We are most fortunate to have another guest post submission from our good friend, The Male Brain, over in Israel. He sent over to me an article that he translated from the original Hebrew into English. The original author is a man named Col. Tal Braun, a former paratrooper in the IDF. (Based on my, VERY limited, understanding of the IDF, that means that he may have served in the Golani Brigade, where my own martial arts Grandmaster served as well.) Col. Braun has a Master’s in military and security studies, and has served in the IDF for over 30 years. Dawn tells us that he was the head of the recon corps school over there in Israel.
Bottom line is, this guy KNOWS his shit when it comes to fighting to win.
According to Dawn, he is now “a strategic consultant (read: Lobbyist) and also heads ‘Habithonistim’, i.e. Israel’s Defense & Security Forum, which is a right-wing NGO”. Make of that what you will. But the text below makes very clear that he ABSOLUTELY knows what he’s talking about when it comes to women in combat.
Many thanks, as always, to our good friend for his continuing contributions to this site.
Equality or Winning: What can gender medicine teach us about integration of females in warfare?
Following the 2 petitions to the Israeli High Court to integrate women into fighting formations, these two will probably be joined by another two female IDF soldiers expelled out of a prestigious naval course, who wanted to join the DUVDEVAN unit [Israeli soldier disguised as an Arab in order to carry out a military operation or to gather intelligence – TMB]. This means that it is high time to address in a more profound way, the effect of gender on female integration in warfare.
This is another part of series of articles published on the topic [in Hebrew – TMB] about integration of females in combat units.
Introduction
Gender medicine is about the difference in how male and female bodies function, and not just reproduce as many believe. It is a new division of research that has an enormous effect on the way that all of us, male and female alike, deal with our lives. In recent years the practice has deepened as we see in books by both commanders and physicians.
This article claims that the new insights from that research body of knowledge require the IDF [and other defence forces – TMB] to study, adapt to its needs and understand the impact of integrating females in combat roles. It’s not just about the sociological and physiological aspects, it affects other parts of the force-building. It is also clear that history has provided us many insights that cannot be ignored, starting at the dawn of mankind.
Examples of Gender Medicine and effects
It took millions of years of evolution to evolve the gender roles, in a systematic and slow process, to cause the differences of function and form between the genders.
The need for gender roles is about reproduction and the social structure surrounding it. Its purpose is to increase the survivability of the species by effectively, efficiently and relevant adaptation to the environment. It is common knowledge that human nature allows continuation by establishing, caring and nurturing the next generation. It is also known that females during pregnancy and child rearing phases are vulnerable and require protection and substantial support. That is the reason that gathering by women was done nearby while hunting and defence was carried out remotely by men. Due to those constrains, the male form, physiology, intelligence and attributes were adapted to those tasking missions.
Dimensions – Males are bigger than females. Male mass on average is bigger by 20-30% than females (roughly 10Kg or 22 pounds). In their 20s, women have 50% less muscle mass and power in their upper bodies and 65% less in their lower bodies – on average.
Males weigh more than females by ~15% (IDF average male warrior weighs is 70Kg, while the average female weighs 60Kg). Men are taller by ~10% (174cm vs 162cm) – not to mention the aerobic capacity difference of 15-30%.
Another major attribute differentiating males and females is spatial orientation. [Basically, this is where the often very accurate stereotype of women as bad drivers comes from – Didact] Males are better at spatial orientation, while females have better memory of their surroundings. A potential explanation is that female gatherers had to remember which edible plants grow nearby, while males had to navigate the hunting grounds and back. This is validated as females are more aware and remember items at the home. In the IDF domain, females have been good observers , and have done well as ground and naval controllers, not to mention roles in the intelligence corps. Those significant roles are based on responsible females carrying out their duty in a professional and dedicated manner unmatched by males throughout the years.
More inflammations and stress fractures
Another difference identified by the gender medicine is in motor capacity and skill. The average female has better motor skills than the average male. Those skills have evolved over generations of child raising, knitting and so, crafts that are still female-dominated today in most world parts. Females have wider thumb joint movement range, but are also more prone to have arthritis.
Evidence shows that in the IDF a difference is noted in that area in favor of females. One may see it in the observationists serving in the observation rooms, which show exceptionable abilities of operating a wide range of comms, observation tools, command and control to perform their duty.
From an orthopedic view point – the female pelvis is wider than males, because of its adaptation to child birth. This fact resulted in difference of weight balance while standing, and one of those differences is locking the knees. Knee locking results in 2-8 times more knee injuries in females, than in males.
