Santorum: Women shouldn't be in front-line combat.

[Pyro]

Disgusting. I'd expect nothing less from him.

[useful idiot]

It's not a "natural instinct."  It's entirely a cultural thing.  It just appears inborn because of the way gender socialization works.  Just like every other aspect of gender.

If it's not a natural instinct (which you couldn't prove anyway), you still admit that it's a cultural one, and therefore its practical implications are the same. Whether or not you believe it to be natural has no bearing on the impact a change like this would have on the military...

[Erc]

Obviously, someone needs to play the Israel card on him.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It's not a "natural instinct."  It's entirely a cultural thing.  It just appears inborn because of the way gender socialization works.  Just like every other aspect of gender.

If it's not a natural instinct (which you couldn't prove anyway), you still admit that it's a cultural one, and therefore its practical implications are the same. Whether or not you believe it to be natural has no bearing on the impact a change like this would have on the military...

You could respond the same way to integration in the military and the repeal of DADT...

[useful idiot]

It's not a "natural instinct."  It's entirely a cultural thing.  It just appears inborn because of the way gender socialization works.  Just like every other aspect of gender.

If it's not a natural instinct (which you couldn't prove anyway), you still admit that it's a cultural one, and therefore its practical implications are the same. Whether or not you believe it to be natural has no bearing on the impact a change like this would have on the military...

You could respond the same way to integration in the military and the repeal of DADT...

Not really, no. Comparing the differences between the genders to those between skin colors and sexual preferences is at its face bogus.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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50 percent of combat divisions would have to be women. It would never happen - but there would be significant damage to the combat effectiveness to enforce a dubious doctrine with no basis in reality.

Also - it would mean the end of the US military as a serious fighting force. Men prefer difficult jobs that have a high casualty ratio - why not give men a chance to shine? As a guy I'd be embarrassed to have a woman stick up for me and fight my battles for me even if she had 5 inches and 50 pounds (not difficult), simply because I believe that it's my job to protect her with all I've got.

Why do we have to waste time, energy and money defying what most men and women actually want?

You're the one wasting time and energy fighting a battle that isn't being fought.  We don't have anything even close to 50% females in the armed forces as a whole, and between culturally induced attitudes and physical limitations, I seriously doubt more than 1 to 2% of foot soldiers would be female if there were no gender limits on which MOS females could choose.

Besides, any males whose egos are so fragile as to be embarrassed that a female who was physically capable of doing the job is fighting alongside them probably should not be entrusted with a weapon in the first place.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

They deserve to die on the front-lines just like everybody else.

[Sbane]

I don't really see why women should not be allowed to fight on the front lines (as if that exists anymore) if they can show they have the physical stamina needed for the job. As has been talked about already, most probably don't. And in any case many probably wouldn't want the job anyways. But if some do, and are capable, they should be allowed to fight. The whole instinctual need to protect women is a bizarre argument though.

[tik 🪀✨]

And here I thought the main argument against women on the front lines was the risk of the abuse they may suffer at the hands of enemy soldiers who don't respect or agree with female autonomy. Santo's reasons are just bizarre.  This whole cultural idea of women being special and defenseless is so demeaning. Then again whenever I hear about a crime or attack made to seem especially heinous because 'women and children' were caught in the crossfire I do cringe. I guess women are always weak and innocent and men are meaningless bomb fodder.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

If women are prepared to risk their lives, then they shouldn't be discriminated against.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Twilight Sparkle,

The fact you dismiss certain women who voluntarily stay at home, raise a family, and support their husbands as "brainwashed" is insult to those women who do so. It would be just as insulting were you to call any African American "brainwashed" who was a conservative. Saying so implies that neither groups are intelligent enough to think for themselves, especially in a society in which both groups have had more social, economic, and political opportunity than in any other place or time in history. It is this attitude that all of any group of our society should think or act a certain way by definition of their biological or racial identity is the same thing you accuse those on the right of doing.

Do you mind if I field this?

Women who are voluntarily housewives are not necessarily brainwashed, and black conservatives are not necessarily brainwashed. Simfan is certainly not brainwashed. I don't know J.C. Watts, but he doesn't strike me as the brainwashed type. My aunt, who is the only person I know who regularly beats me at Scrabble and who spend a lot of her teen years with various Cold War-era government organizations trying to recruit her for various things but who instead decided to be a housewife, is...well, there were probably social pressures of the time involved in her decision-making process, but she is genuinely happy with the way her life is gone and now, at least, is certainly not brainwashed.

However! Structurally, maybe not necessarily at the level of the individual woman or black person or gay person or poor person or member of an unpopular religion or whatever, the phenomenon of people really buying heart and soul into the structural rhetoric that such things are necessary features of the way things are supposed to be...smacks of something that is not exactly sound policy-making or free individual choice.

In related news, I seriously doubt that CaDan has served a day in his life, and even if he has Clarence as usual puts forth what we might call the 'old traditional-minded veteran' position (with which I do disagree, I should make clear) in a far more reasonable and articulate way.

[Simfan34]

To clarify, Santorum didn't say that women are too emotional for combat.  He said that having women in combat would lead to problems because of "emotions", but didn't elaborate.  When asked about it later, he said that the problem was actually men's emotions, and their instinct to protect women:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/10/santorum-explains-opposition-to-women-in-combat/

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This isn't any different then what most people give as their reason for not wanting women on the front lines.