Dead women are special.

There's an interesting article in today's Guardian - Britain has sustained the first female combat casualty in Iraq. The writer makes a few very good points: basically, even if it's voluntary, a woman's death (such as in combat) is treated as far more horrible or perhaps heroic than a male death. It all comes back to the argument of whether or not women should be in the military at all, and I have no doubt that any number of people will use this death to say "no, they shouldn't."

The argument is broken down into three basic causes: prejudiced (women can't/shouldn't do x), biological (women aren't as strong therefore they shouldn't put others at risk), and what the author calls 'operational' (men don't want to put women at risk).

The first two arguments I think can be dismissed fairly easily. The first is flat-out bigoted, and most of western society has to some degree taken the hatred out of national policy. The second has also been more or less disproven: yes, a woman may not on average be as strong as men, but if they can meet the requirements set out for them, opponents have no leg to stand on. If someone who knows what you need to be able to do in combat sets the limits, and a woman meets those limits, then she should be in.

The third is trickier, but in my opinion ought to be just as easily dismissed. An officer might want to take extra care of the two women in his unit? Then the problem is not the women, it's that officer. If a soldier is going to endanger the rest of his peers trying to lighten the load on a woman, then he is the problem. Those people, the ones who are apparently so spineless and weak-willed (or just idiotically backwards-minded) that they can't treat people equally, are the problems. They should be the ones who's worth as professionals is under scrutiny, not the women (who, by and large, are simply trying to do their jobs).