My quest is for equal opportunity, not equality.  Since people are all different, you can not mandate equality.  For instance the physical requirements for combat will weed out many women because statistically speaking we tend not to be as strong or as fast as men.  However, I feel that as long as the requirement is applied equally, that is a close to reasonable as nature will allow us to get. 

You claim that the problem is that women will suffer worse treatment at the hands of the enemy than men.  Let’s take that as a given for the moment (I don’t completely agree).  Should we use this as a reason for not giving women the same opportunity as men?  A woman is much more likely to be raped at a college party than a man.  Should we put restrictions on what parties women can attend because their position is unequal?  I don’t think so. 

In my years of teaching judo, it was always the little girls that were the bigger problem.  The girls tended to subscribe to the "win at all costs" school of thought, whereas the boys were more rule-bound.  Also, many of the girls had trouble competing with each other and then being friends before and afterwards.  In fact, until puberty gives the boys the extra boost to strength, they often lose to girls of the same age and weight.

However, perhaps there is a result of selection bias.  Perhaps the sort of girls who go into a combative martial art instinctually know that they need to be hyperaggressive to have the same results as the boys. 

I think the issue is that you don’t quite understand the choices that have been made available by removing strict adherence to stereotypical gender norms.  Certainly if someone wishes to follow a more traditional paradigm, they are free to to so.  There are plenty of men and women who live their lives in the same roles as people did in the 50s or earlier.  However, the difference is now that isn’t the only choice available to people.  Many people whom were suited to these roles lived their lives conforming and not persuing life in the manner that is most comfortable to them.

For generations the women in my family were nonconformists when it comes to gender stereotypes.  It’s only with my generation that it was considered acceptable, and given what my aunts and great-aunts went through, I think this is a good thing.

The issue is that women are currently serving in positions where they face all of the risks of combat, including being captured, but gain none of the recognition.  In any case, it seems to me that you’re saying that you believe our enemies will torture women more than men and thus we should give into their gender paradigm.  Yes, women are much more likely to be raped if captured, but I think that with all the other torture that is done to captured soldiers, I think that the distinction is pretty meaningless.

In any case, let’s suppose for a second that all you say is true.  I think this is a matter of choice.  If a woman can meet all of the physical requirements, and she desires a combat position, then she should be allowed to do it.  I doubt that the young women in our armed forces don’t understand what may lay in store for them.

As an adult, it’s a simple fact that anything you say is going to make middle schoolers and high schoolers laugh at you for attempting to be cool.  Don’t you remember being that age?  Adults were always wannabes who didn’t really get how to properly use slang.

In any case, it’s not the job of a school teacher to teach her students how to appologize.  As moral instruction, that should be left up to their parents.  Interjecting anything else, unasked, is rude and interfering.

As for the professional world, whether something is considered acceptable or not depends entirely on which part of the professional world you’re in, your audience, your record within that world, your charisma, etc.  For instance, a good IT guy can say just about anything as long as it’s not harassing because they are extremely valuable in our age of computers.  On (generally) the other side of the spectrum a really charismatic person can get away with a lot because everyone likes him or her.  Also, one must not forget that like everything else, the professional world is changing.  People are doing things at the office every day that a few decades ago would have been considered completely wrong.  So when today’s middle schoolers get to be adults, who knows what slang may be so mainstream as to be used by everyone.

I found this take from a person who used to do PR for an insurance company quite enlightening.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/17-13

Just like that new fangled rock ‘n roll destroyed the lives of young people back in the 50s….  Oh wait.  It didn’t.  And yes, having your cell phone beep during a conversation is less of an interruption than having someone come up and wait or engage in a secondary conversation.

The students at my university seem to have no problems conversing with each other, their professors or anyone else despite their use of texting.  I highly doubt this is going to be a problem.  It’s just more fun for the older generation to yell that young people today are the devil.  It’s human nature.  Every generation does it.

Do you ever notice how whiny Old people are when it comes to Paradigm Shifts that they don’t understand?

Of course not.  They didn’t have VCRs back in the 30s….   But she certainly started by sleeping around.  I don’t think anyone who has had 9 husbands has any right to complain about the sexual impropriety of someone else.