Grrl Power #1308 – Gold plated lining
The military is probably not great for disability inclusion. Not for field work anyway. I mean, battleships don’t have accessibility ramps, and the control panel of a Blackhawk probably doesn’t have braille anywhere on it, and there’s no spot in a submarine next to the sonar station for an ASL Interpreter. (Cause the sonar guy is deaf, see… and the ASL guy has to listen to the returns and sign “PING” cause that was an even dumber example than braille in a gunship*.) They’ve got really specific ways of doing things because if you tell a bunch of 18 year olds to put away the explodey things, you want to be pretty sure they did it right. That almost definitely means they don’t have a lot of accommodations for one-legged pilots. It’s probably totally possible to pilot most helicopters with one leg, but that doesn’t mean the military wants to add that complication when a bunch soldiers’ lives and a $10 million Blackhawk is at stake. So, Peggy assumes that her career as a pilot are over. At least flying for the Air Force. And she actually is right. But not for the reasons she thinks.
Maxima obviously has other ideas. And if anyone tells Max that a one-legged pilot shouldn’t be allowed to fly an Osprey, Max is just like, “Come at me, bro.”
*I originally mistyped gunship as bunship and I almost left it because the idea of bunnies piloting an Apache and fluffy bunny paratroopers amuses me.
Oh, and happy Thanksgiving to those of you who partake.
The new vote incentive is up!
Dabbler went somewhere tropical, in a very small bikini. As you might guess, it doesn’t stay on for long, which of course, you can see over at Patreon. Also she has an incident with “lotion,” and there’s a bonus comic page as well.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
There is a US pilot who was born without arms, and got her PPL. She is currently working on building a custom control interface to fly a cirrus plane.
Her name is Jessica Cox. She flies her plane with her feet. Her Private Pilot’s License has no restrictions.
Oh, and she is a Fourth Degree black belt in Taekwondo. She does not compete in any special abilities ring.
And if that wasn’t enough, she also surfs and scuba dives.
Badass.
Given this is a comic book universe, sidelining women IS pretty silly. Even after she’s disabled like this.
IRL though… we did actually allow women in combat. On women only teams, on mixed teams, solo and in large groups. Every effort… went BADLY. The best outcome was that the women would get injured and the men in her mixed unit would abandon the mission, ignore orders and get her to safety, causing mass problems across the rest of the operation. More generally, these women, the carefully screened bravest of our population, would chicken out before deployment and get pregnant to avoid deployment, before aborting once they were safe. Sometimes repeatedly. In the cases they didn’t chicken out beforehand, they had a high tendency to chicken out in the field and not recover. And the very rare few who didn’t had high casualties and incredibly low mission success rates.
same with women cops and fire fighters.
This is why comics are escapism and fantasy. because we can dream of cool ass women who can kick a mans ass. Bonus points if she’s written by a man and is still feminine in character and figure.
Wow, all women are cowards.
Even the ones who died in the line of duty?
Odette Sampson, GC?
Violette Szabo, GC (Posthumous)?
Noor Inayat Kahn, GC (Posthumous)?
Colonel Kim ‘Killer Chick’ Reed-Campbell, DFC?
where did you read in that all women are cowards? A majority isn’t all.
In the sexist imagined drivel that FloridaMan put up as argument bait.
Women who died in the line of duty are few enough they can be named. Much like women heroes in history. With men, there are so many they have to be truly legendary to even stand out.
We literally haven’t allowed women to participate enough in the first place; blaming them for not dying enough is stupid shite.
Aw, dang. You beat me to it.
Think that might have something to do with women being actively discouraged from serving in the military? Just looking at the US, It’s been a country for about 250 years now. Women weren’t allowed to regularly serve until 1948, which means the same basic allowance to serve the military as men hasn’t been extended to them for over 2/3s of that time.
So of course they have had fewer chances to give their lives in the line of duty or distinguish themselves heroically. For the majority of history they haven’t been given the same opportunities to do so, meaning men got double the chances to do so. But sure, it’s because women are generally cowardly and not because the general view most societies had of them was as their role as incubators.
“opportunities”
Yeah, the draft is “an opportunity”. A LOT of men who have died in combat, historically, were not there by choice.
Until the advent of the firearm, 99.9% of women would be *seriously* outclassed in combat by military-trained men. I didn’t make that rule, I don’t approve or disapprove of that rule, that’s just the plain reality of human biology.
With the advent of the firearm, that changed…. a little. In terms of actual “getting to combat, carrying load the whole way, and engaging in combat for extended periods of time”, it hadn’t changed in any significant way. That didn’t change in any significance until WWII, and even then, those kinds of activities were still a LARGE portion of things done.
