{"id":27885,"date":"2014-09-18T10:34:59","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T14:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=27885"},"modified":"2017-03-18T09:23:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T13:23:57","slug":"no-women-in-the-infantry-says-female-usmc-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/09\/18\/no-women-in-the-infantry-says-female-usmc-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"No women in the infantry, says female USMC officer"},"content":{"rendered":"

You have to admire the courage of Captain Lauren F. Serrano<\/a> for publishing this opinion article in the Marine Corps Gazette<\/em>. She clearly states why women do not belong in the infantry, and explains the few exceptions (Israel and the Kurds have female infantry troops). This may mark the moment at which she stopped progressing toward her next promotion, however, as what she says will be incredibly unpopular politically:<\/p>\n

While reading the February issue of the Marine Corps Gazette<\/em>, I skimmed past the \u201cBe Bold\u201d advertisement calling for readers to submit articles that challenge a Marine Corps policy or way of doing business. Immediately a current \u201chot topic\u201d came to mind, but as usual I quickly discarded it because I have purposely avoided publicly disagreeing with the passionate opinions of many of my female peers and friends. After weeks of contemplation and debate, I am \u201cbeing bold\u201d and coming clean: I am a female Marine officer and I do not believe women should serve in the infantry. I recognize that this is a strong statement that will be vehemently challenged by many. I have not come to this opinion lightly and I do not take joy in taking a stance that does not support equal opportunity for all. I have spent countless hours discussing this topic with many civilians and Marines and have discovered that a large number of people agree with the arguments in this article but do not wish to get involved in the public discussion. Interestingly, most of the people who want to incorporate women into infantry are civilians or young, inexperienced Marines. Most of the more seasoned Marines with whom I have spoken tend to oppose the idea of women in infantry\u2014perhaps this is failure to adapt or perhaps it is experienced-based reasoning. National Public Radio<\/em>\u2019s recent segment, \u201cLooking for a Few Good (Combat-Ready) Women,\u201d stated, \u201cCol Weinberg admits there\u2019s anecdotal evidence that female Marines, who make up 7 percent of the force, aren\u2019t rushing to serve in ground combat.\u201d If the infantry had opened to women while I was still a midshipman or second lieutenant I probably would have jumped at the opportunity because of the novelty, excitement, and challenge; but, to my own disappointment, my views have drastically changed with experience and knowledge. Acknowledging that women are different (not just physically) than men is a hard truth that plays an enormous role in this discussion. This article addresses many issues regarding incorporating women into the infantry that have yet to be discussed in much of the current discourse that has focused primarily on the physical standards.<\/p>\n

Before you disagree, remember that war is not a fair business. Adversaries attempt to gain an advantage over their enemies by any means possible. Enemies do not necessarily abide by their adversary\u2019s moral standards or rules of engagement. Although in today\u2019s world many gory, violent war tactics are considered immoral, archaic, and banned by international law or the Geneva Conventions, adversaries still must give themselves the greatest advantage possible in order to ensure success. For the Marine Corps, this means ensuring that the infantry grunt (03XX) units are the strongest, most powerful, best trained, and most prepared physically and mentally to fight and win. Although perhaps advantageous to individuals and the national movement for complete gender equality, incorporating women into infantry units is not in the best interest of the Marine Corps or U.S. national security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update<\/strong>: Forgot to H\/T The Armorer<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You have to admire the courage of Captain Lauren F. Serrano for publishing this opinion article in the Marine Corps Gazette. She clearly states why women do not belong in the infantry, and explains the few exceptions (Israel and the Kurds have female infantry troops). This may mark the moment at which she stopped progressing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13],"tags":[31,1103,514,43],"class_list":["post-27885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-usa","tag-army","tag-infantry","tag-usmc","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7fL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27885"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27888,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27885\/revisions\/27888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}