Leon Panetta to remove military's ban on women serving in combat

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BREAKING NEWS: Senior defense officials say Pentagon chief Leon Panetta is removing the military's ban on women serving in combat

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It's about time. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Israel, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland already do permit this.

[url="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2010/02/pros-and-cons-of-allowing-women-in-combat-roles/25482/"]http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2010/02/pros-and-cons-of-allowing-women-in-combat-roles/25482/[/url]

[quote] "matters of privacy and matters related to sex, including harassment/fraternization and pregnancy, directly affect morale, discipline, deployability, and readiness." Israel is a "a small country that conscripts forces and does not require long deployments away from home"--the two situations are not comparable. As to the matter of physical fitness, she thinks Ross "misses the point":

Women on average do not have the physical capability to lift a fully loaded male soldier who has been wounded under fire, in order to save his life. Even average-sized men have that capability; no one should have to die because women do not.[/quote]

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans#Strength.2C_power_and_muscle_mass"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_humans#Strength.2C_power_and_muscle_mass[/url]
The greater muscle mass of males is in turn due to a greater capacity for muscular hypertrophy as a result of men's higher levels of testosterone.

[url="http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/musclesgrowLK.html"]http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/musclesgrowLK.html[/url]
All studies show that men and women respond to a resistance training stimulus very similarly. However, due to gender differences in body size, body composition and hormone levels, gender will have a varying effect on the extent of hypertrophy one may possibly attain.