On Jan 12, 2010, at 8:05 PM, . wrote: > Discovery (or was it NatGeo?) had shown a research study on the > inherent differences in the way a human brain processes information, > thence their reactions. They showed a team of army recruits being made > to march around a restaurant few times while the patrons gaped at > them. Then the captain ordered them to sit down for lunch/dinner, > place a banana on their head and then begin eating**. The recruits did > as commanded. > > However, a voiceover informed the viewers that if female recruits had > been given the same commands, they would question authority and refuse > to sit with a banana on their head while eating food, would want to > question the captain the purpose of such an exercise, etc... To > bolster this argument the viewer was shown the scans of a male brain > which only showed the left side is used to process information while > the female brain scan showed both hemispheres were used.
To point out a significant bias, in most militaries I am familiar with the standards of behavior, compliance, and myriad other things for females are substantially laxer than for males. Explicitly so, not just as a matter of practice. The military experience for a female is considerably different than for a male, so I would expect behavior to vary accordingly. A few modern militaries have experimented with gender-blind military units and they generally worked well after some modest cultural adjustment. Every case I am familiar with (e.g. Canada ran this experiment in some combat units for a handful of years) the *political* backlash against the policy usually kills the idea after a few years even though the results are typically good from a military perspective.
