There has been a lot of back and forth about men and women being tested equally for front line combat roles.
First, let me make it very clear, I am one hundred percent for equality between men and women. I’ve worked under women bosses, had no issue with it. While at Morgan Stanley I had a woman business partner for a year and a half. It was a very sucessful relationship, we’re still friends.
I’ve learned a lot from the women in my life, begining with my mother; the vast majority of which has added significant value to my life. And although I can’t say much nice about my two ex-wives: I learned hard lessons from each of them as well.
Finally, I’ve no issue with men and women serving in combat roles together on the front lines. To put it at its most crude: a woman can stop a bullet just as well as I can. But, and it is a big one, in any physical role in which men and women serve together as physical equals, they must be physical equals. Full stop.
So, this new army fitness test rolling out this summer is a very good outcome.
Disagree? Please explain then.
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Ian Welsh
Women are better at cold weather survival, staying still, and avoiding unnecessary aggression. And the question is always “what physical capabilities are actually needed.”
An ex-special forces friend of mine argued that women would be better for a lot of peacekeeping and forward observer roles. And I’m sure you’re aware of the performance of women as both pilots (the night witches) and snipers in the Soviet military during WWII. In what roles is upper body strength and sprint speed (the two things men excel women at most) needed?
Are there roles where womens superior balance, ability to remain calm, long term endurance (cold and hunger) and flexibility means they should be predominantly female? What is actually required in the roles and test measures it? Outside of a few genetic freaks (I met one women who could do 20 pullups easily, she was a scottish lass. Her workout routine would have broken most serious body builders) women just are never going to be able to do as many pullups and pushups. Are those muscles actually needed in the role?
(There is also an argument for sex segregated units to avoid fraternization causing discipline issues. Although that, of course, leads to a lot homosexual liasons.)
Jan Wiklund
As far as I know, “discrimination” means paying attention to things that have nothing to do with what you are supposed to do – in a job, for example.
Before reading this blog post, I read an article about John Hammond, the man who is credited with finish race discrimination in the music industry. He wouldn’t accept racial discrimination, what mattered to him was if the musicians were good as musicians or not.
That’s what discrimination is about.
Curt Kastens
I do not want either men or women in the US or the German military. The militaries of both countries have been a complete failure at protecting their respective constituitons. Both institutions have become nothing more than genitalcider criminal organizations, whose membership has less integrity than the members of Mexican or American drug gangs.
Western Societies would be better off to subcontract out the defence of everything that they hold of value to the Russian Military. Real Americans and Real Germans can
trust the Russian MIlilary far far more than their own militaries. The Russians can do the job until western societies rebuild their own militaries from the ground up. Or the Russians can do the job until climate change and or resource deplition lead to the extinction of nation states prior to the extinction of humanity.
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I totally agree. Modern warfare is all about drones and missiles and AI and women are every bit as capable as creating them and deploying them as men.
Seriously though, this issue of men versus women in the military will in short order, say ten years, be a moot point. AI will be the new warfare. No men or women need apply.
Eric Anderson
I was a State & USFS wildland firefighter for years. Worked side by side many women.
We all took the same pack test. We all swung the same pulaskis and ran the same chain saws.
Any controversy is manufactured by men with tiny ‘egos.’
Al
Of course that’s how it should be. I thought it already was.
Al
On the other hand, no one should be in combat. Imagine if they held a war and no one came.
Joan
I agree with Ian’s comment: there are ways in which women are even better suited, and that should be valued as well. In situations when it really is about upper body strength, then the GI Jane movie holds: she carried her officer out of harm’s way.
I’m definitely in favor of separate sleeping quarters for men and women because a friend of a friend was in the Army until recently and reports there’s pretty much daily sexual assault that only gets found out if the woman ends up pregnant.
Bill H.
@Ian
Your claim that women are superior at “avoiding unnecessary aggression” and at the “ability to remain calm” suggests that you have never met my wife. She is a lovely woman and the light of my life, but I would advise tradespeople not to mess with her.
ibaien
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jun/30/sexual-violence-tigray-women-abuse-gang-rape-ethiopia-eritrea
as far as i’m concerned, this is the only argument necessary in favor of leaving warfare to women. men can’t be trusted with violence.
