I understand your point though, it is indeed a form of affirmative action, which is ipso facto discrimination, where it is a zero sum game. There are X slots open, and females were absolutely given preference.
So, if the females performed at the lowest possible level (which is most likely) then any men who performed at that same level were deliberately passed over.
This refers to an article written by a woman named Jude Eden who was in the Marines and served in the Middle East. (Again, thanks to Smoking Frog for bringing it to our attention) I created this graph, based on information that is established and accepted in the medical community at large, that lays the foundation:
Brilliant: If I can take the money passage: "...Meanwhile, the argument to maintain the combat exclusion makes itself easily in every aspect. Including women in combat units is bad for combat, bad for women, bad for men, bad for children, and bad for the country. The argument for the combat exclusion is provable all the time, every time. Political correctness has no chance against Nature. Her victories are staring us in the face at all times. The men just keep being able to lift more and to run faster, harder, and longer with more weight on their backs while suffering fewer inju- ries. They just keep never getting pregnant. The combat units have needs that women cannot meet. Women have needs that life in a combat unit cannot accommo- date without accepting significant disadvantage and much greater expense. Where 99 percent of men can do the heavy-lifting tasks typical of gunners, but 85 per- cent of women cannot, there is no gap women need to fill..." That pretty much sums it up.
Uplifting, because this Marine who wrote the article is a Marine, and has demonstrated and successfully argued that there is a role for patriotic, dedicated women who want to serve their country as she did, and her service means no less because she wasn't kicking down doors. She is an American Woman, and her heritage and ideals have more in common with the tough as nails frontier women who conquered this country with their men. She makes the feminists look like the petulant, spoiled, anti-American no-loads that they are. This sailor salutes her.
Ominous, because this movement, like the liberal cancers it shares all qualities with, is not going away. The article you linked, smoking frog, describes this perfectly, and why it is inevitable. Because military readiness and capability is being sacrificed on the altar of an Orwellian concept that men and women can do the same tasks exactly the same. This altar will run red with the blood of both men and women, and we are going to suffer lives needlessly ended, battles lost, and a national humiliation the likes of which we haven't seen.
It won't happen now, and it won't happen during some years of the peacetime military. But when we get to a point we are fighting an enemy who is going to be evenly matched with us, we are going to lose, because they cannot be stupid enough to follow the path we have. And when it happens, the people who will scream the loudest in protest, are going to be the successors to the people who made this all happen, since they will likely be kicking back somewhere, comfortable in their Monday morning armchairs, talking about how it wasn't the emasculation of the military combat units that caused this, it was that we didn't spend enough time, money, and effort to make it work.
Anyway, one more time, the link provided by smoking frog, for those of you who want to read it: Women in Combat - The Question of Standards