The gender equality paradox

[Crezth]

I think luiz is referring to pre-industrial warfare. Not the modern type, your model only takes into account 20th century conflicts.

Both modern and pre-modern warfare depended on a variety of factors which are not strength and so on. The TNDM uses modern warfare because it is relatively easier to quantify, the relative killing power of weapons is greater, and stats are more accessible.

It's also more relevant to today's warring, which is indeed what it was made for.

Anyway, theoretically lets assume two units consisting of 100 men and 100 woman. They're equally trained, equally disciplined, on equal terrain you get the picture. The only difference is physical, male vesus female. Each individual is equipped with a sword and some chain mail. They are than told to attack each other. Who will win? It is obviously going to be the men. Contrasting the average man to the average woman will see differentials in height, upper body strength and limb length in men's favour. All factors which improve your effectiveness in combat.

Indeed, I understand the reasoning. If you had read my post you would be acquainted with this fact. Such as it is, I know now for a fact that you did not read my post, but you instead went and knee-jerked a response; or, perhaps, you "read" my post, but did not process the words. Anyway:

The entire point of quantifying field battles is that all other things will never be equal. It is the similar tedious mind experiment that "suppose you had 10,000 Wehrmacht and 10,000 Soviets - who would win?" Intuitively you might say "Wehrmacht," if, for example, the Wehrmacht had a documented combat superiority. But all battles analyzed that turn up this so-called superiority, the Wehrmacht was completely or partially overwhelmed. So this might suggest that the German Army was a better killing force, or it might suggest that they were better at inflicting casualties when overwhelmed - higher effectiveness under fire, as it were.

The point is that it is essentially theorycrafting, in a sense, and I do indeed intuitively agree with the assessment. However that's just intuition - it is, in no sense, documented or reasoned beyond "men are stronger." Indeed, if physical strength were all that, it should be curious how some malnourished forces throughout history trounced "stronger" forces thanks to other circumstances (like during, say, the American revolution).

"Well," you might say, "there were other circumstances, Crezth, so they won despite that shortcoming." Yes, indeed. Which is my whole point: your effectiveness as a soldier is not related wholly or even in large part to your innate qualities: it's related to the level of technology your fighting force wields, the tactical and logistical strength of your fighting force, the quality of your leadership, the mobility, and so on. In other words, it's all the unaccountable factors and more, which makes strength alone a suspect indicator of total soldier effectiveness!

luiz never said woman cannot be effective soldiers.
This was his actual quote:

There is a big difference between "ineffective" (useless) and relatively less effective.

Well, indeed, all I'm saying is that it's a knee-jerk reaction based on literally zero understanding of military theory.

You're so tiring. You didn't present any evidence. The other poster you referred to linked to some obscure feminist sci-fi website which makes this claims about Shaka Zulu without offering a single study or paper to back it up. It reads like a poorly written opinion piece, on a fiction website. Anything I write here is as good "evidence" as that. And of course, what if Shaka had some female soldiers? Does that prove that they were as effective? People have used child soldiers in several wars, and still do, does that mean that they are as effective as grown men?

So you offer nothing and yet have the nerve to challenge me? Well, get off your high horse. My claim that in the pre-industrial world women were less effective soldiers is backed by the empirical evidence that all great armies throughout pre-industrial history were composed of men. It's also quite obvious, for people who know what it's like to be a soldier and for people who actually know women (neither of which is your case, obviously) that some requirements of pre-industrial warfare, such as very long forced marches carrying heavy weights, made women even less effective than men, as they have less resistance to that sort of activity (and I'm talking about averages, in case any idiot feels the need to point out that are women who are more resistant than the average men). So my claim is on the side of evidence, yours is on the side of ideology and pose. So offer something more concrete, or go to hell.

So, you have done exactly what I assumed you would, which is to reject my challenge, double down, insist it's OBVIOUS, and then handwave some "evidence" into existence.

Evidence that does not, as I have already established, conclusively prove your point! You say that women were worse soldiers because they weren't in armies, and if they would have made good soldiers, they would have been in armies. Does that really stand to reason? How do you know? How do you know that olden times people weren't prejudiced against women - assumed they would be bad soldiers because they were weaker? Are we really basing our current wisdom based on what people in olden times didn't do because they lacked the vision to do it? So, women are less-effective because people thought they were less-effective, and treated them as such? All this, before rationalism or bothering to wonder what stars are? Empiricism on your side, indeed. You have proved nothing. You have merely asserted, and the evidence that you have cited does not conclusively prove your point one iota.

