[jessefan]

Affectively, the ban on women in combat is lifted once they are needed there.

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/mar2...3/a033003b.html

Female Soldiers Assist with Cultural Sensitivities

By U.S. Army Spc. Marie Schult
Combined Joint Task Force

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Marching along with the 82nd Airborne Division in the Sami Ghar mountains on their most recent operation, Valiant Strike, one would never imagine looking up and seeing a tightly wound bun under the Kevlar of the soldier to the front.

But that’s just what’s happening. Due to cultural sensitivities, female soldiers are being taken on combat missions to search village women. Until recently, this was handled by female military police officers, however a shortage of female MPs has forced women from other areas of the military to pick up the slack.

“There’s only so many female MPs. They go through a course that the MP’s teach on how to properly search and what to look for,” said 1st Sgt. Craig Pinkley, B Company, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. “So, with that they get trained up and they do practical exercises and when the MPs feel they’re ready they send them to us.”

Amusingly, the troops were unaware of the jobs their female counterparts usually do.

“At first they thought we were rough and tough MPs, but when they found out I was in supply, they were surprised,” said Pfc. Maria Gonzalez, a 21 year-old supply specialist with B Company, 307th Forward Support Battalion, Fort Bragg, N.C.

It sounds simple, but to these women, going on a combat operation is a big deal for them.

“It’s a lot different because being supply I work in an office, so being out here in the woods is really different,” said Pfc. Tamika McGee, a supply specialist with the 307th FSB.

The hardest thing for these women to deal with has not been the males, sleeping outside, improvising latrines or being constantly on the move. It has been the women they search.

“Some of them get really mad, most are scared and start crying,” said Pfc, Adalina Roman, a 19 year-old supply specialist, B Co., 307th FSB. “And some are cooperative.”

The Afghan women are sensitive about being seen by people who are not members of their family. They are sometimes upset when even female soldiers try to search them.

They’re really scared, one woman was so upset she lost control of her bowels when asked to stand up, said Pfc. Marcella Brady, a 22 year-old supply specialist, B Co., 307th FSB.

“I feel real bad for them,” said Brady. “I’d probably be scared too.”

Women are not the only ones who get emotional when searched.

Brady mentioned one man who became hysterical, started crying and choking when he saw his wife being searched. This prompted all the women to start crying and Brady had to get the already very busy interpreter to help calm them all down.

For all the misery this piece of protocol might cause Afghans, it is a very necessary task.

In one village the women were sitting near an olive grove, said Roman. The searchers found they were hiding ammunition in the grove.

“Male soldiers would never have found them because they can’t go near the women,” said Roman.

“They have a big responsibility too,” said Pinkley, “because in the past we have caught some of the women, in the villages, with weapons on them.”

Not all soldiers are so positive about the women being there.

A male soldier said he felt the same job could be done without having to bring the women along. He said they just did not belong, even though he admitted that, thus far, the women had not been a burden

Although one soldier feels a slight bit discouraged by the presence of women on his combat operation, the senior leadership appreciates the women who are there to fill the roles of searcher.

“They’re doing a phenomenal job,” said Pinkley.

In line with the senior leadership the females who are selected for the missions do not have a problem with being out with the infantry.

“They’re (the men) real respectful,” said McGee. “They always check on me to see if I need anything, they take real good care of me.”

These women also have a new view of Afghanistan, one not provided by sitting behind the supply desk.

“The best part was experiencing how they (women) live,” said Brady. She said she took pictures of Afghans in order to show her little brother how they live.

“So, when he’s complaining about not having new Jordans and stuff like that, (he can see) these people are walking around in shoes that do not even fit and some people don’t even have shoes,” Brady added.

“I think a lot of people in the world need to see the other half of the world, to know how other people live. Instead of just worrying about them having all the luxuries. They’d probably give up some stuff seeing how these people live,” said Brady.

Even though the females are succeeding in the field and having new experiences they do not pretend it’s easy. McGee said she gets through by praying, “every morning and the whole time out here.”

Pinkley agreed, they are doing a good job of hanging in and dealing with the rough conditions.

“They have to share the hardships that we go through,” said Pinkley. “We ask a lot of them and they do real well.”

(Editor’s note: Spc. Jim Wagner, 109th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, contributed to this article.)

