On Women in Dangerous Roles

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madd0ct0r
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by madd0ct0r »

cmdrjones wrote:
madd0ct0r wrote:'Should' presumes a right to make a judgement, and implies a duty to prevent a woman carrying out a dangerous roll if you feel they shouldn't.

Neither are in agreement with a basic morality of 'competent adults should be able to do what they'd like, as long as that does not impinge upon other's ability to do the same.' aka the golden rule.

So if someone else gets crippled or sent to the emergency room due to their own choices my taxes will never have anything to do with it? Sweet!
I'm not sure the idea of the social contract, of accepting additions rights and duties on top of the golden rule should really need spelling out.

What does interest me is the threads defination of dangerous roles. Being a roofer is a dangerous role. Being a pilot of small aircraft is a dangerous role, hell, I reckon living in a developing country is more dangerous then being a member of the USA army, yet 49% Of their population do it, across the bell curve. So, how do you define danger?
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by madd0ct0r »

cmdrjones wrote:
madd0ct0r wrote:'Should' presumes a right to make a judgement, and implies a duty to prevent a woman carrying out a dangerous roll if you feel they shouldn't.

Neither are in agreement with a basic morality of 'competent adults should be able to do what they'd like, as long as that does not impinge upon other's ability to do the same.' aka the golden rule.

So if someone else gets crippled or sent to the emergency room due to their own choices my taxes will never have anything to do with it? Sweet!
I'm not sure the idea of the social contract, of accepting additions rights and duties on top of the golden rule should really need spelling out.

What does interest me is the threads defination of dangerous roles. Being a roofer is a dangerous role. Being a pilot of small aircraft is a dangerous role, hell, I reckon living in a developing country is more dangerous then being a member of the USA army, yet 49% Of their population do it, across the bell curve. So, how do you define danger?
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by cmdrjones »

Ziggy Stardust wrote:
cmdrjones wrote: 2000-2005 1/7 Cav B troop, under LTC Bill Salter, OIF II I was an E5 and a M3A3 gunner and dismount team leader.
Can you prove any of this?
cmdrjones wrote: Being that there ARE no female snipers in the US army that would be an incredible standard to hold me to now wouldn't it?
YOU ARE THE ONE THAT CLAIMED YOU HAD OBSERVED FEMALE SNIPERS.

If you haven't observed female snipers, why did you lie and claim you had?
cmdrjones wrote: Aslo, when did direct observation NOT become a source of information.
Scientists do that very thing, right?
You need to prove you actually have directly observed something, you miserable dolt. I contend that you are full of shit and lying about all of your supposed qualifications. Considering that you just admitted to lying about observing female snipers, and haven't produced a shred of evidence despite the fact that I asked you to, I consider this a concession. You do realize that science is far more about direct observation, right? It is about measurable and replicable observation that can be materially proven. You need to prove the direct observations you claimed actually took place.
cmdrjones wrote: AS for the trash suit, it is a bit of 1st hand knowledge of the subject matter. If we were talking about say physics and you offered to describe in detail some parts of that giant collider in Europe, i'd probably take it that you at least knew SOMETHING about the subject, yes?
Or that I just Googled something about the giant collider and told you that. Seriously, how fucking stupid are you? You do realize that just spitting out technical jargon is not proof of anything, right?
cmdrjones wrote: You can feel free to dismiss anything you want. Have you ever asked anybody in your field for advice? Did you ever put any of it into practice?
Again, this is completely irrelevant to the point.

Since apparently you are too stupid to understand, I am going to make this very, very clear:

YOU claimed to have military experience.
YOU explicitly said that you have directly observed female snipers in action.
Vaguely waving your hands and saying that you've talked to people who are snipers is not a qualification. I've talked to plenty of people from various fields, and that does not make me an expert in any of those fields.

Now, right now, provide some evidence of your claims of military experience or admit you were lying. Otherwise I am going to the mods.
AS far as the range goes, that could have been misrecollection on his part, as you said it was over 50 years ago.
I can tell you where he's buried and you can go tell him all about what a bullshit artist he was and how cool you are, deal?
Again, you are so spectacularly stupid that you miss the point completely.

If you really were as much of an expert on combat and snipers in particularly as you have claimed in this thread, YOU WOULD HAVE IMMEDIATELY KNOWN THAT THE 1700 YARD FIGURE WAS BULLSHIT. I'm not even an expert, and I realized this immediately. How is it that you, who apparently has immeasurable experience in combat situations and direct observation of snipers, failed to realize this? Is it because ... you're a lying piece of shit? Please, provide some evidence of your military experience and prove that you aren't a lying piece of shit.

