true expert on. Women do not, nor will for the foreseeable future, have a place on a battlefield of this reality."
Sorry, but this smacks of argument from authority, nothing you say before or after really adds to how women are incompatible with armed combat, a lot of talk about various military operations with spurious link.
You have an interesting interpretation of the Soldier's Creed as being in order of importance, as the "I am a guardian of freedom..." is either least or most important depending on the order of importance. The mission is what your commanding officer orders you to do, that just means always follow orders and don't allow those orders to go unfulfilled.
All these things about low priority of casualty evacuation and not leaving crew members behind... how does this apply to women?
Are you SERIOUSLY claiming that women cannot effectively follow orders to preserve mission priorities because some one of the opposite gender is hurt or in danger? You should know how much it hurts for ANYONE to see their close comrades suffer, it's not just women who have a crush on guys or guys who have crushes on women or gay guys and gay guys. I think that is prevalent between all human beings of a close nit group and can be countered with rigorous training.
What women in what employment makes you think they can't put a difficult task first above personal feelings? They have done so for over 100 years as nurses and midwives and increasingly as doctors. I mean if you were having a heart attack, would you suddenly despair if you saw a the paramedic coming to your aid was female? Would you really be concerned that she'd just get distracted by some personal issue in a way that a man probably would not? That she couldn't perform this skilled and demanding task because she hasn't had a steady and high dose of Testosterone since puberty?
Yeah, I know being a Paramedic isn't the same as being a soldier, but if you and everyone else doesn't have a problem with women in such demanding roles then why not the military?
Women have qualities eminently suited to the military's evolving role, while they can lose their temper they don't lose it as easily as men. It's a myth that women are more emotional than men, look how many men compared to women are in prison because they got angry or jealous and acted on their emotions and didn't use their brain to kill or steal. A much more measured and prescriptive response is needed by the modern soldier, innate tendency for violent response is not so helpful when you are trying to cut down on blue-on-blue killings. Things like if you are fired upon, an innate macho manly response is to automatically fire back ASAP... but what if you are getting stray fire from a friendly unit overshooting their target. This is what the British military calls "Courageous Restraint" and is so hard to beat into soldiers, to only fire on targets they are sure is the enemy.
Not much more than 100 years ago every soldier wore 'team colours' rather than camouflage, now everyone on both sides looks like an earth-tone silhouette in complex urban environments often at night or casting from blinding sunlight to pitch black shadows of windows. You need a measured response, you need to beat out the natural response that men naturally have for fighting which worked great for hunter gatherers with spears, not so much with an assault rifle.
This is the problem (not directed at a West-point graduate like you I'm sure) Games like COD with colour coded name tags and allies invulnerable to friendly-fire even though the bullets kill enemies in 3 hits and on a real battlefield kill in a single shot, it gives not appreciation for the restrain needed by modern soldiers. I like my shooters like Team Fortress 2, self aware that they are not trying to be realistic or DayZ modded ARMA, where to spite being a zombie apocalypse, you'll probably be shot to death by another trigger happy human player.
They didn't leave anyone behind in Mogadishu, they got to the second crashed helicopter and destroyed vital components but the mob had got there first and left so they had no idea where they were, so they didn't leave them. They put the entire city under siege threatened a full invasion and complete occupations till the captive pilot was released. No one left behind. In Vietnam the latter stages of negotiations focused intently on the secure repatriation of any and all American POWs, that America would NEVER leave Vietnam with their men still as captives in any capacity. Isolated pockets were left behind in the confusion, but not knowingly. I've never seen the whole film right through, yeah, bits and pieces on TV where I gathered it was more for entertainment/commentary, I read the book and researched where the book was inaccurate.
"And that was just between friends and battle buddies. Imagine if it's a romantic interest."
Yes, you prove my point, even with kinship and comradery things went from bad to way worse, and the command honoured this request to be set down. How could it have been worse? How could romance have made it worse? I don't think there mere possibility of romance would make any difference. How could they have more recklessly charged in that romance might motivate? I don't think they could. They took the greatest risk trying to save the crew of that downed helicopter and they were all heterosexual adult men.
Overall Russian fatalities were higher than Germans, but was that because there were women in the Red Army? Was it any contribution? Who has gone on the record and said "if only there hadn't been any women in the Red Army, we would have had much lower casualties or been more effective".
Read the historical accounts and you'll hear from the experts how it was down to not to individual German soldiers being bigger and stronger and doing jobs that women never could to the same extent (though their "Aryan Myth" certainly claimed so), but highly comprehensive tactics, with excellent use of machine guns (MG42) in effective killzones and tanks (Panther and Tiger) and flexible artillery like the (88mm guns) in both anti-tank and anti-air role. And robust supply lines that only failed due to the strategy from Nazi-party elites that over-extended them. This supply line also greatly reduced continuous losses.
Was this impossible to do with women? No. Were soviets vulnerable to this because of women? No. If anything, women helped by what good snipers they made, snipers were the bane of fixed trying to lay down machine gun killzones, they were easy pickings. Women were also good in tanks crews as being big and strong is counter productive in such tight quarters.
And precisely how much worse were the the Soviet Union than the Third Reich on the eastern front in terms of losses.
Soviet Armed forces KIA/MIA 1941-1945= 6.33 million
Third Reich forces KIA/MIA (Eastern Front only) = 4.43 million
G. I. Krivosheev. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill 1997 ISBN 978-1-85367-280-4 Page 85
Richard Overy The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), ISBN 0-7139-9309-X
Death-in-combat ratio 1.43, so on average 1.43 Red Army soldiers died per soldier who died fighting under the Swastika.
That's not unbearably bad, it's not like the Red Army was an army of dumb bullet sponges, they weren't a dumb unsophisticated force and women could only be in it because of how crap it was that only won by human-wave attacks, hell no. The Allies in Western Europe who did not have any females in combat roles suffered similarly bad ratios just on a smaller scale, I can't find a data source that so succinctly lists KIA/MIA of all the different Allies and just the losses they had on just on the Western Front (and being sure it includes North Africa and not any fighting against the Japanese) but the common figure is around 50% higher losses for the Allies than the land forces of the Third Reich.
I'm quite sure you've heard Soviets suffered OVERALL the most due to how strategic blunders lead to MILLIONS of Soviet troops being captured and the Third Reich deliberately or callously killing them by the millions, unlike Western allies who were captured in smaller numbers and generally treated according to Geneva Conventions (with some awful exceptions).
Unlike USA or UK, the USSR had its territory invaded and unlike France or Holland there was an extended conflict in their occupied territory where the population were also rounded up and summarily executed for partisan activity. Not only were people racially rounded up for extermination in the Holocaust in greater proportions than western Europe, and of a larger population, but the Third Reich explicitly treated all the conquered people as slaves. The Nazis sacked the East and the Soviet policy of "scorched earth" didn't help, hundreds of thousands died just from starvation and disease of such a massive conflict happening around them.
But the Soviet Armed forces were not a dumb swarm or anything like that, neither because it had women nor only because it was such a simpleton force depending on dumb costly waves could it allow women to be in it in a combat role.
Well women were in combat roles of the North Vietnamese Army, I don't know how you can say there weren't, just one example:
Anyway, the Viet Cong were the major challenge to the Americans (and other allies like NZ and Australia) in Vietnam, they were the main reason that made the war - at least politically - "un-winnable" from the continuous losses and denying any lasting victory of securing territory for how easily they could retake land and deny any governance or security from invasion.
The VC weren't massacred in every engagements. The American forces were better, especially in overall strength of combined forced, but that was down to being an established conventional deployment with supply lines from ports to established bases with ability to safely R&R. The Viet Cong were fighting under extreme circumstances with extremely stretched and harassed supply lines and were never completely routed though greatly weakness by the failed Tet Offensive. This wasn't because there were women in the Viet cong. They are not a fatal flaw, nor was the Viet Cong fatally flawed in a way that allowed women to serve.
They Viet Cong were an incredibly potent force that the US Forces could not totally route in infantry-to-infantry engagements till open battle of Tet where their austere supplies were overrun by combined forces.
US out-gunned the VC, but they didn't win because they were an All-Male force, but because they had troop transport helicopters, gunships, napalm strikes and time-on-target artillery at their fingertips. The Viet Cong were known for standing their ground and gaining ground in infantry engagements till the heavy weapons came in which they had no match against.
"As such to the grander idea, women, even part of a insurgent unit, would not fit in a modern setting FPS as you would ALWAYS be on the losing side tactically."
You can't Napalm a female guerilla fighter with a supersonic jet and point out THAT is why there can never be women in the US armed forces. That is the point where you thank your lucky stars you have close air support and now you will often hear on the radio women's voices flying those bombers.
And I remind you, tactically America was on the losing side for a lot of WWII of which many games have been made about, suffering higher losses than the Germans, repeatedly fighting to a tactical stalemate and being pushed back, to spite being generally armed with semi-automatic 8 shot rifles against K98k's that had 5 shots with a relatively slow bolt action.
