Female Warriors: Safely Changing the Standard

So, for about the past two years now, the U.S. military has embarked on a crusade to integrate women into combat. The initial results have been dismal. Very, very few women have been able to pass almost every Marine Corps combat related school. Since then, people have called for a lowering of standards so more women can assume a combat role.

For more information, see the article here:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/19/marine-corps-weighs-lower-standards-for-women-afte/

I personally think that lowering standards is an asinine idea. Lowering the standards tolerates mediocrity, which gets people killed in the harsh fields of battle. Instead, I would propose a more in depth plan to better condition female applicants prior to arriving at IOC, Ranger School, or what have you. If female applicants are held to a higher standard from the time they walk into the recruiting office, you will see an increase of performance across the board. Ultimately, this would improve combat effectiveness, as well as lower attrition rates of these schools.

The reality is, if we're going to put females into combat, we have to train them just as hard as the men. Which, in reality, we could just do that across the board, and have a more fit force in general. I digress, the reality is that if we lower standards to conform to a political decision, we will pay the price in lives.

Any thoughts?

My thoughts are it has to be associated to demands of conducting operations at the leading edge. That will vary across different jobs, and will probably change over time with new equipment I'd imagine.

So on the surface you'd just think it was therefore open entry but relevant standards equal no problem. And indeed gender-norming done properly does not compromise effectiveness because it would just balance gender numbers from the pool of suitable members BUT gender-norming done improperly is when standards are shifted for the sole reason of balancing gender numbers. The later is obviously asking for trouble because it reduces the effectiveness of the unit by reducing the level of effectiveness required to join.

Adder wrote: BUT gender-norming done improperly is when standards are shifted for the sole reason of balancing gender numbers. The later is obviously asking for trouble because it reduces the effectiveness of the unit by reducing the level of effectiveness required to join.

According to the field studies and the various articles written about the results, that is exactly what is happening. Despite opposition from the former Commandant "Fighting Joe" Dunford himself. Even with tech changes, infantry will always be infantry. God bless the grunts... They're the ones that sign up to run straight into hell in the first place. Their fitness is their Mecca. Once that changes, our losses will increase and morale will probably plummet. Casualties are never good for morale. Ask 3/5 or 1/9...

Should female standards be lowered in combat jobs where people's lives are on the line? No. Absolutely not. Should they be amended across the board so that the standards are equal to males? Just as resolutely not. My PT test is JUST as difficult for me as it is for the men on their standards. Could I pass the male's test? Sure, if I stop doing most of my job and put more focus on physical training. Females are built physically different than men. When my military career focuses around programing networks and crypto devices, and not around running around bad guys and carrying gear, there's no reason I should be operating at male physical training standards.

I'm not even saying they should be equal, just that the training should begin more intensively at a more junior level. It bugs the crap out of me that politicians are force feeding this to us without us having any say because it "looks better." I'm just tired of the dog and pony show. We're meant to fight, not to appease people.

im not in the military

Ive read that recruits who participated in a progressive workout regimen that was specifically designed to prepare them for BUDS were something like 30-40% more likely to succeed


IIRC it was a CROSSFIT program

i havent been able to find the source but basically if it can work for buds im sure it can work for the marines and if it worked for the males, no reason to think it cant work for the females

its exactly mentioned in OP - preparatory training, already be ready already before even showing up

theres also some pretty good studies which have been done on the psychological predictors of success and thats information which can be used to prepare recruits as well

iirc in the army it was carrying heavy rucksacks (i remember reading they were "easily over 100 lbs") over hard terrain over a period of days and in BUDS it was the water event where they attack your air under below the surface - again, having recruits physically and psychologically prepared specifically for these events as much as possible increased success rates and yeah , im sure the same thing would help with the female marines

and if youll just tell me who to talk to about this i will make it happen, ill just explain that i am a jedi and i read about it all on the internet

E-3_4L_Teeter wrote: I'm not even saying they should be equal, just that the training should begin more intensively at a more junior level. It bugs the crap out of me that politicians are force feeding this to us without us having any say because it "looks better." I'm just tired of the dog and pony show. We're meant to fight, not to appease people.

