If the physical standards are set because they are needed, then no, they should not be lowered for women.

I can *maybe* see situations in which it's not that they need to be able to carry xyz on the job, it's that they want their people to be in peak physical fitness... gym teacher or coach or something like that. In such a case different standards might make sense.

And obviously if you set arbitrary physical standards just to keep women out, ie, require your librarians to be able to bench press 200 lbs, it is another issue.

But it doesn't sound like those situations are the case.

Now, if firefighting is a complicated job where some people do the physical stuff and others, I dunno, stay in the truck and press buttons to control water flow I can see having different standards for different roles... but it shouldn't be based on sex or gender.

Typical Progressive response. Personal attacks on your character of highly, emotionally charged types, instead of engaging your assertions with factual or logical counter arguments.

It's a damned disease: Reasoning Deficit Disorder.

Symptoms include the delusion that combatting physical conditions is in any way addressed by gender equity fantasies.

The prize? Unfit "persons" - because you can't lower standards just for women, that's discrimination - will die in fires, having been told "You can do it!".

The services have already fallen to this pile of crap... The Navy found women to be useless at damage control, and then hid the results. Follow the embedded links for the numbers and an appalling first-person story.

One woman went after my current book with a one-star review. All my reviews were five-star before.

Imagine this: You work harder on something (this book) than you ever have on anything else, for three years (after the advance) and years before that, and somebody who disagrees with you on Twitter tries to hurt your livelihood. And maybe succeeds, if I can't get Amazon to remove it as an abusive attack rather than an actual review of the book.

The Navy found women to be useless at damage control, and then hid the results. ~ Radwaste at January 14, 2019 3:52 AM

Prior to World War II, the Navy's damage control training was inadequate, to say the least. Daniel Gallery (Captain, USN) wrote in Clear the Decks that the post-Pearl-Harbor damage control training consisted fighting actual fires, not just reading about it or going through the motions.

Gallery credits that increased realism in training with saving the USS Franklin in 1945. The "Big Ben" was damaged by a Japanese air attack and lost over 800 of her crew (second only to the USS Arizona sunk at Pearl Harbor). The damage to the "Big Ben" was far worse than the damage to the USS Lexington lost in the Battle of Coral Sea only 3 years earlier.

Theory doesn't win wars, or save ships. Nor does diversity for diversity's sake.

"One woman went after my current book with a one-star review."

Well, you're in good company: Scott Adams and Larry Correia have both had that happen to them.

Part of the price of "free speech" is that much of it is spiteful or factually wrong...

> I can *maybe* see situations in
> which it's not that they need to
> be able to carry xyz on the job

See this. It was Easterbrook who first described (to my hearing) the enormous size increases for NFL players over recent decades.

I've been wondering what would happen if the rules, for just five years, forbade any football player from weighing more than 200 pounds. Would the games be less watchable? Would they be safer? (Maybe not, in either respect.)

The speeds in Formula One cars have been subject to ever-more complicated constraints... They're safer, but kids still die horribly (most recently in 2014, hence the new "halo.")

I am wondering what will happen when someone or someone's kid dies while a female fire-person is trying to save them. I can see the liability lawsuit already, that the fire department/city government/etc. failed to provide adequate resources to properly deal with emergency situations, that they relaxed the industry standards for some candidates, blah blah. And the sad irony will be that some of these actual victims will be the very type of progressive that is currently pushing for diversity.

If there are no short, Black lesbians in your fire department, there's likely a racist involved in hiring.

If a house burns down because of it, so be it. Diversity is more important than effectiveness.

What was the Ann Coulter quote? I paraphrase from memory:

"You couldn't find a woman in the NYFD response on 9/11 - heck, you couldn't even find a Protestant! They were all Irish and Italian Catholic men."

Back when "Old Bill" was a Mc or an O', we also had a lot fewer cop shootings, because the police officers were more likely to be brawlers, too.

“USS Lexington lost in the Battle of Coral Sea only 3 years earlier.”

Robert Heinlin’s ship.

The prize? Unfit "persons" - because you can't lower standards just for women, that's discrimination - will die in fires, having been told "You can do it!".

Oh, but it gets better. They'll get the civilians they're supposed to be trying to rescue killed, and more than likely, some of their associates who attempt to save them will also not make it out.