I've never really understood the obsession people have with Vasquez. She is just simply there to die [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VasquezAlwaysDies]. Created solely to be contrasted against the main character Ripley, so that James Cameron can drive home a point that a woman's 'true strength' comes from her 'maternal instinct'.
TVtropes is a badly moderated open-forum, it doesn't even pass for a Wiki, it is the internet equivalent of "I heard from the guy in a pub".
Really the trope at play here is "main character lives" which is a bit of a no-brainer. Ripley was the main lead role and Vasquez was not. Hudson, Apone, Frost, Ferro, everyone on that drop-ship, they were all dead meat the second you saw the actors' billing. Are each of them going to get a trope "Aponealways dies" "Hudsonalways dies". No, the trope is "only the lead roles survive".
Hicks got melted, Bishop got bisected, only the Main lead of the Series and The Cute Kid survived intact. Duh.
Vasquez was not "there to die" any more than anyone else who didn't get top billing.
I get mad at people reading unnecessary subtext into films too, but this is a James Cameron film. Herein your argument is therefore invalid. He's just simply that kind of guy.
The stereotype of the 'macho military chick' has been subsequently been transplanted into other films, often by inferior filmmakers that either don't quite understand why Vasquez was written into the film to play the role that she does. Cameron's intent was not to 'bury the butch', but to create a mirror counterpart to the main female protagonist. In this role Vasquez serves to underscore that Ripley's awesomeness originates not from her desire to confront and kill the enemy, but from her desire to protect herself and others from harm. None of the other characters share that level of moral authority, hence everyone but the nice guy and the kid die by the end of it all.
Although, at least we can agree that I should watch Aliens again. It is a most excellent film.
You misquoted me, you cut out the first part of my quote and replaced it with this half sentence:
"I was lucky enough to have a teacher that"
which does not make any sense. It does not fit at all.
James Cameron's early work laden with unnecessary Subtext? Like in Terminator 1 & 2, True Lies and so on? Er, nope.
Vasquez's character is not a stereotype, it's the most basic idea the idea that a convincingly tough military person doesn't have to be a guy. That's not a stereotype. Stereotype is a collection of features. There is a Soldier Stereotype, but you can't just add 'female' characteristic to that to get a "Vasquez stereotype".
"Cameron's intent was not to 'bury the butch', but to create a mirror counterpart to the main female protagonist."
Yet in 26 years he has never even hinted at that, it seems to be that is just your baseless assertion. How do you know he didn't just want to have a more interesting cast by showing a woman could be in the military as a badass. Maybe he didn't want this to turn into a men vs women thing but a matter of ideal. Maybe he just wanted to recognise the practicality of how there are some seriously bad ass bitches out there that in the future might be allowed front line military roles.
"In this role Vasquez serves to underscore that Ripley's awesomeness originates not from her desire to confront and kill the enemy, but from her desire to protect herself and others from harm."
Vasquez isn't the only one who does that, EVERY Marine in the film fulfils that role. But Ripley's condition "you're going there to kill them, not to study them" makes it clear she is not entirely motivated by protecting the innocents. Also her going crazy destroying all the Queen's eggs though it serves no part in rescuing Newt. In fact, Ripley and Newt were only able to escape in the alien raid on the command post at all for how many of the Marines stood their ground in killing the aliens. The marines are on this mission and head out entirely for the purpose of rescuing the settlers.
Ripley is more complicated than "herp a derp, maternal instinct" she has emotions, she gets angry and makes it personal. It's almost inherently a sexist distinction to call her merely helping and caring for a child "maternal" when if a male did the EXACT SAME THING it wouldn't be called maternal, it'd be called paternal, or just awesome. Taken was a great movie, but if it had been a female character in Liam Neeson's role then it would have been criticised JUST BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN, even though such a role would be completely outside of any female stereotype killing thugs with nails and shit.
When she confronts the Alien queen she doesn't say "don't worry newt, I'll protect you" she is angry and is focused on the Queen addressing it though it likely doesn't understand English "get away from her you *****!".
She is protective and wrathful. She is a character with depth and contradictions. Her courageous care for others is one aspect of her character as is her sense of wrathful retribution.
Come on Jim, you shouldn't have thanked God this time, thank Mother Gea, when dressing a feminist womyn, you don't need to thank a phallocentric Male God, thank a female one, for Gea's sake.
God is an all-powerful being. If she wanted to be a guy, he could make himself a girl at any time she wanted. Heck, he could probably switch her gender in the middle of a sentence and nobody would notice that he'd changed his gender at all. Bet it'd be fun to watch the puny mortals change between 'she and he' in the middle of a paragraph when talking about her.
As a male my favorite shooter of all time is Perfect Dark.
I don't find it uncomfortable to play as a female, but I would have liked it if they did have a male option.
I imagine that is the same way women feel about most modern games. Except, ofc, in opposite.
I would like to point out another balance issue with models of both sexes.
Classes.
Now, imagine you are playing TF2 and you see a glimpse of a character model, as pointed out by valve in its commentary, character models in the game are modeled so you can instantly know the players class from its silhouette.Having female versions would screw that up completely.
Your mind is constantly trying to tie character models with classes.
Even if you pass that issue, society still thinks women are the weaker/more kind side of gender.Which would trick the player into thinking that the female models are non-hostiles.
No i'm sorry, I call bollocks on that. Massive, hairy ones, swinging free twixt the opening of crotchless knickers.
Firstly, how many non-hostiles run around FPS multi-player maps? erm....around none. So that's rubbish to start with. Added to that how many non-hostiles have a gun, fatigues and are shooting at you?
Secondly, how would having females as classes be any different? So you have to remember an extra few modesl? Are you so feeble minded that you can't handle 6 images instead of three? I think not, eh? You're clearly quite intelligent. Female classes can be just as easily defined as the male ones, in exactly the same ways. Especially since Jim has already debunked the "hit-boxes" nonsense using Blacklight as example. It's easy to see following on from this that both male and female can have similar forms and silhouettes. And please, no one start blabbing about breasts changing the shape, cos the never-ending massive boob syndrome, which plagues gaming at the moment, really should have no place in an FPS.
A female gunner/tanker could be just as huge and burly as a male one. A female spy/scout etc can be just as small and wiry as a male one.
Tell me you've never seen female wrestlers or body builders and thought, they're bigger than I am?! Any claim that women in FPS would screw around with silhouettes, hit-boxes blah, blah, blah only proves laziness combined with sexism, a lack of experience with women and a total lack of creativity.
Ah, so having men with more endurance than they possess in reality is an acceptable sacrifice of realism for entertainment (and not at all conducive to children getting a warped view of what humans are capable of), but portraying women as having enhanced physical strength is offensive?
As for space marines: Games Workshop has explicitly said, since day one, that Warhammer is an inherently creative product that allows and even encourages players to create new worlds, armies, character styles, within the rules and even (with their opponents' agreement) beyond the rules. And nowhere in the Black Book is it stated that Space Marines must be male (that entire rule comes from an early White Dwarf article that was partially added to a compendium circa 1989 [http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/roarsgirls.html] and hasn't been referenced in any official material since even though the rules and official storylines have been drastically altered since then). Oh, but you're applying Real Science as your excuse? Yeah, right, we're on the verge of genetically engineering superhumans [http://www.cracked.com/article_19850_5-absurd-sci-fi-scenarios-science-actually-working-on_p2.html] and you're claiming that there must still be patriarchal gender roles in a science fiction setting?
You... really don't know how to comprehend do you? As I said there is a big difference between fair compensation, as in adding in features to a game to allow it to be "fun" and usable, and grossly misrepresenting the way the world works. Example, allowing snap catches in Madden is not indicative of how the real world is but it's a mechanic that allows the game to be be fluid, and thus enjoyable to play. Adding a jetpack to the full back would not. There's no rule saying he *can't* have a jetpack in a videogame, but given that Madden is trying to represent American Football as best it can (While remaining playable), it does not add a jetpack despite how interesting that might make things. Even within that example, if you added a female player model to Madden, that just wouldn't look right would it? It's not sexist, they just wouldn't belong there. No more than a cup with legs or a Special Operations soldier. That's one setting, theirs' is another. The same is true for women in a modern setting FPS.
You can argue till your blue in the face, the facts are the facts:
Women. Do. *Not.* Serve. In. Special. Operations. Units.
That's it. Period. There is no debate. If you want to show a Special Operations unit in game, women cannot be shown to be members. That's just how it is. You may not like it. You may not think it's fair. That's nice, but it's not reflective of reality.
As far as As far as Games Workshop is concerned, I stand by my point. There are no female Space Marines. There's the Sisters of Battle, but no female Space Marine. Making up your own reality is truly part of the game, but you do have to work within what pieces are released and baring that ONE figurine, which is no longer in production nor was for very long (and didn't even look like a Space Marine to be honest) there are no female Space Marines. You can pretend the male figures are female, but that's all it is, pretend.
