GOP Congressman: Women In Infantry Roles Could ‘Impair’ Missions Because Of Their ‘Nature’

[DonViejo]

By Zack Beauchamp posted from ThinkProgress Security on Jan 9, 2013 at 11:30 am

Women are physically unfit to serve in combat, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) claimed during a Tuesday appearance on the Laura Ingraham radio show. Cotton, who was last seen suggesting that Iraq might have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, recognized female accomplishments in non-infantry combat roles like helicopter pilot and that women have fought and performed well in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Cotton nonetheless concludes that women should be legally prohibited from competing with men for infantry combat positions:

To have women serving in infantry, though, could impair the mission-essential tasks of those units. And that’s been proven in study after study, it’s nature, upper body strength, and physical movements, and speed, and endurance, and so forth.

Listen:

-snip-

Cotton appears to assume that allowing women to serve in the infantry would necessitate a double standard in physical testing for male and female soldiers, but that’s not so. A Marine pilot program training women as combat officers subjects them to the same grueling physical training as their male classmates. Though the two women in that program didn’t pass (along with 26 of the 107 men enrolled in the course), many women are more than physically capable of performing in combat roles. Indeed, a survey of several NATO allies that allowed women in “frontline roles” in Afghanistan found that female officers caused “no significant problems,” and actually performed better than their male counterparts in intelligence-gathering roles. Preventing women who pass the same physical tests as their male counterparts from serving in the combat infantry is sexism, plain and simple.

When the Department of Defense loosened its prohibition on women in combat in early 2012, then-Presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA) said he had “concerns” about women serving in combat roles because of “the emotions that were involved.”

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/01/08/1418451/gop-congressman-womens-nature-means-they-should-be-banned-from-infantry/

[redstatebluegirl]

1. Please Proceed

They just keep digging a deeper hole with women....

[Downwinder]

2. Men because of their Nature might be unfit

to serve in congress.

[MotherPetrie]

3. I'll never understand how any woman can buy into this obscene war crap, period

[Scuba]

4. I agree that women should not perform in combat roles.

Neither should men.

[yellowcanine]

5. No thread on this topic is complete without "Newt's Merry Giraffe Hunters"

Newt Gingrich's Merry Giraffe Hunters

"If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for thirty days because they get infections and they don't have upper body strength. I mean, some do, but they're relatively rare. On the other hand, men are basically little piglets, you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it, doesn't matter, you know. These things are very real. On the other hand, if combat means being on an Aegis-class cruiser managing the computer controls for twelve ships and their rockets, a female may be again dramatically better than a male who gets very, very frustrated sitting in a chair all the time because males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes."

http://www.rusbasan.com/Humor/Newt.html

A visit to this link is well worth it just to see the "informal poll" which is hysterical.

[NewJeffCT]

9. so, if I've never had the urge to hunt giraffes

does that mean I'm really a woman? Or, I'm gay and didn't know it? And, how do I go out giraffe-hunting if I'm wallowing like a pig in a trench for 30 days?

[Adsos Letter]

13. "males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes."

And this explains the utter lack of giraffes in my neighborhood. I've just been doing my part.

[lunatica]

16. LOL!

We have the best men in the world here. I haven't seen a giraffe walking down the street in ages!

[yellowcanine]

22. Yeah I think that point was made back when Newt made that comment.

Still funny though.

[Paladin]

6. Knuckle-Drag Yourself Into The Late 20th Century, Rep. Cotton.

You can work on the 21st century a little further down the line.

These numbskulls just can't help themselves, can they?

[alp227]

14. Psst...I wonder if he has muscles of cotton. (giggle)

[Paladin]

18. I Don't Know About His Muscles, But His Brain? No Doubt About It. (nt)

[all american girl]

7. Sorry dumbasses, women are already in combat

Women go with combat troops now. They are in convoys moving stuff from one place to another, with the men, getting shot at. They wear the same armor gear that the men wear and carry the same weapons. Get over yourselves.

Rant off.

[grilled onions]

8. Viet Cong Women

You used to read stories from GI'S in the "Nam Zone and they had first hand experience with the females of the land. They were mean,ruthless and got the job done without a fancy uniform,fretting over hormone issues or worrying about the man/woman pecking order of the day. What a woman does not excel in one area she can make it up for in another. The "barefoot in the kitchen" crowd seem to look for any excuse to keep women under their thumb. Independence is a threat to their little world.

[Rozlee]

10. Not to mention that what does upper body strength and other such considerations really have

to do with being able to carry out the mission of killing? It's like the fuckin' NRA says. A gun is the great equalizer if you're small or a woman. It doesn't take a steroidal pumped up guy with shoulders as wide as a damn door to kill the enemy. We got our asses kicked out of Vietnam by guys that were a lot less bulky than ours were. While our guys were doing pull ups, theirs were learning how to stalk the jungle quietly without sounding like a herd of rhinos. I was only a nurse in the Gulf Wars, but I didn't see how push-ups and upper body strength helped those guys that went through our evac out any. In my opinion, you stood a chance of making a better target if you were big and pumped rather than small and with less mass.

[LiberalFighter]

11. Would he be willing to compete with the women in any physical combat?

[Always Randy]

12. Michele Obama can whip him in arm wrestling

and most yoga practitioners can hold an asana longer than most military strongmen----and it means more to have that lean strength

[cecilfirefox]

15. I can understand some of the discussions about woman in these positions-

And some of it is, I think, not totally illegitimate. Issues arising of fraternization, what happens when the soldiers are captured, what sort of degradation might an enemy put upon female soldiers, and how that violence on the female soldiers can be used against male captives, etc. You get my idea. Although I think Representative Cotton is an asshat on most of his general views, and I'm not particularly against allowing women into infantry positions, I think there are some legitimate issues to be raised.

* Ducks for cover! *

[Sunlei]

17. Arkansas. This is what a state gets when PAC/republican big money crams in a pinhead like Cotton.

[Jakes Progress]

19. Assholes in congress could "impair" the country because of their ignorance.

[Odin2005]

20. The Larry Summers school of sexist stupidity.

[craigmatic]

21. I'm for women in combat. What's so special about their blood that it can't be shed for this country

like the men? If you put on that uniform you should have to face the same dangers as everyone else. If you're not willing to then you shouldn't be in the military.