That is not a confrontational statement. To bring that point up without a caveat that it’s still not a reason to keep banning women makes it seem like you think it’s a potential justification.

We don’t disagree about pretty much any of what you wrote, and I think I made those things pretty clear in my comment.

Making other women bear the consequences for that, exclusively, is deplorable.

Maybe not, who knows? But she could definitely be the kind of woman they’d want to demean, humiliate and disrespect because she’s a woman, which is at least equally the goal when you covertly videotape someone you’re supposed to work with (or even under) and brag about it to other dudes.

People do know that. But they somehow manage not to think of the other people in their units that way, and they wouldn’t be fighting against the women in their units. What you’re saying here is only relevant if you think they’ll consider a woman in their unit who has met the same standards they have to be equally…

I don’t know the answer to this, but one thing that is interesting is that in Iraq and Afghanistan, female soldiers were needed and valuable for situations where they needed to talk with female civilians who either couldn’t or didn’t want to interact with the men. So while I’m sure it opens up quite the can of worms…

But I haven’t seen any women arguing that they want the standards lower. Why should we hold women accountable for decisions that are being made by primarily male leadership?

I think the issue is more that asking them for their opinions about how people they’ve never served in combat with will perform in combat isn’t the best metric by which to judge whether those people should be allowed to give it a go. They haven’t had women on their teams, so any ideas they have about whether they’d be…

Yes. The 130-pound woman is an imaginary person they always seem to come back to when talking about this.

And the most revealing thing about that concern is that people (commenters here, people writing about the issue, survey respondents) seem to blame/resent/dislike women for that, rather than holding the primarily male leadership of their organization accountable.

Sure, let’s pretend it’s women who a) made that policy exclusive in the first place, or b) have brought up—at all—having an issue with it being reversed here.

The thing is, though, that those 80% of people are still the product of a society that assists in the development of an outlook in which women are inherently inferior, incapable and weak. So it’s not like they came in with brains that were blank slates and developed the idea through research and objective observation.

Then they should stop. And the people who are angry about it should take it up with the (primarily male) leadership that lowered those standards, rather than holding back women who might be able to meet the actual standard from trying at all because the leadership doesn’t care enough about protecting and ensuring…

I think a lot of people see the world solely through the lens of their own feelings, and think only (or mostly) about their feelings when making decisions or deciding what to think about something. Like, all they’re thinking is that they feel stuff when people seem smarter than them, or when they don’t understand a…

Nobody is trying to make anybody “love” anything. That is dumb. Sincerely.

See, this version of your argument is actually compelling. It’s the “but they pay taxes AND tuition! Sacrifice! Those parents deserve things!” angle that’s getting people riled up, because said parents’ taxes, and what they feel they should buy them, aren’t actually why SCOTUS decided this.

That’s not how it works, though, and not how taxes work in general. The private school tuition they pay is optional, and doesn’t entitle them to some sort of “in case we want it later” use of money intended for public purposes. One of the things you give up when you choose to send your child to private school is the…

Even if they are (in terms of fanciness), isn’t it even MORE troubling in a basic constitutional sense for the state to subsidize religious education?

I did too, but I don’t see how that makes giving public money to private schools justified. This is like saying that the MTA should give money to Uber drivers because I took one once and liked it better than public transit.

Are you a woman? Genuinely curious. I am, and my experiences have been opposite from yours, though they’re certainly equally anecdotal. Perhaps you hear the stories all the time because women can’t be perfect bodyguards at all times, even if they’re trying to do the right things/have received messaging that they…