Treblaine said:
"For the record, I went to West Point, military history, hierarchy, and strategy is kind of something I qualify as a true expert on. Women do not, nor will for the foreseeable future, have a place on a battlefield of this reality."
1. Sorry, but this smacks of argument from authority, nothing you say before or after really adds to how women are incompatible with armed combat, a lot of talk about various military operations with spurious link.
2. You have an interesting interpretation of the Soldier's Creed as being in order of importance, as the "I am a guardian of freedom..." is either least or most important depending on the order of importance. The mission is what your commanding officer orders you to do, that just means always follow orders and don't allow those orders to go unfulfilled.
3. All these things about low priority of casualty evacuation and not leaving crew members behind... how does this apply to women?
Are you SERIOUSLY claiming that women cannot effectively follow orders to preserve mission priorities because some one of the opposite gender is hurt or in danger? You should know how much it hurts for ANYONE to see their close comrades suffer, it's not just women who have a crush on guys or guys who have crushes on women or gay guys and gay guys. I think that is prevalent between all human beings of a close nit group and can be countered with rigorous training.
4. What women in what employment makes you think they can't put a difficult task first above personal feelings? They have done so for over 100 years as nurses and midwives and increasingly as doctors. I mean if you were having a heart attack, would you suddenly despair if you saw a the paramedic coming to your aid was female? Would you really be concerned that she'd just get distracted by some personal issue in a way that a man probably would not? That she couldn't perform this skilled and demanding task because she hasn't had a steady and high dose of Testosterone since puberty?
5. Yeah, I know being a Paramedic isn't the same as being a soldier, but if you and everyone else doesn't have a problem with women in such demanding roles then why not the military?
6. Women have qualities eminently suited to the military's evolving role, while they can lose their temper they don't lose it as easily as men. It's a myth that women are more emotional than men, look how many men compared to women are in prison because they got angry or jealous and acted on their emotions and didn't use their brain to kill or steal. A much more measured and prescriptive response is needed by the modern soldier, innate tendency for violent response is not so helpful when you are trying to cut down on blue-on-blue killings. Things like if you are fired upon, an innate macho manly response is to automatically fire back ASAP... but what if you are getting stray fire from a friendly unit overshooting their target. This is what the British military calls "Courageous Restraint" and is so hard to beat into soldiers, to only fire on targets they are sure is the enemy.
7. Not much more than 100 years ago every soldier wore 'team colours' rather than camouflage, now everyone on both sides looks like an earth-tone silhouette in complex urban environments often at night or casting from blinding sunlight to pitch black shadows of windows. You need a measured response, you need to beat out the natural response that men naturally have for fighting which worked great for hunter gatherers with spears, not so much with an assault rifle.
8. This is the problem (not directed at a West-point graduate like you I'm sure) Games like COD with colour coded name tags and allies invulnerable to friendly-fire even though the bullets kill enemies in 3 hits and on a real battlefield kill in a single shot, it gives not appreciation for the restrain needed by modern soldiers. I like my shooters like Team Fortress 2, self aware that they are not trying to be realistic or DayZ modded ARMA, where to spite being a zombie apocalypse, you'll probably be shot to death by another trigger happy human player.
9. They didn't leave anyone behind in Mogadishu, they got to the second crashed helicopter and destroyed vital components but the mob had got there first and left so they had no idea where they were, so they didn't leave them. They put the entire city under siege threatened a full invasion and complete occupations till the captive pilot was released. No one left behind. In Vietnam the latter stages of negotiations focused intently on the secure repatriation of any and all American POWs, that America would NEVER leave Vietnam with their men still as captives in any capacity. Isolated pockets were left behind in the confusion, but not knowingly. I've never seen the whole film right through, yeah, bits and pieces on TV where I gathered it was more for entertainment/commentary, I read the book and researched where the book was inaccurate.
"And that was just between friends and battle buddies. Imagine if it's a romantic interest."
10. Yes, you prove my point, even with kinship and comradery things went from bad to way worse, and the command honoured this request to be set down. How could it have been worse? How could romance have made it worse? I don't think there mere possibility of romance would make any difference. How could they have more recklessly charged in that romance might motivate? I don't think they could. They took the greatest risk trying to save the crew of that downed helicopter and they were all heterosexual adult men.
11. Overall Russian fatalities were higher than Germans, but was that because there were women in the Red Army? Was it any contribution? Who has gone on the record and said "if only there hadn't been any women in the Red Army, we would have had much lower casualties or been more effective".
Read the historical accounts and you'll hear from the experts how it was down to not to individual German soldiers being bigger and stronger and doing jobs that women never could to the same extent (though their "Aryan Myth" certainly claimed so), but highly comprehensive tactics, with excellent use of machine guns (MG42) in effective killzones and tanks (Panther and Tiger) and flexible artillery like the (88mm guns) in both anti-tank and anti-air role. And robust supply lines that only failed due to the strategy from Nazi-party elites that over-extended them. This supply line also greatly reduced continuous losses.
Was this impossible to do with women? No. Were soviets vulnerable to this because of women? No. If anything, women helped by what good snipers they made, snipers were the bane of fixed trying to lay down machine gun killzones, they were easy pickings. Women were also good in tanks crews as being big and strong is counter productive in such tight quarters.
And precisely how much worse were the the Soviet Union than the Third Reich on the eastern front in terms of losses.
12. Soviet Armed forces KIA/MIA 1941-1945= 6.33 million
Third Reich forces KIA/MIA (Eastern Front only) = 4.43 million
G. I. Krivosheev. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill 1997 ISBN 978-1-85367-280-4 Page 85
Richard Overy The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004), ISBN 0-7139-9309-X
Death-in-combat ratio 1.43, so on average 1.43 Red Army soldiers died per soldier who died fighting under the Swastika.
That's not unbearably bad, it's not like the Red Army was an army of dumb bullet sponges, they weren't a dumb unsophisticated force and women could only be in it because of how crap it was that only won by human-wave attacks, hell no. The Allies in Western Europe who did not have any females in combat roles suffered similarly bad ratios just on a smaller scale, I can't find a data source that so succinctly lists KIA/MIA of all the different Allies and just the losses they had on just on the Western Front (and being sure it includes North Africa and not any fighting against the Japanese) but the common figure is around 50% higher losses for the Allies than the land forces of the Third Reich.
I'm quite sure you've heard Soviets suffered OVERALL the most due to how strategic blunders lead to MILLIONS of Soviet troops being captured and the Third Reich deliberately or callously killing them by the millions, unlike Western allies who were captured in smaller numbers and generally treated according to Geneva Conventions (with some awful exceptions).
Unlike USA or UK, the USSR had its territory invaded and unlike France or Holland there was an extended conflict in their occupied territory where the population were also rounded up and summarily executed for partisan activity. Not only were people racially rounded up for extermination in the Holocaust in greater proportions than western Europe, and of a larger population, but the Third Reich explicitly treated all the conquered people as slaves. The Nazis sacked the East and the Soviet policy of "scorched earth" didn't help, hundreds of thousands died just from starvation and disease of such a massive conflict happening around them.
But the Soviet Armed forces were not a dumb swarm or anything like that, neither because it had women nor only because it was such a simpleton force depending on dumb costly waves could it allow women to be in it in a combat role.
13. Well women were in combat roles of the North Vietnamese Army, I don't know how you can say there weren't, just one example:
Anyway, the Viet Cong were the major challenge to the Americans (and other allies like NZ and Australia) in Vietnam, they were the main reason that made the war - at least politically - "un-winnable" from the continuous losses and denying any lasting victory of securing territory for how easily they could retake land and deny any governance or security from invasion.
14.The VC weren't massacred in every engagements. The American forces were better, especially in overall strength of combined forced, but that was down to being an established conventional deployment with supply lines from ports to established bases with ability to safely R&R. The Viet Cong were fighting under extreme circumstances with extremely stretched and harassed supply lines and were never completely routed though greatly weakness by the failed Tet Offensive. This wasn't because there were women in the Viet cong. They are not a fatal flaw, nor was the Viet Cong fatally flawed in a way that allowed women to serve.
They Viet Cong were an incredibly potent force that the US Forces could not totally route in infantry-to-infantry engagements till open battle of Tet where their austere supplies were overrun by combined forces.
US out-gunned the VC, but they didn't win because they were an All-Male force, but because they had troop transport helicopters, gunships, napalm strikes and time-on-target artillery at their fingertips. The Viet Cong were known for standing their ground and gaining ground in infantry engagements till the heavy weapons came in which they had no match against.
"As such to the grander idea, women, even part of a insurgent unit, would not fit in a modern setting FPS as you would ALWAYS be on the losing side tactically."
You can't Napalm a female guerilla fighter with a supersonic jet and point out THAT is why there can never be women in the US armed forces. That is the point where you thank your lucky stars you have close air support and now you will often hear on the radio women's voices flying those bombers.
