THE FAIRER SEX

Short Stories on Male Privilege

No. 22

A Few Good Women

'Not everybody is going to be able

to become a combat soldier

. . . But everyone is entitled to a chance.'

- Leon Panetta

I        Let's Get Physical

To avoid reprisals the testimony

of this NCO is given anonymously.

I serve in the military with the rank of sergeant. My seventeen-year service record includes one tour in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. I am married with three sons.

In my current post, I do my best to convert raw, untrained recruits into efficient, dedicated and well-drilled service personnel. I say 'do my best', as it is glaring how much standards have deteriorated since I joined. The reason for this deterioration is hardly obscure: numbers of female personnel must be ramped up, whatever the costs might be. Make no mistake, this policy is driven by feminist ideology. (It might also be called militant feminism.) This ideology now permeates all areas of the military, and it brooks no dissent.

Recruiting websites are informative - they are chock-full with pictures of female service personnel. They give the impression the military is predominantly female; but female personnel currently still represent only about ten per cent. The current goal, however, is thirty per cent by the close of this decade.

Seventeen years ago, a female warrant officer told me that military women will soon show their parity with men in all areas. Yet when I replied that women are weaker than men, she drew herself up, and said I was a 'sexist dinosaur'. The current policy is that, provided these sex differences are ignored, dismissed or denied, then they are unimportant. Well I suppose God gave us sand for a reason.

The problems begin with basic evaluations of physical fitness: most women cannot pass the tests required of men; the criteria are therefore relaxed. Women need do only half as many pushups - and from the knees only. (The men refer derisively to 'girly pushups', and understandably so.) Women are given ten more minutes to complete fully-kitted marches; they also have three more minutes to run two miles. A shorter female standard applies to broad-jumps. Women need do only half as many sit-ups. Pullups are not required: instead, women must hang from a bar. How stringent are these tests? Well, fifty-year-old men can pass them.

On the obstacle course, overhead bars are lowered by two feet. The climbing walls have 'assist sticks' nailed to them. The eight-foot wall even has a two-foot stepping stool at its base. Of course, some men are shorter than others - but all men must pass the more stringent male course, whatever their height.

The army recently announced that trainees need no longer throw grenades further than thirty-five meters. The explanation given, was that too many recruits failed this test. Anyone with a drop of logic should smell a rat. If soldiers were able to throw grades thirty-five meters in the First World War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, etc., then . . . what's changed? Have grenades got heavier? Have trainees got weaker? It's not trainees, but women trainees who cannot throw that far. Worse still, some women cannot, even, throw further than the blast radius.

The choice between integrated training and segregated training is a lose-lose situation. With integrated training, when soldiers run in formation the slowest runners control the pace; which is the women. The standards must therefore be relaxed - and the men feel no pride in their accomplishment. Well, how about segregated training? If women train separately, then they become 'outsiders', and are not seen as true comrades by the men. Soldiers must share their gruelling experiences, otherwise cohesion and bonding will suffer.

Military equipment is often big and heavy; personnel must be strong enough to move it around, set it up and tear it down. Yet many of these jobs are well beyond women's strength. We have a standard physical test, on which the top fifth of women achieve scores equivalent to the bottom fifth of men. Very few women can carry a man at all, let alone for fifty yards. Stretcher-bearing is a two-man job, but a four-woman job. Sure, we can invest more time in weight training for women - but why? Men right off the street already have the required strength. Supplementary training has been tried: the men pull even further ahead! This is inevitable, because the bottom fifth of men can achieve much more, whereas the top fifth of women are already near their physiological limit.

The differences in field exercises are equally glaring. With sandbag reinforcement, or erecting barbed wire, men take on the heaviest work, as they can carry twice the weight. With digging trenches, especially into hard ground, the women cannot keep up; hence more time is allowed. Women are also given more consideration in personal hygiene: they are allowed showers every seventy-two hours. A bus arrives; they are taken to base; they are gone for two to six hours. They relax. They get a change of clothes. Meanwhile, the men work. The men might, however, get a chance to sponge themselves off if they're close to a river. The men are filthy and stink: the battlefield is not a clean place. The women, however, are training for battlefields with bathrooms and laundries.

There are obvious disparities in injury rates: women make several times more visits to the medical clinic; they have ten times as many shin splints; five times as many stress fractures; five times as much tendinitis. To reduce the frequency of stress fractures amongst the women, training runs are now performed in running shoes rather than combat boots. Do soldiers wear sneakers on the battlefield? No - but that's what the women are training for. And on the battlefield, you can't ask the enemy to stop firing because you have stress fractures.

