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New RAF TV advert for women

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New RAF TV advert for women

Old 29th Mar 2019, 10:55
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Originally Posted by Vendee
Why would you try to recruit men on purpose? Because that's what we have done for a very long time without any complaints from the misogynists.
I think that should be fairly obvious.
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 11:14
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Originally Posted by 350 Driver
I hear this line of thinking fairly often. Is there some sort of data or legitimate research behind this? And is it true in all industries or fields of work? Honestly, I doubt it. But hey, it sure does sound good! It's like that line I always hear "A nation's military should be representative of the nation it defends?" Again I ask 'Why?" I want my military to be able to defend the country and win wars in the most efficient and effective way possible. Again, I'm looking for data and not feel good one liners.

So? Is that a problem? Is the goal of the military to make sure that women are properly represented or to be effective on the battlefield and win wars?
Again, so what?
To be clear, I think that the best person should get the job but that it’s more likely that you will get the best person if both sexes (a greater pool from which to select) are enthused enough to apply in the first place.

For your point about diversity, I guess it depends if you think that good decisions help to win wars:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriklars...aking-at-work/
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 13:27
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To be clear, I think that the best person should get the job but that it’s more likely that you will get the best person if both sexes (a greater pool from which to select) are enthused enough to apply in the first place.
I won't argue that there are individual women that can outperform some individual men in certain fields. However, war is a team sport so we have to take into account how those men and women interact with one each other, all the side affects and extra costs that go along with a mixed gender force and determine whether or not it's worth it to get some women that are individually above average performers. If it's one thing we can't change it's human nature. And human nature is that men and women like to become romantically involved and sleep with each other. That causes all sorts of tension and disciplinary problems in units. There are cases of sexual harassment, abuse and assault all over the military. While these behaviors are abhorrent and should never be overlooked or downplayed, we shouldn't always take the easy and lazy way out of blaming men or a traditionally masculine culture for these problems. These problems will always exist in a mixed gender setting and there is simply zero ways around that because it's who we are as a species for better or worse. They exist in the business world just as much as it does in the military. The differences of course being that the stakes in the military are much higher and the military is taxpayer funded. Countries have a duty to provide the best military possible and a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer to do it as efficiently as possible. And then of course there are the additional issues of pregnancy, motherhood and the different general hygiene and medical needs of women that add an additional burden on the military and the taxpayer. Leadership and discipline are hard, they're very hard in fact. Should we make them even harder in the name of equality? Is that fair to the citizens we defend or to our young soldiers and leaders in the military?

For your point about diversity, I guess it depends if you think that good decisions help to win wars:
First, the Forbes article title is "Diversity+Inclusion+=Better Decision Making at Work" but when I click the link to the actual study I find that the study is actually titled "Inclusion+Diversity=Better Decision making at work." So either the author of the article is too stupid to even quote the title of the study he's reporting on correctly or, more likely, he's trying to push some sort of political angle by completely changing the title of the study. Either one is grounds for me to stop taking that reporter seriously.

Second, the study seems rather vague. It doesn't define for me what exactly they mean by "inclusion." Does that mean that superiors and subordinates meet together as a team to discuss possible courses of action and determine which one they think will lead to the most success? If so, stop the effing presses! That's groundbreaking stuff right there! I can't believe no one has ever thought of doing that before! Seriously though, the military has been doing that since the dawn of time and most businesses have been too. It's such an old and proven concept that it's really not even worth studying.

But even if I took the article at face value, which I don't obviously, decision making isn't the only thing that wins war. Discipline, esprit de corps, deployability, efficiency and readiness all factor in just as much if not more than "decision making," whatever that is defined as in a military sense. Do we sacrifice all those other things for the sake of one?
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 14:23
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Because women are under represented in the military.

So? Is that a problem? Is the goal of the military to make sure that women are properly represented or to be effective on the battlefield and win wars?
You're missing the point, 350 Driver. It is not representing women for the sake of representation, but because sidelining 50% of your population for no good reason undermines your capability. The MoD isn't saying with this advert that only women need apply, it is saying that it has identified a gap in its recruitment that it is trying to address.
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 15:24
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, but because sidelining 50% of your population for no good reason undermines your capability.
What if there is a good reason to sideline them? I think there a lot of good reasons to not recruit women. I laid just a few of many in my post above. Does the UK, or any nation, really NEED to tap into that other 50% of the population? If so why is there such a shortage of manpower? Is it because the military isn't recruiting women or is it because the economy is good and there are better prospects in the civilian market? Would it be better to increase pay or improve living conditions before tapping into the female labor pool? If there wasn't a shortage of recruits would it then be okay to not try to tap into the other 50% of the population?
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 15:31
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A lot of posters here have clearly made up their mind about political correctness gone mad. Only saving grace is they're not serving any more so their comments couldn't matter less!
You're the one who seems to have made up their mind as evidenced by the fact that you would rather hurl personal insults than actually discuss the topic.

