• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Advice for women on BMQ and other courses [MERGED]

  • Thread starter Thread starter the patriot
  • Start date Start date
GSF523 said:
Hi all well as a female i can see both sides of the story. For instance we had some in our group that thought that she could get over that wall in the obstacle course by herself and in the end was not able to and was injured in the process. For a women to survive the reserves or reg force she has to be like a man in order to get the respect of her peers. i know that I was getting into a job that was male orientated and i knew to take the blows and didn't expect them to help me in anyway. I tried everything until i dropped, while there were others that whined and complained and expected the men to help them and carry almost everything. By the end of The infantry course i had the respect of all, because I didn't expect anyone to do anyhting for me, i did better then some men in there and was the best then all the women in out platoon, they siad i was just like one of the guys.   :threat: I did the best i could and i did excellent, i trained for it before i got into it and came out better but i made sure everyhting was done so that we couldn't get into trouble at all. The other guys didn't like the other girls because they didn't try and did give it their 110% best.

so somew women do belong and some others don't in combat arms.

Jen :salute:


I have to disagree on that note, i survived 3 years infantry reserves and 7 years of artillery regs and i never had to be anything but myself, a woman, and thats what got respect from my fellow soldiers.

I have no idea what you said in that sentance, try spell check next time.

Jane
 
This is an interesting quote from the CROP survey that was completed in 2004...

"CROP survey results suggest that soldiers tend to be traditionalists in regard to gender and minorities. In comparison to Canadian
society, soldiers are less supportive of affirmative action for women and minorities. In the hiring of new employees they tend to believe that experience and ability, not quotas, should be the primary considerations. They tend to support sexual stereotypes and wish to preserve and
maintain their own cultural traditions and customs. Lastly, soldiers tend to consider national superiority to be important and to see themselves as superior to foreigners. These attitudes and values may, at times, result in conflict with Canadian values as expressed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and supported by the CF (Duty with Honour, 2003, p. 28) and the Army (The Army Strategy, 2002, p. 19). Perhaps surprisingly, men and women in the Army agree that the best candidate, regardless of gender or minority status, should be selected for a job. Not only do men and women agree on this issue but both groups feel more strongly about this than does the Canadian population."

 
The only people who ever make a big todo out of females in combat...or in uniform are the press and the bigwigs.

No one else really cares. They, like everyone else, are expected to hold up their end of the job. Thats all there is to it.

Folks, we're spinning tires here.

Slim
 
I don't think there was enough respondants or a large enough cross section for the CROP survey to be relevent. The biggest mistake we can take away from it is to treat it as gospel and make decisions based on it. I can't help but think that the only thing that will truly come from it, good or bad, is that the authors will get promoted and become experts on th lecture circut.
 
simple line from the movie GI Jane says it all:

"how strong do you have to be to pull a trigger?"
 
A 26% response rate leaves a pretty significant margin for statistical error. A result this low (in any poll) raises the question of whether or not the only ones responding are those who have an axe to grind.

Cheers
 
Well since respondents don't know the questions beforehand, and since this wasn't a survey that was specific to discrimination, I rather doubt that those who did respond did so because they had an axe to grind.

But regardless of the low response rate, I do find the last two sentences in that quote interesting and it does reinforce my own personal experiences in that I find discrimination to be far more prevalent on civvie street than I do in the military.

Cheers!
 
Just got back from an Ex and I'll tell you that not one of the 5 media pers that came out specifically asked to speak to a female.  I recall the TDV episode they shot in Gagetown wrt Tac Hel, and they never asked me specifically to take part because I was a woman.  They had two guys and me because we had enough presence on camera.  It had nothing to do with me being a girls, and in fact they never asked the age old "what's it like being a girl in the military."  Of course, the interviewer did mention that she's heard that women made better pilots.  I corrected her and told her that we made better "student" pilots because we weren't as hard headed and easier to teach (just repeated what my instructors told me).

mo-litia,

Sorry for the late reply.  No email while on ex.  WRT your infanteer reference (that it's not a word) and that you were going out with your "fireteer" friends, making a joke about the PC-ness of it all, you may not realize that this trade in itself has a non-gender name -- firefighter.  Sure, some may call them firemen, but in the traditional sense, that would be representative of a stoker, or one who tends to the fire.  A firefighter puts them out.  This was drilled into me by my now retired uncle who spent several years as a firefighter in Ottawa.