There is a common notion that, because we now have 'push-button' wars, with flat screens and control consoles, then physical strength is nowadays mostly unimportant. This is Bee-Ess - we still have hundreds of tasks that require strength. 'Women can drive trucks just as well as men', goes the refrain. Well, they can. But when there's a flat tyre, can they handle the seventy- or eighty-pound spares? Well, duh. Speed is essential - one more minute can be too long. In the Gulf, I saw male officers handling the tyres; the enlisted women were too weak. (These officers had left their command posts, by the way.) Men tore down tents or loaded trucks because women couldn't do these chores fast enough. When we dug a three-foot-deep trench, we struck a layer of compacted salt. The men stepped in with pick-axes and dug positions for the women - as well as positions for themselves. Women in ammunition storage cannot lift rounds weighing over a hundred pounds. Female mechanics cannot separate the links in a vehicle's track with a wrench that weighs 70-pounds. Also, soldiers must carry body armour, front and back ceramic-plates, rifle, ammunition, helmet, radio, night-vision goggles, food, water, batteries, grenades - over 90 pounds. Then carry this for several miles, possibly while under fire. Days without sleep. One, single, cold meal a day. This is the nature of soldiering.

The pressure to accept women is so great, that women must be indulged. Women have complained that weekly training runs are demeaning because the men always win; that this made the working environment 'hostile' and 'sexist'. The run was cancelled; another casualty of the feminised military. In the field, water is permitted for drinking only; yet I've seen women use it for washing, and they were not disciplined. Women avoid unpleasant duties by claiming menstrual cramps - some of them later admit that these claims are false. Yet women's claims must never be challenged. As for pregnancy, this is a large subject for which I have no space. I will only say that, whenever women are due for deployment overseas, there is always a weird surge of contraceptive 'slip ups'.

Physical standards are subjected to ceaseless political interference. Women must advance as equals; hence physical prowess in men is frequently downplayed or devalued. Do women fail in higher numbers? Are more women than men injured? That's discrimination, pure and simple. The tests are discriminatory, of course, and deliberately so: they are designed to discriminate against low-quality soldiers. But this answer is not politically correct. The acceptable explanations run as follows: the tests are deliberately over-stringent to shut women out; and only bigoted, insecure men who feel threatened by women, claim that standards have been lowered. If I'm wrong here, then answer this: why are athletics and other sporting competitions always segregated?

Of course, the military is not just about physical fitness or strength - there are many jobs: barbers, cooks, clerks; signal(wo)men, intelligence, human resources, accountants. There is a simple answer to this: all jobs are filled by fully-trained service personnel, and rightly so. Eisenhower stopped the German offensive in 1944 ('The Battle of the Bulge') by bringing in large numbers of otherwise noncombatant personnel. The British stopped Ludendorff's spring offensive the same way in 1918. Currently, however, we are filling our noncombatant roles with women. Yet every soldier, sailor or airman is a potential combatant. It just depends on how desperate the situation is.

Turning to my own career, I'll be honest: I failed the Special Forces College. This course was, for me, the hardest and the toughest I ever attended - a real ass-kicker. I was shredded; I went from one-hundred-seventy pounds to one-hundred-thirty-five. I was a wreck. I was in Alpha Company, and those instructors were mean, sadistic bastards. Looking back on how physically crushing it was, I have a hard time believing that women can graduate. Now, am I going to say that it's impossible? Well . . . no. I just find it highly implausible. It's far more likely that they've been watering the standards down. I suspect the women's hands are held all the way through; I suspect the women are allowed to repeat every test until they pass, long after men would've been kicked out.

As I said, I'm now deployed in training. I initially discovered little enthusiasm or energy in my unit, and, in addressing this, I received positive feedback from command. But part way through my second year, two female corporals became noticeably unreceptive to my leadership. I discussed this with my Officer Commanding (OC), but, to my astonishment, he said that he was removing me from my role, effective immediately. This decision was based on personal complaints about me from . . . well, those two female corporals. I was stunned: I had, after all, a proven track record; but the complaints alone were deemed 'evidence' enough. And here's the kicker: colleagues said they'd overheard these two women plotting to get rid of me - they found my style of leadership too demanding. I was a victim of female spite, and, although innocent, I'm now under a permanent cloud of shame. A whole year later, my OC unexpectedly came clean: he said he felt guilty about his haste and my treatment; but that he had no choice. The two female corporals were even promoted to sergeant. (It need hardly be said, that women of lesser ability and lesser aptitude are routinely promoted ahead of, and at a faster rate than, better qualified male personnel.)