You're right, I made the whole thing up. I'm a piece of shit. I've never been in combat or served in the military. Women are exactly the same as men and deserve no special consideration whatsoever. We should all do whatever the government or society tells us to do and never hold a different opinion from whatever you say it is.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Ziggy Stardust »

We should all do whatever the government or society tells us to do and never hold a different opinion from whatever you say it is.


:roll:

Such a drama queen. Seriously, are you 12 or something? Did you notice I never once in this thread even questioned your opinions on women, or on anything else for that matter (and god knows where you got the idea I just want us to do what the government says...)? All I did was call out your blatant lies. If you are going to pull stuff out of your ass, you can't get so offended when someone calls you out on it. But oh noes, I dared question all of your uber awesome combat super sniper experience, so I must just be a conformist or whatever the fuck you are sarcastically accusing me of here. Get over yourself you miserable little prick.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Simon_Jester »

Look, the moronic faux-confession is pointless.

If you're going to make a bunch of unbased assertions, you will be shrugged off. If you then respond by citing evidence that is unverifiable* or implausible,** you will be viewed as a posturing fool.

And then you respond by not even trying to back anything up, except for sarcastically saying "Oh, yeah, ignore everything I said, you were right, the real truth is a stupid exaggerated straw version of the exact opposite of what I said." This makes you look like a complete and absolute jackass. It is the act of an immature and foolish mind.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Broomstick »

cmdrjones wrote:
What does being a “metro-dude” or not have to do with being in the military or not? Or are you under the delusion that every man in the military is some ballsy over-muscled he-man? What does any of that have to do with the ability to shoot or not?
It's an attitude thing. perhaps we don't mean the same thing. When i use that phrase I am picturing amore extreme example than you are I suppose. And no, not every man in the military is over-muscled, though it is an essential element of the soldier and his/her training and evaluated constantly. Physicality has to do with all aspects of military culture, not just shooting, though it IS en essential element of shooting. Holding a7 pound rifle in the proper firing postitions for an extended period of time is a heck of an isometric workout.
I'm sure it is, but honestly, this is starting to sound like dick-measuring. I could counter that back when I did roofing work I was hauling 80 lbs 30 feet up a ladder multiple times per work day, which is also a hell of a workout, but that proves nothing, eithr.

Got news for you – a normal adult woman is perfectly capable of holding a 7 pound rifle the proper firing position for an extended period of time. She may have to work up to the exercise, but then so would a lot of men. That is nowhere near beyond the capability of a physically normal adult human of either sex.
Ah yes, but we're talking about women in dangerous situations remember? But, point taken. In general making sure babies survive is more likely to come up than shooting something at 100 meters, but when it comes up BOY is it important!
Quick – a baby's life depends on the answers:
- what are the signs of medically seriously dehydration in an infant?
- at what point is a fever serious enough to take a baby to the ER?
- what are the signs of life-threatening allergic reaction?

When these question come up BOY are they important!

And, by the way, they come up more commonly in life than the need to shoot people.
You say we can't consctruct rules for outliers? Good. That's what I'm saying... the argument begins at how far down the bell curve we go to GET our female cops and firefighters etc. I say if the top 1% (You may argue 5% or whatever) WANT to be there and will DO the work and don't care about the opportunity costs, then fine, let them. My personal opinion is that we (as a society) shouldn't be encouraging the most physcially capable women to spend their best years getting beat up by life etc. But that's just me.
Yes, and it's rapidly being established you're an asshat.

You don't think giving birth to multiple children doesn't “beat up” a woman? You've probably never heard of the old rule of thumb that a woman loses a tooth for every child, but it's not entirely an old wives' tail. Women who have given birth are several times more likely to suffer incontinence than women who haven't. On average, women who have never given birth live longer than women who have given birth. Look up the terms “uterine prolapse” and “vaginal fistula”.

While I don't agree with much of what the ancient Aztecs represented, they did respect the dangers of pregnancy and birth to the extent that a woman who died giving birth was accorded the same reward in the afterlife as a man who died in battle. Not a squeamish or soft culture, those Aztecs, you might want to think about that.

Second point – it's NOT a matter of either/or. A woman CAN engage in dangerous pursuits AND have children. Granted, dangerous pursuits while pregnant might not be a good idea for a number of reasons, but that represents only a small fraction of a woman's lifespan these days.

Third point – there are too many people in the world. We do NOT need every adult human being to reproduce. We aren't some small population teetering on the brink of extinction, we've just about choked our planet with our number. It's not a matter of “encouraging” but rather stop DIScouraging them from certain pursuits. If a woman CHOOSES a “dangerous” occupation so fucking what?

