Pentagon chief orders gender-neutral fitness standards for combat troops
Pentagon chief orders gender-neutral fitness standards for combat troops
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has previously expressed opposition to women serving in combat, has ordered the military to develop gender-neutral physical fitness standards for frontline troops,…
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has previously expressed opposition to women serving in combat, has ordered the military to develop gender-neutral physical fitness standards for frontline troops, a memo released Monday said.
This is one of those things that really depends on how it's implemented. If they just abolish the female scoring column and force everyone to use the male scoring column then there are so many more questions. Will women be judged 1 to 1 against men? or will promotion boards develop an idea of where women should score on the male column? Are they going to get rid of age too and just score everyone as if they were 18 still? Is this going to be a new test for all services?
PT tests have already been undergoing a lot of changes recently. And the one thing that combat arms troops have asked for is simply a score one must meet to be in a combat unit that isn't age or gender scaled. The minimum we would ask of someone in such a unit, such as marching 12 miles in 3 hours with a standard rucksack. This would be separate from the general test which is scaled and meant to make sure we maintain a physically healthy force.
I don't think that's what fuckhead and company have planned though.
All entry-level and sustained physical fitness requirements within combat arms positions must be sex-neutral, based solely on the operational demands of the occupation and the readiness needed to confront any adversary
This tells me they want to change the general physical fitness test in combat units, the same test used to promote people, decide who goes to schools, and can lead to being discharged if you continually fail it. This is not what we asked for. For those unaware the military has been working on overhauling physical fitness tests to more closely resemble combat tasks for nearly a decade now. This has been a measured and science based project until now. And the part that tells me it isn't going to be that anymore is when the Secretary of Defense believes he knows what the operational demands of any specific combat unit are. And says this like it hasn't been what the military has been doing.
And before some keyboard warrior comes through here talking about upper body strength to carry wounded people under fire you should know that 20 plus years ago in Infantry Basic Training we were told you don't do that. You make the area safe and then you roll their ass onto a stretcher, you tie them down and literally drag them out. And since then we've gotten much better drag stretchers because that is by far the preferred method to get casualties to a vehicle. We've also had women in frontline units for over a decade now. Even in 2003 while they were officially banned, we brought their units to the frontline because we needed them. Even in a peer to peer combat posture. As a combat infantry veteran I would far far rather have a woman in my patrol that has been trained to work with us because we've recognized it's something we need; than I would have a woman that I need but also have to train under fire because we put our heads in the ground to satisfy some stupid fucking civilian idea of machismo.
For combat MOSs, they should all be expected to pass the same physical fitness standard. You either raise the female standard to the same level as males, and have fit females. Or you can lower male standards and have less fit male and female service members in combat. Or you can meet somewhere in the middle and still have less fit male and female service members in combat. Personally, I say raise the female standard for combat MOSs to that of males.
Combat is not about equality. It is about lethality and that is it.
We already have a gender neutral standard. Walk 12 miles in under 3 hours with gear and shoot at least 30/40 targets on the rifle range. If you can carry your load, shoot, and communicate, then you're going to be an effective combat soldier. Everything after that is promotion points and being healthy.
"Gender neutral" - conveniently written in a way that emphasizes the athletic feats that men have an advantage in, while downplaying those that women have an advantage in. This will be "gender neutral" in the way that most unisex shirts are. (Ie, just declaring the male as default.) If you wanted to, you could write a "gender neutral" fitness standard that women would pass at ten times the rate men do.
Hell, the US military learned the flaw of relying on averages back during the 1950s.
They can make it as equal as they want--IF they actually align the standards to the fitness needs of each job. But then they might have to admit that office work doesn't require an 8 minute mile.
This is especially wild when you consider that some of the sports / feats women are often if not usually better at include shooting, distance / endurance events, and withstanding high g-forces without losing consciousness, which are way more useful in a modern military than the high jump or javelin throwing.
Reminder that every country that oppresses half of its population and prevents them from having the same access and rights tend to... fail on every societal level. But, they are also the most religious countries, so if that's what we're going for over things like infrastructure, jobs and
"safe drinking water"then we're definitely on the right track.**I've been informed that the term "safe drinking water" has been banned.
Also it doesn't take much to pull a trigger or to push a button.
I approve the weakening of the US armed forces. That way when you fuck heads start invading Greenland, Panama, Mexico or Canada at least some of your morale and effectiveness will have been sucked away.
If we took the money we wasted larping around being "world police" our taxes would stay the same and we could all have universal healthcare and insurance/pharma companies could get bent. Of course, that whole fascism thing became the bigger fish to fry, for now.
So just for the record, a trans woman is too strong for "women's" sports teams, but if she exceeds the new physical standards she still can't enlist? Sounds like DEI for cis people to me.
