nunoncastors

7 Responses to “SHOCK NEWS UPDATE”

1. 1 Lucy
   April 5, 2006 at 10:32 am

   Fucking women. Always whinging about ‘equality’. What do they think this is, the 21st century?!

2. 2 james
   April 5, 2006 at 11:02 am

   Well indeed. My point being however, that this is hardly news. Much as I’d like to believe that we live in enlightened times where everyone is treated equally, we don’t. The army is essentially a large group of men with only each other for company most of the time. Eventually conversation is going to devolve to the point of discussing how great tits are, how amusing farts can be and whether you’d “do” any number of famous women. It is like a lad’s night out with guns instead of beer.

   I’m not trying to justify her treatment, far from it, I simply don’t see how it registers as news that *gasp* soldiers are coarse and boorish. Obviously it is an issue that needs addressing but it’s akin to being surprised that in prison some people are buggered against their will. Stop the presses.

3. 3 Lucy
   April 5, 2006 at 1:59 pm

   But how can anything change if everyone just goes “Yeah but that’s what the Army does, innit” and prints a story about kittens instead? By bringing it up and complaining about it, enough pressure might be brought to bear that things change and the infantry becomes a viable career choice for women, instead of some sort of abusive circus.

4. 4 james
   April 5, 2006 at 5:37 pm

   The problem is that the infantry *is* an abusive circus and they *are* ‘orrible little men. If you want to change that you’re going to have to work all the way back to childhood with a large number of squaddies who, as Wellingon put it, are the scum of the earth. The army is probably the single most pointlessly macho entity on earth and telling off soldiers or locking them up is not going to make a great deal of difference to how they see women. In fact a military prison would probably make many of them worse.
   I’m more than certain women are capable of serving in the infantry, in all facets of the military in fact. But the problem is, and this is how it’ll be seen by many within the armed forces, is that if they can’t cope with colleagues taking the piss and winding them up (and I know some horrific things that have been done to squaddies) then what good are they going to be when people start shooting at them?
   It is sexist and it is unfair but complaining about it isn’t going to change anything any time soon. If ever.
   As for her statement “I would not have been bullied if I had been a man.”
   Yeah. Right.

5. 5 Lucy
   April 5, 2006 at 8:38 pm

   Why *not* work back to childhood? Why *not* bring children up to believe that they are no better or worse than the opposite sex, or a different socio-economic class, or an alternative sexuality?

   I don’t believe that soldiers have to be stupid in order to be good at their jobs. Squaddies don’t need to be ignorant in order attack enemy forces: intelligence and bravery are not mutually exclusive. The desire to defend your country does not equal gross, brute stupidity at a basic level and therefore no one should be encouraged into, or excused for, behaving like this to ANYONE, especially their peers. Being vicious towards an invading force = an undeniably useful quality. Being vicious towards comrades = counter-productive, surely?

6. 6 tom
   April 10, 2006 at 12:32 pm

   Completely side-stepping this debate - the most recent post doesn’t let me make comments. Both the comments link and the title of the post take me back to the main page for some reason, despite the link’s address appearing to be correct. Just thought you may want to know.

7. 7 james
   April 10, 2006 at 1:28 pm

   Serves me right for using special characters in the title really. Seems wordpress doesn’t parse them too well. Should be fixed now.