AP just reported the Rangers and SEALs will be training women starting in mid ’15 & ’16 respectively.
I hate to tell you “I told you so,” but I did.
I wrote an article about how the military has integrated the sexes. Publicly, the military says “same standards,” but the practice is actually much different. Standards are lowered, requirements removed and equality is declared while ignoring that standards have been lowered. Read the article for several examples.
The gender-based Army PT test is a great example of how the military bureaucracy plays games, and how “packaging” makes standards look the same. Men and women have different scales for each event on the PT test (except for sit-ups), but the scores are also scaled to camouflage the difference.
E.G., a man has to do 71 push-ups to get 100 points, but a woman needs only 42. They both get 100 points, camouflaging the fact that the woman did 29 or 40% less push-ups.
How does this make a difference?
Let’s say you are evaluating two platoons, one with 100% men and the other with 100% women, and the average score is equal. On paper it looks like the units are equal. The truth is that the female unit is far below the physical ability of the male unit. This is further obscured in gender mixed units because the men are tasked to exert themselves further to make up for female shortcomings in physical performance. Not a big deal in an office, but it’s the only issue in a unit that lives and dies based on far they can walk with a load. At every school, evaluation, or even unit, PT averages (which is a measure of the unit and its leaders) make it look like everyone is doing the same, while ignoring the fact that women are performing at a substantially reduced capacity (and that difference isn’t an issue).
The latest propaganda campaign says, “The order Panetta and Dempsey signed prohibits physical standards from being lowered simply to allow women to qualify for jobs closer to the battlefront. But the services are methodically reviewing and revising the standards for many jobs, including strength and stamina, in order to set minimum requirements for troops to meet regardless of their sex.” Huh? We aren’t going to “lower” standards but we are going to “review” them and set one standard? How about just using the male PT standard? Don’t fool yourself. The standards ARE being lowered, just look at all the precedents.
Classic “bait and switch.”
What can be done to the politicians and bureaucrats pushing and facilitating these policies? What about those who continue to say they support “same standards,” but remain silent when they are shown that “same standards” have always been a canard? (You know who you are.) I guess looking “reasonable,” fair and politically correct is more important than taking a stand. Politicians and bureaucrats get away with sins like this because we let them. Part of enabling them is not confronting them, and those who haven’t thought this through are leaves in the wind going with the flow.
(Featured Image Courtesy: DVIDS)
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