Females have lower calcium in their body, so bone structure and density are found to be lower. This result in a lot more stress fractures in female soldiers, and the IDF had to adopt different stress scales and weight carrying in infantry and special units.
The IDF took notice a while back of this phenomenon, and began requiring different efforts from males and females. After multiple studies, it is clear that females suffer more injuries even when given a pass. The IDF recognises “gender differences” with regard to effort. The acknowledgement is both genetically related (recognising genetic-gender differences) as well as sociological (females do less sport on average than males).
That insight has been around for a few years now. It makes you wonder how on Earth it is possible to integrate females to special units without damaging the mission, achievements and combat training. Those were already damaged due to shortening of training time, and that is before mentioning the necessity to maintain the soldier’s health.
Hormones are another aspect to consider. Males are far more aggressive than females over generations. The amount of testosterone in males is evidence of that. The battlefield is a place where young man with high T levels meet. It is no coincidence that two rival males of equal size don’t become violent before exhausting their “other skills”. They are both aware of the danger and damage they face due to uncontrolled violence. Separation in weight categories, especially in martial arts, is a fine example of a practical extension of this understanding.
The IDF and its fighting units need to win the war. Warfare is basically a highly intensive aggressive and violent friction with the enemy. Whether it is nearby, or far away as we took notice in the arenas – Lebanon, Gaza and so. This is why it is required that where that physical clash between people and their weapons of destruction, will be those most suited for the job – physically, mentally and hormonally. Or in one word – MEN.
Less or more painful
Another aspect explored by gender medicine is pain. Medical studies prove despite the public assumption, that females are less resilient to pain than males. Pain thresholds and tolerances are lower in young females compared to males. In pain treatment, females are less responsive to IV morphine and also that the medicine evaporates faster, say after surgery.
When our body mitigates pain during critical activities, it releases endorphins, which act as anti-pain euphorics and semi-addictive medicine. Research found that males have higher endorphins in their blood, for the same stimuli. This is where testosterone also fits in, being the basis of the high pain threshold young males have. This is counter to the belief that females are more “pain resistant” due to their heroic suffering during child birth. This is explained in the 100 times rise of progesterone near the end of the pregnancy (compared with pre-ovulation periods).
Many females will claim that this is hardly the case, as the male that they shack up with will be prone to complaints and any light sickness makes him drop like a fly. However, there is a scientific explanation to it – the T levels drop from the 30s and with them the pain threshold.
Also pain related – female tend to have twice as many stress-induced headaches. Muscular and skeletal pain is more common by 30% with females, and it is shown in all parts – as well as movement limitations.
It is common knowledge that medicine in general, and pain medication particularly, need to be observed by the body in order to function. Apart from physical differences, gender also plays a role since females and males have different water and fat ratios in their bodies. Male warriors have on average 17% body fat, while females have 28% – 60% more. There is no rationale to provide the same treatment for pain, as well as other types, for male and females the same way.
ERGO
The meaning of all the things stated above is that female integration to the battlefield requires careful consideration regarding the treatment well known for combat medicine (male related). Just because all the protocols are adopted to treat male warriors, we must inquire if they are suited to having a critical mass of female warriors.
It is common practice that a professional medical treatment, adopted to female warrior needs, requires training of all medical staff. New calculations are required of dosages of all medicine on the battlefield and the know-how to administer it accordingly.
Gender medicine deals also with diagnostic tools for males and females, such as “stress test” which are used to evaluate the cardio-vascular abilities and the heart muscle. It was found that females results show higher “pathologies” when it is actually a False Positive. So females may be treated when nothing is wrong. Also, if there is Coronary Artery Disease, heart stress testing and imaging using radioactive elements is limited and misleading in females.
This has a huge effect on how to check out females for special units which require enormous physical strains, as well as in the ability to diagnose and provide adequate response to their condition.
The last issue on gender medicine, which effects female integration is Gender Relations.
It is common belief that males initiate and woo the females, even during the service. The public is often exposed to disturbing items of male CO and female subordinate. The public is never exposed to colleague relations, which are forbidden and we assume do not happen – yet many COs ignore it or stick their head in the sand (willingly or not).
Studies show that in order for the advance to succeed, the female need to signal of her willingness to continue. There are estimations that 90% of the time, the female initiate. Thinking that the army has it different, is delusional. Army regulations do not change biological impulses, hormonal tendencies and moods.
This is the place to note that males show increase brain activities in visual processing parts, while in females the parts responsible for memory, attention and feelings are lit up. In order to start those forbidden relationships it only takes a few visual stimuli (plenty around) for the males, and some attention and caring for females (also plenty) to start it. It is easy to see how COs treat females different than males, manager with their female employees and colleagues which risks unit cohesion and discipline.
