Physical Standards for Women - Page 4

On September 18 2013 00:46 farvacola wrote:

I post this fairly often on this site, but it would do you well to read up on availability heuristics and why they often make for false qualifiers. I've been involved in fitness training for going on 5 years, and though I'm fairly confident that my experience is enough to say that a 300 lbs squat is a fairly advanced lift, all I need to do is look at exrx.com's strength standards, which has already been conveniently linked. (exrx.com is hands down the best PT resource on the web) You'll see that, up to 220 pounds, a 300 lbs squat is considered an intermediate lift, or one that requires regular training for a number of years.

On September 16 2013 21:21 Grumbels wrote:
The United States military doesn't actually do anything useful, so they might as well have it meet diversity standards. And I think it's really problematic to say that, for instance, rape in the military should be solved by segregating/eliminating women in the military. Maybe just eliminate men, if they can't control themselves, in most military scenarios women will still perform equally so it's not that big of a loss. (everyone can shoot a gun, pilot a vehicle etc.)

Also, the physical requirements work both ways. Men are heavier and it's more difficult to carry them. And if they were really that worried about strength, they would put everyone on steroid regimes, but as far as I know they don't.

For the firefighters example, presumably it helps to have some smaller, stocky people around for certain jobs. And if it was a given that diversity would be a feature of the workplace, then roles and equipment could be developed to give women higher functionality. I would dare to say that in most cases it will work out just fine.

And men aren't better at physical sports than women, it's just that the most popular sports all favor men. Women are more flexible and such. Presumably one of the reasons that gymnastics is always ridiculed is that it favors women, so it becomes part of dumb gender wars.

On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:
This whole thread can be summarized to:
1- There are people who believe that that positive discrimination is good to help women.
2- There are people who believe that people should be judged based purely on their competences rather than their sex.
3- There are people who believe that men are just better because fuck you that's why. They're dicks.

I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively.

If the physical standards are there for a practical reason and not meeting the criteria poses a real risk, then perhaps the same standards should be observed for everybody. If on the other hand the standards are not necessarily relevant and only exist to select people out of a pool, then perhaps it's ok to have different standards. And then, IMO there's nothing discriminatory about giving people jobs which are more suitable for them. For firefighters, perhaps it's better to have the people who are physically weaker near the truck, shooting water at the building while the stronger folks go inside and try to evac people who may need to be dragged out. (Just examples, I don't know how it works).

IMO it's important to think practically first. Don't do positive discrimination when it can be dangerous, but I'd assume that in a vast majority of the situations, there are are reasonable solutions.

On September 19 2013 01:57 Djzapz wrote:I personally believe that the fair compromise is somewhere between 1 and 2 and probably needs to be considered on a case by case basis. Positive discrimination is fine for a variety of reasons, namely the fact that women are typically disadvantages (socially and physically speaking) so there's nothing with trying to equalize it, so long as it doesn't affect others negatively.

On September 19 2013 02:28 iamho wrote:
If women were given the physically easier jobs like "shooting water" as firefighters, they'd also get paid lower wages. Which means masses of sexual discrimination lawsuits against municipal governments.

Sexual equality will be reached when weak/skinny men are also given affirmative action and weaker standards.

And no, anti-male discrimination won't help women in this context. In intellectual pursuits maybe, but no amount of discrimination will give women male strength.

On September 19 2013 03:01 Darkwhite wrote:


Positive discrimination is just an euphemistic phrase for giving someone a comparative advantage on the basis of otherwise irrelevant criteria such as sex or race, over the people who would have gotten the positions given an level playing field. You may argue that the benefits outweigh the downsides - this is largely dependent on your values - but pretending there's any way others won't be negatively affected is nothing but doublespeak.

On September 19 2013 05:19 Djzapz wrote:

Men are clearly disadvantaged by this. Good fucking thing we''ve got a bunch of other advantages to make up for it. White dudes whining is the bane of my existence, and I'm a whiny white dude.

In most domains where you get tested for physical strength and whatnot, presumably in many cases there are jobs where you don't need it. If that's so, then why not hire people who perhaps are as physically strong, but are perhaps better suited for other jobs?

On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:

So you're the bane of your existence?

On September 19 2013 17:14 Darkwhite wrote:


If the people were as physically strong, there would be no need for an entirely separate standard. Whomever qualifies by the female standard is physically weaker than the men who finish directly below the male cutoff. You are trading in fitness, in a setting where it is considered important enough to disqualify men without further consideration if they don't meet the requirements, for nothing but womanhood - on the unsubstantiated guess that they are perhaps better suited.

