quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The range of human variation in almost all categories is wider than the range of variation between the sexes. In other words, the difference in strength between two randomly-selected women is statistically likely to be larger than the difference in strength between a random man and a random woman. The same goes for things like height and weight. While it is true that women, on average, tend to be smaller and weaker than men, it does not follow that a typical woman is necessarily weaker than a typical man.
All the more reason that the physical requirements should be the same. I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about it.
Hang on... Does that follow? Two random women will have a *greater* strength difference than a random man and random woman? How can that be, when men are stronger on average? With two women, you are drawing from a pool of lower average strength, and with a man and a woman, drawing from one pool of lower, and one pool of higher average strength. I think statistically you are more likely to get a larger difference in strength between a man and woman.
Sorry- I just don't understand the logic behind this statement. Perhaps I misreading the implications.
I understand that variation across gender being wider than the difference between genders means it is *possible* to draw a random man and random woman of the same strength (or a woman who is stronger than the man), but if you repeated that same process multiple times, wouldn't you naturally draw a pool of men who are statistically significantly stronger than the women? Just if you were to do this with random people, that is. In a military context, where fitness requirements and job requirements are specified and people are selected for their positions based on capability, this factor would be neutralized. But I don't get how the above statistical outcome works.
ETA: Maybe I get it actually. You're saying that because the low-end of the female strength spectrum is farther from the high end, than the high end of the female spectrum from the high end of the male spectrum, the likelihood is that two women would have a greater difference than between a man and a woman. I am starting to see it.
Now my follow up to this is: what significance does that have in the issue of women in combat? The average woman and man are *still* likely to have a difference in strength, with the man being stronger. Does the selection process completely neutralize that issue? Do you then have to have essentially *tougher* requirements for women; for instance, only taking the 80th and above percentile of women, whereas you accept anything above the 70th percentile in men (I'm pulling that number off the top of head)? This would mean the selection process for women in combat would have to be *more* exclusive than it is for men, with an expectation of a lower success rate among women recruits.
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quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: At this point my brain exploded. And you wonder why conservatives have trouble with the women's vote. They assumed that all women in the military were 2nd rate, had no career plans, and were cowards.
Heh. The only actually semi-reasonable sociological justification I have heard for not allowing women in combat roles was the more basic anthropological, genetic argument: women have not been favored as warriors by society because they are more valuable in reproduction than men are. Basically: the reproductive value of a woman, from a resource perspective (limitation of the number of opportunities to reproduce in one lifetime), means that a society can afford to lose a large number of men, as long as the fertile women are preserved.
This makes more sense in the context of warfare in European city states thousands of years ago, when infant and mother mortality rates were high, and so men who lived long lives might have the opportunity to give children to multiple women. If a large percentage of one generation cohort of men died, older men and those not old enough yet to have fought would be available reproductively to the women who lost their mates in battle. These days, that type of population issue cuts very little figure.
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quote:This would mean the selection process for women in combat would have to be *more* exclusive than it is for men, with an expectation of a lower success rate among women recruits.
*nod* Frankly, this is the way I think it should be, although many people disagree with me. Similar conversations happen when you talk about women policemen, firefighters, paramedics, etc. It boils down to ascertaining just how important a certain physical requirement is, then determining what sort of threshold should really be met. It turns out -- as you see in this thread -- that this is surprisingly complicated and fraught with potentially hurt feelings.
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