Navy QB Acquitted of Rape Charge

sealion0101 · August 4, 2006, 9:24am

“Female graduates of USNA are in no way a weaker or imcompetent version of their male counterparts.”

Well, they do lack upper body strength. A simple fact that I regret every time I have to lug heavy things around. And I’m in good shape.

sealion0101 · August 4, 2006, 9:30am

Something else - if I had a daughter that wanted to go to an SA, I would get her in gymnastics ASAP because they seem to be the strongest female athletes.

mvljog440 · August 4, 2006, 9:47am

I went to dive school with two female officers. Both could do more pullups than my mid roommies and both could handle the MK V rig. Many Mids wouldn’t.

My wife has been subjected to perverts three times, once walking to a car, in a library at college and the third in a women’s locker room at a university. She wrestled the third idiot to the ground though he was a HS student and held him for the police. Unfortunately, the police joked about it since he was nude and a previous offender and didn’t do a whole lot because he had some mental problem. Fortunately, I tend to believe the laws are a little tighter now. The best weapon for a women in an environment such as the academy is to “scream bloody murder”, many gentlemen will come running to her rescue, I sincerely believe that. A service academy is still a heck of a lot safer than a civilian university.

sealion0101 · August 4, 2006, 10:15am

But not more pullups than you?

shogun · August 4, 2006, 10:16am

A number of female cadets max out on the army’s APFT every time it is given at the academy. To do so you must max all three events (push-ups, sit-ups, and 2 mile run) not just one or two of them. When you plug their numbers into the scoring calulations as if they were males, they out score the majority of the men at the academy. I think too many times generalizations are made about females and their ability to “hang with the boys” physically. When it comes to the service academies those generalizations are even less true.

sealion, fyi, all male and female plebes at West Point take gymnastics.

itlstallion422 · August 4, 2006, 10:42am

When I said weaker, I was referring to performance as a future officer. The fact is that biologically women are built different then men, however I would agree that female mids are in better shape than their civilian counterparts

NAPS05mom · August 4, 2006, 12:03pm

Itlstallion: The problem with these MBs are that you can’t read tone of voice. So, I am sure that you meant no harm in your statement. I just happen to disagree with you on the guess of 99% of females put themselves in these situations when it happens to them. It’s a difficult time for women still at the academy but according to my mid her class (2009) is one of the first that their mothers could have been graduates of the academy so the atmosphere is improving. I will tell you though that my daughter was made to shave her face during plebe summer and told that this is a man’s college and to get used to it. So, the attitudes still prevail unfortunately. :(

rwheeler · August 4, 2006, 1:36pm

NAPS05mom - I couldn’t agree more. For my mid daughter the hardest and most disappointing part of the USNA experience has been the male/female dynamic, which included not only persistent verbal harassment but sexual intimidation by a drunk upperclassmen that resulted in his restriction and transfer to another company. She was standing watch at the time so I guess she’s the rare 1% who doesn’t fall into itlstallion422’s statistic of women who “allow themselves to get into these threatening situations.”

Oregon_Mom · August 4, 2006, 1:48pm

ITlstallion422: I have an adult daughter+2 sons. I read your postings, understood them and agree completely.

shogun · August 4, 2006, 2:12pm

“When I said weaker, I was referring to performance as a future officer”

hmmmmmmmm…

I would submit that would depend on

<ol>
<li> the individual</li>
<li> the situation</li>
</ol>

certainly not the sex

go_irish · August 5, 2006, 12:19am

When one talks about the bell curve for physical performance and differences between the sexes, of cource the tail-end of the female curve will overlap into the normal region of the male curve. However, males on average are stronger and faster than females, that’s a biological fact. It is even institutionalied, all the academies have tougher physical standards for males as compared to females.

Tell me, do females at any of the academies take boxing with the opposite sex? I wonder why not.

Let me give you a scenario. Your child, now a 2nd lieutenant in the Army, and a fellow soldier are caught in a hand-to-hand combat situation with four enemy combatants. All training being equal, would you prefer that fellow soldier be a male or female? Be honest with yourself.

itlstallion422 · August 5, 2006, 9:00am

OK, let me start off by saying yeah, maybe 99% is more an exaggeration than anything else. I guess I was just overexaggerating to try to prove a point. But anyway, I found it interesting that you mentioned your daughter was told that this was a man’s college and that she needed to “get used to it.” In a way there is a shred of truth to that. Let me preface that by saying that having women shave while braced up on a bulkhead is not acceptable behavior, even for plebe summer. However the military is, and has always been, a male dominated enviornment. The Academy is no different. Much of the values that midshipmen espouse are what society would view as very masculine ideals. For women to excel at the academy, they must possess some of those qualities that traditional male society has held up as an example.

