Great idea, doubt any will make the grade, but great idea; well until they start coming home in body bags that is.

I doubt Australians have the stomache for women being killed and maimed in combat.



WOMEN will be allowed to serve in frontline combat roles after the Gillard government ordered the Australian Defence Force to bring forward the removal of bans that have stopped women from applying for the most dangerous and demanding military jobs.
The historic decision by Defence Minister Stephen Smith means women who meet the tough physical standards required of their male counterparts will now be able to serve in elite special forces units such as the SAS, work as naval clearance divers and join general infantry and armoured units.

The decision to fast-track women into combat roles coincided with the announcement of a raft of reviews and inquiries into the treatment of women in the defence force spurred by the Skype sex scandal.

About 93 per cent of all jobs in the military are currently open to women, including serving in submarines and piloting fighter jets, with the 7 per cent of jobs closed to women mostly in the army.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/combat-roles-offered-to-women/story-fn59niix-1226037485919

Sure, 'allow' to enter the SAS.

But if even one woman in the whole of australia can pass the selection criteria, I will eat my hat.  

Hope they start making tasty "hats". As you say, nothing is as inevitable like change.

(Reuters) - A federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday accuses Corpus Christi, Texas of discriminating against female applicants to the city's police department by requiring them to pass a physical test that favored men.

The Justice Department said the female pass rate for the test, which was used between 2005 and 2011, was 80 percent lower than the male pass rate and that it excluded otherwise qualified applicants from consideration for hire as entry-level police officers based solely on their gender.

The test, which included push-ups, sit-ups, and a 300-meter and 1.5-mile run, had identical cut-off scores for men and women. But between 2005 and 2009, only 19 percent of the female applicants who took the test passed it, compared with 63 percent of the male applicants, according to the Justice Department.

It said the disparate results "constitute a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment by women of their rights to equal employment opportunities regardless of their sex."

The government wants to city to stop using the physical ability test and to develop hiring procedures that comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

It also wants the city to hire some of the women turned away in the past and to offer them retroactive seniority and back pay.

The complaint comes after a 2-1/2 year probe of the city's hiring practices by the Justice Department. Troy Riggs, a current assistant city manager and former police chief of Corpus Christi, said the city had cooperated with the investigation and planned to abide by any consent decree the court imposed.

"We have never disagreed with the Department of Justice," Riggs said.

"We believe its correct for them to be looking at us and that the city has failed in some respects in the past. We've been wrong. When we get a consent decree, we'll live by it."

Riggs said that even as the investigation continued, the city had increased its effort to recruit female officers with some success.

Of the 18 officers who graduated from the city's police academy in 2011, 3 were women, Riggs said. That made them 16.6 percent of the class, compared with a national average of 13 percent, he said.

Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal

Author: Capt Katie Petronio

http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-eq...

As a combat-experienced Marine officer, and a female, I am here to tell you that we are not all created equal, and attempting to place females in the infantry will not improve the Marine Corps as the Nation’s force-in-readiness or improve our national security.

Which once again leads me, as a ground combat-experienced female Marine Corps officer, to ask, what are we trying to accomplish by attempting to fully integrate women into the infantry? For those who dictate policy, changing the current restrictions associated with women in the infantry may not seem significant to the way the Marine Corps operates. I vehemently disagree; this potential change will rock the foundation of our Corps for the worse and will weaken what has been since 1775 the world’s most lethal fighting force. In the end, for DACOWITS and any other individual or organization looking to increase opportunities for female Marines, I applaud your efforts and say thank you. However, for the long-term health of our female Marines, the Marine Corps, and U.S. national security, steer clear of the Marine infantry community when calling for more opportunities for females. Let’s embrace our differences to further hone in on the Corps’ success instead of dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda. Regardless of the outcome, we will be “Semper Fidelis” and remain focused on our mission to protect and defend the United States of America.