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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   25974 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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Several wartime militaries have included large percentages of females. The obvious example is the Soviets in WWII, but the Chinese, Israelis, and many other modern-ish armies have fielded large percentages of female soldiers. In no case have any of these armies treated women as "fully equal" to men in combat, but neither does the US military.

I suspect that a look at the population graphs for these countries would support your thesis, but it seems disingenuous to talk negatively about women in the military without referencing these concrete examples and actually testing your thesis against data.

Large percentage? Extreme doubt, source please. What percentage of the soldiers in the Soviet military were women? Not cooks and nurses, soldiers. And of those, what percent of soldiers who actually saw combat were women?

Israelis

As I understand it, most women are given homeguard duties, it is very rare that they actually go out and fight. Of all the Israelies who have fired a weapon in combat in the last 20 years, what percent have been women?

...

I recall reading that 12% of Soviet military pilots were women at the start of the war, actually.

...

I recall reading this piece of data in the 1994 publication A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II. Again, maybe I'm misremembering and the 12% figure applies to all Soviet pilots, military and civilian, as of 1941. I should mention though that you aren't wrong in the sense that the great majority of Soviet female pilots in the air force were bomber, recon and transport pilots, not fighter pilots. Also the overall losses of fighter pilots were rather high and only a relatively really small proportion became aces.

<Steve Sailer waggles eyebrows>

...

Of all the Israelies who have fired a weapon in combat in the last 20 years, what percent have been women?

A number of the hostages in Gaza were female IDF soldiers, but I have no clue how many of those actually fired a weapon.

To quote our bluntly rude President: "I like people who weren’t captured."

Back in March I read many of the accounts in the 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report which attempted to document all recorded attacks of the day. Based on that, a common role for female IDF women kidnapped or killed on October 7th were in listening or surveillance outposts along the border. There were at least a couple instances of women (and men, too) holing up in a command post or signals room while others put up resistance waiting for relief. I got the vibe that the border gals weren't really expected to engage in combat if it could be avoided. Of those that had a chance to react they were placed in last stand territory. They were not, generally, put out to defend the wire.

Is the genocide of Gaza a result of DEI ...? Put women on border guard duty, border isn't defended effectively, therefore, must entirely genocide your neighbor... Now there is a hot take ... but is it wrong?

Hard to see how it's the female soldiers' fault that Israel can't forever eat the costs of Iron Doming the water pipe missiles from Gaza without doing something about the people who launch the missiles.

It seems disingenuous to talk negatively about women in the military without referencing these concrete examples and actually testing your thesis against data.

Well

The obvious example is the Soviets in WWII

Their society experienced complete collapse a generation later.

Chinese in (or 'around') WWII

Their society experienced complete collapse major problems (EDIT: To be fair) a generation later.

Israelis, and many other modern-ish armies

They haven't fought a high fatality war. I'll admit I haven't looked into the correlation between peacetime women military service and their fertility, but do you seriously doubt it will be negative?

I haven't crunched the numbers here, so calling me lazy might be fair.

Their society experienced complete collapse a generation later.

You can also mention the massive purge of the military before the war and the subsequent mess they were in when it started.

Their society experienced complete collapse a generation later.

This is not the point you think it is. The Soviet generation that fought WWII ended up with a 5:3 sex ratio in favor of women.

Russia's gender ratio is still warped to such an extent that is has become a meme of russian women going on holidays in neighboring countries to hunt for men.

How much of that is specifically wanting a foreign husband rather than having a shortage of local men? There could be a variety of reasons for the former; either they think Russian men are all wife-beating drunks so they're better off with a foreigner(there are at least some Latinas who prefer gringos for this reason, so it's plausible), or they would like to live in a country with a higher purchasing power parity than Russia(of which there is no shortage), etc, etc.

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