It mainly depends on how deeply they believe something. Sometimes, it just take evidence or present your arguement in the right words or show them a line of logic to change their mind. Sometimes, nothing will sway 'em and that's fine because there's many different perspectives on many things and in most cases, there's no one truth or right way.

@bolded How would that be a good move? 

i can understand meeting hostility with hostility but not being hostile to someone who isn't unless you're trying to provoke them or eventually come to blows with 'em.

Indeed.

vs.

Clearly the man will win in a fight every time, right?

Fact is there is a large overlap in physical stature and fitness between men and women and just because the "average" woman is smaller and physically weaker than the "average" man doesn't mean physically above average women can't exceed the minimum physical criteria to be a frontline combat soldier.. it might only be 10% of women who can meet that criteria, but why deny those 10% the opportunity because of an appeal to averages.

Cut need some slack! I'm trying to work and post at the same time. I'll think of a better analogy.

You grossly, grossly underestimate the physical fitness and combat training that these soldiers are put under. 10% of men likely wouldn't be able to complete them. 

You compare elite vs. elite, as that's who they're working with. Honestly, I believe women play an active role in the military and they should, because they're able to contribute and fight. That said, this is a illogical defense to the facts of human physiology. 

It's got nothing to do with the military. This is ingrained in our culture, in our popular culture and our historcal  gender division. These ingrained beliefs unconsciously affect our decision-making.

In terms of the study in that article there are some major biases in the study that make it a very flawed study, and the article identifies that.

"The average male Marine in the study weighed 178 lbs. and had 20% body fat. The average woman weighed 142 lbs. and had 24% body fat." Body fat is largely irrelevant, but if you pit a group of men with an averafge body weight of 178lbs vs a grou of men with an average body weight of 142lbs you will most likely get a similar outcome. Hence that is a methodological bias which will affect the outcome of the study which actually has nothing to do with gender. If your group of women had na average body weight of 178lbs and 24% body fat then my hypothesis is that there would be little to no difference.

Also "Officials cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from the study. Better training and screening could boost female performance, for example. "We can get better on injuries," Weinberg said. "We can get better on strength. We can get better on training." And "once women have had more experience in the infantry their performance will rise. "The women don’t have the training that men had to begin with,". 

The study was flawed. But importantly it showed that minimum standards can't be compromised to achieve some kind of quota. If the women are required to make the same standard as men squad gender make up should become irrelevant to performance.

Yeah, this kind of talk was always there when a group previously forbidden to do something was suddenly allowed to do it.

When slaves were given freedom, many "experts" believed they were not good enough without the slavers feeding them. They were wrong.
When women were given the right to vote, many "experts" believed women couldn't understand anything and make good decisions because they were too busy menstruating and changing diapers. They were wrong.
When gay people were given the right to adopt children, many "experts" believed the kids would be bullied and depressed and suicidal and whatnot. They were wrong.

How about we skip it this time and just give them a f***ing chance? If women prove not to be capable enough, we can revisit the issue in 30 years.

I am all for equal rights and all, but can anyone enlighten me why would woman actualy want to be in the front lines getting shot at, killing ppl and seing death and destruction from the front seat ? Id be glad if I were completly forbiden to go get shot in the face on the front line.