A few months later I ran into more trouble. During a routine inspection, I told a female recruit to clean her boots and dirty pack. Later that same day, I was summoned to a dress-down meeting: my assertive tone had upset the soldier's feelings, and she believed that I'd singled her out. Obviously, I now have no idea how to handle the female recruits. Their sense of entitlement is very strong, and all male trainers walk on eggshells - if we apply pressure to bring them up to a reasonable standard for military service, spurious allegations may be made against us; allegations that will be believed, but not proven. Women cannot, in this culture, be held accountable. This creates a disciplinary double standard, and the men understandably resent it.

In a recent survey on sexual harassment in the military, I was interviewed by a civilian researcher. She asked me if I felt there was any 'residual' sexism in the forces. Yet when I spoke of my concerns, she chortled into her laptop: 'cry me a river', she muttered - but audibly, as I was meant to overhear. A display of contempt, if ever there was one. She was interested in discrimination against women, but not discrimination against men.

You can't treat women like men; it's impossible. Women say they want to be treated like men, yet when they are, they feel abused and complain. Women don't like yelling. Okay, no more yelling. Women don't like coarse, vulgar talk. Okay, no more coarse or vulgar talk. Women don't like belittlement or abuse. Okay, no more belittling abuse. No angry snarls. No demeaning nicknames. No bawling into faces. Instead, we'll have smiles, soft words and truck-loads of encouragement. But this babying does not instil discipline; stressful environments do that. Don't adjust a soldier's helmet, or brush a speck of dirt while on parade; touching might be misconstrued as 'sexual'. The female tail wags the male dog. And yet the male dog is allowing itself to be wagged. I think this behaviour is motivated by male instinct to protect women, the same instinct that feminists deny. Men are protecting women, by scurrying around to meet their every whim. This should stop. We've protected women throughout history, by keeping them out of the military; but now if we keep them out, we're oppressing them.

Classes on sexism and sex-role socialisation are mandatory - and they are all taught by feminists. Men must understand the women's perspective. But women need not understand the men's perspective. Men need their minds changing. But women do not need their minds changing. If men resist, they're deemed morally deficient. We're  lectured endlessly that women are equal to men; yet when exceptions are granted, these confirm that women are superior to men.

Yet men do all the hard and heavy work, whether it's in combat or not. Women are equal to men, provided they're given special consideration, special treatment and special protection. The lower physical standards for women are a perpetual source of resentment among the men. Fitness grades are considered at promotion, and they're important to careers. Women at the top of the female grade, are deemed the equal of men at the top of the male grade - that's because equivalent accomplishment for your sex matters, not equal accomplishment as a soldier. But which of these will count on the battlefield? And when men quit, it's because they lack grit; but when women quit, they get counselling in which they're persuaded to stay. The men are not stupid, and know that women get more time; more training; more chances; more understanding. Preferential treatment breeds resentment, and that's why it's so pernicious.

I hated serving with women in combat. Just to stay alive, I did my job, as well as half a woman's job. If male soldiers performed at the level of female soldiers, they'd be prisoners-of-war if they're lucky; dead if they're not. The truth though is, I don't care if women are in the military - in a sense. I care about two things, and two things only: increasing the lethality of my side, and decreasing the lethality of the other side - in war, all other considerations ain't worth diddly-squat. If painting our guns pink increases our lethality, then sure, let's paint our guns pink. But what we're doing now will cost lives - and needlessly so. It will also place our national security at risk. In the Gulf, the technological differential was big, and we got away with it. With a more closely matched foe, it'll be different.

We'll have no-one to blame but ourselves.

II        Psychological Warfare

'Male and female soldiers are interchangeable', said Fezziwig. 'Oh, there may be a few small differences in physical strength, but they're neither here nor there. Not in the overall picture. Not in the present-day military, anyway.'

Captain Ironside dragged his right hand over his face. Women in the military was an inflammatory topic, and these days the officers' mess was a fractious place. Such arguments were unconducive to good order and discipline.

'I didn't mean anything physical', said Sassoon. 'I meant psychological.'

'Then you're even further out of date', said Fezziwig. 'There are no differences between men and women from the neck up. Everyone knows this. Decades of research by feminist scholars have shown it. Repeatedly.'

'But don't you think that women might be psychologically less suited to combat?' asked Sassoon. 'Some forms of combat, anyway.'

It was wise when dealing with feminist officers to disguise one's heterodoxy as ingenuous solicitations; for to state incontrovertible biological facts was politically dangerous.

