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Thoughts on women in combat

By Scott Tibbs, January 29, 2013

It was not surprising when President Obama decided to lift the ban on women in combat last week, but it was nonetheless disappointing. This will reduce the combat effectiveness of our military and lead to more abuse of women, including rape and sexual violence. The military's purpose is not to be a playground for politically correct social engineering. The military's purpose is to kill people and break things.

First, let's go to the most obvious problem: Women are uniquely vulnerable to being abused in captivity, and many of the enemies we fight (especially Muslim terrorists) will enthusiastically take advantage of them when captured. For example, Rhonda Cornum was raped by one of her Iraqi captors in the 1991 Gulf War. Rape was used as a weapon of war in the Yugoslavian civil war, and continues to be epidemic in conflicts around the world.

War is horrible enough as it is. Do we really need to subject American women to this?

Unfortunately, we also have a serious problem with rape within our armed forces. Is it really wise to place women on the front lines and place them in danger of being assaulted by their own fellow soldiers? Placing women in combat will make this worse, not better.

It is a reality that men will seek to protect women in battle. This is how men are wired, and men who are worried about the danger faced by their female comrades will be less effective in battle. Feminists can dismiss this as much as they want, but the nature of the sexes is what it is and cannot be fundamentally altered.

This is because we were created by a loving God who explicitly commanded men to protect women. Specifically, the Apostle Paul commands husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church in Ephesians 5:25. How did Christ love the church? By shedding His blood for her, not by asking her to bleed and die for Him. Women already bear the sickness, vomiting, backaches and other complications of pregnancy in addition to the bloodshed of childbirth. Are we to expect them to fight our wars for us as well so we can stay behind and play video games?

Here is something else: Men are stronger than women. Men are more physically capable of being warriors than women. The Obama administration said that standards would not be lowered, but is that really the case? Physical fitness standards are already gender-normed:

In the Army's physical fitness testing, women earn top points for running two miles in 15:36 minutes, for example, while men must run that distance two minutes faster. Women score tops by doing 42 push-ups; men must grunt through 71.

But those are fitness standards, not job requirements, right? Surely women will need to meet the same standards as men. "Those requirements will be examined closely to see if they really make sense," the Huffington Post reports about certain job requirements. Now, surely allowing more women into those positions will not be a factor in considering whether those requirements are actually needed, like it has been in the United Kingdom?

Women soldiers are common in fiction. From G.I. Joe to Red Sonja and various female superheroes in comics, women in fiction are just as tough and capable as the men... but that is fiction. Reality is another matter. This is a bad decision, made for the purpose of appeasing radical feminists who supported Obama's re-election. Unfortunately, now that this policy is in place, it will probably not be reversed. Stopping a bad policy from being implemented is far easier than reversing a bad policy once it is in place.