15. And I remind you, tactically America was on the losing side for a lot of WWII of which many games have been made about, suffering higher losses than the Germans, repeatedly fighting to a tactical stalemate and being pushed back, to spite being generally armed with semi-automatic 8 shot rifles against K98k's that had 5 shots with a relatively slow bolt action.
1. I went through the key points on the lack of qualifications for female infantry, specifically any Combat Arms, in a previous post. As far as argument by authority, for one that doesn't mean I'm wrong, and two, I was more trying to point out that I am educated *specifically* in these matters, that is to say, I went to school *to* learn about how Military Dogma works. I didn't study English and had to take Military Theory on the side, I studied Military Science. This is uncommon and, essentially, anyone who takes that course (and passes) *is* an expert on these topics. When you read a source on Military Sciences *I'm* one of those sources (and in fact have been from Essay's I've written). But no, it's not meant to be an argument *of* authority, rather just stating my credentials to speak on the matter. It's the same as a Chemistry Professor putting "Phd." when he writes an essay. It's so the reader knows what follows comes from a learned source.
2. It's not my interpretation, it's the Army. Talk to anyone whose gone through basic and they'll tell you the same thing. Talk to anyone whose been downrange and they'll tell you it's even harsher than I alluded to.
3. No, it's not *women's* faults, it's men's. Men have an innate, nature urge to protect females. This is a biological fact. It's just something we do. What I'm trying to put forward is, and this is from *personnel* experience as well as being historically true as well, it's hard enough to run past a fallen friend to continue on, and with a male there's no biological urge pushing, with a female soldier every male soldier in her vicinity would, essentially, be compromised should she be injured. It's not their fault at all in this regard. But it is the world and the bodies we posses and to borrow a very old saying, you go to war with the Army you have.
4. Um scientific fact? Women think and problem solve with emotion. Men use a mixture of emotion and logic pending on the individual. Again that's the bodies we as a species inhabit. We can't change that. Not yet at least. And being a doctor or a nurse is a very, very far cry from being a soldier. No one hands you a gun and tells you to shoot someone when you're a doctor. Speaking as someone who *has* shot and killed another human, it's MUCH more difficult mentally than anything a doctor would encounter. At the end of the day, and many doctors say this, there is a sense of detachment between a doctor/nurse and his/her patients. You're not really doing anything against them, by all accounts you're trying to *help* them. Shooting someone in the chest requires a whole different type of mental processing. One that is not common, thankfully. Now that said women fully can and do possess this ability. Obviously, murders come in all shapes sizes and genders. But the lasting effects, and the ability to act at the moment is not the same. Women plan their murders. As an MP I'm also very well acquainted with how crimes are planned and conducted. Crimes of passion are relatively uncommon in female offenders. They tend to think and obsesses over the act of killing. That isn't to say that men don't, nor is that excluding that women think, or at least tend to think, with emotion. Crimes of passion do not equal fits of emotion. They are not treated as such in the Criminal Justice system or in Criminal Psychology. A crime of passion can be a logic based decision. Logic *can* be faulty, and in this case it invariably is, but that does not mean it was not based on a logic based decision process.
That all said, I never said their emotional processing is what keeps them from serving in Combat Arms branches, it is and remains the two specific items I outlined in the previous post.
5. Because as I said before, they are night and day different. I understand you have to work with what you know, and you don't know what being a soldier is about so, naturally as all humans do you have to make assumptions based on any and all knowledge you can hobble together to make information click together. But speaking as someone who has done, effectively, both of those jobs, namely being a soldier in combat and a paramedic (Military Police officers have many duties) they are not comparable. You can no sooner compare a paramedic to a soldier than Chipmunk to Closet. They are literally that different from one another. No one's ever asked you to kill something. That's what my job revolves around.
6. Okay again, as an MP, I've had to investigate Friendly Fire cases (rather "Fratricide" when reported) (no one calls them blue on blue except the French and Germans) they do not happen because of "macho" shoot back. That's not how friendly fire, or really combat in general, works. Most cases of friendly fire involve someone being in a location that either they are not supposed to be in, or enemy units ARE supposed to be in, and a friendly soldier shoots automatically at a presented target. Friendly "firefights" don't happen. This might not be well understood to non-soldiers, but AK's and M4A1's sound drastically different from one another, and anyone downrange more than a day can tell the difference from just one shot. If I hear the clear sound of an M4A1 discharge pointed at me, my first response is to take cover and get on my radio, not shoot back. Shooting back would be the ABSOLUTE last thing I would do.
Also I never mentioned friendly fire as a problem in regards to the issue at hand so I'm a little confused as to why it was brought up. To be honest it doesn't really *happen* that often anyway. The news and media and videogames seem to sensationalize and make it seem like a common occurrence when in reality, at least for ground troops, it is VERY rare. Friendly missiles targeting friendly aircraft is really the only problem with this in our current military and that's because we assume computers from the 70's are smarter than they are.
7. Um... I really don't think you know what you're talking about. That is not... how the mind in a combat situation works. Also camouflage does not work as well as you'd think. And when someone's shooting an assault rifle, they could be invisible, anyone could still hit them. Guns are loud. Really loud. You can be blind and hit a target just on sound (at the very least suppress them).
8. Not a grad. Had to retire for medical reasons. As far as your games of choice are concerned, it's clear you're arguing apples and oranges. I'm talking purely about the COD's, the ARMA's, the Operation FlashPoints that depict *the modern world as we know it now* in war. And in such setting, women do not exist in the roles you seem to wish, and that's all it is, a wish, for them to hold.
9. Yes they did. Leaving behind, or rather, "Abandoning," (the term used in reports) is defined as "The leaving of person or property of the U.S. Army or it's charges in a hostile situation where recovery would be disproportionately dangerous." This again is a fact of history. The mission report filed by the Commanding Officers of the Ground forces say exactly as much. There was no choice, no one held it against them. It was, in fact, the right decision at the time to abandon who and what they did. But they did. Have no illusions. If you or your body is not back for the debriefing, you've been abandoned. End of story. And there were numerous soldiers and 1 pilot left behind during Operation Irene. The soldiers were retrieved the following day, and the pilot returned a week or so later.
10. What they did was wrong. Heroic. That's not a question or even debatable. But it was wrong. It's just as wrong as a wounded soldier getting up and taking out machine gun nests on his own. It's wrong. He shouldn't. If his unit is combat ineffective then risking his own life just puts others in jeopardy (because now I have to run out to retrieve his bullet riddled body). Doesn't diminish their sacrifices or heroism, but they shouldn't have. It was not tactically prudent, nor in keeping with focusing on the tasks at hand. That is exactly my point, and the reason for the U.S. Army policy that exists to back up my point; the possibility of romantic feelings coming between a soldiers choice of a mission is considered a very dangerous thing.
11. I never said they did. You seem to want me to be a misogynist. I don't hate women. I like women. I do, trust me on that. And considering I've had women as both superiors and subordinates I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea on how they react in the military world. Also women drove tanks, they did not gun nor command (women were not, outside of the air corpse, allowed to hold ranks). It's not counter-intuitive to be strong in a tank. Most tankers are. Armor guys tend to be the biggest burliest fella's you meet. Ever see a 120mm shell? It's as tall as 10 year old and weighs twice as much. And, and this was true for all tanks in WWII) we don't use autoloaders. Somebody still has to pick up each shell. And EVERYONE does every job in a tank.
12. As far as WWII goes... I won't dredge out the whole thing here, but suffice it to say Germans won tactically in most, if not nearly all, engagements. It's what they do. They rarely seem to win strategically. That's their problem. Especially in WWII. Once the fire was turned on them Germans gave ground like no one's business. Russia on the other hand basically never gave ground in actual battles. When they dug their heals in that was that. They may loose every tactical engagement, but they will not give up the ground. In war, that's all that matters. But have no illusions, the Russians only could do so BECAUSE of their numbers. Germans died in droves towards the end of the war not because of superior Russian tactics, or because improved weaponry, but because they were fighting a force that on average outnumbered them 50:1. Because by 1942 German supply lines were stretch so thin that they literally would get lost and have to double back. Because for what ever stupid reason German's love to make their machinery as complex and custom as possible so when a Panther ran into a mechanical issue, it was essentially knocked out. But it had nothing to do with Russian war fighting superiority. Comrade Marshal Zhukov himself commented on his troops were a rabble. That's kinda how it works. The Russian military was built with CONSCRIPTS. The German military was, at least until 1943, largely volunteers, and up until 45' reasonably well trained.
13. No. Not in the NVA. The NVA is a specific organization. The Army of North Vietnam. The Vietnamese People's Army. It is not related in any way, other than sharing nationality, to the Viet-Cong. Women did not serve in Combat Capacities in the NVA. Clerks and in their medical corps. That's it. They were not charging into Hue with Type 56's and AKM's.