'Some men are psychologically less suited as well', said Fezziwig. 'What of it? Some women are stronger than some men; some women are taller than some men; some women are better fighters than some men. Yet there's still a blanket ban on women in combat, and for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with ability. Barring women from combat roles is an obstacle to career development - it perpetuates the brass ceiling that women have yet to shatter. The rest of society's moved on - it's time the army did likewise.'

'I wonder', said Anson, placing a metaphorical foot deftly on a metaphorical eggshell, 'whether warfare might tap into primal drives that men have, but that women don't. One of them is this: the trade-off between the fear of death and the fear of not measuring up. Men attain status via bravery; this overrides the fear of death. Conversely, failure to display courage, is failure to be a man.'

'Women can be just as brave as men', bristled Fezziwig.

'I'm sure they can', said Anson. 'But will they? Have you ever heard a woman called a coward? Well, I haven't. And what of it? That word's got no grip at all with women; it's like opening a jar with greasy fingers. But call a man a coward, say he's got a yellow streak down his back - well, that's entirely different, isn't it. Let's suppose a man and a woman are walking late at night in a dodgy area, and they're set upon by thugs. If the woman runs away, leaving the man to fend for himself, will she be denounced as a coward? No. She's saving her own skin of course; but that behaviour's okay in a woman. But what if the man runs away, leaving the woman to fend for herself? How will society treat him? Not very well, I think; he should've stayed behind and taken a beating. Women may well fear death just as much as men, but in battle they're less incentivised than men to overcome that fear, hence they're less likely to expose themselves to risk.'

'Forgive me if I yawn', said Fezziwig. 'Your analogy is just more of that chivalric bullshit. Women don't need men to rush in and protect them. Not anymore than men need it, anyway. Two men walking in a dodgy area should be just the same situation.'

'Should?' said Sassoon. 'Well, perhaps. But it isn't.'

'Soldiers rely on pseudospeciation in battle,' said Anson. 'I mean the psychological process by which an enemy is "othered". Denying a common humanity makes it easier for soldiers to kill.'

'Women can neutralise the enemy just as readily', said Fezziwig.

'Interesting', said Anson, affectedly stroking his chin. 'Last week we sat through a two-hour lecture detailing all the benefits that women bring to the military.'

'Indeed', said Fezziwig.

'Benefits that men can't offer.'

'Exactly', said Fezziwig.

'Benefits that women offer, by being the same as men.

'Exactly', said Fezziwig.

The officers all laughed; except for Fezziwig that is.

'Is this some type of male in-joke?' she asked. 'Women bring no macho mentality, they bring civility and wholesomeness; refinement. No male-dominance displays; no male aggression; no male assertiveness.'

'One of the points made in the lecture', said Sassoon, 'was that women display greater empathy than men. I think "superior" was the word used. Yes, superior empathy. And from my personal experience, I think I'd agree with that - women are better at compassion that men. I wonder, though, whether empathy is helpful on the battlefield. Pseudospeciation and empathy are antithetical, are they not? Empathy makes soldiers hesitate. Empathy makes soldiers less likely to kill, and more likely to be killed.'

'Women can be trained to put empathy aside on the battlefield', said Fezziwig.

'But don't you worry that empathy raises the psychological costs of killing?' asked Sassoon. 'That would square with the fact that women suffer from PTSD at twice the rates of men, even when they've been exposed to less danger.'

'I suspect it's more in a man's nature to kill without feeling', said Anson.

'Well, that's toxic masculinity for you', said Fezziwig. 'The presence of women will attenuate that.'

'Giving us a more lethal military in the process, presumably', added Sassoon, casting a glance at the smiles around the table.

'Your language intrigues me', said Anson to Fezziwig. 'You spoke just now about "neutralising" the enemy. Women seem particularly keen on sanitised euphemisms for killing. It's only men who use callously jocular terms like "smoking", "wasting" or "whacking" the enemy.'

'Well, that's toxic masculinity again', said Fezziwig. 'A callous disregard for human life.'

'Some might say that', said Sassoon. 'Others might call it pseudospeciation.'

Several seconds of reflective silence ensued.

'What are your thoughts about cohesion?' asked Ironside. 'Cohesion's been a cornerstone of military doctrine ever since the first armies. The soldierly bond that's critical to combat effectiveness.'

'That's argument's usually the first one to be wheeled out', said Fezziwig, looking at her commanding officer reproachfully. 'Cohesion will suffer, if women are present. Cohesion is spoken of as this mysterious, omnipresent, ethereal force. You can't see it; you can't measure it; you can't feel it. But we know it's there, all the same.'