And women underperform men in those categories, *STATISTICALLY speaking*, by an enormous margin. Again, I didn’t make that rule, I don’t approve or disapprove of that rule, that’s just the plain reality of human biology.
Even now, with fighter jets, tanks, helicopters, humvees, etc, there are still situations where those things are not the controlling factor – aircraft shot down, base surprise attacked, vehicle hits a mine, etc, and all the same problems still apply.
One does not have to think badly of women to actually check the facts of how things go, *statistically* (yes, OF COURSE individual exceptions can be listed), with women in combat. The Israelis are the only group I know of who have done decently well with that, and their entire theatre of combat is almost exclusively defending a single plot of ground the size of New Jersey from people who explicitly and publicly proclaim they want to kill all of those women (along with the men and children, of course).
Again, to be explicit, NONE OF THIS is “the way I think it should be” or “the way I want it to be”. It is, as best I can tell from actually checking real outcomes, real world fact, which does not in any way change or conform to my desires (or yours).
Maybe you need to broaden your horizon and learn about the YPJ for example ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Protection_Units
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojda_Felat
The Soviet Union tried this during the Great Patriot War.
They’d try anything then. Didn’t work.
Israel too.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko says hi
They had quite a few great woman snipers.
The greatest sniper of all time is still a woman, from Ukraine
god, the wierdo’s are out in force today. You people are disgusting, atleast make an effort for effective bait. this is trying way too hard.
Meanwhile, in REALITY… women in the military have repeatedly shown their utility and ability, in both combat and noncombat roles. In regards to women in combat units, they have proven themselves to be FANTASTICALLY useful, for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest being that modern combat tends to be urban in nature – and female soldiers tend to be more effective at interacting with civilians. You don’t want a male soldier to be the one searching the women’s quarters in a middle eastern home, for instance.
And the IDF has not only had integrated units since its inception, they’ve also had a longstanding policy of recruiting ALL their officers from the enlisted ranks (a la “Starship Troopers”). While these days it’s considered fashionable to rant about them being the Evil Empire, for decades other nations marveled at the incredible competence and combat performances from the IDF. As it turns out, dishing out assignments based solely on merit rather than on gender or background is a REALLY good way to let your top talent shine.
> recruiting ALL their officers from the enlisted ranks
Helps when you are conscripting basically everyone. Those that want to be officers will be a conscript first. It’s not like they only promote people who had been Master Sargent first.
“In regards to women in combat units, they have proven themselves to be FANTASTICALLY useful, for a variety of reasons.”
Absolutely true, and you provided great examples.
But that doesn’t magically not make other things untrue. Like this, for example, that you were responding to:
“More generally, these women, the carefully screened bravest of our population, would chicken out before deployment and get pregnant to avoid deployment, before aborting once they were safe. Sometimes repeatedly.”
There is a large loss in combat potential from this. It has been demonstrated time after time after time. “Not all women”, yes, absolutely true! And yet, statistically, MANY. I can no long quote the stats to you, been too long, and it varies over time and by conflict, but it is significant EVERY time.
The great (and true!) examples you gave do not magically make the unpleasant (and true) examples that you don’t like go away. No amount of disliking those examples by you or me or anyone else makes them go away.
And ignoring reality for what we WISH it was or think it “should” be is not generally a recipe for success.
Okay, you can’t quote the figures. Where are you getting these figures from? I find your claims suspect on their face and would like to see your evidence.
lets see. 2021. the army announced the first graduate woman sniper. Soviet Union wwII. of the 2500 women snipers against germany, 500 survived to see the end of WWII. Desert Storm- flight surgeon major Rhonda Corum was taken prisoner of war. among other things in interviews. her untreated injuries while in custody caused enough swelling that the guards couldn’t take off her uniform to commit the phrase you can probably guess. I add. a surgeon hopping aboard an armed helicopter. in a war. is not cowardly
Huh, do you buy into EVERY “fact” right wing propaganda puts out without checking stats and facts or just ones about women?
*imagines an angry dual-wielding lop piloting an Apache*
And as it has been repeatedly shown, women have no place in combat. Just in training drills against their own, they get their asses handed to them in vids we’ve ALL seen. Getting wiped by guys not even trying.
Against women who were “passed” cause they lowered the physical requirements for them. So we get vids of them draggin under standard combat loads. Slowing down any other units that would be slowed down by them, if they were in combat.
The ONLY women who “deserve” to be on the front, are the meager few who can pass the exact same PT requirements the men do. Otherwise they are nothing but a liability.
