Read part two as well, just for good measure. That article seems to have a lot of holes.
A lot of the issues she brings up are caused by double standards, something that nobody (in their right mind) would ever advocate. They do indeed lower the all-round combat efficiency, and should be abolished. She says "It’s not all about qualification, but...", but it IS. If we bar women from combat because of their sex instead of their (lack of) capabilities, we're also lowering all-round combat efficiency.
If we stop testing people based on double standards, we get rid of all the women that are prone to fail when they're on their period (news to me, but I'm no expert of the menstrual cycle), the women who can't carry a heavier man.
The talk about sexual advances and 'human nature' and so forth is justified in a sense, except it should not be a problem for the professional soldier to handle. If I as a professional soldier can control my natural instinct to kill the person I've captured that has just tried to kill me, or control my instinct to slap the children throwing rocks at me as I drive by, then I can goddamn jolly well control my natural instinct to make sexual advances towards a colleague. Any army that trains soldiers to act on their instincts, as opposed to control and direct them, is training braindead muppets.
The pregnant women rates smacks of improper training and insufficient understanding of being a combat unit and not a dating unit. It's a regrettable tendency and it's the fault of both genders, but it doesn't change the over-all validity of capable and responsible women in combat.
Urinary tract infections isn't something I know anything specific about, but I'm sure Jhess can shed some light on it.