As for everything else, we seem to be repeating and going in circles.  I think if we want to address the issue of harassment we should go to another thread -- making sure that the issue is addressed for both sexes.
 
Guys (and girls)

I think that this has gone about as far as its gonna go. Everything after this point is just squeeling tires cause you want to watch the smoke. So I'm going to lock it. If anyone has anything further to add, and its relevant and hasn't yet been said, PM me and we'll chat. Otherwise I'm shutting this down.

Cheers All

Slim
 
Remuster said:
Thats funny, When I taught there, I had a lot of recruits that tried that but I made the ones in my section use theirs and I checked them everyday. Maybe I'm an ***hole but a lot of recruits look for the least amount of work possible and Its funny when they think that they are fooling their instructors.

Its not everyone but you always have a few lazy people on every course.

Our instructors on IAP did the same - if your things weren't used you'd get in trouble. Having two of everything is just a pain in the ass - there isn't enough room for it.

Ghost said:
LOL they tried to teach me that in grade 3.

They gave me 3 pieces of nylon to tie up and well lets just say I threw away one piece and wraped 2 around each other but the teacher wasn't to thrilled.

So yeah my brading skills are about on par with my folding laundry skills and wrapping presents skill.

Wow... You're a general, eh?
 
I know this has been beaten to death, but I found this article interesting.  I will copy it in it's entirety as I got it from a DWAN site.  See my comments at the end...

PUBLICATION:  The Chronicle-Herald
DATE:  2005.03.14
SECTION:  Opinion
PAGE:  A7
SOURCE:  On Target
BYLINE:  Scott Taylor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Female soldier drive just futile

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE MILITARY recently released a couple of internal studies that indicate that women continue to feel marginalized by their male counterparts within the <Canadian> Forces - particularly in front-line combat units. Apparently, a large number of those Forces members polled also had difficulty accepting gays, lesbians and ethnic minorities among their ranks, while general officers were viewed with mistrust. In response to the negative feedback, the Defence Department spin doctors immediately trotted out their usual list of confusing statistics, pie charts and hollow promises that the <Canadian> Forces remain committed to the policy of gender integration. What these public affairs officers count on is that nobody remembers the Defence Department's previously stated goals.

A review of the 27-year-long <Canadian> Forces project to integrate women into combat units reveals an exercise in abject futility.

The initial studies on redefining gender restrictions within the military were sparked by the <Canadian> Human Rights Act in 1978. Two years later, these studies had evolved into a program called Service Women in Non-traditional Environments and Roles which involved limited, supervised trials of female recruits in various front-line occupations. The results were less than encouraging and in some cases outright failures. But by 1989, federal human rights watchdogs were losing patience with the military, and the Forces were ordered to implement "full integration . . . with all due speed."

The federal officials, however, allowed the Defence Department a full decade to remove "all discriminating employment barriers" with the exception of service aboard submarines.

Fast-forward 10 years to 1999. The report card on the military's integration came back stamped with a giant F. Despite the removal of restrictions, and the much-publicized "success stories" of those female pioneers who had completed battle school and fighter-pilot training, there had been no followup wave of women wishing to join the Forces.

In fact, although the percentage of women in the military had increased slightly - from 9.9 per cent to 10.8 per cent over that same decade, the total troop strength had been reduced from 90,000 to 60,000. If one crunches the numbers, the lifting of barriers actually resulted in 2,430 fewer women in uniform, and most of the proportional increases had occurred in the "traditional" roles such as support trades and medical staff, not within the combat arms.

Instead of pointing out to the human rights officials that <Canadian> women were obviously not attracted to careers in combat trades, the brass vowed to redouble their efforts.

Former <army> commander and later chief of defence staff Maurice Baril led the charge personally, vowing to increase female representation by 2009 to a full 25 per cent of combat units and a whopping 28 per cent of the <Canadian> Forces overall. To achieve this, Baril pulled out all the stops; fitness standards were "adjusted" (read, lowered) to compensate for the natural disparity in men's and women's upper-body strength; the ban on women serving in submarines was lifted; and as proof of the army's sincerity in welcoming women into the fold, $2.8 million and a panel of male officers were assigned to the development of a "combat bra!"

