More food for thought - Women in combat etc

[Anonymous]

I have some facts too about differences between men and women. These are statistics from the web page www.pliktverket.se/statistik/statistik.htm The page belong to the authority that are testing potential conscripts in Sweden. They test everything, from medical health, fitness to intelligens, of the men and women that are considered for conscription. The tests show what positions that will be open for each individual based on test results. If you are too weak for example you will not become an infanteer.

The results are graded from 1 to 9, and 9 is the highest score.

This is the average test results 1996 (they do not change much over the years):

Intelligence: Men:5.0 Women:5.5 Mental health: Men:5.0 Women:6.1 Leadership ability: Men:5.0 Women:6.2 Muscle strength: Men:4.7 Women:2.0 Cardiorespiratory capacity: Men:6.1 Women:5.4

You can draw your own conclusions, but if we shall generalize as much as other do at this board, we can say that women are smarter, and better as commanders while men are stronger. The conclusion would be to put women as tank commanders and men as tankloaders...

Since these statistics started, comparing male and female results (men and women do exactly the same tests, and use the same scale. A woman with 4 in strengh lifts the same weight as a man with 4 in strength.) women have constantly produced better results in intelligens, mental health and leadership ability.

Further more the average female at my regiment runs 2 miles below 14 min simply because 14 min is the upper limit for both men and women. There are about 25-30 females at the regiment.

Women will only lower physical standards if you let them. Don't do that, instead use them to increase intelligens and mental standard, and enhance leadership.

milwoman_sweden@hotmail.com

[Anonymous]

Interesting results. I am curious to know what the sample size is, as well as the corresponding confidence interval for this data. Are applicants prescreened? Are the applicants consripts, as you suggest, or are they volunteers (and therefore self selected)?

Also how are subjective items such as leadership and mental health determined?

Finally, how is the validity of the results verified, and have they been replicated elsewhere? Have comparisions been made to determine relative abilities in combat situations between individuals of different mental health and leadership scores? For example, it is relatively simple to make conclusions with respect to an individual's upper body strength by examining the number of pushups and/or pullups that person can do. But how to you determine whether a leadership score is really measuring an individual's ability to lead troops into battle?

Semper Fi

Submariner

Submustang@aol.com

[Anonymous]

I will try to answer your questions. I've checked at the site I mentioned earlier and it seems like a total number of 9342 women have done the conscript tests. (Maybe it is a small number to an American, but rember there are only 9 000 000 people living in Sweden).

About the corresponding data I will have to check that, but if you look at the numbers I wrote,I think that the results are about +/- 0.2, for both men and women.

All men are after highschool called to do the tests, which are compulsory if they don't have a paper from a doctor stating their physical or mental inability to serve in the military. For women it is voluntary, they sign a paper and then exactly the same laws applies to them as to the boys. Applicants are not preescreend before the tests, exept for those boys that know they have an inability and go to the docter to get it on paper.

Those tests have been used from the 60'ies - 70'ies I think. And the leadership ability and mentalt health are graded by psychiatrists and psychologists from intervues and written tests. Ofcourse there will be some "subjectivity" at the intervjues, and sometimes they do a misjudgment. But they have over the years proved to be accurat enough. They have certain criterias for the intervue, and certain things they check with all tested. (Many conscripts say that women often get a closer/longer screening at those intervues, they want to know that the females really understand what they are getting themselfe into.) The percantage men of those tested that are considered good enough for conscription tend to be about 60 - 70% and for women the number is about the same.

About the validity of the results I only know that each regiment/unit them selfe make a profile for each position in the unit, and then they "order" conscripts with that profile from the authority that are doing the testing. For example the decide that an Infantry private might need x in strength, and x in intelligens, and that no leadership ability is requierd, and so on in all those areas that the boys and girls are tested. The "conscript authority" choose a number of tested with that specific profile and sign them up for conscription to that Infantry unit. A few months later those "chosen" join the unit and do their time in the military in position they were selected for. If the regiment feels that the profile they have decided, for ex to Infantry private, isn't accurat they change it and decide a new, maybe they want stronger conscripts, or something else.

About the leadership ability, I don't know exactly what the psycologist are looking for. But in this area as in all the others, the regiments are free to change the number that is needed. They could set it to 9 if they wanted to be really sure they got the best material, but then it will be harder for them to get as many commanders as they need. All regiments want to have best conscripts, but there aren't enough for them all, so their profiles are what they consider is needed to do the job.

The final leadership ability test is done during the military service, those that aren't good enough aren't getting a place in the war organisation. Many units order a few more conscripts than they need in the war organisation, incase the get a few conscripts that doesn't manage their job. About real battle? Noone knows how they will react until they have been there, but this system is how the country is doing what they can to find out anyway. We've had a few Officers that have got a shortened career after a tour in Bosnia... Anyway, the tests are constantly evaluated and enhanced and considering all those professional doctors that are doing research and are working with them, I would be very surprised if they hadn't compared test results with the actual result in the unit. But I'll have to search fore more information on that. I don't know if there are any other country that uses the same system.

I hope I managed to answer all your questions.

2nd LT



milwoman_sweden@hotmail.com