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 post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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I feel like this would be more practical for something like police and firemen. I'd imagine that military has use for pretty much anyone willing to help but when I'm in a burning building or being attacked by robber I don't want the person coming to save me to have gotten to that position due to lowered standards. Unconcious person laying in a burning building has a gender-netural weight.
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What a great way to improve enrollment! Make it so half the population can't hit the standard.
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 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.
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.
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He should go hand to hand with a female soldier. I'd pay to see her give him a beating.
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I would find a wave of advancing pissed off mama bears absolutely terrifying.
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.
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The intent is to make military service even less appealing to women.
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
Military service is already pretty unappealing to any empathetic human being imo
OK...what exactly does that have to do with gender based fitness tests?
You don't see how a comment about military service being generally unappealing relates to your comment about something making military service less appealing to women specifically?
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.
I'm one step ahead by being too out of shape to be drafted
Checkmate
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).
It also partially eliminates potential uprising from men, if they are all used as cannon fodder.
That's a great point and much better thought out than my own! 💯
Well, and this what men are getting to when they get upset about men's rights and bring up the draft right? It's genuinely something they should be mad about they're just misdirecting their anger.
I've thought about this one a lot; there's several fanfics I've written that touch on this; one is an alternate of historical fictions and the other involves the Drow from the forgotten realms. There's this tendency (especially in erotic media) for matriarchal societies to have women act more masculine and sexually aggressive and have men crawling around on the floor in excrement and it always bugs me. There's so many existing negative stereotypes of men and positive stereotypes of women that could just be inversely accentuated to create that kind of society. I could talk for days about that one, LOL.
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.
Based on what we've seen so far, I really think they'll just use the men's criteria.
Ironically, when I was in I thought it was really unfair that the women could openly grow long hair and just tuck it under their cover and the men could not.
I'm ashamed to say that back then I took it as an example of women wanting special treatment, when I'm sure in retrospect that it was nothing of the sort.
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Rico didn't know what he had laid before him. Too smitten on "Tiger blood's" ex.