When the dust settled on Baril's initiatives, the <Canadian> Forces could boast that they now have the lowest set of physical fitness standards of any military in the world (ever!). The media blitz generated zero interest; not one woman opted to sail on subs and the combat bra was declared a bust and cancelled on the drawing board.

In February's federal budget, it was announced that the <Canadian> Forces will recruit and train an additional 5,000 troops to flesh out the ranks of our badly under-strength military. Most of these soldiers will be earmarked for the <army> in general and combat arms regiments in particular.

Despite the fact that over the past several years our military recruiters have been unable to even keep pace with normal attrition, DND public affairs types are once again heralding this surge of 5,000 new troops as an opportunity to address the gender imbalance. My suggestion is to quit whipping a dead horse. Instead of trying to achieve a politically driven agenda, recruiters must simply seek out the best qualified candidates - regardless of gender, sexual persuasion or ethnic background.

It is interesting to note that <Canada> ranks second in the world with regards to the ratio of female to male soldiers. The only country with a higher representation is the United States with 14 per cent, and they still do not allow women to serve in combat units. Go figure.

The last two paragraphs summarize my thoughts and the whole situation nicely.

Here's by beef: why would they get guys to design a bra?  It's bad enough I have to wear unisex (read: male) long underwear that was obviously designed by a man who thought highly of himself. ;D ;D
 
Now THIS article is nothing but a piece of trash written by someone who has an axe to grind with the CF. NO WHERE in the study does it ever say that women feel marginalized. It's a shame really that Mr. Taylor is allowed to sling his unsubstantiated trash in main stream media. This story is NOT based on fact. He should keep his Geraldo Rivera type journalism to his own rag of a magazine and let REAL journalists write stories for newspapers. I think the editor of the Chronicle Herald really needs to take a second look at who he allows to have bylines in his publication because allowing Mr. Taylor to write for them is certainly not helping the reputation of his paper.
 
I agree.

I know many good female soldiers most in support trades, but quite a few in the cbt arms. Being a dirty sweaty smelly infanteer isn't exactly a dream job for most 18 yr old girls either...
 
Shows how much I pay attention.  Never even noticed who wrote it.
 
This is just a rehash of earlier stories about this study which ran in the Canadian Press and many other media outlets, with the usual axe-grinding thrown in for good measure. This practice, in which Mr. Taylor has indulged frequently in the past, is known in the media trade as scalping and is not highly regarded by real reporters. And in defence of the media, it should be pointed out that he is no more highly regarded by other journalists than he is by the troops.
But here's my question: where is the justification for this part of his column?

"When the dust settled on Baril's initiatives, the <Canadian> Forces could boast that they now have the lowest set of physical fitness standards of any military in the world (ever!). "

If anyone out there is tired of reading this sort of thing, I'd suggest they write the Chronicle-Herald and point out that this is almost certainly incorrect (I'm sure someone on this board can provide chapter and verse on how incorrect) and that it calls the credibility of the entire column, if not the entire newspaper, into question.
 
What are the current numbers of females in the Army combat trades?
I have no idea.
I know that in the Navy there are quite a few females up to and including the Master Seaman rank, but peters out after.
As for the officers, the Navy is desperate to get a command qualified Regular Force Female, but it hasn't happened yet.
Reasons unknown to me and no I will not speculate.
 
FSTO said:
What are the current numbers of females in the Army combat trades?
I have no idea.
I know that in the Navy there are quite a few females up to and including the Master Seaman rank, but peters out after.
As for the officers, the Navy is desperate to get a command qualified Regular Force Female, but it hasn't happened yet.
Reasons unknown to me and no I will not speculate.
From http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/Land_Force/English/1_6_3.asp

Size of the Army
Approximate strength of Army (Regular Force): 19, 500
Approximate strength of Army (Reserve Force): 15, 500
Approximate number of civilians employed by the Army: 4, 200


Employment Equity
Number of women in the Army: 1, 781
Number of women in the Combat Arms
(Infantry, Armoured, Artillery, Engineers) 252


 
Thanks GGBoy for your "insight"  ;). I, for one, am in the middle of writing to the Chronicle Herald as we speak (wirte). I am really so tired of him and his unsubstantiated and unfactual stories and the unfortunate part is that there are Canadians out there who view him to be a "military expert".
 
Back
Top