Of course, they might just as well be poorer fits for the job, too, but that doesn't fit in your narrative. The why not argument is a complete non-sequitur - what needs answering is why the supposedly irrelevant quality of sex suddenly trumps poorer physical performance. Why not - because merit and performance matter while sexual characteristics do not. Because positive discrimination is necessarily negative discrimination for whomever gets discriminated against, even if they are men.

On September 19 2013 18:30 LastWish wrote:
"It's 'easier' for a man to have short hair than for a woman" can never be given as an argument.
I can say it's easier to have sex for women than for man therefore I want some for free.

Where at the first half of 20th century woman's rights was the way to go, the whole emancipation has grown over our heads.
For example in today society physically hitting a woman, even if she is in your own family and behaves poorly, is very discouraged and even considered as criminal act.
While if a woman hits a man, she can alibistically argue that he was sexually abusing her.
There is no sexual abuse for a man, mainly because it rarely happends because of the imbalance of the sexes.

Women are more manipulative on the other hand, and it's becoming mainstream - lying, manipulation is somehow now accepted by mainstream society and it's almost everywhere from media, advertisements, politics to our daily jobs.

The modern human rights laws actually most only apply to man, beacuse that most of the qualities that they ban are known to grown up men, not women, not children.

I want to reduce amount of lying and manipulation in the world which is a woman's quality at core but is not regualted.
In my opinion it is the source of most agression, misery and world problems we try to solve in a different approach today.

On September 19 2013 17:12 ninazerg wrote:


Anyhow, I don't know why people keep ragging on affirmative action since that's not what this thread is about. When it comes down to it, you always want the most qualified individuals for a job. In an "ideal" world where there is no bias anywhere, women would still be allowed to join the military, and serve in combat conditions.

I know hating on women's rights is the cool thing right now, come on. But did you guys know... men are actually taller than women? That's right - men have longer legs on average, and therefore, each step in a running stride will cover slightly more distance. Is it enough to justify the times the military has? Probably not, but there's always room for improvement when it comes to recruiting and training personnel.

On September 19 2013 23:09 Djzapz wrote:

Very perceptive of you nina.


People who do not make the cut by arbitrary physical standards may have other particularities which make them suitable for specific combat jobs though. You can fail the regular male physical test and still be better than some idiot who passed because you have other talents. That's one of the problems with standards which are set largely arbitrarily. This is especially true when presumably, not all combat jobs require the same general 'physique'.

Anyway I don't buy into the idea that positive discrimination is necessarily negative discrimination for somebody else. Odds are, the person who gets discriminated against is otherwise advantaged in many ways. Like I said, being a white guy is playing life on easy mode. Just do better.

Also I recognize that certain people are trying to make this out to be a simple matter and it isn't. My very first post mentioned that it's important to strike a good, and somewhat fair balance. But it's never fair, so we can try to balance it out within reason.

On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:


This thread is literally about affirmative action. Feel free to compare the use of different standards for men and women with Wikipedia's article on affirmative action here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

On September 20 2013 00:48 Darkwhite wrote:
Of course they may have other particularities. I need you to substantiate why a woman clocking in a 14:00 run is more likely to have such qualities than a man doing 13:30. Because the only function of different standards is to admit the slower woman ahead of the man. There is nothing to buy about positive and negative discrimination being two sides of the same coin. If you favor women, you automatically disfavor men - there is literally no way around it.

It isn't simple, because it is a matter of striking a balance between different concerns which are difficult to weigh against each other, but being honest about what discrimination really is and who loses out when somebody skips ahead of the line is a great start.

Finally, there is no need for a good balance between not stealing and stealing everything. Not stealing is the obvious answer. Similarly, it is not at all obvious that the correct balance between equality and discrimination is a bit of discrimination to maybe compensate for the other injustices which may or may not exist. Maybe just leaving irrelevant characteristics such as sex and race out of it is the best solution.

On September 20 2013 02:18 Djzapz wrote:

IMO your main fault is that you assume that the standards set when women simply didn't postulate to make an arbitrary cutoff are necessarily relevant, and they're not. Now I'm not necessarily advocating for separate standards between men and women, not that I would disapprove if it was done correctly.

When doing this is not impractical, why not lower the overall physical standards (previously simply used to weed out men even though some of them were undoubtedly perfectly adequate for the job) and redirect the requirements.

Assuming that old standards are good even though they were put together by men for men in a society controlled by men is just absurd.

In some cases, I'm sure it's true that the the physical standards set for men are adequate and practical, but you have to prove that. You say that positive discrimination is negatively discriminatory against certain people, which is true. On the other hand, what discriminates more against women than arbitrary* physical requirements set for men? I emphasize on the word arbitrary here again because until somebody proves to me that the arbitrary standard have sound reasoning behind them (in given situations), my point stands.