14. Yes, they did. Just as now, every engagement resulted in disproportionate casualties on the Viet-Cong. This is a historical fact. BOTH sides attest to it. American's point it out as a matter of pride and military bravado, the Vietnamese point it out as a sign of Western savagery. Also, as with Russians, I never said women made the Viet-Cong lose. I said that's the only capacity they served in, and it did not help the Viet-Cong. The presence of female Viet-Cong did not help or hurt. The Viet-Cong are not comparable to a military unit. They are an insurgency. You can't even compare them to a militia as a malitia still has some semblance of rank and file and proticol and SOP's. What I intended to point out was that was the only capacity in which women typically CAN fight in war, and from a gaming perspective, it would be rather boring give how one sided a protracted firefight would be. In terms of gaming, you *Want* the firefight to last. If it was just an exchange of two rounds, literally, two pulls of a trigger, that would really stink as a game. Well that was, and is, the only way insurgencies work. They fire of two rounds, kill 1 enemy, and run away. They cannot afford to stand and fight, they are neither trained, nor equipped, to handle a first rate firefight. Speaking from experience, if an insurgent has 60 rounds of ammunition on them that's a lot. That's about 1 minute of ammo for a real firefight. If that.
15. Actually by the numbers it's pretty much usually a draw early war, then towards the end starts to favor American's greatly (Battle of the Bulge having American's kill 5 Germans to 1 man lost in turn). It's tough to really gauge American vs. German effectiveness because baring a few, VERY isolated situations, (BotB being one of them) it was really never just American's against Germans. There were almost always elements of English, French, and almost universally a Canadian element in play. You have to bear in mind, America has the lowest Casualties out of all Allies in WWII (including Canada, as they suffered some rather grievous losses on a few occasions).
To look at it in gaming terms, Germany's Excellent Tactically, very poor strategically, Russia is excellent Strategically, terrible tactically, America tends to be Mario. Not particularly Amazing at either, but not poor at either.
ANYWAY, relating to the core issue, my point still stands, and there is no argument against it, in a MODERN setting FPS, women have no place. Trying to argue that sacrificing a game mechanic to allow for fluid play somehow equates to suspending the very concept of the term "Modern Combat" is insane. Why don't we make all the characters have bobble heads while were at it then? I know it's a pretense of realism in many of these games, but to a degree, some things NEED to be maintained or you've gone past pretense into full blown fantasy. I mean think about it like this, would you consider it a modern setting FPS if the belligerent against the "Allied" nations (English, French, American) was *not* Russian (or Slavic Based) Middle Easter, Chinese or North Korean? It's not nice but in the modern world and the modern setting of these games, those are the sides. If they pulled an audible and switched the belligerent to say, India, that would confuse wouldn't it? It wouldn't probably "feel" like a game of that genre anymore.
Now, this raises another question: Given that this video referred to FPSs in general, and not just modern military FPSs, why are you so defensive over this one subset of the genre? Or do you have some grander reason for not wanting women in FPSs at all?
No grander reason then why many veterans are annoyed when they meet COD kiddies trying to explain military operations and protocol to 3 tour veterans, or ARMA-II fans trying to build "Armies" online and somehow believe that makes them experts on warfighting. In the same vain it's as annoying as airsofters going to malls in uniforms *I* wouldn't be allowed to wear in a mall. Perhaps many of you (and I'm not speaking at anyone in particular, rather the culture itself) did not consider this but behaviors and actions like these are probably more offensive to us than the subject at hand of not having women as playable characters.
It break down like this; you wouldn't, if you actually knew the subject and source material, be offended to *not* see a female Space Marine. Game's Workshop has been pretty clear on the subject and even has, sort of, provided a "version" of them, but a true, Gene-Seed female Space Marine just is never going to be in the picture, the source material just won't allow it. As such screaming out "NO GILES, you can't BE a space marine" probably won't annoy all that much as it would be a rather pointless thing to chime on. In the same vain, it's like a woman holding over a man's head that he can't grow a child inside him. Nice point but it was never on the table in the first place. Pouting over things that just are is futile and waste of energy and, usually, tends to be uncommon.
This however, is not the situation here. Things like what I mentioned *are* offensive to many vets. And it ties into this MUCH grander, and seemingly growing, grotesque misunderstanding any military, especially NATO ones and starting to morph them into these pseudo sci-fi, fantasy organizations that are in reality so detached from the real organizations that they might as well be carrying blasters. The problem is these organizations are real, and exist right now, and it's this... cavalier attitude towards realism that's starting to breed genuine misunderstandings of militaries in general.
An example, imagine if every developer, on their own, but simultaneously, decided to depict in any modern setting FPS that all Middle Easterners (from North Africa to Pakistan) were ruled by communist governments. Did so in every release for years. Now at face value, being said on it's own merits, being a communist government is not a *slight* and doesn't somehow mean you or your government is bad. But, in the same vain, I imagine that would get rather annoying fast from both the blatant misrepresentation and the simple fact that too many people are starting to get facts from video games as if they were textbooks.
The same holds true for military terminology and concepts. Females in a modern setting FPS would be just one more annoying, and a rather blatantly wrong one. As, at least in some cases, many of the misrepresentations of military personnel, behaviors and concepts have SOME grounding in reality, usually of a antithetical military organization from another country, say for example, officers in Special Operations serving as field personnel (almost never happens in NATO counties however is done in numerous Far-East countries). Women in a Special Operations troop has absolutely no grounding in reality whatsoever. I cannot stress this enough, this has never happened. G.I. Jane is as fictitious as Star Wars. It has never happened. And, in all likelihood, won't for many, many decades. Cornucopia technology will likely exist before the technology to allow women to preform on a level necessary for such inclusion exists. So seeing them in an FPS set in modern day would breed just that much more misunderstandings for the source material.
And I'm not against Female player characters in FPS's. In some they actually make more sense than a male. Bioshock comes to mind. Personally, I feel if you switched the genders and kept basically everything else, it makes the moral choices, and thus the overall plot and concepts, that much more profound. Likewise with the main Halo trilogy. Given the MC's behavior, views on humanity and duty thereof, him being a she actually makes more sense. However, if you were to say, switch Soap for a female character, the CoD's would not make much sense. Really switching any player character in any modern warfare CoD's wouldn't make sense and really detract from the story.
And yes you can pick and choose which things are okay. If we didn't, we as a society would have no art, no mediums, and definitely no video games. You have to separate good ideas from bad ideas. There will never be a time where video games don't have to make certain realistic sacrifices in order to remain entertaining. A game that would be 100% realistic would not be entertaining, as that's called reality, and if were playing a game, i.e. an escapist form of entertainment... well you see where I'm going with this. Even if say, virtual reality exists, you'd still have to "cheat" and allow the player say more endurance then they possess in reality. That's a big one in FPS's of all shapes and sizes.
Perhaps most people aren't readily aware, but military equipment, is heavy. And running really sucks in it. And is more or less impossible to do for any great lengths (say, 100 yards or more). Or even better than that, this one makes even SFO's laugh, and that's running a 100 yards in full combat load, and then hitting a bull's eye at 30 yards. That's impossible. SFO's literally spend 1/3 of their time training to do just that and most can't. I know, I trained with them at Quanico. Even a world class runner is going to be breathing hard after sprinting (and you're always sprinting in combat) and you can't be breathing hard if you expect to shoot anything. Or at least hit anything you intended to shoot.
But that doesn't stop people who have never even held a real gun, much less been downrange from telling me how my job works. Nor does it stop you from telling me how organizations work that I was part of for almost 10 years and went to, essentially, the finest school for them in the world.
Hugga_Bear said:
A woman trained in the use of a rifle and holding a rifle is no more or less dangerous than a man trained in the use of a rifle and holding a rifle. They're extremely similar in the "shit just got dangerous" category. Why on earth would it be okay to shoot one but not the other?
Actually statistically they're not. At least in any Branch of the U.S. Military. Exceptions do, and will exist, but they would be the statistical anomaly, not the norm. Women score across the board worse on standard marksmanship qualification then male counterparts.
He talked about non-realistic shooters and you go on about shooters that try to be realistic. And so many of these games so completely flout realism, soaking up high power rifle shots like paintballs and sprinting everywhere with perfect accuracy, your objection to the mere possibility of females in any combat role, (CoD and other games often covers a so-called "grunt" role) comes of as an exceptional objection.
You rail against women more than the hugely confounding issue of making allies invulnerable to friendly fire, a HUGE issue, comes across as sexist.
I mean friendly fire is I think the most contentious issue between the public and the military, the public completely fail to appreciate how friendly fire tragedies could happen, and all these games that contrive them to not happen is a far bigger issue than the possibility that a female might reach standards and depicted as such.
"it's like a woman holding over a man's head that he can't grow a child inside him."
That's just biologically impossible and hardly something men are jealous of passing a football sized infant out their abdomen via a hole in their genitals, but it is not biologically impossible for some women to reach the performance levels required, as many have.