Stay in the support/garrison roles. You can see it from all the women in Ukraine fighting. They aren’t in a trench in Chasev Yar, they’re snipers, drone operators, medics, evac ambulances… all of those are needed, and more. NONE of it is in the trenches pretending they can keep up to guys carrying a full, or over-full combat load.
There is enough damn proof over the years this has been going on, that they just can’t keep up. Magical unicorns not-withstanding. There’s a reason they aren’t in any of the special forces like Delta, or Rangers or SEALS, or JTF2. Outside of movies.
“There’s a reason they aren’t in any of the special forces like Delta”
Delta’s G Squadron, aka the Funny Platoon, would like a word.
Yes, keep the women in the back where they do the actual and keep the meetheads in the front beating their meat and grunting
As it’s been repeatedly shown, sexist shitheads like you have no idea what they’re fucking talking about. And are too scared shitless to serve their country to begin with. Unlike women in the Armed Forces.
Gonna point out about 20% of Ukraine’s Armed Forces are female. And MANY of them are frontline, and in command positions. Look up “Witch,” She’s a mortar battalion commander. There’s also a fairly large amount who serve as artillerists.
Seeing as this opened can of worms is getting a trifle out of hand, I am gonna toss my two beliefs right on on there and stir the pot a bit…
1. Stop believing in the right-wing bullshit.
2. Stop believing in the left-wing bullshit.
The truth and and happiness, lies somewhere in the middle. While also acknowledging both the right and left points of view, and that NEITHER is healthy or conducive to a good national politic.
As my pastor has said on more than a few occasions, “There are three sides to an argument. This side, that side and the truth that is usually somewhere in the middle.”
“There are three sides to an argument. This side, that side and the truth that is usually somewhere in the middle.”
In addition to being en explicit logical fallacy (“Argument to moderation”), the weakness of that thought is one’s ideological opponent engaging meta-thinking about that feeling and intentionally abusing it.
Ridiculous but easy example:
I want you to give me money. You say you don’t owe me ANY money. So I say you owe be $1 million and “generously” agree to take some amount in the middle.
Obviously, in a case with money, the courts would want proof, etc, because of those exact kinds of abuses, but in the political arena, the same thing is done regularly, and many people just mindlessly take some “middle” position in response that isn’t remotely “middle” at all.
A related concept (that has a NAME so you can search it and do more reading on it, if you want) would be the “Overton window”.
Deliberately shifting the “Overton window” by using a proxy group to make ridiculous, insane claims to make your own position seem more reasonable in comparison is something politicians have been doing for at least several generations now (and more realistically, probably since before recorded history).
Rather than arbitrarily deciding both sides have merit we can appeal to evidence and reliable sources. Sometimes both sides do have merit, but frequently one side is correct, or both sides are wrong. We can question the information and seek to understand how it was gathered. We can try to establish motives for who gathered the information and try to understand how it might be wrong. We can go to original sources and compare claims to truth.
If I say 2 plus 2 equals 4 and someone else disagrees there isn’t a middle ground to be had with people who disagree. There are people saying that all people from some group of billions can’t do certain things. We have evidence that isn’t true, so there isn’t space for compromise, one side simply isn’t correct. Many of the comments here want to deny rights or opportunities based on the circumstances of one’s birth, there simply isn’t room to compromise on that.
This short sighted attempt to stop fights also ignores social inertia and the “Overton window”. If the general view of some societal issue is pushed to extremes and the whole extreme is wrong then truth won’t be found in between two slightly different extremists.
That works great for quantitative things like 2+2, but by the time something enters the realm of politics it’s usually nuanced and always at least partly qualitative. Stack on top of that the fact that less than 1% of people, including judges & politicians, are usually illiterate in the subject being discussed, and attempts to find The Truth is worse than meaningless.
Case in point – We know, as an undisputable fact, that men are stronger & faster than women, both as an average and at a maximum. There is nearly unlimited proof on this front. Immediately after invoking “2 plus 2 equals 4” you state something categorically, provably false, is why we can’t have nice things.
Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!
For anyone unfamiliar with the reference: https://youtu.be/xiUMMWrl1qE
@DaveB can you delete the sexist and bigoted drivel in the comments? There are a tons people denigrating every member of some groups and it reflects poorly on the comic and you if it stays up.
For the record, I have no real problem whatsoever with women fighters in combat roles, since for what I know the overwhelming evidence shows they can perform effectively enough to belong, and I value truth and facts much more than anyone’s feelings, or equality for its sake for that matter. My ‘facts before feelings’ principles cut both ways.