This is already a fucking thing. Female soldiers in combat roles meet the same standards as their male counterparts. Most of these women would whoop your ass.
I think this is reasonable. I met and exceeded the male standards and I’m not particularly big. There’s lots of jobs in the military fitness should be determined by job. I don’t think a file clerk needs to have infrantry levels of fitness. I’m pro gender neutral in military fitness standards but then again I also think women should be drafted.
Was with you till the draft comment. I didn't think anyone should be drafted. If the people don't willingly enlist, either your cause is shit, or your benefits don't offset the risks.
I agree nobody should be drafted, but that's not reality, so everyone should be forced.
I don’t want to be drafted either but I think there do seem to be cultural benefits to universal conscription and mandatory military service. These countries seem to be much less willing to go to war than countries where only certain classes or groups of people are represented in the military.
Three of the worst offenders, the US, Russia, and Israel, are examples of the latter. The people making the decisions to go to war tend to be in the class or group that avoids military service.
I agree that any soldier must meet the demands of "war". And in any field unit I was ever in (Norwegian Army) you did not share equally in squad/unit tasks. I was above average strong and could carry the MG3 or the Carl Gustav for a longer period than a less strong solider on long marches.
Then again some units like special forces who have a high demand on physical skills might benefit from also having female operators attached for missions that demand a female. Let's say when operating in cultures where male-female interactions are very socially regulated.
I agree that weapon system technicians on F35 might not need the same level of physical prowess of foot recon soldiers operating deep behind enemy lines.
The Infantry already has a soft standard of scoring higher than minimum. You meet that or you get extra PT, no school slots, no promotions, and may even get transferred out of combat units. But also we've seen guys that did 180 (the minimum in 2003) operate perfectly fine in combat. This canard that combat arms needs more than a file clerk is just being used to exclude women. The minimum is actually high enough to operate in combat. Units are doing the higher soft standard because it's a way to operate at a higher level. But they will deploy someone doing a 180 on their test and put them in a squad that's fighting in a city after an 8km foot movement. Heck we would rather someone who scored the minimum but can walk with their gear than someone who scored higher but didn't have that walking endurance.
Lot of good points
There are things besides fitness that are relevant to combat situations. In the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which takes place in a war zone in Afghanistan, we see the female news reporter is able to talk to the female residents in a combat zone and gain information about who was sabotaging a US-built well. The male soldiers weren't allowed to speak to the women of the village, and had no way of getting this info.
Women make up 50% of the world population and sometimes you just need a female soldier to properly work with the locals. If men cannot get information from some populations because of their gender, then it makes sense that rules might be slightly bent to allow women to take part in combat roles. As a soldier, I wouldn't want to be miss relevant info just because no one in my troop could talk to half the local population- that ignorance of knowledge puts my life at risk too.
It's not even bending the rules. Unless you make gender a specific disqualifying thing. The standard for combat is not and never has been to be an Olympic athlete. Some women routinely score higher than some men on the Army Physical Fitness Test. What Hegseth's quotes tell me is they're going to go on a quixotic quest to find a minimum score that no woman can meet. However that's going to disqualify a large group of men as well, and require the men that remain to work out multiple times per day instead of train necessary combat tasks.
In short, this administration has no clue what constitutes fighting shape in the military.
They could be using this to boot women who get pregnant out.
This dude is a straight up misogynist, even his mama knows that.
I would be so embarrassed to be that guy's mom
He should go hand to hand with a female soldier. I'd pay to see her give him a beating.
Knowing these fucks, they'd still try and claim that she was really a secret trans woman when she beat them, just like with Imane Khelif
The intent is to make military service even less appealing to women.
Step 1: Dramatically restrict who is allowed to volunteer for our volunteer miitary.
Step 2: Bemoan that the US no longer has a standing military large enough to support its interests.
Step 3: Here comes the draft again.
Step 4: Wait a bit and all your undesirables age out or are driven out of the military.
Step 5: Well I'm not sure about this one, but you've got a big army full of the only people you really want to have any power, personal autonomy, or decent standard of living anyway; I'm sure you can find something to do with it.
You forgot step 4.5, starve and under train 90 percent of your military while a super loyal 10 percent get the best training and rations in a Republican Guard.
I feel like it's less about putting people in power (although it may do that to a certain extent) and more about reinforcing the role of poor and minority men as disposable tools. War is a means for the rich and powerful to squabble over resources, but it's also a way for them to exert their control over a large population of men. One of my bigger feminist sticking points on the topic of how patriarchy hurts men is that its not just about controlling women, its also about creating a class of men who are disposable by convincing them that it's either for the benefit of women and / or to help them control women too (which it does a little, it's just that most of that power is still going to a small subset of men).
