If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen

A somewhat riveting conversation insued following Irina’s post about the lack of masculinity displayed by American men these days.

I suggested that the feminists reap what they sowed, illustrated by sharing an anecdote about how I was chewed out as a child for suggesting that women were not strong enough to troll through the jungle carrying heavy packs.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to get one of those Rosie Riveter responses from a lady cadet.  I also wasn’t surprised by the content of the response.  “Yes we can, blah blah blah.  I swim faster than boys lol!”

It’s amazing to me how human beings are so capable of selectively choosing what to believe.  Even when we’re swimming in a sea of evidence to the contrary, we are still capable of believing something completely false.  I believe this is a survival mechanism.

Look, if human beings had the tendency to analyze their own capabilities objectively, we would be demotivated or depressed most of the time.  If we had an ability to objectively categorize our weaknesses, we’d never get anything done.

I believe army girl’s arguments are a classic example of selectively filtering out truth to keep herself motivated to continue whatever pursuits she has laid out for herself.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except when she attempts to disagree with me when I state a prevailing and undisputed truth.

I was right when I was 12 and I’m still right.

“Marine men must do 20 pull-ups, 100 sit-ups and run three miles in 18 minutes. Women Marines must hold the flexed-arm hang for 70 seconds, do 100 sit-ups and run three miles in 21 minutes.”

In other words, they don’t have to do a single pull-up.  I’m not even going to bother going on.  I’m not even going to bother entertaining a debate about the issue.  Even female soldiers, who I think we should all agree are in the top echelon of physical prowess among females second only to professional athletes or fitness trainers, are not required to be able to perform basic strength exercises because they simply can’t do it.  There’s no one to blame.  There’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch.  We are biological entities and we are what we are.

If patriarchal man-domination of the army is to blame, go ahead and hold yourself to the same standards the men do, ala GI Jane.  Maybe Ms. Blog Commenter really can stand up to a man physically.  But I betcha 95% of the girls in the military can’t.  So they fail their physical requirements exams and then sue the army because it’s not EEO.

Haven’t we heard this all before?

This is all distraction from the issue Irina is illustrating and the point I tried to raise.  People read a comment like the one I posted and their knee-jerk reaction is “omg, he hates womyn!!11  he wants them to be little slaves and have no rights!”  Not at all.

I picked that anecdote specifically because it highlights a concept that, based on at least two of the responses posted in direct response to my comment, a good portion of the population is incapable of grasping.  The question of whether women should serve in the military is not a matter of whether they have the right to, it’s whether a woman who can’t meet the military’s physical requirements should be entitled to a separate set of rules which enable to her to pass where she’d otherwise fail.  More to the point, it illustrates a very basic concept that people will claim they understand in one breath and violate in their arguments in the next.

Are women equal to men?  It depends on the method of comparison.

Legally?  Absolutely.  Politically?  Absolutely.  Physically?  Give me a break.

Most adult men can severely injure a woman simply by slugging her in the face.  Most adult men can also hold a woman by her forehead as she swings at the air.  I’m a slightly overweight software developer.  I’m not sure if I could do a pullup and I doubt I could run a mile under 10:00.  But I’d still be able to seriously injure a girl who meets all the army’s physical requirements unless she knows kung-fu, simply by the fact that I weigh twice as much as she does, I’m 6 inches taller than she is, and the sheer kinetic force of my unathletic fist will be enough to break the jaw of a girl who can do a 70 second flexed arm hang.  These are simple biological facts that can’t be ignored, unless you’re a girl trying to join the army or you’re a lawyer suing a government for aleged sexist bias.

Equal rights does not mean equal, and it certainly doesn’t mean same.  Most feminists are too dimwitted (or are unwilling) to reach this conclusion.  So you end up with bitchy liberal teacher like Goebbels suggesting that I live in a cave because I pointed out the fact that most women can’t carry 80 pounds on their backs, and if we attempted to draft women (which is what the discussion was about), too many of them would fail the physical fitness requirements to make it worth the Army’s time.

All of this aside, the line in Lady Cadet’s comment that caught my eye was this one:

“Learn some military history before you get your knickers in a twist about women fighting. “

I will ask only one question to illustrate what a ridiculous statement this is:

In all the history of “fighting” that has taken place in the world, of all the battles, all of the wars, and even of all the petty conflicts in which human begins have engaged since the dawn of time, what percent of the combatants would you say had vaginas?

I wouldn’t expect Lady Cadet to be able to venture any kind of guess that is even remotely accurate.  But all of the examples she listed were modern conflicts, like World War II, in which women were afforded the ability to partake only because men invented killing machines that eliminate a woman’s physical disadvantages, for example, fire arms with triggers.  If a woman can bend her finger she can kill.

But in the grander scheme of things – namely, biology, which is the underlying subject in Irina’s post, to which I was responding – these technological luxuries that blur gender lines even in very manly pursuits like killing each other are all that – luxuries.  The baseline human existence doesn’t include technology, and the baseline human existence is the core from which feelings of attraction emanate.  A girl isn’t attracted to a guy’s Blackberry because of the Blackberry.  She’s attracted to the symbol of wealth – and provisioning – that the Blackberry indicates.  In another place or time she would have just as easily been attracted to a seashell necklace for the same reason.  The ability for females to serve in war is no different.  Possible, because of technology, but impossible at the human level.  Mano a mano, mujer doesn’t stand a chance.

“U.S. female military personnel serve in most areas of the armed forces but are not allowed on submarines and are “precluded from units that engage the enemy on the ground with weapons or that are exposed to hostile fire and have a high possibility of direct physical contact with the enemy.”

Oh, I see.  Women can serve in the army, they just can’t serve in any position in which they are actually engaging the enemy directly.

What was it that you were saying about women and fighting?

I would ask Lady Cadet what it is that she does in the army but it might cause her to lose self esteem when she admits that she does some bit job that a man would normally do only after being seriously injured or if he were physically deformed.

Sitting behind a desk in a well-protected base filling out paperwork in which you have a low possibility of direct physical contact with the enemy doesn’t sound like fighting to me, it sounds like being a secretary.

QED, woman.