Poll: Women In Combat? Yea or Nay?

[EclipseoftheDarkSun]

Treatment of women by their fellow male soldiers has obviously been pretty bad in a fair % of cases [...] Plus, as women are the only half of the population able to bear children, that's an argument against overuse of them as soldiers

So, you're basically saying women should not be soldiers because their male comrades-in-arms can't help but act like sexist beasts towards them - and because women are supposed to be baby-making machines, anyway?

*Sigh*.

I'm still for women soldiers myself. But I'm starting to wonder why any woman would WANT to risk her life defending this society...

No, I basically said I wondered if having a lot MORE women in the forces would help address that problem. In that they could offer greater support to each other. That said, maybe more women in command roles would be effective in that. (Which is, since you seem confused, a pro-more-women-in-the-military-argument)

For the latter matter, that's for society as a whole to consider. I didn't set up the rules of biology that say that only women can bear children. I'd be happy for men to be able to as well, but facts are facts. You'd have to be mad as a cut snake to have excessive numbers of fertile women on the front line in a major conflict.

Not that you have much of a choice if the enemy is on your home soil.

 

[Yuuki]

Women can't cope with frontline combat?
Speaking as a male, that sounds damn silly to me.
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/dahomey.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons
http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/

For instance, the Mino, a military unit founded by the king of Dahomey that consisted solely of women. And guess what? They were a goddamn terror to their enemies, with a penchant for decapitation.

I only had to read the first sentence of the first link: "The Dahomey Amazons are the only documented all-female official front-line combat arms military unit in modern history."

The only documented one...jee, I wonder why. Maybe because exceptionally rare exceptions are exactly that?

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

I only support it if there are enough capable women to form separate fighting forces. As there will always be vastly more men capable of combat duty, women dispersed among the military evenly would result in them making up a small minority of any given fighting force. In such a situation, the majority of the force will become distracted by that small minority. This not only hurts troop cohesion, but based on how men, historically, have tended to conduct themselves during warfare, would put that female minority at risk of being raped by their fellow soldiers.

However, enough capable women operating as their own fighting force would be equally as good as an equally competent all male fighting force.