Conclusion
In an online lecture by Dr. Liat Yakir, PhD in biology and molecular genetics, it was claimed that the human brain is not programmed for equality and that it is a product of culture. From this we learn that the Western education and culture has not overcome the instinct and physiological differences. As long as there is feud with our Arab enemies, there is no point in female integration for the battlefield just for the sake of equality.
The value of equality, high as it is, will not survive the brutal and harsh battlefield reality’ in which differences and inequality are overwhelmingly important to secure winning.
The reason fighting units globally are male based, unlike their service support ones, due to the generation and blood acquired knowledge. Even if it is nor scientifically coded, war is still the way every society react to physical threats. Those threats are not valued less than equality, which is orthogonal to war or probably opposing it. Gender equality per se is not a bad thing, but on the battlefield it has no place.
This means that feminists need to stop equating themselves with males, the same way males don’t equate themselves with females. Females and males are different – a fact that need to be celebrated not overcome.
It is expected that females don’t try to compete with males on size, attributes and physiological abilities, with all the meaning related to combat, but accept it and maximise their own abilities for other significant roles, serving the same goal – winning. This means that in order to not weaken the army, it is necessary to stop trying (and failing) to prove that nature is wrong and radical feminists are right and everybody is equal. Both male and female can do their best where they have the advantage in order to support the national security.
The Didact’s Comments
I’ve been writing on the sheer stupidity of putting women in combat roles for something like 7 years. I agree with every single thing that Col. Braun wrote above. He is completely correct, and the medical evidence supports everything that he wrote.
It does not matter how hard you try to integrate women into combat units. War is the province of MEN, and that is where it belongs. Women have no place whatsoever on the battlefield.
This might seem outrageous, but that is only if you cannot think logically and only think emotionally. Even a basic appraisal of the differences between men and women will tell you that women are smaller, more frail, more damage-prone, and weaker than even men of equivalent size. Anyone who thinks that women can serve and fight in modern militaries just as well as men can, needs to serve as an artillery crewman for a few weeks. There is a REASON why the guys who handle and load shells into big-ass cannons, look like they chew on railroad spikes for fun.
The one major issue that Col. Braun only touched upon involves sexual relations between men and women in the military. For a much more thorough examination of this, I highly recommend LTC Tom Kratman’s classic essay, “The Amazon’s Right Breast“. This goes very deeply into, among other things, the serious problem of sexual relationships between officers, NCOs, and enlisted personnel.
Make no mistake, this is a catastrophic problem within the military. Sex corrodes the bonds of trust and brotherhood faster and more effectively than any acid. As Genghis Tom writes in that essay of his, “Eros doesn’t merely mock Mars – Eros makes Mars his bitch”. And that’s absolutely true.
Imagine what would happen to morale and unit cohesion if two privates in different units in a combat situation are boinking each other – and the woman gets her ass scragged behind enemy lines. Do you seriously believe that the man in that couple would give the minutest quantum of a damn about his own safety, and the safety of his brothers, before going off to save her?
How about sexual relationships between enlisted and NCOs? Imagine a platoon sergeant banging a private that he fancies. Even if the sergeant is completely unbiased and does not allow the scent, taste, and feel of Private Parts and her lovely snatch to influence his judgement, would the rest of the platoon believe him if said private were suddenly promoted to Lance Corporal?
To ask the question is to answer it.
And how about situations where, say, in the Navy, a sub commander bangs his XO? Or a naval officer sleeps with her underling? That isn’t merely stupid. It is wantonly destructive. it shatters unit trust and cohesion and has wiped out some very promising careers.
The bottom line is that putting testosterone-fuelled men in high-pressure situations around women is like throwing around a handful of fulminated mercury. It only ends quickly and stupidly – and often quite explosively.
I could go on and on for WEEKS about this subject. Col. Braun’s points about needing to institute separate training regimens and standards for women, for instance, are spot-on. And that’s before we get to the need to adapt existing weapons to their smaller frames, and the cost that this entails.
But if you really want to read about it – and enjoy yourself in the process – go read LTC Kratman’s superb book, The Amazon Legion, which is Book 4 in his Carreraverse series. I am very sorry to report that said series has wrapped up for the foreseeable future, but I do hope he will come back to it at some point. I really like his work and that series is definitely his signature achievement in the field of military sci-fi.
![The Amazon Legion (Carerra Series Book 4) by [Tom Kratman]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61EfCi-FYGL.jpg)
1 Comment
I banged a chick who served in the IDF in college. She was incredibly submissive. Good for sex, probably not good for defending your country.