Your assertion was that women are less-effective soldiers. Now you must show that. You said it's obvious, because they are weaker - we must assume this is relevant because they can't carry swords as well or swing them as well or whatever. This probably also applies to modern warfare - they can hold fewer magazines, survive high G-forces less effectively, and so on. This is not even considering possible negative effects on esprit de corps due to male-female interrelations on the field of battle and other concerns that women are psychologically less durable for battle. More points you didn't even bother making. In other words, there's quite a literature insisting that women even today are less effective soldiers. To your credit, you went for the low-hanging fruit - they can't hold swords and shields as well - and then didn't even back it up. For shame!

To which I responded that that's not a good starting point for qualifying military effectiveness. As I just told Quackers, military effectiveness is barely related to your individual innate skills. If you can draw a distinction between male and female soldiers, it would be scant, indeed, and almost certainly would not outweigh the #1 cardinal rule of warfare for most of history: numbers win. Edit: Indeed, we know from history that the introduction of women to modern warfare, where they might have been suited - by your own admission - and could turn the tides against their foes, such as in trench warfare, was opposed nevertheless because of gender prejudices. So even if these prejudiced people had a point in ancient times, they certainly lacked one in modern times. From this we might conclude that it was, indeed, prejudice that kept women off the field-of-battle, not a calculated analysis!

As for citations on my side: http://www.warandgender.com/chap2pap.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trieu_Thi_Trinh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_ancient_warfare

And so on. The point being, of course, to point out historical accounts of women in warfare; where, even when prejudice (well-reasoned or not) judged against their inclusion on the front lines, they found their uses. Thus we cannot rule out whether women were excluded from service because they were weak, or merely because people thought they were weak.

Suffice it to say that the Roman legions did not win battles by beating their opponents in arm-wrestling contests.

It is extremely obvious that you know literally nothing about this subject, at all, and are basing all of your opinions off of knee-jerk reactions and assumptions. Your contempt for me as a poster is also obvious. But I know you will not respond to this post with anything even approximating a well-reasoned or intellectual rebuttal, so I pre-emptively declare victory in the name of liberalism, Marxism, feminism, and so on.

 

[dutchfire]

You say that women were worse soldiers because they weren't in armies, and if they would have made good soldiers, they would have been in armies. Does that really stand to reason? How do you know? How do you know that olden times people weren't prejudiced against women - assumed they would be bad soldiers because they were weaker? Are we really basing our current wisdom based on what people in olden times didn't do because they lacked the vision to do it? So, women are less-effective because people thought they were less-effective, and treated them as such? All this, before rationalism or bothering to wonder what stars are? Empiricism on your side, indeed. You have proved nothing. You have merely asserted, and the evidence that you have cited does not conclusively prove your point one iota.

African Americans were kept away from fighting roles in the US army prior to the Battle of the Bulge, ergo African Americans are inferior fighters

 

[Hygro]

I think that I'm saying it's the same narrative both ways.

Not sure which "it" you mean :/

 

[luiz]

More blah blah blah
Come on, will someone please notice me and tell me how egalitarian and progressive I am!

You preemptively declare victory do you? Impressive.

Again, you didn't provide any evidence whatsoever that women were as effective soldiers as men. Listing female generals of the past (which we all know did exist, though were rare), or listing examples of groups of female warriors does nothing to address the actual effectiveness. So how can you demand that I produce evidence when you didn't? You're the one trying to argue that, even in the distant past, being stronger, more resistant and able to march longer didn't really matter. You have a very uphill battle if you want to prove your point.

Now, unlike you (obviously), I actually served in the army. I had to march many kilometers carrying tens of kilos on my back, under the tropical sun. There were women in the Army, but they were excused of such long marches. Obviously, some women would be more than capable of resisting such marches, and outperform me and most other males. But most are not. If you can't see why this would matter in the effectiveness of a fighting force, in a context where there are no trucks or trains, you are willingly blind.

Now both you and dutchfire and indeed most people wanting to show off as progressive and egalitarian insist on arguing against a strawman. I never stated that adding women to the army would be detrimental. I never denied that the optimum choice would have been to allow skillful women to serve. I never said prejudice played no role in keeping them out of the Armed Forces. I never denied that they could be a valuable asset to an army, even in the most ancient times.

I merely asserted, trying to illustrate my point about biological differences, that they were not as effective soldiers as men in the past. Because they are in average weaker, and less resistant (non-controversial points). Doesn't mean they were useless (trying to pretend that's what I meant is to argue against a stupid strawman).

