After a recent bout of gastro-something-or-other decided to pillage every last electrolyte in my body, I had a chance to catch up on all the things I never make time for when I’m feeling well — reading poetry, eating bananas, sitting in the grass, and watching episodes of high-stakes police cam footage.
Why the latter, you ask? Several reasons, but mainly because in times such as ours, I increasingly find myself craving assurance that courage and competence still exist, somewhere in the world. And anyone who regularly, and knowingly, inserts themselves into dangerous situations already has my respect.
Imagine driving down the road and getting a call that a possibly-armed man calling himself Henry IX has entrenched himself in a residential neighborhood and could you and your partner possibly figure out how to resolve it. And there’s your Monday morning.
After watching a number of these videos, you begin to identify certain patterns of ineffective and effective teams. Like any group functioning in high-stress environments, team infrastructure needs to be incredibly tight. There needs to be constant communication, proper equipment, experienced officers, and the ability (and resolve) to make the right call when it matters, and not a moment too soon. Or too late.
Although there are many factors that play into ineffectiveness, the one that came up again and again in these videos also happens to be the one nobody wants to talk about. Which is why we’re going to talk about it now.
We. Need. To. Be. Done. With. Female. Officers.
Good faith caveats that will immediately be ignored
I am not saying that female officers lack courage and competence. I am not denying there are male officers who lack courage and competence. I am not saying that a handful of police body cams makes me an expert, or even an advisor on police procedure. I am saying that the crux of the following argument stands with or without the cams, and that their presence here is really only for the purpose of illustration.
Before the crisis point of any conflict emerges, there’s usually a certain amount of back-and-forth between officers and offenders. This, I assume, is an attempt to establish some kind of rapport in the hopes of preempting a physical altercation. There are times, however, and I gather they’re not infrequent, where no degree of compromise can be reached. There comes a point where action must be taken before civilians get hurt.
What becomes evident in co-ed teams, and especially where a female officer is running point, is that negotiations seem to continue long past the point of expiry; which also places them firmly in “danger” territory. The pleading, the flattery, the appeals to good nature persist, even as the unmistakable sounds of someone withdrawing an arsenal from underneath their bed echo through the closed door.
This (ineffective) strategy isn’t a surprise. Not because, “That’s just like a woman,” but because the hell-bent determination to reach a consensus before doing anything is a distinctly God-designed feature of the female sex. In certain contexts, it can be a good thing — to ensure all details are accounted for, to ensure all arguments have been heard, to ensure headstrong bravado isn’t the only thing guiding decisions. In other contexts, namely dangerous ones, it rapidly degrades as an asset and eventually emerges as a liability. In such situations, consensus cannot be the bottom line. In such situations, protecting innocent citizens must be the bottom line.
There’s a time for talk, and a time for action. Women tend to extend the former which, in a potentially life or death situation, exponentially increases the likelihood of death.
Going along with this, another thing I noticed with disturbing regularity is that when it came to circumstances requiring action, female officers tended to freeze, or at least to keep their distance from the action. This isn’t the end of the world when there are multiple officers. It starts to resemble the end of the world, at least for the male officer, when it’s just the two of them against a group of noticeably paranoid cocaine dealers.
Nor is their reluctance to action the only liability. The mere awareness of a woman in proximity to danger will inevitably divide the male officer’s attention from the threat — putting him, and everyone else, in more danger. It’s like Old Henry said, “Let me fight. I can't do this right if I'm worried about protecting you.”
Again, I am not blaming the women. I am blaming the system that put women here in the first place. I am blaming the system that bases all of its metrics on a flawed egalitarian model. The decision to allow women to serve on the front lines of combat is not principled. It is not compassionate. It is not evolution. It is, in fact, a base and primitive culture that sacrifices its most vulnerable population on the altar of performative .
The fundamental flaw
This leads to my last point, which is that the argument against women in combat isn’t just a pragmatic position (i.e., that women are the weaker vessel) but an ontological one. It has to do with who men are. And who women are, and what their respective purposes are.
Women are, primarily, nurturers. They beautify, create, tend, and maintain. They keep our living spaces from resembling into communal prison yards. They bear and raise children — one of the noblest enterprises on earth. To take nurturers, and thrust them into combat situations, is akin to the OT prohibition of boiling a baby goat in its mothers milk. There is something fundamentally unnatural and depraved about it. There is something about encouraging a bearer-of-life to be a taker-of-life that, so far from empowering, is actually just evil.
Those who pretend all of this is just patriarchal hooey are only fooling themselves. Which is why every movie you’ve ever watched with a “girl-boss” action hero has struck you as unrealistic and trite. Even directors know this. Unfortunately, they are willing to suspend disbelief if it means appeasing the ranks of debauched Hollywood scribes.
We can, and should, affirm the dignity of men and women. Not by pretending they’re men, but by affirming the goodness of their differences, and the harm that results when we ignore them.
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Ontological indeed. Thanks, Ben.