You should like a martinent insisting everyone fill a predetermined role. Civilian life isn't like that. Civilians aren't assigned a life path and told to march.
We live on a planet that arguably holds 2-4 times as many people as it can sustain long-term. It would do both our species and the planet's ecosystem considerable long-term good to NOT maintain a replacement rate of reproduction for a couple generations. Sure, there will be issues with that, but there would also be some butt-ugly issues with breeding to the point either starvation, war, disease, famine, or some combination knocks down our numbers.
See the above quote about tough choices....
So, if there are arguably too many of us why the fuck do you care that some people are volunteering to skip reproduction? Isn't that a GOOD thing for the world overall?
The Above problems are not all about childbearing, but 2nd and 3rd order effects of the system we have REPLACED traditional childbearing WITH.
What the fuck are you talking about? I'm sorry – did we suddenly go to producing 99% of our children via artificial wombs in the past few years when I wasn't looking?

Newsflash – the majority of babies, 2/3 to 3/4, are produced by “traditional” vaginal childbirth. As for the rest – I'm OK with saving the lives of women and babies who in past ages would have died or been crippled by the experience.
I don't think society beats it into their heads, in fact, quite the opposite.
OK, asshat, if YOUR life experience counts then so does mine.

YES, SOCIETY DOES BEAT “HAVE BABIES” INTO WOMEN'S HEADS. I know this from direct personal experience over half a century. I don't want to turn this into an autobiographical screed but I will do so if necessary.
Agreed motherhood isn't the ONLY option, but IMHO its the most selfless.
As for women's increased lifespans, I say let them do whatever they want, THAT is the best time to do it! AFTER childbearing years! I'd rather a young woman have the facts at 18 and decide wisely whether to struggle with trying to "have it all" or stick to wife and mother role or simply go for a career, rather than the situation we currently have where feminists push women into the "have it all" role and damn the torpedoes.
Are you fucking 12 or something?

You have NO clue how much more difficult it is to start a new career in one's 40's than in one's 20's. Possible? Yes. But also very likely to fail. Are you even aware that even for people with established careers getting a new job after the age of 40 is difficult due to bias against older workers? Now try that with NO work experience outside the home.

Women who DO have “the facts” at 18 DO make the choices they feel are best for them and their present or future families. They wait to find a good mate – or do you suggest they simply fuck the first man who shows interest to hurry things along? They try to either get married or, failing that, get a work situation that allows them to provide for a family... which generally takes a few years. There's really no reason NOT to put off childbirth to the mid-20's or even early 30's if that results in more security and resources for the children. Popping kids out at 18 is almost guaranteed to ensure poverty and lack, barring said woman landing a rich husband – and having babies makes you much less desirable as dating material whether you're male or female.
If women who had male support left voluntarily, then wages would necessarily rise.
The hell they would – we currently have more workers than jobs. Tens of millions would have to leave the current workforce before it would trigger a sufficient labor shortage to significantly raise wages.
I can dream can I?
Of what? A world where the primary role of women would be to be your fuckbuddy and squirt your progency out of her crotch?
They work less overtime, they work indoors, they take time off to have kids and thus have less overall experience, they don't generally do dangerous and dirty work when they don't have to and so on.
Right. BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THOSE BABIES.

THAT is why childcare is necessary.

Women who DON'T have children don't take time off to have kids, do tend to have work experience comparable with men's, are more likely to work overtime, and so on. Why? Because they don't have to rush home to the kids.

MEN who are single fathers ALSO take time off for their kids, ALSO lose work experience, ALSO are less likely to work overtime, and so on. Why? Because they don't have to rush home to the kids.

Why are you so fucking stupid you can't see that?
The rationale behind paying women less for the same work was to drive them out of the workforce so that a man with a family could take the position. Is that wrong?
Yes it's goddamned wrong – is it OK to pay a black person half as much as a white person? No? Then why is it OK to pay a woman half as much as a man for the exact same work?

Do you have ANY idea of the impact that has on female-headed households? Or do you suggest a widow be “assigned” a new husband immediately like ISIL does? Or that women should remain with men who beat them bloody or drink away the rent money rather than starve to death? Or have their kids taken away because, due to being paid half as much for the same work, they can't afford to work AND hire a sitter to watch the kids?
If men aren't encouraged to strive and compete they become man-boobs and basement dwellers that no woman wants anyway, right?
So you're thinking that shitting on the female half of the population is somehow going to motivate the male half to be good providers? What the fuck are you on?
Valued by whom? Feminists? I'm all about valuing motherhood and all the work that goes into it. Much of "women's work" will ALWAYS be unpaid, hence why it is selfless.
Complete and utter bullshit.