Lets list IMPOSSIBLE things so common in even the more realistic (less like TF2) shooters:
-doing anything after being shot with a rifle other than wait for a CASEVAC and trying to control bleeding
-Recovering from bullet wounds and blast damage in literally only 5 seconds
-Near instant resurrection after death
-Allies conveniently painted with a colour coded name tag so there is no ambiguity where your allies are
-Allies immune to all friendly fire
HUGELY Implausible but not impossible:
-World War 3 with Russia of all countries invading mainland USA without a massive nuclear exchange
-Treacherous US Military commander working with terrorists to frame America for war crimes for a favourable war
-Rogue Russian officers in the Cold War brainwashing American POWs to assassinate the US President.
-Those same Russian Officers running a secret underwater base in the Gulf Of Mexico to coordinate a massive nerve gas attack on the US.
-all the technology like heads-up top-down radar, motion sensors, bullet counters and ultra-lightweight thermal scopes
-Claymore and bouncing mines that can be set off by enemy movement but not by your own presence or presence of allies.
List of mere reasonable plausibility but low frequency (by how we actually see them in practice):
-Women in armed ground combat roles
I would like to point out another balance issue with models of both sexes.
Classes.
Now, imagine you are playing TF2 and you see a glimpse of a character model, as pointed out by valve in its commentary, character models in the game are modeled so you can instantly know the players class from its silhouette.Having female versions would screw that up completely.
Your mind is constantly trying to tie character models with classes.
Even if you pass that issue, society still thinks women are the weaker/more kind side of gender.Which would trick the player into thinking that the female models are non-hostiles.
No i'm sorry, I call bollocks on that. Massive, hairy ones, swinging free twixt the opening of crotchless knickers.
Firstly, how many non-hostiles run around FPS multi-player maps? erm....around none. So that's rubbish to start with. Added to that how many non-hostiles have a gun, fatigues and are shooting at you?
Secondly, how would having females as classes be any different? So you have to remember an extra few modesl? Are you so feeble minded that you can't handle 6 images instead of three? I think not, eh? You're clearly quite intelligent. Female classes can be just as easily defined as the male ones, in exactly the same ways. Especially since Jim has already debunked the "hit-boxes" nonsense using Blacklight as example. It's easy to see following on from this that both male and female can have similar forms and silhouettes. And please, no one start blabbing about breasts changing the shape, cos the never-ending massive boob syndrome, which plagues gaming at the moment, really should have no place in an FPS.
A female gunner/tanker could be just as huge and burly as a male one. A female spy/scout etc can be just as small and wiry as a male one.
Tell me you've never seen female wrestlers or body builders and thought, they're bigger than I am?! Any claim that women in FPS would screw around with silhouettes, hit-boxes blah, blah, blah only proves laziness combined with sexism, a lack of experience with women and a total lack of creativity.
Eh, i guess you have a point there, but TF2 has 9 classes, not only 3.
And as people pointed out earlier this could be remedied by having female only classes.
No place in a FPS?We're already including too much explosions and tough sweaty military men with long guns and you draw the line at big boobs?
Considering i'm 6'4", yes i never thought of that.
Honestly what's the point of a female model if after all of military gear the character is going to put on will just end up looking like a barely smaller(or in black light's case, taller) and skinnier version of a male model.
I agree of adding women models in games like Brink because characters don't wear as much body armor and gender characteristics are more easily noticeable, but in a game like Call of Duty it is almost useless and barely noticeable.
1. I went through the key points on the lack of qualifications for female infantry, specifically any Combat Arms, in a previous post. As far as argument by authority, for one that doesn't mean I'm wrong, and two, I was more trying to point out that I am educated *specifically* in these matters, that is to say, I went to school *to* learn about how Military Dogma works. I didn't study English and had to take Military Theory on the side, I studied Military Science. This is uncommon and, essentially, anyone who takes that course (and passes) *is* an expert on these topics. When you read a source on Military Sciences *I'm* one of those sources (and in fact have been from Essay's I've written). But no, it's not meant to be an argument *of* authority, rather just stating my credentials to speak on the matter. It's the same as a Chemistry Professor putting "Phd." when he writes an essay. It's so the reader knows what follows comes from a learned source.
2. It's not my interpretation, it's the Army. Talk to anyone whose gone through basic and they'll tell you the same thing. Talk to anyone whose been downrange and they'll tell you it's even harsher than I alluded to.
3. No, it's not *women's* faults, it's men's. Men have an innate, nature urge to protect females. This is a biological fact. It's just something we do. What I'm trying to put forward is, and this is from *personnel* experience as well as being historically true as well, it's hard enough to run past a fallen friend to continue on, and with a male there's no biological urge pushing, with a female soldier every male soldier in her vicinity would, essentially, be compromised should she be injured. It's not their fault at all in this regard. But it is the world and the bodies we posses and to borrow a very old saying, you go to war with the Army you have.
4. Um scientific fact? Women think and problem solve with emotion. Men use a mixture of emotion and logic pending on the individual. Again that's the bodies we as a species inhabit. We can't change that. Not yet at least. And being a doctor or a nurse is a very, very far cry from being a soldier. No one hands you a gun and tells you to shoot someone when you're a doctor. Speaking as someone who *has* shot and killed another human, it's MUCH more difficult mentally than anything a doctor would encounter. At the end of the day, and many doctors say this, there is a sense of detachment between a doctor/nurse and his/her patients. You're not really doing anything against them, by all accounts you're trying to *help* them. Shooting someone in the chest requires a whole different type of mental processing. One that is not common, thankfully. Now that said women fully can and do possess this ability. Obviously, murders come in all shapes sizes and genders. But the lasting effects, and the ability to act at the moment is not the same. Women plan their murders. As an MP I'm also very well acquainted with how crimes are planned and conducted. Crimes of passion are relatively uncommon in female offenders. They tend to think and obsesses over the act of killing. That isn't to say that men don't, nor is that excluding that women think, or at least tend to think, with emotion. Crimes of passion do not equal fits of emotion. They are not treated as such in the Criminal Justice system or in Criminal Psychology. A crime of passion can be a logic based decision. Logic *can* be faulty, and in this case it invariably is, but that does not mean it was not based on a logic based decision process.
That all said, I never said their emotional processing is what keeps them from serving in Combat Arms branches, it is and remains the two specific items I outlined in the previous post.
5. Because as I said before, they are night and day different. I understand you have to work with what you know, and you don't know what being a soldier is about so, naturally as all humans do you have to make assumptions based on any and all knowledge you can hobble together to make information click together. But speaking as someone who has done, effectively, both of those jobs, namely being a soldier in combat and a paramedic (Military Police officers have many duties) they are not comparable. You can no sooner compare a paramedic to a soldier than Chipmunk to Closet. They are literally that different from one another. No one's ever asked you to kill something. That's what my job revolves around.
6. Okay again, as an MP, I've had to investigate Friendly Fire cases (rather "Fratricide" when reported) (no one calls them blue on blue except the French and Germans) they do not happen because of "macho" shoot back. That's not how friendly fire, or really combat in general, works. Most cases of friendly fire involve someone being in a location that either they are not supposed to be in, or enemy units ARE supposed to be in, and a friendly soldier shoots automatically at a presented target. Friendly "firefights" don't happen. This might not be well understood to non-soldiers, but AK's and M4A1's sound drastically different from one another, and anyone downrange more than a day can tell the difference from just one shot. If I hear the clear sound of an M4A1 discharge pointed at me, my first response is to take cover and get on my radio, not shoot back. Shooting back would be the ABSOLUTE last thing I would do.
Also I never mentioned friendly fire as a problem in regards to the issue at hand so I'm a little confused as to why it was brought up. To be honest it doesn't really *happen* that often anyway. The news and media and videogames seem to sensationalize and make it seem like a common occurrence when in reality, at least for ground troops, it is VERY rare. Friendly missiles targeting friendly aircraft is really the only problem with this in our current military and that's because we assume computers from the 70's are smarter than they are.
7. Um... I really don't think you know what you're talking about. That is not... how the mind in a combat situation works. Also camouflage does not work as well as you'd think. And when someone's shooting an assault rifle, they could be invisible, anyone could still hit them. Guns are loud. Really loud. You can be blind and hit a target just on sound (at the very least suppress them).
8. Not a grad. Had to retire for medical reasons. As far as your games of choice are concerned, it's clear you're arguing apples and oranges. I'm talking purely about the COD's, the ARMA's, the Operation FlashPoints that depict *the modern world as we know it now* in war. And in such setting, women do not exist in the roles you seem to wish, and that's all it is, a wish, for them to hold.
9. Yes they did. Leaving behind, or rather, "Abandoning," (the term used in reports) is defined as "The leaving of person or property of the U.S. Army or it's charges in a hostile situation where recovery would be disproportionately dangerous." This again is a fact of history. The mission report filed by the Commanding Officers of the Ground forces say exactly as much. There was no choice, no one held it against them. It was, in fact, the right decision at the time to abandon who and what they did. But they did. Have no illusions. If you or your body is not back for the debriefing, you've been abandoned. End of story. And there were numerous soldiers and 1 pilot left behind during Operation Irene. The soldiers were retrieved the following day, and the pilot returned a week or so later.
