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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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Out of ~400k trained sharpshooters there were 2,500 female ones who mostly did quite well. 500 survived the war. I remember remarks how women are good at being sneaky and patient from period memoirs.

There were about 20-30 female armor crewmen, mostly achieved that through being insanely persistent. E.g. donates enough money for an entire tank, writes letter to Stalin to be allowed to fight. Or a tractor driver (tractors were often tracked then) whose husband was drafted and whose children died convinced an army doctor to pass her off as male in paperwork, then went on to have some success as a tank driver

About 400 women served as combat pilots.

About 40% of medics and radio operators were women, and later in the war (43 onwards) the % of women involved in frontline air defense was very high, often up to 50%.

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

Never read anything in that vein. If that were true you'd expect a lot more female aces in Soviet Air force. There were only 2 female aces who shot down more than five planes each in WW2..

<Steve Sailer waggles eyebrows>

I can imagine women might be at a disadvantage in complex maneuvers, but the main difference between aces and dead guys was really sharp eyes and paying attention, with proper tactics they could have been quite successful. You don't really want to get in turn fight furballs and people with high scores generally didn't do so.

There just weren't many women involved.