naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
The role of female soldiers in the IDF has always been somewhere between fascinating and horrifying to me. The below post by @CrashedPsychonaut mentions that the capture of an IDF garrison near the border fence involved a number of hapless young female soldiers, isolated at their posts and overrun. I imagine that some of these women were shot and killed, and I presume that others surrendered and were rounded up as hostages; the subsequent fate of these women is very distressing to imagine.
Some quick Googling indicates that approximately 40% of the IDF’s conscript soldiers were female as of 2021, comprising 25% of officers and 18% of combat soldiers. The latter two numbers, and especially the last one, are shockingly high to me. I had been under the impression that the IDF’s female conscripts were overwhelmingly shunted away into positions where a whole lot of things would need to go very unexpectedly wrong before there was any significant chance of them facing real combat. And, to be fair, it seems like in the case of that garrison, a whole lot of things did go very unexpectedly wrong. Still, it’s insane to me that a country with such overwhelmingly security concerns and so many threats surrounding it would put literally any important responsibility in the hands of female soldiers.
I’ve always been under the vague impression that the IDF’s inclusion of so many female soldiers was mostly a PR ploy; filling their ranks with photogenic young women makes people more likely to feel positively-inclined and prescribe towards it. It also allows them to circulate photos of busty women in camo wielding large guns, an archetype which seems to have significant (and, to me, inexplicable) appeal to a certain segment of the American mainstream right. The thought that these smiling young women could actually be sent to the front lines to do hand-to-hand urban combat against battle-hardened men is both inconceivable and appalling to me. I would expect most of them to surrender almost immediately if confronted with life-threatening combat situations. The impact on IDF morale of having a substantial number of its female soldiers captured or killed seems like it would be catastrophic, to say nothing of its practical strategic effects.
Can anyone offer more insight into the role of women in the IDF, and specifically their role in actual combat operations? Both historically and in terms of what we can expect to see in whatever upcoming operations are going to take place as a result of the current crisis?
Last time I checked, the IDF was fighting with assault rifles and the like, not sticks and stones.
If you get hit with an assault rifle, there will be little difference if the shooter was a man, woman or child.
I think it would be sensible to tie commando roles to physical ability, which would make them overwhelmingly male, but sometimes you just want a warm body with a rifle.
Child soldiers exist, and likely are on average weaker than adult women. If they were very ineffective (like one adult male being as effective as ten of them) African warlords would likely prefer to use their limited amount of weapons to arm adults (even though they are harder to control).
And if you go to complex weapon systems, the male advantage gets even smaller. Even if there was some inherent male advantage to steering drones or driving trucks, you likely have so many drones and trucks that you will look for "ok" and not "best of the best" when hiring.
I do not share your intuition that women are more likely to surrender in life-threatening situations. Especially when the enemy is Hamas, where the only sex difference in a surrender outcome is that they might rape women before they kill them.
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Notes -
The role of female soldiers in the IDF has always been somewhere between fascinating and horrifying to me. The below post by @CrashedPsychonaut mentions that the capture of an IDF garrison near the border fence involved a number of hapless young female soldiers, isolated at their posts and overrun. I imagine that some of these women were shot and killed, and I presume that others surrendered and were rounded up as hostages; the subsequent fate of these women is very distressing to imagine.
Some quick Googling indicates that approximately 40% of the IDF’s conscript soldiers were female as of 2021, comprising 25% of officers and 18% of combat soldiers. The latter two numbers, and especially the last one, are shockingly high to me. I had been under the impression that the IDF’s female conscripts were overwhelmingly shunted away into positions where a whole lot of things would need to go very unexpectedly wrong before there was any significant chance of them facing real combat. And, to be fair, it seems like in the case of that garrison, a whole lot of things did go very unexpectedly wrong. Still, it’s insane to me that a country with such overwhelmingly security concerns and so many threats surrounding it would put literally any important responsibility in the hands of female soldiers.
I’ve always been under the vague impression that the IDF’s inclusion of so many female soldiers was mostly a PR ploy; filling their ranks with photogenic young women makes people more likely to feel positively-inclined and prescribe towards it. It also allows them to circulate photos of busty women in camo wielding large guns, an archetype which seems to have significant (and, to me, inexplicable) appeal to a certain segment of the American mainstream right. The thought that these smiling young women could actually be sent to the front lines to do hand-to-hand urban combat against battle-hardened men is both inconceivable and appalling to me. I would expect most of them to surrender almost immediately if confronted with life-threatening combat situations. The impact on IDF morale of having a substantial number of its female soldiers captured or killed seems like it would be catastrophic, to say nothing of its practical strategic effects.
Can anyone offer more insight into the role of women in the IDF, and specifically their role in actual combat operations? Both historically and in terms of what we can expect to see in whatever upcoming operations are going to take place as a result of the current crisis?
Last time I checked, the IDF was fighting with assault rifles and the like, not sticks and stones.
If you get hit with an assault rifle, there will be little difference if the shooter was a man, woman or child.
I think it would be sensible to tie commando roles to physical ability, which would make them overwhelmingly male, but sometimes you just want a warm body with a rifle.
Child soldiers exist, and likely are on average weaker than adult women. If they were very ineffective (like one adult male being as effective as ten of them) African warlords would likely prefer to use their limited amount of weapons to arm adults (even though they are harder to control).
And if you go to complex weapon systems, the male advantage gets even smaller. Even if there was some inherent male advantage to steering drones or driving trucks, you likely have so many drones and trucks that you will look for "ok" and not "best of the best" when hiring.
I do not share your intuition that women are more likely to surrender in life-threatening situations. Especially when the enemy is Hamas, where the only sex difference in a surrender outcome is that they might rape women before they kill them.
Weapons are not exactly in low supply in Africa.
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