When I say that the fact that all great armies always used men back my assertion, I don't mean that as "proof" that not allowing women is good, because I never endorsed that position. I meant that as evidence that men were indeed always considered more effective, so this is a general consensus and the burden of proving it wrong is entirely on you.

 

[luiz]

African Americans were kept away from fighting roles in the US army prior to the Battle of the Bulge, ergo African Americans are inferior fighters

Oh, it was taking some time until someone from the PC Gestapo said it is all actually about racism! Those who don't agree with dutchfire's crusade against a strawman are actually racists! Genius!

Hey, thanks for clarifying my doubt about you!

 

[Quackers]

Both modern and pre-modern warfare depended on a variety of factors which are not strength and so on. The TNDM uses modern warfare because it is relatively easier to quantify, the relative killing power of weapons is greater, and stats are more accessible.

It's also more relevant to today's warring, which is indeed what it was made for.

So you're using a system which uses examples from the 20th century and using those findings as a general rule about pre-industrial warfare. That doesn't seem appropriate.
Woman soldiers are more effective now than in the past, the rifle is a great leveler on the battlefield. In comparison, hand-to-hand battles like in the Roman era, or anything up to the age of mass use of gunpowder - woman were less effective in general. I don't know why you're getting so agitated about this.

The entire point of quantifying field battles is that all other things will never be equal. It is the similar tedious mind experiment that "suppose you had 10,000 Wehrmacht and 10,000 Soviets - who would win?" Intuitively you might say "Wehrmacht," if, for example, the Wehrmacht had a documented combat superiority. But all battles analyzed that turn up this so-called superiority, the Wehrmacht was completely or partially overwhelmed. So this might suggest that the German Army was a better killing force, or it might suggest that they were better at inflicting casualties when overwhelmed - higher effectiveness under fire, as it were.

The point is that it is essentially theorycrafting, in a sense, and I do indeed intuitively agree with the assessment. However that's just intuition - it is, in no sense, documented or reasoned beyond "men are stronger." Indeed, if physical strength were all that, it should be curious how some malnourished forces throughout history trounced "stronger" forces thanks to other circumstances (like during, say, the American revolution).

"Well," you might say, "there were other circumstances, Crezth, so they won despite that shortcoming." Yes, indeed. Which is my whole point: your effectiveness as a soldier is not related wholly or even in large part to your innate qualities: it's related to the level of technology your fighting force wields, the tactical and logistical strength of your fighting force, the quality of your leadership, the mobility, and so on. In other words, it's all the unaccountable factors and more, which makes strength alone a suspect indicator of total soldier effectiveness!

Wow, mind blown Crezth: i never knew other variables existed on the battlefield which determined a sides victory!
There is nothing controversial about anything i'm saying. Strength is a great thing to have on the battlefield, woman in general, have less of it - therefore they aren't as effective. I never said it was the most important factor but it helps if you can actually fireman lift your injured comrade...

 

[Crezth]

So you're using a system which uses examples from the 20th century and using those findings as a general rule about pre-industrial warfare. That doesn't seem appropriate.
Woman soldiers are more effective now than in the past, the rifle is a great leveler on the battlefield. In comparison, hand-to-hand battles like in the Roman era, or anything up to the age of mass use of gunpowder - woman were less effective in general. I don't know why you're getting so agitated about this.

Wow, mind blown Crezth: i never knew other variables existed on the battlefield which determined a sides victory!
There is nothing controversial about anything i'm saying. Strength is a great thing to have on the battlefield, woman in general, have less of it - therefore they aren't as effective. I never said it was the most important factor but it helps if you can actually fireman lift your injured comrade...

I'm not getting agitated about the assertion. I accept the logic of the assertion, though I challenge it. I'm getting agitated about the attitude, because luiz is leveraging this position into his regressive shitposting and prick-waving.

It is all the more frustrating that he makes these declarations and then has the gall to insist that he doesn't even need to back it up. It is perfect, untainted idiocy.

For the umpteen-bazillionth time: the point of contention is not that women are, on average, weaker than men. It's that female soldiers, throughout history, were less effective than male soldiers. This is thoroughly undemonstrated. All I asked was that he prove this point. He said "I DON'T HAVE TO, IT'S OBVIOUS." I then described one point of view about quantifying military performance, and gave examples of how bicep size shouldn't necessarily correlate to army success, and he retorted with "WELL I SERVED IN THE ARMY." It doesn't take a genius - much less a liberal feminist progressive smug - to realize that this is a flawed, obnoxious line of argumentation.

