A podcast from The UK magazine “History Today” putting the Super Sniper story in a historical context and going further than most examinations which just stay in celebratory mode. It also points to the propaganda value. History Today has quite a large number of nice podcasts I think, it is up to you to agree or disagree. Comments are welcome.
3 Likes
I listened to this. I had assumed it might be talking about Tania Chernova but obviously I was wrong 
My take on this is that women in the military is a much richer tradition than is generally known. I think this discussion points this out with lots of interesting tidbits. Well worth the 20 minutes.
2 Likes
I see WAACs is doin’ well here 
God I miss the WAACs…
2 Likes
I think Rudyard Kipling best expressed the reason most nation states have avoided putting women into combat roles, although usually clothing it in bafflegab about the dangers of risking future generations:
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
2 Likes
Science as well also explains it.
2 Likes
Women take war far more seriously than men. So seriously, in fact, that there’s no room for sentimentality, heroism, glory or other such masculine fetishes.
2 Likes
Hence why my wife and I protest against women in combat.
1 Like
I’m a life-long libertarian. I protest against anyone in combat against their will. It’s a reason I’m enjoying (from afar) the sudden debate in the US about whether women should be subject to the draft (spoiler: I’m against anyone being subject to conscription). If it works to end that human rights abuse, I’m a fan.
1 Like
We’ve had that for a long time. My mother protested against it back in the late '70s. And obviously, I’m against it too.
Sexual dimorphism is something the modern public need to understand better because most of the advocates for women in combat sorely lack understanding in biology and psychology.
1 Like
Norman, we should perhaps move this discussion out of the current thread. I think we’re technically committing the online crime of “threadjacking” here. 
1 Like
lol if the thread is about female Soviet snipers, why not bring up sexual differences?
1 Like
Well, okay … but I think we’re stretching the envelope of what’s acceptably “on topic” the longer we go on agreeing loudly with one another.
1 Like
I just wish folks don’t ignore genuine concerns regarding how women in wartime are taught.
1 Like
Anyway, off to the thread
1 Like
Well before you run off to a new pro women thread, I’ll try to throw some water on the subject.
Preface that there are few things in the world I know less about than the mind of a woman. Perhaps women take war more seriously because they feel the pain of it more. Women are more likely the survivors of war than those romantic warriors who got themselves killed. They have to deal with the aftermath.
Should they be conscripted? In the US, legally yes. Should anyone be conscripted is a more pertinent question. But the US has been concerned with another big war ever since the last one so we have huge plans in place both good and bad.
Should they see combat? God, I hope it doesn’t come to that. The next war will include America as a target, it has to. But let’s keep women and for that matter all of us, far away from it.
1 Like
Kipling was such a soldier’s poet. But boy could he be depressing lol.
2 Likes
His family troubles didn’t help at all.
2 Likes