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epitome of incomprehensibility
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YouTube gives me a recommendation for a short video titled something like "Why women can't be in the special forces" (meaning American military ones).
It's a clip from an interview: a military-looking guy says to the interviewer that women can't carry large enough packs; you give them too much weight and they'll "crumple like a fucking crouton."
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Memories of childhood salad-eating: I wish those croutons crumpled more easily. I adored the kind my parents made at home from bread crusts with garlic sauce, in the oven, but they didn't often have time for that. The kind in packets could come out stale, unyielding.
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I glance over the video's description. The uploader says it's for satirical purposes, but I can't tell if this is a real interview or a jokey one.
Regardless, there are people in the comment section saying that men are, on the whole, stronger at carrying things than women, and what do feminists have to say to that?
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Sometimes they say "so what?" and then reminisce about too-hard croutons. But reading the comments out of morbid curiosity leads them to an exchange where people start complaining about military women not pulling their metaphorical weight either. That's the kind of thing feminists and others are more likely to object to: saying people are whiny just because they're women.
I mean, who's complaining here? Who's bitching? A guy in a thread grumbles about relaxing the fitness requirements for women in his part of the forces: they only have to do one pull-up while men have to do six. Not even ten anymore. Just six.
(A cursory glance - I could be getting the numbers wrong.)
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But what he means by pull-up is what I call a chin-up, and I can do ten. I glory in my physical ability, since that's the thing being valued here: you think it's hard for a woman to do chin-ups, which you weirdly call pull-ups? Psssh. Do you even lift, bro??
But then I remember: I can't do ten in a row NOW. I used to, yes, but I haven't done that many at once for years.
Could I get back to it? Probably. Could I start RIGHT NOW? Probably not a great idea. You're recovering from a virus and it's hot. Sit your silly ass back down.
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Also, my relative ease in chin-up-iness isn't because of my body's bulk or impressiveness. It's really the opposite. I'm short and light, so there isn't a whole lot to lift.
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As for special forces, it doesn't affect me whether women can get into a particular military class or not, so I can't really give an opinion.
I can just venture: the question to ask is whether you need that particular ability, or ones like it. And that might very well be the case, but I'm not sure physical strength is the most important part of modern warfare. It's one part, sure, but how easily can a person's strength be wasted, torn apart by a single blast? Moving muscles can be stilled in seconds. Bodies small and large alike are easy to kill with machines. We're all fragile.
My conclusion, as usual: give peace a chance. I'm self-interested here. If you don't die, you might hire me sometime down the line to teach you about semicolons.
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