It would be an instant PR victory for the country with the women though in that case, win or lose they'd win. The rest of the world would go after the 'heartless brutes that killed those poor women'.

Yes, that's an effective tactic--win support by setting up hundreds of your women to be slaughtered by your enemies. You don't even have to arm them or equip them to fight, just put them in buses and park them around any legitimate military targets. In fact, it would work even better if you used children?

Needless to say, this idea has been thought of before, and people tend to look poorly on those who employ it.

Funny, see, if we really had this gender equality nobody would think twice of it, after all the women are equally capable at combat right?

But we've never seen 'setting up hundreds of your men to be slaughtered by your enemies' as a ridiculous strategy.

They're both ridiculous strategies, and yet we routinely deploy the one and are horrified at the other.

The 'children' bit is just a strawman, as are the 'buses' to use them as human shields. We're talking about prejudice here, and why just changing sex seems to have an effect over and beyond the competence angle.

It's just ingrained primitive instinct; and quite simple psychology really. The social "cost" of a Mans death is much much lower than a Womans.

Loss of 80% of the male population could be recovered fairly quickly, but loss of 80% of the females would be devastating for generations.