I don't like to comment to much on the military since its what I've done most of my adult life and I've seen a lot of changes in the last 25 years. The ACFT took almost 20 years to develop so unless they just go back to the APFT or the Marine Corps fitness test and only use the men's criteria the test won't be ready before he's gone.
I'm one step ahead by being too out of shape to be drafted
Checkmate
Than it already is, the SA that get swept under the rug, because it might hurt a officers chance of staying in the service is already a detterant
Probably motivated by the idea that separate standards for men and women is also "woke DEI". Don't imagine for a second that their actions are made with good intentions
i'm torn. As a gender abolotionist, I think more things should be gender-neutral.
The general fitness test has never been about combat. It's been about keeping the force healthy. It's scored by age and gender because it's used in promotions and deciding school slots; so it's desirable to make sure your scores reflect your effort and level of fitness compared to a similar cohort. The combat arms branches have been asking for a gender and age neutral minimum but after a decade or so of research it's been clear that such a test is easily replaced by a different minimum score for select units. It's literally just +25% at any age/gender point in the graph and then having them walk 12 miles in under 3 hours with a rucksack.
Yeah, this doesn’t make sense to be gendered unfortunately the people behind it are likely pursuing alienation rather than equality
Rico didn't know what he had laid before him. Too smitten on "Tiger blood's" ex.
Ok, so this guy is a known misogynist, and is likely to twist this into something that gives women an objective disadvantage. With that said, I want to ask what makes people opposed to the idea of actually gender-neutral physical requirements for military positions.
Personally, I served in the Norwegian army alongside a bunch of very capable women. I think women in the army bring a big positive contribution. There's even research suggesting that women are better suited than men for certain combat roles. With that established, is it not fair to require that a woman in the infantry is capable of carrying the same kit, or wounded partner, as her male counterparts? I've done my fair share of ammo runs, and the women in my platoon carried just as heavy shells as the men. If they hadn't been capable of that, I would say they simply weren't qualified for the job.
I don't know what current requirements are in the US military. What I'm questioning is why so many people here seem opposed to the idea that anyone in a physically demanding role meets the same base criteria?
Mostly because there are many different roles that apply to "front line troops." The traits that work great for running ammo boxes all day are different from the traits to carry a 200 pound dude a few hundred feet. The traits to shoot accurately are different from the traits to assemble and deploy explosives. The traits to drive a tank are different from the traits to work the comms.
More importantly, though, is that this isn't JUST choosing one set of standards. This will absolutely be "choosing one set of standards with very high bars in certain categories." There are things women just do not do as well as men, and we all know those will be areas that are emphasized and with difficult to reach goals. There are things women do better than men, and we all know those areas will be de-emphasized with very easy to reach goals.
I agree with the sentiment that different roles have different specific requirements- a tank driver doesn't need to be as strong or fast as an infantryman. However, there are some base requirements that apply to all front-line troops. No matter your role, if you are expected to see combat, you need to be at a certain level with regards to weapons handling, but also physical strength and endurance. Even a tank driver, medic or radio operator may need to fire a gun, carry wounded, or help push a jeep upright.
Still, I agree that there are different requirements for different specialities, and definitely think it is a good idea to have different requirements for these in the selection process. However, I can't see a compelling argument saying that the base requirements for male and female tank drivers, medics, infantry, etc. should be different. I think the tank crew is an especially good example here, because research on Norwegian soldiers has indicated that women are (on average) better suited to this role, because they are often better at handling high cognitive load while exhausted. Putting the same requirements for everyone, with requirements tuned to the specialisation, could very well lead to more women in certain roles.
Of course, for your second point, I think that falls under the category of "everything is bad if poorly implemented". I definitely agree that it's a bad idea to place very hard baseline physical requirements for all roles. That means the military will lose out on highly capable medics, tank crews, radio operators, etc. both male and female. But as you say, more of the capable people lost will be women, simply because of biology. However, I think that's more a question about how requirements for the military should be implemented, and not really a question of "should we place the same requirements on men and women in the same role?" to which I think, on general grounds, the answer should be yes.
To be clear - I have no doubts that the people pushing this in the current administration intend to leverage it to push highly capable women out of roles they are more than capable of filling, and that's an unambiguously bad thing.
Oh the current standards in the US military are absolutely enough to make sure women can carry their load. Hegseth is a massive misogynist who believes women shouldn't be in combat for all kinds of unscientific reasons.
Why are they so concerned with gender?
How can anything be gender neutral in the 2 sex states of america?
Isn't anything gender neutral against the decreed dei laws of emperor king god trump all mighty?
Can we verify hegseth is a man?
Does PICKLED PETE pee sitting down in a gender neutral way?
Does PICKLED PETE and his pickled pecker use a gender neutral bathroom?
Why does PICKLED PETE pick a pack of Pabst to pound in private?
I would find a wave of advancing pissed off mama bears absolutely terrifying.