Before I get crucified for this post, please keep in mind that I am not hinting in any way that female mids are in some way any less feminine or too manly or any argument even hinging on such an idea.

shogun · August 5, 2006, 12:23pm

go_irish:

All training is “never” equal (case in point USC football vs Notre Dame )

I am not talking about a “bell curve” of all women vs all men—I am speaking to the specific abilities of the men and women at the service academies (and more specifically West Point). In a simple, younger world when wars were settled by the strongest warrier you might have a case, but todays battlefield is far different, and frankly in 99% of all situations I think I’d want the “smartest,” “best trained,” and “quickest thinking” leader for my young men and women, not the one who could do more pull-ups.

Women around the world today are flying combat missions in jets, commanding war ships, submarines, etc. 800,000 women served in the soviet army during WW2, 70% of them served on the front lines in combat. 100,000 of them were decorated for bravery. Maria Ivanova Morozova a sniper with the Soviet 62nd Rifle Battalion, won 11 combat decorations.

“The Israeli Army included 12,000 women which were combatants in the 1948 War of Independence, Initially women were fully integrated into the Israeli army, they trained, fought and were billeted with men. Eventually political pressure led to the creation of segregated male and female units with the women’s units assigned primarily to support functions. Those women who were already assigned to mixed-gender combat units remained with their units and continued to fight on the front lines. Although women were ordered out of the front lines by David Ben Gurion in 1950 there were numerous reports of Israeli women fighting in both 1956 and 1960 and reports of female commandos, including Lt. Yael Dayan, daughter of Moshe Dayan, fighting as late as 1966.
The Israeli Army did research into women’s effectiveness as front line troops, and discovered that childless women were just as good or better than men, but that women who had children were significantly less effective because they were much more reluctant to kill people.”–

<a href=“http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women20.html[/url]”>http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women20.html</a>

I left that last part in to be “fair and balanced” and to point out that many of the limitations of both women AND men in a combat situation have more to do with culture than ability.

So don’t give us that line about women not being able to hack it in combat, with or without a rifle—for every generalization you give there is a women proving you wrong. I don’t pretend to know what the specific training is for women regarding combatives and arms at the Naval Academy, but I can tell you that at West Point the training is significant, and judging by the performance of our women Army officers in Iraq, effective.

itlstallion422 · August 5, 2006, 12:51pm

commanding submarines??? Sorry about nitpicking, just had to chime in on that one

shogun · August 5, 2006, 12:53pm

To answer your “scenario”, Irish, I would submit that you are asking the wrong question:

First of all, “all things being equal” the four against two scenario ends badly for the two, whether they are both men, both women, or one of each. To assume that 1 unarmed American can always beat down two unarmed insurgents might sound patriotic but it is dangerous thinking that usually gets the wrong pople killed. The real question you should be asking, is which of the two is going to think clearly enough, react quickly enough, and yes, sometimes be lucky enough, to find some manner of tool or weapon laying nearby and more than even the odds. I would submit to you that it won’t matter if one or none of them is a women. Unless you are going to stop and challenge the 4 insurgents to an arm wrestling or pull-up contest your point is mute.

shogun · August 5, 2006, 12:57pm

“In 1995 the Royal Norwegian Navy became the first navy in the world to appoint a female submarine captain.[3] In 1998, the Australian Navy became the second nation to allow women to serve on combat submarines. Canada and Spain followed in permitting women to serve on military submarines.”

<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine</a>

you boys need to get out and read more! :)

go_irish · August 5, 2006, 1:47pm

Women do not command US submarines.

You can point to all the ancedotal stories you like, the fact remains, on average, a male is stronger and faster than a female. The Army women’s basketball team will never beat the male team, they won’t let a female cadet in the boxing ring with a male, and a male will always hold the world record in weightlifting.

That being said, I would agree that if a female passes realistic physical requirements for the job, she should be allowed to do the job. I would submit that in many cases, the physical training requirements do not reflect the potential physical requirements required under unusual circumstances. Take your example of women commanding US Navy ships, the only physical requirement is that the officer pass the general Navy-wide PT test (which has different standards for men and women) which is the same for doctors, cooks, and musicians in the Navy band. Under normal peace-time and combat missions, the engineering watch officer directs engineering operations in the engineroom. Should you be injured when a fire breaks-out or a torpedo strikes the engineering spaces, would you prefer that a female who can’t do one pull-up be the one there to pull you to safety?