As luiz's last several posts demonstrate, he is either incapable or unwilling (perhaps both) to engage this issue at all. As such, I post-emptively declare victory on the grounds that I have won, by default, a devastating victory in a battle of wits against an unarmed and hapless opponent.

 

[Hygro]

I saw someone do this on facebook today, only they started posting pictures of random things, one after another. It pissed the other guy off so much. The funny thing was, it was over literally the exact same issue. I was like, internet, I need a break.

 

[Traitorfish]

So you're using a system which uses examples from the 20th century and using those findings as a general rule about pre-industrial warfare. That doesn't seem appropriate.
Woman soldiers are more effective now than in the past, the rifle is a great leveler on the battlefield. In comparison, hand-to-hand battles like in the Roman era, or anything up to the age of mass use of gunpowder - woman were less effective in general. I don't know why you're getting so agitated about this.

Wars aren't actually fought by men-in-general, though, are they? They're fought by men-in-particular, who exhibit more variety amongst themselves than there is between genders-in-general. So that would seem to complicate things.

 

[luiz]

Some attention here buddies! I'm one of the egalitarian and progressive kids, why don't you come and say how much I'm good and protect me against those nasty people saying I'm dumb!

Well where is your evidence that women were as effective? You're the one arguing against a long-established position, that derives from solid logic (as you recognize). If one wants to challenge a long and virtually universally-accepted position (except by ideological idiots, it would seem), then the burden of proof is entirely on this person making the challenge. Showing that there are other factors to victory other than sheer physical prowess is obviously irrelevant. You have to show that physical power (including not only strength but resistance and the ability to march longer) didn't matter in the pre-industrial world, because only then would men and women be equally effective. In other words, you have to argue against logic and common sense and military theory as accepted by every single theorist.

So show some evidence*, or go open a thread bragging about how egalitarian and progressive you are. I'm sure a lot of people here will happily join the circle-jerk.

*Lists of female soldiers are about as good evidence as lists of child soldiers. But hey, given your "vast" expertise on military matters maybe you think they're just as effective as grown men too.

Ah, the internet. Here I am "discussing" the military and women with a dork who knows nothing about either!

 

[Farm Boy]

Not sure which "it" you mean :/

The issue that biological sex has some differences that society tends to amplify then solidify as norms, and sometimes that amplification, while having a root cause at the individual level based on tendencies of development amplifies into something completely unrelated and sometimes completely stupid. Like women can't vote because reasons. Yet not all the differences are innately harmful, and it in fact may not be a failure of society if males are more interested on the numbers with becoming engineers and females are more interested on the numbers with becoming early childhood teachers. That might possibly be an expression of people selecting lifestyles that increase their personal levels of actualization.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Well where is your evidence that women were as effective? You're the one arguing against a long-established position, that derives from solid logic (as you recognize).

You know, I can think of some pretty racist long-established positions that were shown to be false. Anyway, there is evidence that men are physically stronger than women on average (kind of a small sample size though. N=8? Anyone else got a better study?). However, what the issue of contention is whether there is any evidence that this is a significant stumbling block for female soldiers? Is it not possible to compensate in another way, e.g. fighting smarter not harder? That's kind of the entire underpinning of asymmetric warfare.

 

[luiz]

You know, I can think of some pretty racist long-established positions that were shown to be false. Anyway, there is evidence that men are physically stronger than women on average (kind of a small sample size though. N=8? Anyone else got a better study?). However, what the issue of contention is whether there is any evidence that this is a significant stumbling block for female soldiers? Is it not possible to compensate in another way, e.g. fighting smarter not harder? That's kind of the entire underpinning of asymmetric warfare.

The racist science has long since been debunked, though, because a lot of evidence was presented. Now we know there are no demonstrable intellectual difference between the races (in fact there are no different human races), but we do know that there are physical differences between men and women.

As for your second point... again, we're talking about averages. Of course a better equipped, trained and generally smarter female army could beat a male army. Nobody here denied some women could be excellent soldiers, or that adding women to the Armed Forces could increase its overall effectiveness.

The point of contention is that, ceteris paribus, men were more effective soldiers than women. If you argue that women would have to compensate for their physical disadvantages by being smarter, or better trained or equipped or whatever, you are implicitly admitting that men were more effective soldiers in the pre-industrial world.

To prove that they were not, one would have to demonstrate that being stronger, more resistant and able to march longer under harsher conditions did not matter in pre-industrial warfare. Only then would there be equality. Obviously, this can't be demonstrated, because there was no equality whatsoever.

That people would actually deny such obvious truth is utterly bizarre.