'Sounds a bit like the patriarchy', laughed Anson.

The other men murmured agreement.

'Don't you think', said Sassoon, 'that men bond with each another in a way that women don't?'

'Oh, spare me that band-of-brothers crap', said Fezziwig. 'You've been watching too much television.'

'Hold on, hear me out, please. In childhood, there are differences in the way girls and boys choose their teams. Psychologists have studied it. I mean when team captains take it in turns to select who they want. When boys pick players, they'll pick the best - they'll even pick boys they don't like. But when girls pick players, they'll pick their friends. And when boys argue on the pitch, sometimes quite seriously, these differences are forgotten once the game ends; but when girls argue, bad feelings linger.'

'We're not children, and no-one mistakes comradeship for friendship', said Fezziwig.

'But that's exactly it', said Anson. 'Male bonding is ephemeral and goal-dependent; it dissolves quickly, once the task is over. This fragility may well be what allows male bonding to occur in the first place, especially on the battlefield. Men are loyal to those they dislike. When off duty, men may avoid members of their own unit. They socialise with their friends, not their comrades.'

'And women do the opposite, I suppose', said Fezziwig.

'I've no idea', said Anson. 'I'm speculating.' Fezziwig made a gesture of exasperation. 'Men in a successful unit will bond, even when they dislike one another. Men's ability to work toward a common goal is not dependent upon friendship, but instead upon trust and reciprocal obligation. On the battlefield, this bond is as just strong as the male-female pair-bond. Stronger, probably.'

'Don't you think that hazing has a role in fostering this bond?' asked Sassoon.

Hazing had now been outlawed from basic training.

'Disparagement and abuse have no place in the modern military', said Fezziwig.

'There have been cruel excesses, without doubt', said Anson. 'Pointless demeanment. But that doesn't mean that all hazing is bad - it needs to be managed carefully. Hazing teaches respect, develops discipline and loyalty, and engenders conformity. What kind of a military will we have, if soldiers can answer back? I've also seen female soldiers cry when they're bawled out by the sergeant; but in all my career, I've never seen a man respond that way.'

'Hazing is an excuse to single women out for harassment', said Fezziwig. 'To punish them for daring to join up.'

'Women see hazing as harassment', said Sassoon. 'But is it? If we protect women from hazing, then they have no chance to prove themselves, and thus gain true membership along with the men.

'The women don't necessarily cry', said Anson. 'Some of them get angry in response to hazing - and that solicits even more hazing. They then go to their superiors for assistance - a poor strategy, as it's seen as disloyal to the group.'

'Thank you for keeping this conversation cordial', said Ironside. 'Let's return to the lecture. It showed that - '

'Claimed that, sir', said Anson. 'Without evidence.'

'Very well. "Claimed that". It claimed that, although women are just the same as men, they have superior emotional intelligence. Do you agree?'

This statement was greeted with a chorus of agreement. Ironside smiled.

'Yes, I'd agree', said Anson. 'The psychological evidence is indisputable'.

'Yes', said Sassoon. 'Women are better than men at reading and interpreting facial expressions. I wouldn't disagree with that. When an enemy soldier is charging at you with a bayonet, it's helpful if you can read his facial expression, as otherwise you wouldn't know what his intention was.'

The men all laughed.

'Sassoon!' shouted Ironside.

'Sorry, sir.'

'If I may raise a topic myself', said Ironside, 'how about competition? I've always thought that men are more competitive than women, while being the same as women. They respond to competition - and enjoy it - far more than women; although I'd also concede that women are just as competitive as men, by being less competitive than men. Competition gives men an important sense of accomplishment - and soldiering's no exception to this. Competition's an important ingredient for cohesion as well.'

'Sir', said Anson, 'I think the integration of women adversely affects competition, as women cannot be subject to the same standards. For example, how would a machine-gun crew feel about always coming in last, because the sole woman on their team takes fifty per cent more time to complete the full-gear combat run.'

'Sir, there is a downside', said Fezziwig. 'Competition creates dissension. We must work as a team, and competition is diametrically opposed to cooperation. There are winners and losers, and losing is damaging to self-esteem.'

'Getting your head shot off is also damaging to self-esteem', said Anson.

'If you assemble any group of boys - ' said Sassoon.

'Here we go', said Fezziwig. 'Boys and girls again.'

