Impossible Thing To Believe Before Breakfast #8:
It is important to have lower physical standards for women firepersons
and women policepersons so that, one day, half of all firepersons and
policepersons will be women, thus more effectively protecting the
safety of the public.
DAVE SIM:
Hi Erick! #8, to me, is another 2+2=4 no-brainer.
Where the safety of the public is concerned, you have to set VERY HIGH standards and stick with them. If anything, raising them steadily. I think it's WONDERFUL ANY time a woman is able to attain to the highest possible physical standards as ALL firefighters and ALL police officers must do -- and they should AUTOMATICALLY be accepted and their achievement CELEBRATED when they do.
But eroding those standards -- having higher standards for men and lower standards for women, which is the status quo in our Feminist Theocracy -- in the interests of numerical parity is LUNACY.
Period
8 comments:
Having served in the US military I always thought it was a disservice to lower the physical standards for women, especially since there were some that were just as, and sometimes more, capable as men.
The physical requirements are/were lower and their version of basic training was easier too.
Now that the US is expanding combat roles to include women it's even more insane to lower those basic physical standards.
In fact it could potentially be deadly.
Hi Dave,
there is no need for a special celebration when women pass the same fitness for duty tests as men.
Treat them the same.
I am former military and although i never served in combat with a woman, i would have no qualms doing so as long as she fought like everyone else.
when you are in fighting position you don't care who is beside you as long as they are as willing to protect you as you are willing to protect them.
Anyone who says different is a liar who never served in combat.
Same holds true for any type of duty that lives depend on being wiling to sacrifice for others.
physical abilities make up a large part of that, but not all.
I don't think your view here is as controversial as you think Dave. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there, including women, who would agree with the sentiment that its both insulting and unsafe for women to be held to a lower physical standard in jobs where lives can depend on one's strength. Just because its the policy currently in place doesn't mean society as a whole agrees with it.
Not trying to be an ass here, but where are the standards lower for women? What specific industries/fields have a separate, lower standard for women?
Actually, from things I've read, it's gotten to the point where the men can't even pass the physical requirements for the US military. They've had to allow the men another chance/extra time to fit the weight/health requirements for ... some position, I can't remember what, but basically they've loosened up standards because (presumably) less people in all are trying for whatever position this was, and we're getting fatter and less physically able as a country.
I'm glad to see that we have a consensus-of-four, anyway.
Erick - Beyond mutual protection, which has got to be top-of-mind, I think it's particularly true with US military policy -- which goes back a long way -- of never leaving a wounded soldier on the battlefield. If you aren't capable of carrying a wounded MAN off of the battlefield (and we know the height and weight that involves) then you have no business being ON the battlefield.
James - It shouldn't be controversial, but it is. We can say it here, but trying saying it in front of an audience partly or mostly composed of women.
I think the "logic of the next step" is to acknowledge that the ONLY reason that that IS the policy currently in place is that we live in a Feminist Theocracy. And we're a LONG way from doing that, I think.
Dave,
I served with tall men and short men. Men of slight builds and some with extremely large builds.
No way could some of the smaller men that I served with have been able to carry some of the larger men. Dragged, yes. Carried? No. That is not the criteria. Physical strength and endurance is a must, and in no way do I say we should artificially curb those to accommodate any particular group. However, we can be reasonable and realize that no set of standards covers every potential occurrence. That goes for men as well as women.
Discrimination has always relied on playing to the lowest common denominator and exploiting the lowest common fears of the ignorant and or ill-informed.
It's not that hard for a fit woman to carry a full-grown man, if she's been trained in the correct way to do a carry.
Well, again, in the interests of not getting far afield here -- that is, attempting to neutralize my point -- let me capitalize GENERALLY, which is NOT the situation that we're in. If men AND women are held to the same standards, I have GENERALLY no problem with female participation in anything.
However, GENERALLY in our society what we GENERALLY do is to erode standards in the interests of getting closer to numerical parity. And that's, forgive me for saying so, insane.
And, for the record, I don't think ANY of my views of the "Impossible Things" are controversial. I think fixed VERY HIGH standards for any job involving public safety SHOULD take precedence over political correctness. They don't, because we live in a Feminist Theocracy, but they SHOULD.
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