.
Shaye Haver and Kristin Griest - 1st female Ranger School Grads
Times change. There’s absolutely no denying that, and along with
them, society and culture changes right along with the times. Of course,
sometimes one or the other drags a little behind.
In recent years there’s been a push for “gender
equality.” Not just equal pay for the same jobs, but the idea that females can
do jobs like street policing, mining, firefighting, commercial fishing and military
combat every bit as effectively as males.
With the emergence of sports icons like Ronda Rousey
and Serena Williams, both of whom could almost certainly beat many professional
males in their respective sports, who’s to argue other than that viewpoint may well
have some merit.
Here’s the rub, that viewpoint demands that we
disregard any of our old notions about male/female gender differences. Once
past that, standards are NOT an issue. A fit PERSON can do at least X number of
pull ups, push ups, run a given distance under a specified time, etc.
I personally don’t know anything about Ranger
standards. I know that the minimum of 10 pull ups that I’ve heard is absolutely
minimal. When I was a young firefighter working in the Bronx, myself and about
six other firefighters routinely did “chins and pulls” off the aerial ladder in
quarters. Steve Telesca, then a Lieutenant, who retired a Battalion Chief, was
always the top guy in such contests, routinely doing 25 to 30 at a time. Myself
and a few others routinely did over 20, so I KNOW that 10 pull ups is indeed an
absolute minimum number, as it’s a number that wouldn’t have even registered
among those firefighters back then.
Is there a reason to believe that pull ups and chin
ups are harder for some individuals then others?
Absolutely!
As this exercise uses your own body weight as a
force of resistance, they are much tougher exercises for overweight and
out-of-shape people. They‘re also much tougher for folks like myself, who’ve
become SOFFs over the years. A “SOFF”
by the way, is a “silly old fat f*ck,”
BUT they’re NOT and CANNOT be too
tough for young, fit people of either gender. Those old ideas of “strength
differentials” MUST be discarded,
because the job requirements DON’T
change regardless of who’s doing them.
Regardless, there is absolutely NO rational, let alone overriding reason to look to make such standards more "female-friendly," any more than there is to make them more "SOFF-friendly." We're looking for warriors here, NOT just "anyone who can meet an absolute minimum criteria we arbitrarily set up." Let the best of the best compete head-to-head and take the highest performers...in order of performance.
Very recently, the Army Rangers graduated their
first female recruits, Shaye Haver and Kristin Griest and this too requires
that we all reconsider the entire male/female dynamic.
Whether there are, or are not any strength differentials
between males and females, they must be disregarded, as they can no longer
apply when the demands of these jobs remain physically demanding. It is
extremely doubtful that anyone combat can hope to avoid direct hand-to-hand
combat at some point...things break down.
All of this has to have huge societal impacts as
well. It HAS to force us to reconsider the old “damsel in distress” model that
once made things like physical assaults on women to be especially egregious.
Once we accept the genders as physically equal, there’s no rational basis for
that antiquated view. Today, we see female offenders engaged in some of the
most violent crimes and subsequently fighting with police, so such views do
seem indeed antiquated. In a particularly grisly recent crime, in which four
members of a Youth Job Corps murdered another member with machetes, a female,
Desiray Strickland’s post-crime actions were particularly egregious; “Strickland,
of Miami Gardens, refused to cooperate with Miami-Dade detectives when detained
on Wednesday. According to police, she shoved an investigator, head-butted his
chest and flailed about before she was shackled in an interview room.
“She also used screws from an electrical
outlet to try and pick her handcuffs, then scrawled “MPD Go to Hell” on a
table, the report said. Strickland also was charged with resisting an officer
with violence, battery on an officer and criminal mischief.”
So, it seems that society and culture are very much
lagging behind the actual gender evolution we’re witnessing in this realm.
ALL
of this argues AGAINST treating
female offenders more leniently than males, which has been a long held
tradition in Western jurisprudence. It also argues forcefully against any form
of alimony or maintenance in divorce proceedings. After all, men and women both
work and in many professions today women predominate, so there’s no reason to
continue treating men as “the primary bread winners,” and women as “hapless victims.”
Child support for whichever parent winds up the custodial parent should very
much remain in effect, but NOT
alimony, palimony or maintenance.
BUT
even bigger changes seem mandated by gender equality. Once we accept that there
are no recognized differences between males and females, then the gender segregation
of sports must be eliminated. Gender equality demands that such segregation be
eliminated, regardless of results. WHY have separate UConn Men’s and Women’s
basketball teams? Gender equality demands that we treat men and women the same,
so UConn should field a single basketball team. If one year five women make the
UConn squad and in another season no women make the team, well we shouldn’t be
counting by gender or race (we DON’T
count the number of blacks and whites on such teams...do we?), so that really
shouldn’t be an issue.
We should also eliminate all other segregated
sporting events, women’s boxing, swimming, tennis, MMA, etc. should all be
eliminated in favor of desegregated sporting events that treat male and female
athletes as true equals.
I’ve always believed that so long as we hold
everyone to the highest standards and take the best performers in rank order,
then we’re “treating everyone as equals,” and barring discrimination against
anyone. ONLY when we handicap a
dominant group to “level the playing field for others,” Or bar disfavored
groups from even competing that we actively engage in overt discrimination, or “disparate
treatment.”
The fact that we’re now treating female sexual
predators and other criminals much more seriously and that we’re looking to
send female troops into combat demands true and complete gender equality across
the board. We can certainly no longer adhere to policies and standards that stemmed
from the antiquated view of women as “the weaker sex.”
In the not too distant past, men who physically
assaulted women often derided as “Men who seem to view women as guys who just occasionally
dress differently.” Other men looked down on such men, primarily because they
saw women as “needing special protections,” as “damsels in distress”...NOT
equals.
So, who knew, but that those men who DID treat women as brutally as they’d
treat another guy were actually just ahead of their time?
Another aspect that will have to be focused on in
the military is getting men past the impulse to protect female colleagues.
Israel abandoned its experiment with females in combat because their enemies
took to targeting female soldiers, knowing that instead of taking cover, the
way they were trained to respond when one of the group was hit, a number of
male soldiers would run to look to help a fallen female colleague, offering the
sniper several other open targets.
It’s NOT
female soldiers that are the problem in such scenarios but male attitudes.
Those attitudes must be changed. Male soldiers will HAVE TO BE trained to view female soldiers as asexual (without
gender) and to treat women in combat the very SAME way they’d treat another male
– he’s down, probably dead, let’s take cover and prepare to fight.
In the end, it really DOES just come down to looking
at things a little differently. It’s just that some people adjust to such new
ways of thinking quicker than others. That DOES
NOT make those faster (less considered, less thoughtful) adapters “better,”
just folks who follow societal changes mindlessly and often without much
deliberation. Neither is “better,” or “worse.”
Something that MUST
NOT be compromised are the standards. In competing for sports teams,
emergency service jobs, and the most elite military combat positions, the “basic
standards” don’t count. Those positions have too many applicants to allow in
anyone who meets the basic standards, given “an under-representation of that
group.” Those positions can only fairly be filled by allowing all applicants to
compete against each other on a set of standards that no individual can fully
meet and take on the very highest performers in rank order, regardless of
result.
THAT
is treating everyone as true equals. Only THAT
eliminates ANY & ALL kinds of deliberate discrimination.