OTOH, I am entirely persuaded that censorship to accommodate the tender feelings and thin skins of the most sensitive members of the community that might feel bad from exposure to disliked ideas is never, ever the right answer. It never goes to a good end, and creates much more harm and dysfunction than anything it tries to prevent. The marketplace of ideas is by far the best available option. Society tried the censorship approach for a long time several times, and it never, ever goes to any good end. The predictable outcome does not change just because you switch the privileged ideas from religious to identity dogma.
Naw. Fuck you.
Advocating for censorship is the worst possible take. Put forth a counterargument, don’t try to prevent someone else from talking.
And yes, I served in combat with female MPs. Some were good, the majority were not once rounds started flying. And the general physical capability differences is a huge issue no matter how you try to sugar coat it.
Deleting drivel that isn’t supporting a good conversation is not censorship, it’s cleaning up. Counterarguments are up, with examples, they’re just ignored.
Agreed. There are just too many posts speaking drivel with barely any actual sources, and what sources they have they use to generalize beyond what the source supports, and then they ignore good examples that counter their claims. Letting these posts stay is not supporting a good conversation.
My two cents on the ‘Peggy in combat’ issue:
As a rule, existence of powerful and combat-worthy supernatural abilities with no gender differences in distribution may be expected to be one of the most effective factors ever to smooth out any social role or status gap between sexes. This because they make utterly irrelevant any factor (differences in average physical abilities, reproductive value, personal safety, etc.) that historically favored such gaps. They also make personal power rather than hoarding of wealth and influence through inheritance the defining factor for elite status of individuals and families, removing another key factor that historically fostered these differences.
When magic or superpowers make men and women equally able to be the decisive weapon in any violent conflict, and quite possibly One-Person Armies or Persons of Mass Destruction, gender equality quickly becomes inevitable, common sense, and the path of least resistance. This starts with the mage/super subgroup first and foremost, but can be expected to spread out to the rest of society (definitely including mundane security forces) to a very large degree before long by extension and analogy. No other explanation would be required to justify the presence of female soldiers, cops, private security etc. in fighting roles in the likes of the Archon setting.
In all evidence, Peggy plays a non-fighting support role in Archon as the pilot of a military transport aircraft. Her job is to help deliver the field team from Point A to Point B. Her Muggle status, gender, and kind of disability makes no meaningful difference in her ability to perform this. Yes, once in a while she may fire aircraft weapons in a combat engagement that may play a very minor role at best for the outcome. Moreover, it would make no difference in this regard if she were to pilot an armed drone from Archon HQ. If Peggy ever were in the situation of having to grab a weapon and fight in the field, it would mean things already had turned catastrophically wrong for the team and Archon, and realistically this would make no meaningful difference, barring author fiat and extremely contrived circumstances that I hope Dave never feels the urge to indulge.
While all of this is true from a superhuman/post-human aspect, the original argument is about women being in front-line combat, as opposed to supporting roles.
NOBODY is arguing that women can’t prove every bit as useful as men in supporting roles, and doing them frees up men for combat roles.
There is overwhelming evidence across CENTURIES of warfare that women do not perform as well in combat roles as men. There are occasional exceptions, but they are EXCEPTIONS, not the rule. It basically comes down to mental attitude and physical ability.
The vast majority of women are not gung-ho types who relish the chance at combat and are willing to risk death for a cause. Some can do it… most are simply not raised that way. The attitude is FAR more common among men, who are often raised to think like that and to be willing and expected to fight.
The other absolute fact is women are not the physical equals of men. This can be seen at the average scale, where a woman is 30-40% weaker than a man of similar height, because that’s their physiology. It’s not their fault, blame mother nature!
At the extreme end, there are basically no athletic world records dealing with extremes of physical ability that are held by women instead of men. Women simply are not as strong and fast as men are. It is BIOLOGY, and trying to argue against it makes no sense at all.
Last of all, women in combat units affect the men around them. They will cover for the women, they will rescue the women, they will be distracted by the women, because MEN AND SOLDIERS ARE EXPECTED TO DEFNED WOMEN. It doesn’t matter if you think it is sexist, that is what good men are raised to do, and they DO it, despite orders to the contrary, despite any doctrine of equality, you care to think of.
In this scenario, the men don’t want to see a woman counter-sniped by an enemy, so they are trying to minimize the risk of that happening by keeping her busy with other support duties. They aren’t denigrating her abilities; they don’t want her to die, even if she is willing to take the risk. If they really need her, she’s available, and probably every sniper there will volunteer for a mission just so she isn’t assigned to it, not because they don’t think she can handle it, but because they’d rather die than hear she was killed doing something they could do.
Hugely sexist? Sure, if you want to see it that way. It’s the downside of being part of a society where you value the lives of women.