You speak of 'theft' as if the standards were perfectly fair de facto, despite the fact that there could be an alternative which would be just as effective at selecting good personnel without such a steep physical strength cutoff. I think we steal those jobs from women, and they want them back. Don't tell me there aren't perfectly competent women who were rejected because of some bullshit rules that were made up for men. In all likelyhood, it happens all the time because people like you are so keen on accepting the old standards as if they were perfect and designed with practicality in mind rather than to weed out people.


By the way I'm not saying that arbitrary rules are always bad. They'll always be unfair - I'm sure some really good marksmen and people who would have been excellent soldiers were rejected under this arbitrary rule and it was unfair to them, men included. That's inevitable - certain pearls will fall through the cracks and it's just something we have to deal with. Selection processes have to be efficient and will always be flawed to an extent. But here I'm saying that if an arbitrary rule keeps out a vast majority of an entire classification of people, maybe this rule needs to be reviewed for efficacy. It especially needs to be reviewed if said rule was instituted when it was only for men, for instance.

On September 20 2013 02:38 Darkwhite wrote:


You are not reading my posts. I have only spoken against different standards for men and women, which is what this topic is about.

On September 20 2013 03:56 Djzapz wrote:

Very shallow response. My position is closely related to OP's topic. You can hardly argue that it's off topic, and even if it were, it's still really close. Not sure why you'd try to dismiss it so cheaply, it seems relevant to me.

Plus, I've spoken about different standards for men and women first. I just added something on top of that. Something which you shouldn't outright ignore.

Don't tell me there aren't perfectly competent women who were rejected because of some bullshit rules that were made up for men. In all likelyhood, it happens all the time because people like you are so keen on accepting the old standards as if they were perfect and designed with practicality in mind rather than to weed out people.

. I need you to substantiate why a woman clocking in a 14:00 run is more likely to have such qualities than a man doing 13:30. Because the only function of different standards is to admit the slower woman ahead of the man.

On September 20 2013 05:25 Darkwhite wrote:
There is hardly anything to reply to. Three quarters of your reply is a tangential regurgitation of feminist ideology.

I have never assumed the current standards are relevant. I am fine with removing them altogether or substantially lowering them or even raising them, depending on which particular institution we are talking about and what pool of applicants they have available. I would have to know a lot more about what sort of work people are going to do with what sort of equipment and how easily people generally adapt to the demands of their new positions, etcetera, to hold much of an informed opinion on this.

If it's true that the current standards are needlessly strict, and if it is true that because of this, the best qualified people are not being recruited, and if there is a good way to select these talented people from the pool of applicants, then of course it would be a good idea to change things around and hire the best people. All of these ifs, though, are questions which aren't readily answered, and none of them seem to call for different male and female standards. I don't have to prove anything about the current standards, because I have no opinion on the standards themselves, only that they ought to be unisex or a very explicit explanation given for why it's a good idea for a 14:00 run to disqualify a man and qualify a woman - preferably one which doesn't reference the patriarchy.

Physical requirements do indeed indirectly discriminate against women. This is not a problem in and of itself. However, hiring on the basis of irrelevant criteria is always a bad idea, because that's not how you find the most talented people. If you are trying to find a wet nurse, you will have to discriminate against men and that's perfectly fine.

Your point about the current standards maybe being needlessly strict does indeed stand unchallenged, and is still irrelevant to my point about unisex standards.

I speak of theft not to discuss the current standards, simply to highlight that the call for balance between extremes is a fallacy. The correct solution isn't always in the middle ground - sometimes, it is to say that equality trumps racial or sexual diversity. It is still not at all obvious to me why a equality needs to give any way to female representation, or whatever else a laxer standard for females is supposed to achieve.

I am not defending the old standards. People unlike me might be, though. I have no particular opinion.

Your final paragraph is simply disheartening. Insofar as possible, the selection process should be tailored to find the most suitable people without too much overhead. It is not any more okay if bad rules exclude capable slow running males than females.

In conclusion, your post ignores mostly everything I have written, assumes I hold opinions I have never expressed and spring boards directly into delivering your favorite lines of trite feminism. That is why I did not particularly want to reply in full. Nowhere does it explicitly deal with the question I have asked very explicitly, namely:yaddayadda

I need you to substantiate why a woman clocking in a 14:00 run is more likely to have such qualities than a man doing 13:30. Because the only function of different standards is to admit the slower woman ahead of the man.