If motherhood was actually valued it would be paid. As it stands, a woman can spend her life birthing and raising fine, upstanding children but when it comes time to retire she gets jackshit because society does not value parenthood If it did, she would get some sort of actual credit for all those years of work.

Our society only values that which has been assigned a monetary value. As motherhood is “priceless” and thus has no assigned number it is proved valueless.

And what's this bullshit about “women's work” always being upaid? Again, what the fuck? Cooking is women's work – but don't male celebrity chefs get paid for doing just that? Sewing is women's work – have you looked into how much a tailor costs these days? Taking care of the sick is women's work – look into wages for nurses and doctors these days. Cleaning is women's work – last time I looked into it a professional cleaning service started around $20/hour in this area.

Funny – women's work is unpaid when it's the women doing it. As soon as a man starts doing it, it suddenly DOES have a dollar value.
now we're arguing about whether it's more efficient for society to lower taxes and let people make their own choices or utilize a large bureaucracy to enforce these types of things on businesses and so on.
Low taxes don't fucking matter when you don't have any money! In which case any choices you have a very limited. Why don't you get that? You're advocating a world where women are paid less, if they're permitted to work at all, then saying it's up to them to make “choices”.

DO YOU WANT AN EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT? Yes? Then you will have taxes. Deal with it.
See above... people have always been starving somewhere. All that Aid to africa had major unintended consequences... so does the welfare state.
The difference is that the welfare state has fewer emaciated corpses lying on the sidewalk.

This is why we think you have no clue about history – you seem to have zero awareness of what actual starvation is, and its effect on people. Not just death, but stunted growth, deformed bones, neurological damage in babies... Go and actually learn about these things because at this point you are painfully ignorant.
Let me clarify: I'll hold women to the same professional standards as men.
And when they meet those standards they should be PAID THE SAME as those men.

And, by the way – where are the FATHERS in your dream world? You take about how women should do this and women should do that or NOT do that but what about the damn men? All those babies are going to require fathers, and being a father should be more than simply being a sperm donor.
cmdrjones wrote:So if someone else gets crippled or sent to the emergency room due to their own choices my taxes will never have anything to do with it? Sweet!
If you're OK with the notion that if YOU wind up in the ER you'll only get care until your savings run out, what with being unable to work and not being allowed to “impose” on others. As soon as your bank account hits zero they'll wheel you out to the curb and toss you in the gutter.

My parents remember what life was life before health insurance or health coverage. If you couldn't find a way to pay for care you suffered, all the while knowing there was something that could alleviate that suffering but being unable to get it, or maybe you just died.

I don't want to go back to that. Only a young, healthy, able-bodied person who has never been seriously ill or injured, or even known anyone in that condition, could possibly think that's a good idea.
madd0ct0r wrote:What does interest me is the threads defination of dangerous roles. Being a roofer is a dangerous role. Being a pilot of small aircraft is a dangerous role
And, oddly enough, I've also done both of those.

Also worked with horses, which is dangerous, and a few other “dangerous” pursuits. Rather glad I did all of them, actually.
salm wrote:Does it really matter if he´s a soldier or not? Even if he was a soldier he´d have to prove his point with facts and good arguments.
It matters if he's lying and/or misrepresenting himself. If he had never claimed to be a soldier then no, it wouldn't matter, but he has so now it does matter.

I think at this point we're pretty much done here - at least until "Commander Jones" or whoever he is substantiates his claims to military service.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by sarevok2 »

Through all of history women in armed forces has been a rare thing. Is there reason to believe that it would change now ? I dont some women joining up but a more scifi like world where men and women are in more equal numbers. Can it happen ? Even countries that conscript women they make up a minority of armed forces.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Broomstick »

With a perfectly level playing field and no gender bias in a society... no, I don't think you'll see a 50/50 gender split in the armed forces.

There are biological factors at play that really do, on average, make women less inclined to join something like the military. Certainly, a woman who does choose to have her children in her 20's is not going to find a military career compatible with that goal. Women, on average, are less aggressive than men.