'Yes, boys and girls again. If you assemble any group of boys, there'll be some initial jockeying for status; but once that happens - and it happens pretty quickly - that group will function effectively in competition with other groups. And boys take pleasure in seeing who can be better, smarter, faster, or stronger at something; even if it's just skipping stones across a pond. Competitive behaviour like that is almost entirely absent among girls. Girls don't like outperforming their friends. Girls are far more egalitarian than boys. And egalitarianism isn't something that sits well with the military. Men, on the other hand, are innately hierarchical - they therefore take naturally to the military.'

'I've found that women don't respect the hierarchy as much as men', said Anson. 'When new female privates come into a unit, they'll amble up to officers and start chatting with them. I've insisted more than once that privates must salute smartly, and that they mustn't get familiar. If a man got familiar like that, he'd be told to drop down and do push-ups; but with the women it's not so easy.'

Sassoon started speaking, but stopped quickly - it sounded like he said 'girly pushups'. He looked nervously at Ironside; Ironside frowned back at him.

A few seconds of silence again ensued. The men glanced at Fezziwig, but she remained silent.

'Sir', said Anson eventually, 'there's one topic that's a constant source of trouble.' Ironside suppressed a sigh as well as a groan. 'We cannot stop sexual or romantic relationships. Some women get male attention that they've never previously experienced; suddenly they're like a high-school beauty queen; they can't handle the popularity.'

'That's just a reflection of the skewed sex ratio', said Fezziwig. 'There are still too few women. When we get more women, the problem will ease up. Not go away, I agree; but it'll ease up. The problem is not women, but male competition for women. All men must be educated and counselled out of their innate lusts. It is male lust that damages good order and discipline, not women being lusted after.'

'Cohesion requires equality as an overriding condition', said Sassoon. 'And sex is never shared out equally.'

'Just as in civilian life', said Fezziwig. 'There is sexual jealousy in civilian life. There is sexual frustration in civilian life. There are bad breakups in civilian life. Why should the military be any different?'

'A sexual relationship between a male and female soldier threatens the cohesion of the entire unit', said Sassoon. 'And it harms morale.'

'Soldiers are there to fight, not to meet a spouse', said Anson. 'As an officer, I've been forced more than once into the role of school principal.'

'This is a distraction', said Fezziwig. 'When it comes to sex, we must recognise the very great risks that all military women face - I refer to sexual assault and sexual harassment. As I said, all men must be properly educated and trained in this respect. Men must be ordered not to rape.'

'When women soldiers are captured by the enemy', said Sassoon, 'what do you think will be the first thing to happen to them?'

'Oh, but that's just part of the job', said Fezziwig. 'Rape by the enemy's not such a big deal.'

'I see', said Anson. 'Rape by your own comrades is horrific; but rape by the enemy is a minor irritant.'

'That's not what I said. Rape by the enemy is a scare tactic designed to discourage women from combat. In reality, the risks of combat are effectively equal for men and women. Battle is an equal-opportunity employer, after all.'

'Battle is not an equal-opportunity employer', said Anson. 'It will discriminate against women in two ways: and from both sides. First, from the enemy's side. Men protect women instinctively, and an enemy will know this. The Israelis found this when they put women on the battlefield: when women were wounded, the men stopped fighting to help them.'

'That's a matter of discipline', said Fezziwig.

'We can order soldiers not to help the wounded', said Anson, 'but it's already difficult enough to stop men helping a wounded man. Under battle conditions, these orders are often disobeyed. An enemy will deliberately target female soldiers, as a tactic to distract the men. They will shoot the women first, then shoot the men who come to help. The men will take unwise risks, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the mission's objective. The men will be constrained in their battlefield tactics, as they'll be reluctant to expose the women to risk. This will compromise the whole shebang.'

'Sir', said Fezziwig, 'Didn't you once pull a solider from a burning tank?'

Ironside smiled.

'I did, yes. In Iraq.'

'You nearly died yourself.'

'Yes.'

'Did you pull a soldier from a burning tank because he was a man?'

Ironside smiled again.

'No. Because he was a comrade.'

'The argument being made here is that women are a liability on the battlefield. But women aren't responsible for that - it's the men who turn women into a liability.'

'On the Titanic - ', ventured Sassoon.

'I knew it! I knew it!' shouted Fezziwig. 'I knew it'd come up! It's impossible to have these conversations without that damned boat coming up! Men should stop treating women like helpless damsels. When men behave that way, it's just another way of oppressing women.'