I concur , i used to be a nurse , it used to bug the hell out of me how we had to accomodate male nurses because they were so happy to have male nurses , but they did not meet the female standards ! But this has changed a lot here so i hope it can change in the army aswell , an early emphasis on the phisical aspect could help but does not erase the differences between women and men , i notice in hospitals for instance where you can still ask for a female nurse to wash you , while asking for a male one is giggled about ...just saying :laugh:

Edit : We were litteraly told that we should be happy that there were MEN that wanted to do THAT work ...i could not believe my ears at that time.
2nd Edit : there were tasks that we had to explain 10 times to men that women understood after just looking at it , its not being nasty its the difference between man and woman , also doing 2 things simultaneously proved to be an issue , loll

Edits due to Personal messages i recieved

We have been resisting political pressure to change the standards in Navy special operations. So few, regardless of gender, are able to meet the standards as it is, but we get a great result.

If we need someone to meet X, Y, Z standards then it does not matter what gender they are, if they meet X, Y, Z standards they are good. Lowering the standard to meet physical differences does not make us a better fighting force.

The tough thing is ensuring that the standards are logical and meet a skill set that is needed in the field. If the test for the standard is sound it should never be lowered, but if the test is "just how we always do it", you can expect there to be changes coming.

Another thing I think that has not been talked about enough is the psychological effects of women in combat. One thing that SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, for the non military) has taught me, is that there is a lot that an enemy can do to get you to talk/give up resisting. How many people feel it is not okay to hit a woman? What about capture and torture? Do you think that a person would more quickly give up if the enemy were to rape or torture in front of other soldiers? Is the public/media ready to see and hear about these things happening?

Of course there is also the routine things like Type/Tours of duty rotation. The Navy traditionally has had most of its Sea/Oversea duty billets(job) assigned to men. Women stayed Stateside. It has gotten more fair recently, but it is still not the same. Men deploy more often than women. Limited female berthing(beds) is always a concern.

I had a female Sailor trying desperately to get a ship or overseas assignment and all the open billets(jobs) were for men only. I finally got her into a billet(job) in Italy but that still hurts her career and promotion when she has to take a test about ship systems and has never been able to get an assignment on a ship.

Some things are getting better, but Politicians making military policy and not thinking about or knowing about all of the variables and reasons for why the military does things, only harms us all. The military is not the place to test social experiments, especially when the results could be so very gruesome.

there is so much here i agree with, and i've noticed most of the replies have been from currently serving or veteran members...i'm a veteran myself....

no the standards should not be lowered or altered just for "political correctness"....if anything there should be more standards added...special forces are called "elite" for a reason, they are the best of the best...lower standards does not bring out the best....when i served i was my department's fitness coordinator, i had to make sure the male and female members could pass the fit test every 6 months...the female standards were usually half of what the male standards were...and most of the women would just do the minimum to pass...a lot of men did the same....it disgusted me that anyone would do just the minimum...

I had a female Sailor trying desperately to get a ship or overseas assignment and all the open billets(jobs) were for men only. I finally got her into a billet(job) in Italy but that still hurts her career and promotion when she has to take a test about ship systems and has never been able to get an assignment on a ship.

Some things are getting better, but Politicians making military policy and not thinking about or knowing about all of the variables and reasons for why the military does things, only harms us all. The military is not the place to test social experiments, especially when the results could be so very gruesome.

most of the female sailors i dealt with were coming from ship duty due to pregnancy....

politicians shouldn't have any say in military policy....unless you serve you have no idea what it takes, or what we go through....there is a reason for everything we do while serving...there is no wasted efforts...

I'm not a vet, but I feel like lowering standards is exactly the worst possible way of any conceivable way to solve this problem. Don't lower standards for female combatants. Challenge them to rise to the standards already set.

*edit*
After seeing Kit's post, I wanted to ask a question: isn't the reason for PT standards that, at any unpredictable point of time, any single individual member of the armed forces might be in a physical combat situation, regardless of what they trained for? Because, if I were training a military, that's what I'd want. I'd want a military full of potential combatants that do other things, not specialists that had some combat training.