[quote]boatguy wrote:
It gets better guys:
That’s right, the Navy will be allowing women into the NSW ranks within the next couple years. I am not a SEAL, but the ones I work with are absolutely pissed (and rightly so, IMO). More than a couple of them have already stated their intention to drop their pin when the first female SEAL reports to a team.
Here’s my take: if you keep the exact same physical standard across the board, and keep politics out of it, then more power to any chick who can make it through. That would be one tough chick, and should have no issue getting the job done.
Here’s the problem: this has already been politicized, and it will only get worse. The Navy has reportedly already picked the first female, she is a Naval Academy grad (c/o 2013 IIRC), former lacrosse player. She won’t be able to report to BUD/S until 2016, so what is she doing in the meantime? She has been assigned to a command where she has minimal responsibilities (as an officer!) and has plenty of time to PT and prep for BUD/S in another 2 years. Seriously? There’s not a guy in the Navy who was given 2 years to prep for BUD/S, SWCC, or any other selection course.
NAVSPECWARCOM commissioned a study on the pros and cons of women in NSW, written by a female no less. It actually had some very valid points. Among them, based off of male BUD/S student data going back about 50 years and using female NCAA and world-class athlete data (since there have obviously been no female BUD/S students yet), she found a woman at BUD/S is three times as likely to get injured as a man. Three times! And while BUD/S is harder than life in the teams because it is compressed to a year, the same activities are done in training as were done at BUD/S. So she will still be at a higher risk of getting injured versus a man, and now you just lost what could be a critical member of your platoon.
An even bigger issue is culture. Within the SEAL teams and boat teams, our culture is different from that of regular military, and even moreso from that of civilians. We are crude and rude with each other, because these are your brothers and that’s just how it is. Now throw a chick into that mix, and 40-some-odd dudes have to change their behaviors for her? An entire community of SOF operators (because it is going SOCOM wide) has to change their behaviors because someone chose to fix an issue that wasn’t broken? And the people driving this don’t see why those at ground level have an issue with it?
One of the most poignant points made by the author of the study I mentioned was this: By opening BUD/S and SWCC to females, are we opening opportunities for women, or are we trying to make female SEALs? Because those are two very different things. By opening opportunities, you can (and absolutely should) keep the same standard and any woman who makes it through gets in. By proving we can make female SEALs, you lower the standard and forgive them when they quit and put them back into training - this negatively effects mission readiness, and those females will never have the respect or trust of the men they are attempting to join. Anecdotally (because I have never been to BUD/S, I am relying on the experiences of the guys I work with), men of certain ethnic backgrounds are given this second type of treatment - they can quit in BUD/S, but are put right back into training as if it didn’t happen.
I retire this year, and while I am glad to go because I am seeing some very bad changes already being implemented (blocks of training being dumbed down to save money - guys break a vehicle during a driving course? Fine, we just won’t drive that vehicle anymore), morbid curiosity makes me want to stick around long enough to see how fucked up it is really going to get before adults take over again.[/quote]
That’s very depressing. The push to integrate fire departments happened more than twenty years ago, and there are lots of good female firefighters. However, I’ve been personally trying to get on a paid department for +10 years now, and have seen the physical fitness requirements greatly dumbed down or dropped entirely. The result is departments hire people who are not capable of doing the job.
It always starts the same “we just want a fair chance.” Ok, give them a fair chance and 90% fail, so the bar gets lowered. Which raises the burden on the men who are left. It also isn’t fair to the women who are qualified.