The men glanced at each other. Ironside had warned them not to smirk when Fezziwig spoke thus; he'd cautioned them to take her seriously; as making fun of feminist officers was now career-threatening. The previous month, a junior officer had said: 'The men oppressed the women by pushing them into the lifeboats, while volunteering to stay behind and glug their way to a watery grave.' This officer was now under investigation for sexism.

'One might think it a mark of civilisation, not of oppression, that men protect women', said Sassoon.

'That's enough!' said Ironside. 'that'll be it for this afternoon.'

'Sir, one last point', said Anson.

Ironside nodded.

'I said that women would be vulnerable on the battlefield from both directions. In Vietnam it's reckoned that several hundred American servicemen were knocked off by their own side; I mean by "fragging". Officers and enlisted men were both fragged. The victims were seen as creating unnecessary risk. If men have a weak man in their platoon, then this endangers everyone else. I believe that putting women into the field creates the same risk. Women might be perceived as a threat to the entire unit. If so, they may well get knocked off by their own side.'

'You just said that male instinct is to protect women', said Fezziwig. 'Now you're saying that male instinct is to kill them. Any argument to keep women out.'

'I don't know what will happen', said Anson. 'But if all combat exclusions for women are removed, as is planned, we'll find out. It'll be an interesting experiment, although some of the results might be rather unfortunate.'

Captain Ironside wrapped up the meeting. It had remained cordial, at least. Mostly, anyway.

Ironside was now approaching retirement - but with relief, rather than sadness. Things had changed so much. You watched your mouth at all times: the military was even introducing Political Commissars, who, armed with the necessary coercive powers, would eradicate ideological deviationism. This system, in which feminist ideology was paramount, and evidence irrelevant, was necessarily built on political correctness, double standards and innumerable lies. Like all such systems, it was loathed by anyone of probity and integrity, but loved by those careerists prepared to agree with anything necessary to succeed. Courage meant facing bullets; now it also meant speaking out. Everyone was waiting for someone of high rank, someone who was not a moral coward, to speak out. But the top brass feared feminists more than any army, they kowtowed to their political masters, and silence reigned.

III       No Place for Women

BBC Newsnight

Step Forward the Women Warriors

"Good evening. We've all heard that tiresome refrain, 'A Few Good Men.' Well, now there's a new, non-sexist saying in town: 'A Few Good Women'. Step forward the women warriors: one of the few remaining bastions of male privilege has at last fallen.

"Shirley Softpillow, a 37-year-old mother-of-two, has made history: she's the first woman to graduate from the Special Forces College, where service personnel are trained for the most elite fighting units. Lieutenant Softpillow successfully completed a gruelling eighty-day test of mind and body, with little food or sleep; one that only the toughest can survive. So gruelling is this course, that just 25% of men are able to complete it. Yet Lieutenant Softpillow - the only woman on this course - passed with flying colours, ensuring a female success rate of 100%, far exceeding the men. And before you ask, the army assures us that Lieutenant Softpillow met the same standards as the men - the same different standards.

[Stock photographs of smiling female soldiers brandishing rifles; smiling female soldiers sitting in front of communications equipment; smiling female soldiers posing by trucks and tanks; stern-faced female soldiers barking orders to male soldiers; female soldiers helping male soldiers on an obstacle course; male soldiers looking subservient, forlorn and generally pathetic].

"We spoke to Belinda Gummidge, regius professor of feminist sociology at the University of Bollixfield, and author of Today's Armies Don't Need Men. Well, Maybe Just a Few.

" 'It's disappointing that today's military is still so depressingly androcentric', she told us. 'Why should armies be any more male than flower-arranging classes? Men and women are fully interchangeable; problems will continue until male attitudes are fully adjusted. Women are fifty per cent of humanity, but still only ten per cent of the military - this is unmistakable evidence of prejudice and discrimination. I've made a thorough study of the subject from my Ivory Tower, in which I will never face any adverse consequences for what I propose, but others will pay the price. There's no conceivable way in which a feminised military would be any the weaker. What we need, is an entirely ungendered notion of the soldier - we must break the fallacious link between masculinity and the military. We must ditch the macho baggage. Women have just as much a birthright to the warrior's mantle as men.'

