Gender Roles

Today I read an article about how the Army Chief opposes the idea of women serving in combat. “My personal view is the exclusion of women from some specialties, based on the way we operate with those specialties, is right.” The Chief of Staff, Gen. Carl E. Vuono, stated this.
It is hard to believe that some one could seriously think that women can’t do the same things as men. There is no logic behind this statement at all. This statement has had some conflicting arguments by Michael P. W. Stone, the Secretary of the Army. He said “the Army could open combat aviator jobs to hundreds of women if Congress approved a repeal of the statutory restriction applying to pilots in the other armed services.” These services’ barriers against women in combat are written into Federal Law, but the Army is governed by its own regulation. Because of this, the change will be left up to each service, and there would be no quick change. Our country has come a long way since women had no rights at all and I think that as time goes on, women will hope fully be treated the same as men. People today think that women are treated the same as me, but I have heard of statistics that say that men get payed more then women for the same job. Some people don’t believe this, but I think that a lot of people treat men and women differently without even knowing it.

AP, "Army's Chief Opposes Women's Combat Role." New York Times. (1991)