I recently read a few articles about female military members in the US in court to allow themselves to be placed in front line combat roles, I've heard about this in the UK military as well but not to the extent of court cases. I'll base this discussion off the UK situation as here there is no overriding rules controlling it only the moral and practical implications viewed by those in charge stopping it. As a note I'm more writing this in reply to some of the strong views to making everything open to everyone rather than having a strong view to stopping it if you get what I mean.
The current uk rules are that Women are allowed in front line units but not those that actively seek out the enemy "to close with and to kill the enemy face to face".
I can see the one side of the argument that in a modern society we are all equal and should enjoy equal opportunities and in mho if someone wants to serve their country have at it, but that's where my support for that side ends and makes me support the current rules.
In a realistic non-overly politically correct world, we are all equal opportunity but we are not all the same neither physically or mentally. An it's an undeniable fact that men and women are different. denying that on average males have greater strength is like denying that on average women live longer lives.
in 2002 MOD research showed that only 1% of trained women soldiers were physically fit enough to qualify for the front line and found that women "required more provocation and were more likely to fear consequences of aggressive behaviour".
It also showed that about 70% of all posts in the UK army are open to women
This is a quote from the MoD 'The key issue is the potential impact of having both men and women in small teams. Under the conditions of high-intensity close-quarter battle, team cohesion becomes of much greater importance, and failure can have far-reaching and grave consequences.'We are not talking about barring women from the front line. This is about those small teams who fix bayonets and grenades and charge into a bunker to kill the enemy.'
I've also read articles about psychological concerns not on the part of the female soldiers but the male ones, fighting along side female members of the forces in life or death situations. Some of the reports suggest that some male soldiers would be more inclined to take action that would risk the peoples lives if a female soldier was in danger, as part of physiological instinct, similar to fight or flight. I've heard of extra stress due to the situation as well, but have only read that in passing so I can't comment too much.
Those are the fact's I've seen, so my question to you would be given that the positions in discussion are literally Life & Death, being that the research suggests that the vast majority of female soldiers would be at a significant disadvantage fighting male combatants and could possibly lead to unnecessary friendly casualties do the moral implications of saying "no you cannot have this job because of your sex" outweigh the potential risks. There is also the question of whether to allow the 1% who are capable into the roles, but then there are the implications of having mixed sex units etc, which seem to suggest negative effects at the present time. My personal opinion is while the research states what it does and the top brass are saying it would be detrimental to operations and peoples lives, things should stay as they are, their the ones in the know and I'm sure if they could increase their front line troops recruitment pool by 50% they would be happy to accept it.
I've included as many viewpoints as I can think in the poll