If I was someone looking at joining and read half the crap here I wouldn't dream of it, thinking I might come up against the idiots we see here.
Intersting. Have you considered that the advert may actually turn off some of the potential recruits from your main source of manpower? I'm talking about young men by the way. Many young men turn to military service as a way to prove themselves "as a man." You can argue whether or not that's silly or shortsighted all you want but that's just the psyche of young men coming of age and trying to find their place in this world. A lot of those guys are going to look at that ad and think "Why would I want to prove or challenge myself by joining an organization full of women talking about the tactical lipgloss and maxipads?"



And, before anybody has a go, if you took offence at what's been said, it's already too late for you. Go dribble in your retirement home.
I don't think anyone is offended here except for the person hurling personal insults.
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 15:43
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Originally Posted by 350 Driver
I think that should be fairly obvious.
Obviously not.
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 15:52
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...full of women talking about the tactical lipgloss and maxipads?"
Oh, good Lord.
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 15:56
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Originally Posted by 350 Driver
You're the one who seems to have made up their mind as evidenced by the fact that you would rather hurl personal insults than actually discuss the topic.

Intersting. Have you considered that the advert may actually turn off some of the potential recruits from your main source of manpower? I'm talking about young men by the way. Many young men turn to military service as a way to prove themselves "as a man." You can argue whether or not that's silly or shortsighted all you want but that's just the psyche of young men coming of age and trying to find their place in this world. A lot of those guys are going to look at that ad and think "Why would I want to prove or challenge myself by joining an organization full of women talking about the tactical lipgloss and maxipads?"

I don't think anyone is offended here except for the person hurling personal insults.
That's simply because there's nothing to discuss. You can continue thinking it's 1953, while the rest of us get by in 2019.

And no, I don't for a minute believe such an effect will be had. Mostly because that kind of guy isn't looking at the RAF in the first place, and even if he was and that advert put him off, I'm fairly confident he's not the kind of person we'd want anyway.
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 16:02
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That's simply because there's nothing to discuss.
Then why are you here?
You can continue thinking it's 1953, while the rest of us get by in 2019.
The current year is irrelevant. Either it's good policy or it's not. If you aren't capable of having a frank and forthright discussion on the matter then that's your problem, not mine.

And no, I don't for a minute believe such an effect will be had. Mostly because that kind of guy isn't looking at the RAF in the first place, and even if he was and that advert put him off, I'm fairly confident he's not the kind of person we'd want anyway.
I'll ask you this, if a woman was put off by an advert that didn't specifically cater to her gender, is that the type of person you'd want anyway?
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 18:24
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350 Driver

You write excellent trenchant commonsense. Your opposition seem to me to be those indoctrinated with the kind of political thinking so beloved by many leftish educational systems. My own anxieties about the recruitment of the ladies to the armed forces relate to those in direct contact with an enemy.

There has been some impetus - notified in the media - to make this option available. I believe that there are irreconcilable differences in the way that men and women approach the same task. Killing another person is a matter of considerable difficulty for both sexes; very difficult to impossible for most women; less so for men.

Men have towards women a strongly protective instinct that has been there since we stood up on our hind legs. I cannot believe, coming as I do from a military background, that this powerful instinct does not at best merely impede operational efficiency but at worst, produces a situation that can turn a successful military operation into a dangerous failure.
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Old 29th Mar 2019, 23:30
  #52 (permalink)  
 
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Great ad - its nice to see the RAF PR machine finally come up with something that captures the imagination, instead of some tangental nonsense that misses the mark. I am also in favour of more women in the military; this may come as a surprise to some of the old and bold, but women differ very little to men in that there are good ones, and bad ones.

As an aside, having worked with, and for, a number of women over the years, I have observed that they treat each other far more harshly than men treat them. I've seen highly capable female QHI's turn into absolute shredders when debriefing other females... go figure!
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Old 30th Mar 2019, 07:04
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Originally Posted by 350 driver
And human nature is that men and women like to become romantically involved and sleep with each other.
Shhh, don't tell anyone but men and men like to become romantically involved and sleep with each other. The RAF got their head around that one about 20 years ago.