Maxima only gets SOME of this problem, and is irked on behalf of Peggy, but any man who has seen her in combat knows that she’s more capable of taking care of herself than a whole squad of them is, and she won’t have that problem. Overprotective men is something she can and will ignore, but it’s not quite the same for Peggy. All them American soldiers will happily put themselves between her and a bullet, and the best way to do that is for her not to be in range of the bullet, if possible.
This is the conflict of women soldiers. As mentioned above, some will even game the system with pregnancies and abortions so as not to be assigned to warzones. Some are very serious and want to contribute, and are competent to do so, and have to put up with the fact that the men are going to protect and cover for them, and not all the equality arguments in the world are going to stop it from happening.
There have been many, many attempts across the centuries to use women as combat troops, and it just doesn’t work out. The rare exceptions simply don’t add enough to a reason to do it en masse. History, nature, and biology are very, very clear on this point. Exceptions are exceptions, but not reason enough to change the truth of the statement.
That all being said, this is comic and Peggy is exceptional, and we all know she’s about to be recruited. When dealing with supers, there’s literally no difference if a normal human is male or female, they’re both equally vulnerable. So, as long as Peggy is willing to take the risk, she’s just as viable as a man in that support position. She’s got the same skillset, and if things get into personal combat, she’s just as screwed as a man is. Go get’em, girl!
Peggy as an ARC pilot is fine. The supers or the rest of ARC has the resources to physically move her out of danger if her craft is shot down. And with ARC, they’re rarely operating over enemy territory.
Peggy as a helicopter pilot in the military after her leg is gone…that’s a bad idea. Helicopters are generally going to be operating inside the combat zone. And if a military helicopter goes down, the pilot and everyone else is expected to evade the enemy and ideally rescue themselves.
Peggy was included as a sniper in the very first “super battle” of the comic:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-216-50-caliber-headache/
Her accuracy was critical a few times during the fight.
Could all y’all bigots shut the fuck up please?
I just got back from the first Thanksgiving Dinner my family’s had where the MAGA asshats weren’t invited, and I was feeling all mellow. Not listening to asshats talking about who is and isn’t fit to serve, what it means when somebody dyes their hair, or how dare anybody just plain not give a shit what cishet butthurt whiteboys think about them is something I’ve really missed for a while, I think it makes the world better, and I’m gonna recommend it to everybody. And I think we’re gonna do the same thing on Christmas and New Years.
Speaking as somebody whose cousin was gay and served with honor in the US Marines, but then when he got killed his asshat parents refused to have him buried on hallowed ground? I’ve had it up to here with intolerant bigots and I am entirely happy to think my aunt and uncle can just fuckin’ die alone. Their vote dishonored their son and I don’t give a crap about ’em any more.
You aren’t alone.
That’s some serious religious fundamentalism there, yeah.
sigh… they THINK they are into the fundamentals. they see the scene with the hair-whip and think ‘go and do likewise’ and miss the 2nd most important commandment. what about the woman with the alabaster flask? so busy seeing holiness they can’t see the real cost of following. what man builds a tower without first counting the cost?
I can’t say this to your cousin, so I will instead thank you for his service. I hope he was honored and interred properly, as befitting a true soldier. As to the rest, I also wish you more peaceful and calm holidays this year. Bless and keep you safe
you know grouping all into just one group is just wrong. There is a vast difference in ALL groups, from the really bad, stupid to the really good with common sense.
Ok but the ping on an active sonar don’t give any information that looking at the screen would though?
where are you? can you explain? make a pun?
Debate about Peggy’s job and team role gave me an idea. It is just a matter of time before the Americans reverse-engineer FTL starships. It stands to reason Archon shall be one of the first recipients. Who is going to be the pilot of the team starship? Nobody on Earth except a few resident aliens is going to have the right skillset. Earthlings shall have to train for that from scratch, although current astronaut training in all likelihood a good start.
Are they going to send Peggy to astronaut training? Or are they going to bring in a new astronaut character to be the pilot of the team spaceship? There is a well-established pipeline to turn aircraft pilots into astronauts, but the required time and effort is not trivial (two years). Are Cora’s crew up to giving piloting lessons to Archon personnel? Does Dabbler’s polymath skillset includes interstellar piloting? Could Detla, Lapha, and/or Garaam turn useful for that?
Thankfully dr. McNinja got rid of him, hitting him in rapid succession with Dracula and the pope…
I need a super who’s power is to command and communicate with bunnies. They could have the most unassuming spy network in all the world and then suddenly an addition of heavy ops bunnies from bunships!
You realize that it is absolutely imperative that you provide us with a fully rendered drawing of the bunship and its crew!