 

[luiz]

And this is for all other interested parties as well:

Anyway, there is evidence that men are physically stronger than women on average (kind of a small sample size though. N=8? Anyone else got a better study?).

Yep.

Women's lower body strength tends to be more closely matched to men's, while their upper body strength is often just half that of men's upper body strength. In a 1993 study exploring gender differences in muscle makeup, female participants exhibited 52 percent of men's upper body strength, which the researchers partially attributed to their smaller muscles and a higher concentration of fatty tissues in the top half of the female body [source: Miller et al]. Another study published in 1999 similarly found women had 40 percent less upper body skeletal muscle [source: Janssen]. Even controlling for athletic aptitude doesn't tip the upper body strength scales in favor of the female; an experiment comparing the hand grip strength of non-athletic male participants versus elite women athletes still revealed a muscle power disparity in favor of the menfolk [source: Leyk et al].

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/human-biology/men-vs-women-upper-body-strength1.htm

So women are only half as strong as men on the upper body.
Yeah, I'm sure that didn't matter at all in ancient warfare!

 

[Hygro]

The issue that biological sex has some differences that society tends to amplify then solidify as norms, and sometimes that amplification, while having a root cause at the individual level based on tendencies of development amplifies into something completely unrelated and sometimes completely stupid. Like women can't vote because reasons. Yet not all the differences are innately harmful, and it in fact may not be a failure of society if males are more interested on the numbers with becoming engineers and females are more interested on the numbers with becoming early childhood teachers. That might possibly be an expression of people selecting lifestyles that increase their personal levels of actualization.

Oh well yeah! The first half that you wrote was the whole point. That even if you can point to a biological origin to certain social behaviors that biological origin might be completely obsolete. Like in my scenario, it's because there was a time when we were simultaneously settled enough but small enough that a single person's tyranny was sufficient if that person really was the Gilgameshian brute of lore. Things that might not even be personality but a matter of practicality.

So in the modern era such a split might be as you put before, "echoes".

And the key to having a society that does sort itself by real biological sex (if any matter) differences is first to achieve enough equality that people choose them without feeling pressured. That pressure is likely sorting folks the wrong way regardless. And basically we can't have soft women and hard capitalism and socio-politco-economic equality all at the same time. Pick two.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh well yeah! The first half that you wrote was the whole point. That even if you can point to a biological origin to certain social behaviors that biological origin might be completely obsolete. Like in my scenario, it's because there was a time when we were simultaneously settled enough but small enough that a single person's tyranny was sufficient if that person really was the Gilgameshian brute of lore. Things that might not even be personality but a matter of practicality.

So in the modern era such a split might be as you put before, "echoes".

And the key to having a society that does sort itself by real biological sex (if any matter) differences is first to achieve enough equality that people choose them without feeling pressured. That pressure is likely sorting folks the wrong way regardless. And basically we can't have soft women and hard capitalism and socio-politco-economic equality all at the same time. Pick two.

The echoes thing works over time and the development of civilizations, but I think I specifically intended "echoes" to apply to average developmental differences. With the analogy of my niece and vocal skills compared to my son and motor skills. That means I'm using the wrong word, echoes works exactly as you have interpreted it. I should have used feedback, something that gets a little more pronounced with every cycle instead of a little fainter. Self-selection of activity and happiness, if varied by average between biological sex, may over enough years and feedback cycles cause incredibly complex 20 to 30(or more) year-long decisions on things like vocation to have pronounced, rather than subtle differences in election rates between peoples of different biological sex.

And you can have those three things, I would argue. You merely need to not hamper freedom of choice.

 

[Akka]

For the umpteen-bazillionth time: the point of contention is not that women are, on average, weaker than men. It's that female soldiers, throughout history, were less effective than male soldiers.

I... It's... I mean...

Wow.

The level of purposeful stupidity in this thread has really overwhelmed my ability to cope. Isn't it considered trolling when it reach such mind-blowing proportions ?

 

[Flying Pig]

That wasn't the point I was arguing... dear god, this has become a bit of a mess.

 

[luiz]

I... It's... I mean...

Wow.

The level of purposeful stupidity in this thread has really overwhelmed my ability to cope. Isn't it considered trolling when it reach such mind-blowing proportions ?

Yes, it's trolling, but unfortunately it isn't considered as such on CFC. It's mind boggling.

That poster you quoted is one of the worst offenders, but is by no means the only one. This thread is golden material for a study on purposeful stupidity and posing.

And of course, if we think men are stronger than women we are actually racists.

 

[Hygro]

Well, you did implicitly say that racism was the correct default position until proven wrong