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The black women may have a legitimate gripe though. A lot of the regs are a one size fit all that does not fit all.

I remember when the AF went to a measurement of hips minus neck size to determine body fat. Almost all the black females had to starve themselves to maintain the standards because they tend to have bigger hips/rear ends than the white females. (baby got back and all that)

They had issues with the uniforms because all the uniforms were designed for men at one time. Women complained and they fixed it by designing female specific unis.

The hair standards have always sucked for black women. The short haired look is functional but unattractive out of uniform.

As a matter of POLICY, I think that MOST (not all) women should be excluded from the armed forces for the most part, with a few exceptions and COMPLETELY from combat and most combat support roles, particularly when the armed forces are a small percentage of the total population, as is the case now.

The use of significant numbers of women should be reserved for large scale mobilization as was the case in WWII. Despite the fact that the US had over 16 million personnel in uniform, and that over 400.000 members of the Armed Forces died in the line of duty, against what was probably the most formidable battlefield enemies that the US has ever fought, who regularly inflicted defeats upon our forces for much of the war NO ONE seriously considered putting women into combat units, even when the need to replace the staggering number of infantry casualties in NW Europe forced the experimentation with racially mixed infantry platoons. The population base is more than twice as large now as then and there would be no problem securing a sufficient number of qualified men with appropriate incentives for such a relatively small armed forces as we have today.

Even the WW II Soviet example must also consider the 8 MILLION Soviet military dead, and even then the women at the front were largely circumscribed to medical personnel, select few aviation units and anti aircraft artillery. Infantry assault units were all but non existent.

The advantages for the armed forces, particularly the Army would be greater flexibility as to how personnel can be deployed in combat emergencies and other contingincies and a lesser logistical strain as involves clothing, barracks and housing, and innumerable other considerations that are exclusive to the maintenence of large numbers of women. I think morale and discipline would also be improved as well.

This apparent imperative to place large percentages of women in the Armed Forces is completely unnecessary and impelled by reasons other than those that deal with combat efficiency.. It will not be long before sex/sexual orientation, and gender commissars are appointed at unit level.

The courts have repeatedly ruled that the armed forces are exempted from many of the equal opportunity requirements of the civillian world, and for the very good and sufficient requirements that are unique to the armed forces. This contretemps is being propelled largely by the cultural marxist wing of gender equity feminism who wish for the placement of a leftist Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The resultant detriment of the ability of the armed forces to fight plays no consideration in their calculus, other than as an peripheral side benefit.

I know that women have played a vital role during guerrilla, partisan warfare and sabatoge/espionage activity. But to deliberately employ them in ground combat units or other units whose primary task is to close with, engage and destroy similar enemy units is the height of lunacy and madness given the effort required to identify the relative few who could qualify even if we ignore the potential detriments to morale and discipline.