I've worked with the other sex for my entire life. I'm now associated with an air cadet squadron where a little over half our cadets are female. Unsurprisingly, the stereotypes that endured a couple of generations back are no longer there; the youth of today (our future service personnel) are far more at ease, far more accepting of each other and they do not judge their peers on matters of gender, race or religion. To roll out the primitive arguments of mixed gender issues is laughable in today's society. It is my EXPERIENCE that the greater the diversity the better the capability.
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Old 30th Mar 2019, 08:26
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Back in the days of the Nimrod AEW project, it was mooted in the coffee bar that there may be female fighter control branch personnel posted onto the aircraft. (This in the days before GD was open to female). This was objected to in no uncertain terms by one of the older Spec Aircrew navs who thought that women should be in support roles on the ground and not in the air. A short time later, an elaborate spoof was hatched, and a letter to Stn Cdr Waddington arrived from Group tasking the NAEW Joint Trials Unit to investigate whether indeed female aircrew could safely and effectively fly in the aircraft...the letter ended that a positive report would be most beneficial to the Air Force. Needless to say, a fairly thick file of correspondence thumped onto the desk of the "victim" with a minute tasking him to write a paper on the subject. The majority of Stn Execs, our representatives in Group, and other parts of the RAF were all in on the affair, and even signals flashed between units asking for news on the progress of the report. The victim himself initially wrote a memo to the Stn Cdr asking not to have this task because he was personally not in favour, but the file came back to him (Memo attached). He actually wrote a very good paper on the subject but highlighted some problems such as inadequate toilet provision, lack of sanitary towel disposal etc and forwarded the draft on to OC Trials Team for approval. It came back initialled by both OC Trials Team and Stn Cdr asking him to re-write it because it was not supportive enough. Re-written it duly was, only for the file to surface at a Unit beer call and the spoof revealed (and the report read to all assembled). The last I knew of the file - it had been squirrelled away at the Trials Team and then passed on to the Sentry Training Team when the Sentry arrived on the scene. I wonder if it still exists?
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Old 30th Mar 2019, 10:46
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Unhappy

Originally Posted by pr00ne
Training Risky,

That's right mate, you ignore just over half the population!

And as someone who has been rather closely involved with the Home Office this past year, I can tell you for a fact that white men are NOT being turned away by ANY UK Police service, certainly not for being white men. Look at the % of non white men in the Police for goodness sake.
The question I would ask is; why was 50% of the population, across the Globe, ignored in the first place? Presumably the talent was always there? Also the million dollar question, when will we see equality in professional sports? Or is the latter far to important!

FB
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Old 30th Mar 2019, 12:08
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Originally Posted by minigundiplomat
Great ad - its nice to see the RAF PR machine finally come up with something that captures the imagination, instead of some tangental nonsense that misses the mark. I am also in favour of more women in the military; this may come as a surprise to some of the old and bold, but women differ very little to men in that there are good ones, and bad ones.

As an aside, having worked with, and for, a number of women over the years, I have observed that they treat each other far more harshly than men treat them. I've seen highly capable female QHI's turn into absolute shredders when debriefing other females... go figure!
Just for clarity. The RAF won a competition for diversity or something similar. The prize was this advert.(£1m) worth.
It is very clever and just what resonates with the young people today.
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Old 30th Mar 2019, 12:40
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Some astounding comments on here for 2019..............

" indoctrinated with the kind of political thinking so beloved by many leftish educational systems"

""Why would I want to prove or challenge myself by joining an organization full of women talking about the tactical lipgloss and maxipads?""


I note that 350Driver gives home sweet home as Louisiana - which has never been at the forefront of equal treatment for ANYONE over the years.
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Old 30th Mar 2019, 18:11
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Not seen the ad yet but from some remarks here.

Daughter, as a flt Lt, was selected as SME logie in a Purple CPX. The Lt Col would not accept a junior RAF female and insisted on a more senior RAF type.

As it happens daughter had known the selected wg cdr for a number of years even before she joined the RAF. The wg cdr just let her get on with it - he was a nav not a logie.

Prejudice will be around for some time yet.
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Old 30th Mar 2019, 19:58
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The advert has landed very well among people I know in its target audience.

If you are so offended and sensitive that you find a single advert aimed at women, after the RAF has been around for over 100years worthy of being something to get offended and upset about, then perhaps you are a snowflake?
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Old 31st Mar 2019, 00:43
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Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator
Not seen the ad yet but from some remarks here.

Daughter, as a flt Lt, was selected as SME logie in a Purple CPX. The Lt Col would not accept a junior RAF female and insisted on a more senior RAF type.

As it happens daughter had known the selected wg cdr for a number of years even before she joined the RAF. The wg cdr just let her get on with it - he was a nav not a logie.

Prejudice will be around for some time yet.
Are you sure this wasn’t a case of rank discrimination rather than gender?

*devils advocate*
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