[jessefan]

I'm trying to find out more about this story. I've checked this on www.snopes.com, so it is not (yet) an urban legend. Here is the photograph the story is talking about, and yes I see where they would have trouble deciding if they were looking at a female (though assuredly, I wound't ).
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/100...100102036.shtml
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/images/1001...hanstrategy.jpg

The sports bra part is obviouslly not true, but the rest of it feels true. There would have to be a psychological set that would prevent Afghan males from recognizing US female soldiers as female, especially if they dress the same as men and wear body armor. There are pictures of civil war soldiers who are obviously women, but yet who were never discovered to be so because of the male psychological set then existing.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/s...sp?story=361411

In Foreign Parts: GI Janes flaunt their sports bras as body search
arrives in cultural minefield of Afghan frontier
By Jan McGirk in Peshawar
14 December 2002
I idly mention to my translator in Peshawar how a war photo published
in all the Pakistani dailies has outraged everyone who has seen it.

Janula Hashim Khan is usually rather bored by my attempts to make
polite conversation, but he suddenly comes to life, eyes ablaze. "Yes,
I know the photo. It's a disgrace to see our sisters and mothers
mauled like that," he says. To my amazement, he pulls a carefully
folded newspaper clipping out of his wallet. "Is this the one you
mean?"

The picture shows an Afghan woman being subjected to a body search by
an American soldier.

The photo had provoked weeks of venomous letters to the editor
condemning this practice. The same shot had been blown up and used for
the Yank-bashing election campaign that swept the clerics into
unprecedented power in the provinces closest to the Afghan border. To
most Pakistanis and Afghans, this photo is hyper-offensive, showing a
demure Islamic beauty disrespected by an American brute.

The latent feminist in me cannot be stifled. There is some potent
propaganda to be countered. "Look a little closer," I said. "That is a
woman soldier who is patting the Afghan lady down."

"Impossible," all the Muslim men in the room say in unison. The
masculine ambience of this frontier city near the Khyber Pass is so
pervasive that, at least in a warlord's antechamber, a female soldier
is utterly inconceivable, even if you have a picture of her in front
of you.

"Look again," I insist. "Under the helmet, her hair is bunched at the
neck. The US army has plenty of women soldiers, just like this one."

In fact, I later learnt that the original caption, never used in
Pakistan, identified her as Sergeant Nicola Hall. The bearded men are
unconvinced.

"Well, then look at her childbearing hips," I continue. "Broad. Like
mine." Khan blanches and hesitates before he translates my words. The
men scowl.

Again, the photo is passed around. Culturally, this is a minefield. In
the Northwest Frontier provinces no one is prepared to check out a
person's bum in public, certainly not in mixed company, not even in a
photo. Men and women customarily cover their backsides with long
tunics.

Could they not know what to look for? "Most men are narrower in the
loins ..." I am stating the obvious and stop abruptly.

They shrug, unable to sex the fighter in the photo and unwilling to
admit they might be mistaken. But one young lieutenant persists. "That
is not a female. That is a soldier manhandling an Afghan woman," he
declares with finality.

A Western military attaché told me how grenades and rockets were often
retrieved from beneath the odd burqa. Women must be checked during
routine arms inspections and this presents a quandary: how to be
culturally sensitive conquerors and not offend the folks you liberated
last year and now want to disarm.

Some etiquette is evolving. Now American female soldiers start gun
raids in Afghanistan by bounding out of helicopters and stripping down
to their sports bras. Only then do they take village women aside to be
searched. It is a quick way to prove their femininity to Afghan elders
unaccustomed to seeing women in trousers. I reckon it must leave quite
a few of the old boys slack-jawed and goggle-eyed.

[jessefan]

more on this in a more serious vein.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1104/p01s03-wosc.html

QUOTE

Whether this lesson has any lasting effect, however, is an open question. The two-year-long American presence has not set off a feminist revolution - no veil burnings, no street protests, no student movements demanding women's rights. Experts say that Afghan culture has a time-tested resistance to outside influences. "My impression is that they view Americans as another species of animal, and one of the characteristics of this animal is that they let their women work as soldiers," says David Edwards, an anthropologist at Williams College and specialist on Afghan culture. "The Afghans see the Americans and say, 'They drink, they eat pork, they don't fast during Ramadan. There's a whole package of things they do that we don't do.

QUOTE

"A lot of villagers don't mind female soldiers," Vivers says. "In fact, a lot of the time, they have to ask if we are female.