In the middle of the Twitter firestorm (in which I participated), it occurred to me that I was very familiar with your writing and point of view, so I knew exactly what you were saying. But everyone else was completely unaware and simply would not accept what you were offering even after you clarified yourself. But I did like that you were able to get some people to delete their responses.

The experience in the army combat units has been that mixed units put the men at risk too because they end up carrying more gear (that the women can't) and the men are the only ones who can carry out the wounded. Women in Ranger School get so many serious injuries, including hip fractures that might mean they can never have children. On police forces also women put lives at risk because they cannot subdue suspects. I saw video online of 3 female officers in Sweden trying to arrest a drunk. He just swatted them away like flies until a single male officer arrived and arrested him. In atlanta 10 yrs ago or so a 5ft 3in female guard was left briefly with a male prisoner--he smashed her, took keys and her gun, burst into court and shot a judge, went awol, and then took a female hostage for 24 hrs. The difference in strength between men and women is simply stunning (yah yah there are a couple of strong women out there). Most guys I know when younger could easily pick up a friend over their shoulder and run around with them and we would do this in college to be funny. Very few women can do this. I've seen a chart of hand grip strength, which varies with age. A 65 yr old average guy has more grip strength than the avg woman of any age. As a very avg guy, in college I could bench 220lbs and do lat pulls with 175.

I have seen responses from progressives to this problem of strength in fire depts, police and the army and they either change the subject or insist it should be done anyway. Perhaps they think of fire fighting (etc) simply as a concept rather than a real thing. But clearly they do not value real lives compared to the narrative.

Related:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article223879635.html

I'll just be glad if my fireman doesn't look like Woody Allen.

Robert Heinlin’s ship. ~ Isab at January 14, 2019 9:42 AM

Fun fact: The captain of CV-2, "The Lady Lex," when Heinlein was aboard was Ernest J. King. King would later serve as the Chief of Naval Operations and Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet during World War II.

King's original WWII designation of CINCUS was changed to COMINCH in December 1941 because, phonetically, the original sounded like "sink us."

After the USS Lexington (CV-2) was sunk, another carrier, then nearing commissioning and slated to be named the USS Cabotwas named instead USS Lexington in her honor and designated CV-16.

CV-16 was nicknamed "The Blue Ghost" by her sailors since the Japanese were (supposed to be) confused that the Lexington, a ship they thought they'd sunk, was still in action. That carrier was finally decommissioned in 1991.

I actually got a chance to tour the Lexington when her hull number was AVT-16, training pilots out of Pensacola. She's now a museum ship in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Damn those cisgendered white males and their laws of physics.

Kingsley Browne's "Co-Ed Combat" makes the point, underscored by research, that men will die -- more of them will -- if women are in combat units.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/01/25/more_on_why_co-.html

Back when "Old Bill" was a Mc or an O', we also had a lot fewer cop shootings, because the police officers were more likely to be brawlers, too. ~ El Verde Loco at January 14, 2019 8:45 AM

Well, that and the fact that the NYPD did not start issuing firearms until 1895. Until then, each officer had to supply his own sidearm - at his own expense.

Things changed when Theodore Roosevelt became the President of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners. He had each officer issued a Colt Police Positive revolver chambered in .32 S&W Long, an anemic round more likely to piss off a perp than injure him.

In 1907 the NYPD issued its officers the .38 Police Positive chambered in .38 S&W, another anemic round about which firearms writer Elmer Keith said, "It was a pip squeak load and accuracy was about its only virtue."

It was not until 1926 that the NYPD was finally issued a round more likely to injure a perp than piss him off, the .38 Special.

Check this out: Sarah wouldn't talk to Natalie, so sailors died.

NicoleK, when the firefighter gets hurt inside the fire, it'e the one watching the dials on the pumps who has to go in and carry him out.

To have the redundancy necessary to support the rigid specialization you suggest would require skyrocketing municipal taxes, and that's before you factor in the inherent inefficiency of government management.

What exactly on the test described do you think a firefighter might reasonably expect never to do?

BW1 I have no idea whether there are specialised jobs in firefighting. If every one needs to do the same stuff, then yes, the standards need to be the same. That's what I am saying.

"If every one needs to do the same stuff, "

For the most part they do. Just "do the math."

It's a hazardous activity with no allowance for delays, paid for by hard to justify tax dollars. It's expected that people will get incapacitated, usually in a manner that adds the additional task of rescuing them, and their role has to be filled IMMEDIATELY, and the money isn't there to pay for a lot of redundant head count.