"These thoughts are echoed by General Honeythunder, the Chief of the General Staff, who told us: 'Any man who's not wholly supportive of women in the military will have a short career. Artificial and institutional barriers to gender equality are being torn down, thankfully. We must eradicate the false stereotype that women can't hack it. The army believes in gender equality - and this means paying women the same as men, for doing less work than men. If most men pass a physical fitness test, yet most women fail it, then that test is sexist and must be changed. And that doesn’t mean watering any standards down, either. We have the same standards for men and women; it's just that they're the same different standards. Yes, I'm pleased to say that discrimination against women will now end: all combat roles from next year will be opened to women. '

"In a recent video that went viral, a male army officer is heard to say: 'The battlefield is no place for women'; and that 'women should not be assigned to infantry, armour or artillery at any level below brigade'. These comments have been widely condemned by feminist groups. The officer has now been identified: he is one Captain Ironside, who we understand saw action in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also understand that Captain Ironside has since been relieved of his command. We would like to say that we agree with this move, but cannot do so because the BBC is strictly impartial and never takes sides.

"We spoke to several female soldiers, and found there was still a regrettably long road ahead. They complained that women are tolerated, not accepted; that there is still a male 'locker room' culture; that they suffer sexist taunts and jokes; that little effort is made to help them; that promotion and career advancement are frequently blocked by men. And, where men find acceptance automatically and without any effort, women are still required to prove themselves. The military is supposed to be a meritocracy, the women say, but the playing field is still tilted against them. As one female corporal told us, 'As a woman, you must work twice as hard to go half as far. But that's still the case for all women the world over.

The Chinese Premier switched off the television, and grinned. Who believed this tosh? Plenty. Good, then. The BBC was the world's biggest feminist propaganda-machine. The BBC loved women in the military: they were always on about it. There always was just one problem to women in the military: men.

Li Qiang stood up, and walked over to the wall-map of the South China Sea. After a couple of minutes, his eyes wandered northwards to Taiwan.

He thought of the chess game he played years ago, in which his opponent's fianchettoed bishop raked lethal fire on his left flank. Qiang made his move, but expected to resign very soon. He then sat there, astonished, when his opponent picked up this vicious, menacing, diabolical bishop, and exchanged it for an utterly useless knight that was penned in and stepping on his own pawns. Well, sometimes your opponent does stupid things. Sometimes, if you give your opponent sufficient rope, he will hang himself. Well, he would give the Western nations some more rope: several feminist groups advocating for more women in the military would receive some big donations. Feminists were the West's Fifth Columnists.

Throughout human history, and prehistory, warfare had been conducted by men, and only by men. But today's Western nations knew better: they were feminising their forces. The Western nations congratulated themselves: they were the first societies in history to recognise the essential interchangeability of men and women - all other civilisations since the dawn of time were ignorant, prejudiced and knew no better. This policy of feminisation, suicidal though it was, would doubtless be reversed once large numbers of female corpses were in body-bags. But before that happened, Li Quiang would've achieved his military objectives.

Endnotes

·        A Military Officer, 'Chapter 8 - Militant feminism in the forces' (pp.298-307). Fiamengo J., editor (2018). Sons of feminism - men have their say, Little Nightingale Press.

·        Browne K. (2007). Co-ed combat - the new evidence that women shouldn't fight the nation's wars, Sentinel.

·        Eden J. (2015). Women in combat - the question of standards. Military Review, March-April (pp. 39-47).

·        Maginnis R.L. (2013). Deadly consequences - how cowards are pushing women into combat. Regenery Publishing, Inc.

·        Mitchell B. (1998). Women in the military - flirting with disaster. Regenery Publishing, Inc.

·        Rice C.E. (2015). Women in the infantry - understanding issues of physical strength, economics, and small-unit cohesion. Military Review, March-April (pp. 48-55).

·        YouTube: 21 Studios; Why the US. will lose the next major war: Army lowered standards so women can graduate ranger school.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txX2S80Dt8k&t=242s

·        YouTube: CrowderBits; 'Equality! Army's Training Standards Get STUPIDER   Louder With Crowder'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alfYLRDzxiY

·        YouTube: J-Hall. 'Women in the military failed to qualify for Combat "We can't keep up with the men" '

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbxJP-dJb2c

·        YouTube: Jamesons Travels. 'Can She Survive French Foreign Legion Training (Marine Reacts)'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7ImA9TpZrA

·        YouTube: JRE Clips. 'What Navy SEAL Trevor Thompson Thinks of Women Entering the Program'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWXdZUKJc1M

·        YouTube: ManWomanMyth Mirror. 'Other - Female Soldiers: Asset or Liability?'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaAdkelDKq0&list=PLjMscr0TpRqhGadn27XAzBcwXchJ2EvYp&index=50

·        Webb J. (1979). 'Women Can’t Fight', Washingtonian, November 1.

https://www.washingtonian.com/1979/11/01/jim-webb-women-cant-fight/

(c) Cufwulf Montagu

Cufwulf@aol.com