10. What they did was wrong. Heroic. That's not a question or even debatable. But it was wrong. It's just as wrong as a wounded soldier getting up and taking out machine gun nests on his own. It's wrong. He shouldn't. If his unit is combat ineffective then risking his own life just puts others in jeopardy (because now I have to run out to retrieve his bullet riddled body). Doesn't diminish their sacrifices or heroism, but they shouldn't have. It was not tactically prudent, nor in keeping with focusing on the tasks at hand. That is exactly my point, and the reason for the U.S. Army policy that exists to back up my point; the possibility of romantic feelings coming between a soldiers choice of a mission is considered a very dangerous thing.
11. I never said they did. You seem to want me to be a misogynist. I don't hate women. I like women. I do, trust me on that. And considering I've had women as both superiors and subordinates I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea on how they react in the military world. Also women drove tanks, they did not gun nor command (women were not, outside of the air corpse, allowed to hold ranks). It's not counter-intuitive to be strong in a tank. Most tankers are. Armor guys tend to be the biggest burliest fella's you meet. Ever see a 120mm shell? It's as tall as 10 year old and weighs twice as much. And, and this was true for all tanks in WWII) we don't use autoloaders. Somebody still has to pick up each shell. And EVERYONE does every job in a tank.
12. As far as WWII goes... I won't dredge out the whole thing here, but suffice it to say Germans won tactically in most, if not nearly all, engagements. It's what they do. They rarely seem to win strategically. That's their problem. Especially in WWII. Once the fire was turned on them Germans gave ground like no one's business. Russia on the other hand basically never gave ground in actual battles. When they dug their heals in that was that. They may loose every tactical engagement, but they will not give up the ground. In war, that's all that matters. But have no illusions, the Russians only could do so BECAUSE of their numbers. Germans died in droves towards the end of the war not because of superior Russian tactics, or because improved weaponry, but because they were fighting a force that on average outnumbered them 50:1. Because by 1942 German supply lines were stretch so thin that they literally would get lost and have to double back. Because for what ever stupid reason German's love to make their machinery as complex and custom as possible so when a Panther ran into a mechanical issue, it was essentially knocked out. But it had nothing to do with Russian war fighting superiority. Comrade Marshal Zhukov himself commented on his troops were a rabble. That's kinda how it works. The Russian military was built with CONSCRIPTS. The German military was, at least until 1943, largely volunteers, and up until 45' reasonably well trained.
13. No. Not in the NVA. The NVA is a specific organization. The Army of North Vietnam. The Vietnamese People's Army. It is not related in any way, other than sharing nationality, to the Viet-Cong. Women did not serve in Combat Capacities in the NVA. Clerks and in their medical corps. That's it. They were not charging into Hue with Type 56's and AKM's.
14. Yes, they did. Just as now, every engagement resulted in disproportionate casualties on the Viet-Cong. This is a historical fact. BOTH sides attest to it. American's point it out as a matter of pride and military bravado, the Vietnamese point it out as a sign of Western savagery. Also, as with Russians, I never said women made the Viet-Cong lose. I said that's the only capacity they served in, and it did not help the Viet-Cong. The presence of female Viet-Cong did not help or hurt. The Viet-Cong are not comparable to a military unit. They are an insurgency. You can't even compare them to a militia as a malitia still has some semblance of rank and file and proticol and SOP's. What I intended to point out was that was the only capacity in which women typically CAN fight in war, and from a gaming perspective, it would be rather boring give how one sided a protracted firefight would be. In terms of gaming, you *Want* the firefight to last. If it was just an exchange of two rounds, literally, two pulls of a trigger, that would really stink as a game. Well that was, and is, the only way insurgencies work. They fire of two rounds, kill 1 enemy, and run away. They cannot afford to stand and fight, they are neither trained, nor equipped, to handle a first rate firefight. Speaking from experience, if an insurgent has 60 rounds of ammunition on them that's a lot. That's about 1 minute of ammo for a real firefight. If that.
15. Actually by the numbers it's pretty much usually a draw early war, then towards the end starts to favor American's greatly (Battle of the Bulge having American's kill 5 Germans to 1 man lost in turn). It's tough to really gauge American vs. German effectiveness because baring a few, VERY isolated situations, (BotB being one of them) it was really never just American's against Germans. There were almost always elements of English, French, and almost universally a Canadian element in play. You have to bear in mind, America has the lowest Casualties out of all Allies in WWII (including Canada, as they suffered some rather grievous losses on a few occasions).
To look at it in gaming terms, Germany's Excellent Tactically, very poor strategically, Russia is excellent Strategically, terrible tactically, America tends to be Mario. Not particularly Amazing at either, but not poor at either.
ANYWAY, relating to the core issue, my point still stands, and there is no argument against it, in a MODERN setting FPS, women have no place. Trying to argue that sacrificing a game mechanic to allow for fluid play somehow equates to suspending the very concept of the term "Modern Combat" is insane. Why don't we make all the characters have bobble heads while were at it then? I know it's a pretense of realism in many of these games, but to a degree, some things NEED to be maintained or you've gone past pretense into full blown fantasy. I mean think about it like this, would you consider it a modern setting FPS if the belligerent against the "Allied" nations (English, French, American) was *not* Russian (or Slavic Based) Middle Easter, Chinese or North Korean? It's not nice but in the modern world and the modern setting of these games, those are the sides. If they pulled an audible and switched the belligerent to say, India, that would confuse wouldn't it? It wouldn't probably "feel" like a game of that genre anymore.
1. The problem with you citing Authority is you then sight even higher authority of military commanders in NATO as being categorically wrong. So to spite their exemplary qualifications, experience and expertise they are all wrong and you are right.
2. Got a link? You didn't say this was the army's interpretation. Anyway, you can see IN PRACTICE that missions have repeatedly been jeopardised by male heterosexual soldiers to save other male heterosexual soldiers even when the probability of their being alive is hugely remote. And not just on the unit level, right up to the higher command structure they authorise reckless missions involving dozens of soldiers to go back for a soldier accidentally left behind, even when they have no valuable equipment or special information.
3. where are you getting this "innate natural urge to protect females" as if it is to some unbearable extent when you see IN PRACTICE that male heterosexuals clearly have an innate natural urge to protect just a single other male heterosexual who is stranded and in danger. How can you talk from personal experience when you say there are NO WOMEN in combat roles. The record is clear that units of entirely heterosexual males struggle and are distracted by concern for a fallen heterosexual male, this is not a special problem with women. I don't know where you get this idea that this problem is trivial now but would be unbearable with female soldiers, you aren't making the case why that would be... only reaffirming your opinion that could so easily be prejudiced.
4. I'm quite sure the prevalence of men rotting in prison was down to them problem solving with mainly logic and not just their emotions. I think you'll find it's just what people like to think about themselves.
No, what men do is "rationalise", they make snap emotional responses and after they are committed to their action retroactively try to contort a logical explanation.
You think women are incapable of shooting the enemy? They made excellent snipers in the Second World War because they didn't get a hunt-excitement out of killing with raised breathing, heart rate and general "twitchiness". They also excelled as machine gunners, it's frankly old fashioned the idea that women are incapable of killing. What women don't tend to do, is go off the deep end and start killing unnecessarily, unable to resist the compulsion to keep firing when they know there is no further need for it. In such highly
Killing an enemy soldier is wholly different from murder. A soldier kills an enemy on the battlefield for good reason one detached from emotions out of the practical need to destroy or neutralise the enemy force. Murder is a crime of greed, by definition where it is not in self-defence or to protect others, but because of anger over infidelity, taunting or jealousy. Women ARE capable of killing, they are just not motivated by violent emotions to do so anywhere near as much.
Women in fact apply logic to their emotions, emotions drive everything we do, even soldiers. The pride and honour of serving their country, the cause of empathy of defending ideals and innocents from persecution. Women far more than men apply logic to these compulsions and balance them while men set their minds and are slaves to "the beast" of the mind.
In conflict like Afghanistan and Iraq, dealing with large sensitive populations you want more women's brains than men's brains. Because men do FAR MORE OFTEN snap and react illogically with violence following their emotions. Like when a roadside bomb goes off you don't want a soldier shooting at every person who happens to be in the street because he is angry and afraid and lashing out at anyone who might have been responsible for the bomb or an ambush.
5. you claim to be a military man, but you say things as ridiculous as "a paramedic is as different from a soldier as a Chipmuk is from a closet" Is so ridiculous and with no explanation.
A chimpmunk is a mammal that lives in nature, a closet is inanimate wood fashioned and cut by humans into a box shape to store clothes in. Paramedics and Soldiers are both humans in highly trained professions that require complex understanding and application of technology in rapid time with lives hanging in the balance.
