A question: after the 'Atlantic Conveyor' was sunk, with all bar one of the Chinooks sent to the Falklands lost, the Marines and the Paras walked with staggering (literally?) personal loads, across really uninviting terrain in truly horrible weather - and during and towards the end of that exhausting forced march, fought more than one very nasty engagement, some involving one on one hand to hand combat with an entrenched enemy, (where, let’s face it, sometimes, support arriving on scene literally one minute earlier than it might have can make all the difference in the world to the outcome of said engagement).
Would an infantry force with a significant percentage of females making up its numbers have performed to exactly the same degree of effectiveness? Forget the imponderables like fighting effectiveness after the forced march for one moment if you will and consider only how long it took that force to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’.
I'm impressed and not a little in awe of the female medics I see operating with the Brit forces in Afghanistan, but having said that, I think the important word in that question above is 'exactly'. I’m an over 6’ male who passed all the required military physical tests in my youth, but I doubt very much if at the height of my physical fitness, I’d have coped with the loads I saw those soldiers carrying over the distance they carried them and been of any use in a firefight for some time afterwards.