Australian Special Forces - Special forces?

Special forces?

Why can women not be in the special forces, even though they volunteer and want to be there? It's not like the military doesn't need volunteers!...

Public Comments

The US military still has a policy of excluding women from direct combat roles. All special forces MOS's are combat oriented and are therefore not open to women.
women r not allowed in front line combat units. Why? the israelis did allow women in front line units but in the six day war when women were wounded the men would try to save them and get wounded themselves increasing the fatalities in theater. but women can fly combat aircraft, just not front line infantry.
woman have no business in Special Forces...Not my opinion, just a fact..
The average pack in SF weighs more than 50 pounds. There are women that can handle that but not most. SF soldiers are left in the middle of nowhere to do their own thing for extended periods of time. Army policy requires female soldiers be allowed to shower AT LEAST every 3 days making extended stays impossible. And last but not least it would get more men killed because of 1 our need to protect women 2 the distraction and 3 their lack of physical strength. not to mention we only need 1 healthy man to ensure survival but we NEED as many women as possible to breed therefore killing them in war endangers our survival
Sleeping arrangements. You would have those one or two people complain about the sleeping arangements, and then you need to start building extra barracks here and there for thisperson and this person. Women just shouldnt be on the front line, because when the draft comes back around (not saying its happening, but its bound to happen later on sometime) how many women are you going to see trying to get into the Military? And if the government would force them, wed never hear the end of it.
I think this is the reason, women are often raped when captured in war, so, no one wants to deal with that, can you imagine the public outcry if the media started to say how many troops were raped each day in a war, everyone would just want to wipe out the entire country. its very sad, but it seems to work that way.
In past wars with other countries women were allowed front line combat ability. In the instance of a woman soldier, warrior, airman, etc... getting wounded male soldiers would try to protect or save them with no regard to themselves. This act exponentially increased casualties and injuries. To limit this possibility the United States military has banned female roles in direct combat M.O.S.'s.
Mixed units almost always have lower morale because men take the death of a female harder than the death of a male soldier.This was proven in the Israeli army in 1973 because Yom Kippur Conflict.
I asked this question and I was told it is that woman cannot join special forces due to hygiene, periods, the chance of being raped by fellow soldiers or captors, amount of strength a woman has and durability. All sounds stupid to me considering that there are many woman who would be great for this work. Very unfair.
There are many reasons and you will not like any of them because in general they are not very politically correct but then the military isn't about politics. Now, in order to provide you with an example of one of the reasons why the military forces of some of the more developed western civilizations does not permit women to be special forces soldiers, I will give you a typical scenario: You and the 5 other members of your Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRPs Team) are captured behind enemy lines having being tasked with gathering intelligence on an enemy missile silo and garrison that is going to be attacked by a larger force sometime within the next 72 hours depending on the intel that you send back to the head shed - now, were all members of your team men then they would have a basic understanding of their being tortured to extract information regarding any possible attack and for the most part, would be able to resist until the information is useless. Now, let's just assume for a second that there is a female member on the same team - let's just assume that she gets segregated from here fellow team members as soon as you are brought in for interrogation (this will happen in a real time situation and very few 'enemies' of the US or UK follow Article 4 of the Geneva Convention - in fact they will pretty much tell you that you are shit out of luck because you are not in Geneva) - now, the second that she starts getting gang raped by the enemy combatants and having unspeakably nasty things done to her in order to make her friends talk... how long do you think it would be for most normal civilized males to give up the information in order to protect the only female in their group? This is generally one of the risks that military commanders do not want to take - hence the reason why females cannot be special forces soldiers. Not a pretty picture but then again war never is and the sole purpose of a special forces soldier is to perform special operations in extremely hostile and non-permissive environments, in small teams for the most part, with limited support and during times of war.
The men won't concentrate on what they are doing. These guys are kinda hypermale, and will be worried about any female on their squad. But the CIA will use them, and the NSA. DEA, ATF, DIA. There's plenty of work for the covert minded female. I don't think Delta will use females, not as troops I mean.
As an ex special forces soldier the answer is definitely No! The points raised herein by others are all well founded and not forgetting the inevitable fact that, once captured, they'd be subject to rape, torture and the vilest means of abuse ordinary civilians wouldn't remotely dream existed. Moreover, no mercy in any respect would be accorded to them once captured by Islamic insurgency groups. I.e. when was the last time U observed film feel of Arab Islamic POW Camps? All captured prisoners are executed - look at Iraq and the past history of all Islamic extremists / groups etc Notwithstanding, there are of course many disciplines women can and do follow in the military and are exceptionally professional in so doing.
Limick32 is 100% WRONG...just so you know....the exclusion of women from combat zones, combat units etc. no longer exists. Some specialized area's...such as SF...exclude women for strictly operational reasons. Not that they couldn't do it, but for other reasons.
Because you will become a pin cushion for the SF guys.