From experience, I can also say that I have seen women who were not up to the physical task required under normal conditions. On tugboats, I observed none of the women (and I mean none) had the physical strength to handle the lines. On a tugboat with about a crew of eight, generally two women stood around and watched the male linehandlers.

I don’t think we really disagree-- I just don’t think realistic physical standards have been implemented for PC reasons. Once the standards are implemented, anyone who passes the standards should be allowed to do the job. In the military, in many aspects, there is no substitute for physical prowess and men almost exclusively possess that prowess. You’ll convince me otherwise, when an all female USC football team beats ND.

shogun · August 5, 2006, 2:44pm

“Women do not command US submarines.”

You are right, they don’t, for now. But the reason has nothing to do with command ability, leadership qualities, brains, seamanship, or physical prowess. It has everything to do with social norms, which change–ever so slowly—but change they will.

You asked, “Should you be injured when a fire breaks-out or a torpedo strikes the engineering spaces, would you prefer that a female who can’t do one pull-up be the one there to pull you to safety?” Interesting scenario, I’ll respond with a real case:

"Spec. Shavodsha Hodges, 29, of San Antonio, says she joined the Army because her GI husband encouraged her to. She is a veteran of the 2003 Iraq invasion and well into her second year in a war zone. She and about 100 other women make up 20 percent of Provancha’s logistics battalion in Mosul. They serve as truck and Stryker drivers, medics, mechanics and supply soldiers like Hodges who conduct between 50 and 70 convoy missions a month. Ferrying critical goods from Mosul to outlying bases on the precarious roads of northern Iraq, Hodges has developed keen instincts.

On Oct. 29, she was in a supply convoy heading out of the hostile town of Tall Afar, near the Syrian border. “We were told to watch out for an Iraqi national in black,” she recalled. “Within seconds we were hit with an IED,” or improvised explosive device, the military’s term for a roadside bomb.

As her Humvee began to roll over, Hodges reached over and grabbed the legs of Pfc. Gregory Burchett, who was manning a .50-caliber machine gun. She pulled him down from the hatch and into the vehicle just before it flipped, saving him from being crushed.

Burchett was disoriented and moaning in pain. His face was bleeding from multiple shrapnel wounds and he couldn’t move his arm. Hodges helped him out of the vehicle, but almost as soon they climbed out they came under small-arms fire from insurgents 200 yards away.

“Stay down!” Hodges yelled. Cradling Burchett’s head in her lap, she lay forward over his upper body to shield him from the bullets. “Don’t get up!” she said, twice sheltering the gunner from enemy rounds.

Meanwhile, the Humvee’s commander, Staff Sgt. Armando Mejia, had his hand trapped under the vehicle. After the shooting stopped, Hodges and other soldiers pushed it up enough to free him. Only later did she realize that she, too, was injured.

For her quick thinking and bravery in the ambush, Hodges became the first woman in her brigade to be awarded the Army Commendation Medal with “V” device, for “valorous conduct” that “saved the lives of her fellow soldiers.”

Between missions at her camp in Mosul, Hodges said she had no doubts about women’s abilities in the war zone. “I think a woman is just as capable of dealing with this as a man,” she said. “You think fast, and you react fast,” she said, her tone confident but sober. “You have to be prepared at any moment, for anything.”

<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051202002_pf.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051202002_pf.html</a>

Ask the young pfc above if he cared that the soldier that saved his life was a woman?

It’s the 21st century, people.

go_irish · August 5, 2006, 2:45pm

Shogun:
"To answer your “scenario”, Irish, I would submit that you are asking the wrong question:

First of all, “all things being equal” the four against two scenario ends badly for the two, whether they are both men, both women, or one of each. To assume that 1 unarmed American can always beat down two unarmed insurgents might sound patriotic but it is dangerous thinking that usually gets the wrong pople killed. The real question you should be asking, is which of the two is going to think clearly enough, react quickly enough, and yes, sometimes be lucky enough, to find some manner of tool or weapon laying nearby and more than even the odds. I would submit to you that it won’t matter if one or none of them is a women. Unless you are going to stop and challenge the 4 insurgents to an arm wrestling or pull-up contest your point is mute."

Response:
You don’t like my senario-- either you change, say it is unrealistic, or say it is impossible to win. Of course, you could say you want that other soldier to be an uber-female. But in reality, your not being honest with yourself.

Shogun:
All training is “never” equal (case in point USC football vs Notre Dame).

Response:
Maybe that’s why Army can’t beat Navy.

shogun · August 5, 2006, 2:48pm