I'd like to point to aviation as an example of an endeavor that is unlikely to ever have that 50/50 split. Although women are just as capable of flying an airplane the travel requirements of an aviation career make raising young children difficult - she would require a stay-at-home partner to mind the kids, and while most women pilots who become pregnant do continue to fly for some time, between a growing belly getting in the way of the controls and the issues surrounding a pilot going into labor at several thousand feet of altitude most take maternity leave starting around month 6 to 7. Women pilots tend to have fewer children than non-pilot women, because it's not very compatible with pregnancy. As noted, on average women's spatial skills aren't quite as good as the average man's - although every female pilot I've known who has been tested has spatial skills better than 80% of men, and scoring into the 90th or higher percentile is pretty common. Which is no surprise - aviation weeds out those who can't cope with the spatial requirements.

As a result, only about 1 in 15 professional pilots is female. About 1 in 20 general aviation pilots is female. Among homebuilt/experimental pilots it was as low as 1 in 100 or even 200 in the 1990's. That number has risen slightly, it might be as high as 1 in 50 now.

It's not because of rampant sexism in aviation (some of that does exist, but among pilots things are remarkable egalitarian), it's because fewer women over all are interested in aviation. There are many factors at work, but there you go.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Lord Revan »

but then again I don't think we're talking about "will women join certain professions as much as men" but rather "should women have the right to join certain professions if they choose to do so" granted that debate seems a tad one-sided.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Broomstick »

Well, our little thread starter was going on about not accommodating outliers, but that raises the question of WHAT accommodations?

It doesn't matter what the percentage of female pilots are - they don't require accommodating in regards to either equipment or standards. The configuration of the pilot's crotch is irrelevant to operating an aircraft.

For other occupations, though - a firefighter, perhaps - the equipment involved may be heavy enough that the physical strength required will eliminate many women from the profession.

I did once hear about a battery factory that restricted women from some positions due to lead exposure - as lead accumulates in the body there was an issue regarding exposing fertile women of child-bearing age to those jobs. Although my first reaction was "why is it OK for the men to get that kind of lead exposure?", if you have a job that potentially involves accumulating a toxin or some other form of damage that could be passed on to children then it's not just about the individual anymore and ethical concerns are raised.

This comes up in the nuclear industry - one solution is to ban BOTH men and women of prime childbearing years from excessive radiation exposure, limiting such work to, for example, those 50 years of age or older. In such cases they are unlikely to pass any genetic damage to children (women being past child-bearing, and in the case of men that level of radiation tends to sterilize them anyway) and, given that cancer deaths from that sort of radiation peak around 20 years post-exposure, you're not greatly shortening the life expectancy of those people either. (This is one reason the elderly moving back in the Chernobyl exclusion zone is tolerated - they won't pass on genetic damage, and they'll most likely be dead of old age before they come down with a radiation-triggered cancer.)
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Simon_Jester »

On the other hand, that doesn't mesh well with traditional economic structures. Our entire economy (even in the Soviet bloc) is configured around the assumption that most people figure out what to do with their lives at around 15-25, pursue the necessary education, and are on the road to their long term career goals by 30-35.

A job done only by old people is anathema to such a system.
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Re: On Women in Dangerous Roles

Post by Broomstick »

That's because it wasn't until the latter half of the 20th Century that you had most people living long enough to reach retirement age!

When the US social security system was set up, in my parents' generation, life expectancy was around the late 50's/early 60's and the system assumed most people would either die before collecting or expire shortly thereafter - remember, this was before we had things like antibiotics, so illnesses now easily treated, like pneumonia, carried a lot of people off in early middle age. The whole system was built around the notion that one only worked 20-30 years because that is how long most peoples' adult lives were.

Now, most people live to their middle 70's or even middle 80's. Of course the system doesn't work well anymore. It never anticipated we'd have so many healthy, able-bodied old people around!

What we need are some changes to the system. Among possible useful ones are:

- some way of providing sufficient stability so women can feel confident bearing their children during their most fertile years.
- some way of ensuring that men who aren't married to their childrens' mothers provide equitably for their offspring, which also means, outside of abuse situations, ensuring those men also have access to their children.
- a system where starting a career in one's late 30's/early 40's is seen as normal, either for career changers or women who were dedicated mothers entering the workforce once their kids are grown.
- a system where choosing NOT to reproduce is seen as just as normal and legitimate as reproducing until we get our numbers down to a more sustainable level.

Such a system would free up quite a few women to take on roles that entail a level of risk a women with infants and small children would be much less inclined to do*, or to take them on later in life, after their kids are raised.



* Male friends of mine who did dangerous things for a living have reported to me that once they had kids they really re-evaluated what risks they were actually taking. Just as there is a meme of "women and children first", there is another of "send out men with neither wives nor children" for another level of hazard beyond the one we're discussing here. Becoming a parent tends to make a human being of either sex less inclined to risks compared to before, at least until the kids are grown up.
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. Leonard Nimoy.

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice
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