Your analogy is useless. Your only distinction is the killing part and you've established that women are more than capable of killing.
6. And yet you see many US Servicemen photographed in combat roles using AK47 rifles or similar 7.62mm rifles (the many M14 variants). And also you see many insurgents photographed with 5.56x45mm calibre rifles. It's hard to bet so much on such sounds echoing around buildings.
Friendly fire happens often enough to greatly affect national commitment to conflicts, consider the tragedy of Pat Tillman, made worse by the military's lack of forthcoming of how he died, waiting till immediately after the funeral to tell the parents. I DO see it as a problem where it depends on shooting anything you see moving in an area you assume your forces aren't supposed to be, even then that leads to civilians being killed who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Restraint is needed more than ever, and that is a restraint against a very male instinct to destroy threats at all costs.
7. The camouflage thing continues from the issues with friendly fire, how the male tendency to shoot quick above all else is counter productive as it is NOT so glaringly obvious who is enemy, who is ally and who is neutral. The urge to shoot must be resisted, women come from the other end is they need to be motivated only by an unambiguous threat to fire.
8. You could have mentioned you were an undergraduate, "Went to West Point" has certain connotations. And the point I am making is it is spurious to object to women in games but not impracticalities of regenerating health. Or even the more "far out" games like Bad Company series.
9. Well now you are arguing semantics, they certainly never deliberately turned their backs on them and just walked away intending to never return for them. Leaving your kid behind accidentally at a mall with every intention of returning is not "abandoning" your child. You are falling victim to sensationalist media reporting. Some units returned to base to regroup and get a clearer picture of where their comrades were that needed to be rescued. They did EVERYTHING, there was nothing they could have done but didn't do out of restraint to get them out, and you don't seem to have a problem with heterosexual male soldiers saving heterosexual male soldiers.
Oooh, but if it's a female soldier, or there are gay male soldiers, suddenly it's unacceptably jeopardising the lives of servicemen and valuable equipment.
10. Ok, so you admit it was wrong. Right from the two special forces snipers who offered to the command that permitted it. Yet they got Posthumous Medal of Honor, by definition what they did was honourable as the establishment decided.
And what you are saying does not make sense. You dedicate a whole paragraph to how it is such a problem that this exists of heterosexual males heroically and platonically trying to save their heterosexual male comrades, yet you say this is the reason all possibility of romance cannot be allowed in the Military. As if there is no problem and it would entirely be created by allowing anyone other than heterosexual males in the military.
11. you certainly do seem to have a double standard, apologetics for male-heterosexual platonic heroism, but categorically refusing the inclusion of females or gays for the remote possibility that romance might have the same effect.
I think it is because you like women that is the problem, you patronise them and look down on them and seem to think everyone is as obsessed with them as you are.
Russian tanks, that were so effective and devastating, did not depend on big people but pushed advantages of armour with small working space. Russian women served in them in all capacities very well.
A 120mm shell is not "as tall as a 10 year old child and weights twice as much" as that would be almost 1.4 meters long and 70kg, more like 18kg and 70cm, like a toddler that women certainly can and do carry and arguably have to be more careful with. There hasn't been a good reason why auto-loaders aren't used in US tanks as they are used extensively elsewhere. Russians used auto-loaders very effectively and to an overall saving in tank weight while Abrams is so heavy that it severely limits it's operational effectiveness. Auto-loader ssed in the Stryker MGS system very effectively for a light yet powerful gun system.
12. still the ratio of casualties in action speak for themselves, the Red Army was not a zerg-rush that depended on people being bullet sponges so it didn't matter if they were men, women or people staggering along with muscular dystrophy. No. The Red Army were good fighters even with women, just not as good as the Germans who also routed the larger mainly professional French and British armies in 1940.
13. you got a source on that? Because I gave you are source they were in the uniformed armed forces of the North Vietnamese Army armed with weapons now you are claiming that they didn't serve any combat role. That's an unsupported claim.
14. VC over-ran plenty of US units but could almost never stick around survive the artillery, air-strikes and gunships. The AIR POWER was the reason fire fights could not be prolonged, not because there were women in the VC.
How can you claim that the Viet Cong didn't have any kind of militia as they didn't have a command structure. Nonsense, then what was the Phoenix Program of assassinations of Viet Cong commanders and why was it so effective in disrupting the Viet Cong? That proves they were an organised armed force.
Games have bent the rules of insurgencies all the time by bending the rules on how an occupying or resident force would have reinforcements on tap, how in a short time send in air-strikes, troop-helicopters, helicopter gunships, armoured vehicles, artillery and so on. That is why no guerilla or insurgency force can fight a stand up fight, and I don't care how macho and manly you are, you can't take an F4 Phantom delivered napalm to the face and use your testosterone to quell the flames.
This is no reason to exclude women from war games.
15. you don't just have to focus on the American forces on the Western front of WWII as British, Canadian and all of the western powers, none of them allowed females in any sort of combat role, and their loss ratio in combat was similar to the Women-inclusive Red Army. That is the point of comparison, comparing armies that include women in combat with armies that don't. There was simply MORE fighting in the eastern front.
"and there is no argument against it, in a MODERN setting FPS, women have no place."
You've yet to make and argument FOR it! So much spurious crap that is nothing to do with women in combat. Ok, so Viet Cong can't fight stand up battles, that's not because of women, that's because of superior American air power, artillery and mobile armour.
No game mechanics would be sacrificed by having women very reasonably fighting in a combat role of even a modern military shooter. And of course what about the Killzones and Team Fortress 2 games that are totally detached from the real world.
It's not a fantasy that women can and are increasingly serving in combat roles and you cannot ignore the historical precedent of how women have served effectively in combat roles.
"I mean think about it like this, would you consider it a modern setting FPS if the belligerent against the "Allied" nations (English, French, American) was *not* Russian (or Slavic Based) Middle Easter, Chinese or North Korean?"
What nonsense. There is no shortage of antagonists other than those:
-Somali Pirates kidnapping tourists and hijacking ships
-A Kony type central African maniac
-Assisting in removing and Gadaffi style despotic leader
-Pursuing drug cartel militias in Central America
And why couldn't India be an antagonist when the past three Call of Duty games have been about Russia as an antagonist in Total War? Russia is highly implausibly an antagonist with America which is on the other side of the world and they have virtually no serious competing interests, not like Japan in WWII that couldn't stand for America's oil embargo for the invasion of Manchuria. US and Russia have been sharing meilitary training and other operations, India and Russia are both about as close to America on diplomatic terms.
And yet, TF2 remains the only class-based shooter that anyone plays.
Also, just make one or two CLASSES female. Bang, problem solved.
PoweD said:
Even if you pass that issue, society still thinks women are the weaker/more kind side of gender.Which would trick the player into thinking that the female models are non-hostiles.
You... really don't know how to comprehend do you? As I said there is a big difference between fair compensation, as in adding in features to a game to allow it to be "fun" and usable, and grossly misrepresenting the way the world works.
Example, allowing snap catches in Madden is not indicative of how the real world is but it's a mechanic that allows the game to be be fluid, and thus enjoyable to play. Adding a jetpack to the full back would not. There's no rule saying he *can't* have a jetpack in a videogame, but given that Madden is trying to represent American Football as best it can (While remaining playable), it does not add a jetpack despite how interesting that might make things.
Tell me, do you also have a problem with the cartoonish stereotypes that pass for villains in most "realistic" military shooters? Or is that an unpatriotic question?
As far as As far as Games Workshop is concerned, I stand by my point. There are no female Space Marines. There's the Sisters of Battle, but no female Space Marine. Making up your own reality is truly part of the game, but you do have to work within what pieces are released and baring that ONE figurine, which is no longer in production nor was for very long (and didn't even look like a Space Marine to be honest) there are no female Space Marines. You can pretend the male figures are female, but that's all it is, pretend.
I seem to recall Games Workshop saying that third-party miniatures, as well as using miniatures to substitute for other miniatures, was officially sanctioned within the rules (and given that you are encouraged to make your own armies and races, it's almost mandatory anyway). Are you saying that Games Workshop is wrong about what their own rules are?
Men have an innate, nature urge to protect females. This is a biological fact. It's just something we do. What I'm trying to put forward is, and this is from *personnel* experience as well as being historically true as well, it's hard enough to run past a fallen friend to continue on, and with a male there's no biological urge pushing, with a female soldier every male soldier in her vicinity would, essentially, be compromised should she be injured. It's not their fault at all in this regard. But it is the world and the bodies we posses and to borrow a very old saying, you go to war with the Army you have.
4. Um scientific fact? Women think and problem solve with emotion. Men use a mixture of emotion and logic pending on the individual. Again that's the bodies we as a species inhabit. We can't change that.
Wow, so not only do you have a degree in evolutionary psychology, you also have a degree in neurobiology! That's impressive. May I ask what medical school you went to, Doctor?
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