Revelo
Most of a modern land army is rear echelons, and the primary physical fitness needed is the ability to work long hours at moderately strenuous work. Women are equal to men at these jobs, other than maybe lifting heavy objects. But small men are also inferior to large men at lifting heavy objects. So create special teams to lift the heavy objects. Furniture movers is an easy specialty to fill with typical low IQ tier recruits. Electronics operation and repair specialists, not so easy. Storm troopers with the ability to run while wearing heavy armor and carrying rifles and ammo and other gear are of limited importance in modern warfare. Think of the army as Walmart: a few jobs like security guards specialized in restraining people, or workers who lift heavy boxes need to be men, everyone else can be either sex.
In any case, USA Army, other than special forces, is mostly a make work and job training program. USA is not going to be fighting any major land wars. Special forces plus Marines will be used for lightning strikes on Cuba, Haiti, Canada, Greenland.
Soredemos
I’ve noticed there’s a glaring bit of cognitive dissonance (or outright cynical talking out of both sides of the mouth) among the type of wokester that insists effectively that sex is a spectrum. If the human race are not really sexually bifurcated, if these aren’t two fundamental categories, then why the ‘progreasive’ insistence on different fitness standards?
If we live in a world where someone can ‘change their sex’ and we’re expected to believe it doesn’t ever result in unfair sports advantage, then we should also be okay with universal military fitness tests.
Funny how that never seems to be the case. Almost as if there are intrinsic physical differences of muscle and lung capacity and so on, which would result in the vast majority of human females not being able to compete on equal footing with men and getting excluded by default.
I’ll note that, so far as I know, there are no actual dedicated men’s sports. There are open sports that technically anyone can compete in, but that women are never competitive in. Women’s exclusive sports leagues were created so women could actually do sports without just getting curbstomped by men endlessly. Like that drunk guy who was ranked well into the hundreds handily beating the William’s sisters. Sorry, but that’s a thing that actually happened.
Purple Library Guy
Bottom line:
I’m fine with equal tests. As long as the tests are relevant to what people will need to do in the job. If the tests themselves are just about sausage-swinging fantasies of what he-man warriors would do, then they’re not very useful either for screening for the right women OR for screening for the right men.
That said, in our current societies I don’t think any sane person should be aspiring to a combat role in the armed forces. It’s pretty much a guarantee that your job will be either to do nothing or to do evil.
Miko
The Red Army’s female snipers are shaking thier heads at you disapprovingly as they sit on a mountain of nazi skulls.
Jorge
Given the poor quality of today’s male Army recruits, I wouldn’t expect this fitness test to be heavily enforced.
Art
Neither men nor women come in standard sizes. I’ve worked with a 6′-3″ woman as jacked as any non-steroid induced gorilla. I’ve worked with a tiny 5-1 man that was as tough and wiry as anything you could ask for.
Mental and physical toughness and a determination to get a job done counts far more than any physical strength.
The Navy was concerned because the ability to do certain jobs can determine if a ship sinks. So the Navy had an all-female detail , of four if I remember right, faced a damage control problem unsupervised. An electric de-watering pump, estimated weight over 90 pound with hose, had to be set three decks down, made to work, and then moved up three decks and back down three in a second compartment. None of the women could move the pump by herself. They moved the pump by having one/two woman on top belaying/ hoisting a rope and the remainder on the ladders maneuvering the pump.
The official conclusion was that the women self-organized themselves faster than men. They were worked together smoothly even though they had not met before. The problem was successfully completed well within the required time.
In one case two rather small women were tasked with changing wheels on a large truck. Those wheels are bulky and heavy. Using backs two average men can just barely get the wheel back on the studs so the nuts can be set. Seemed impossible for two women. They accomplished the job by having one lay with her butt to the tire with the tire ready to mount. By using her feet inside the rim she was able to easily lift the tire so the other woman could install the nuts.
People come in all sizes. There are small men and large women. Where one can’t do a job they use teamwork, or another muscle group, or leverage. My niece went into the Army. Sargent said that with a battalion of small red-head fireballs he could win any war. They outran, out PTed, out-shot and out-tested everyone. My favorite comment: ‘that girl don’t have a stop button’. “Relentless” was how a colonel put it. Energy, intelligence and attitude makes things happen.