• Powell: ‘Pretty Shocking’ That So Many American Youths Lack Smarts, Fitness for Military

I continually see other conservatives argue that standards should not be lowered to allow women into combat positions in the military (or in what ever other roles), but the U.S. Navy has already lowered fitness standards because so many men were failing their fitness tests.

Here we have Powell arguing that “people” (he does not specify what he means here, but I take it he’s not limiting his comments to women only, but he is including boys or men), to say that people, males included, are not up to meeting current military standards.

I notice that men not meeting career standards is rarely treated as a problem by society, especially not by my fellow conservatives, but if allowances are made, or even considered being made, for women in any way or form, some portions of society, and some conservatives, start complaining and screaming about “lowering the bar,” “lowering standards,” or “political correctness.”

Funny how that stuff isn’t a concern when it’s boys or men who are failing to live up to some measurement so that the bar is lowered for males.

I have a question about these standards. If and when these standards are lowered, does that not also indicate that they are somewhat arbitrary and unnecessary in the first place?

If your organization is fine with, say, ditching some requirement that says a member must, for example, do something like do 100 push-ups, but then, due to lack of qualified applicants (whether male and/or female), drops the requirement altogether, or limits it to only two push-ups to gain more applicants – doesn’t that really demonstrate that push-ups are not that big of a deal in the first place?

Being willing to bend or dump a requirement altogether indicates to me that having a lot of upper body strength, being able to pull off 100 push-ups, is not that necessary of a characteristic to perform in the first place, in whatever task it is meant to accompany. So why have it as a requirement at all, to begin with? It makes no sense.

Powell: ‘Pretty Shocking’ That So Many American Youths Lack Smarts, Fitness for Military

Snippets:

by N. Ballasy

WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said too many young people do not qualify for military service due in part to obesity and criminal records, which is reflective of many “scary” problems in local communities that must be addressed.

• And Fellow Conservatives Are Supposedly Worried About Lowering Standards to Permit Women In: United States Navy Changes Fitness Rules, Wipes Slate Clean for Nearly 50K Sailors Who Failed Fitness Tests

And Fellow Conservatives Are Supposedly Worried About Lowering Standards to Permit Women In: United States Navy Changes Fitness Rules, Wipes Slate Clean for Nearly 50K Sailors Who Failed Fitness Tests

I am a conservative. Not a liberal. Not a Social Justice Warrior.

Must get that disclaimer out of the way, because other conservatives unfortunately have the tendency to assume that anyone who points out sexism or inconsistencies in the treatment of women must be a liberal feminist.

Every so often I see other conservatives object to women serving in the military, especially in combat positions.

This story caught my eye today:

Navy grants fitness amnesty to 48,000 sailors who failed test

No where in that article does it say that this amnesty applies to women – it seems to apply to men or to both men and women. (I provide quotations from the article farther below).

Objections to women in the military (or other occupations) usually includes the argument about “but I don’t want the standards lowered just to accommodate women!”

It looks to me as though the United States Navy (of which some in my family have served, thank you very much) has lowered the physical standards … for men.

• For the First Time A Woman is Set To Become A Marine Corps Infantry Officer

For the First Time A Woman is Set To Become A Marine Corps Infantry Officer

This news item is likely to upset the majority of American, Christian gender complementarians and their talking points.

It’s also likely to upset or anger many of my fellow conservatives who have a knee-jerk tendency to react harshly against any such accomplishments by women, or women breaking traditional gender expectations, because they are so paranoid of all things secular, left wing feminist (even if said story or accomplishment has little to nothing to actually do with left wing feminism).

First female Marine in history to graduate infantry training course

For the first time, a woman is set to become a Marine Corps infantry officer

Snippets:

by Jim Michaels
Sept 21, 2017

WASHINGTON — For the first time, a woman is set to become a Marine Corps infantry officer, a milestone in the Corps’ 242-year history.

The woman, whose name has not been released, is scheduled to graduate from the physically demanding infantry officer course Monday.

She will be the first women to complete the 13-week course. Since it was opened to females in 2012, 36 women have enrolled in the course.

“The female officer within Infantry Officer Course has completed all graduation requirements and is scheduled to graduate with her peers on Sept. 25, 2017,” the Marine Corps said in a statement.

• Examples of Girls and Women Being Assertive at Work, in Life, Women as Rescuers and Heroines

Examples of Girls and Women Being Assertive at Work, in Life, Women as Rescuers and Heroines

Complementarians such as John Piper do not feel that women should work as police officers. Some complementarians do not believe women should work in combat positions in the military.

So bizarre and unbiblical has contemporary complementarianism become in the last few years (they have a never-ending list of mishnah-like rules they believe women should follow), that even other complementarians started to sit up and take notice, such as in this post: An Accidental Feminist.

The occasional complementarian troll shows up at spiritual abuse blogs to insist all women are weaker or more inept than men and should therefore not be in positions of control, combat, or assertiveness.

These complementarians feel they are basing their beliefs on the Bible, but the Bible does not limit women in the fashion they do, or insist that all women every where for all time, are delicate flowers who cannot be rugged, tough, or assertive.

Deborah and Jael in the Old Testament were warriors – Deborah was a judge who also led Israel’s military, and Jael killed an enemy combatant.

For more on that, please see these off-site posts:

Deborah – Israel’s Only Female Judge Was Both Wise and Courageous

Deborah and the “No Available Men” Argument

Who Was the Judge of Israel, Deborah or Barak?

What About Deborah? 

Searching for Deborah

None of this is to say that men and women are completely identical or to deny that some biological differences do exist between the sexes. Most men have more upper body strength than most women, for example, but it does not follow from this that it is appropriate, fair, or right to prohibit women from working in certain capacities in secular careers or in the church.

As I told one complementarian troll, the world has moved on, no matter how much complementarians wish it were not so – women are permitted by secular society in nations such as the United States to serve in combat positions in the military or to work as police officers, regardless of what he or John Piper or other complementarians think.

I have never understood the complementarian push back regarding women serving in the military: “But are you really prepared to see caskets come back with American flags on them, knowing there is dead female military personnel inside?”

This question implies several sexist and disturbing things, one of them being, that somehow a female life is more valuable than that of a male, so I object to it on that ground, among others. I would not be more alarmed or more weepy seeing a flag-draped coffin knowing there is a female body inside vs. knowing there is a male body inside.

If a woman is qualified and interested in serving in some role (police, military, whatever it may be), she should be permitted to do so and encouraged by friends, family, community, and church to do so. There is no “biblical” reason which states or even implies that women should not work in “assertive” type roles, such as military or police.

What I see from complementarians on this point – their objection to women serving in combat – usually derives from cultural conditioning, their personal convictions, and is, I suspect, due to sheer sentimentality – not due to what the Bible actually says.

This is a post that I may add to in the future. If or when I come across new links pertaining to the topics at hand, I may edit this post to add new links.

The post is divided into these categories:

-WOMEN IN LAW ENFORCEMENT

-WOMEN WARRIORS / WOMEN IN THE MILITARY

-WOMEN PROTECTORS, HEROINES, RESCUERS

-WOMEN IN SPORTS

-OFF-SITE RESOURCES ADDRESSING THE ISSUES ADDRESSED ON THIS PAGE

–ON YOU TUBE (watch videos of or about some of the women mentioned in this post)