There are now no restrictions or prohibitions on women serving in the infantry, special forces etc.
“here are now no restrictions or prohibitions...”
It has been five years since the ban on women in combat was lifted in 2015 and women began integrating previously closed combat arms billets in January 2016. But being assigned to the units doesn’t put them into trench warfare.
Where I agree with opening up as many fields in the business as possible to any qualified person, they must be able to do the job. And lowering the standards of physical fitness to accommodate anyone when lives are in question is not the answer, it is part of the problem.
I trained physical fitness for the military for over 20 years and I have yet to find a woman that can compete under the same restrictions placed upon their gender counterparts. Plus, that neutral requirement is still not in place. And neither are the assignments whether in theater or not.
The Army is unlikely to change its new physical fitness test despite Congress recently passing a law pressing the service to establish gender-neutral standards, according to two sources with knowledge of the plans.
The annual defense authorization bill passed in December 2022 directed the Army to set the same fitness standards for men and women by June. Last month, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the service had already established gender-neutral expectations for troops, but was vague about the specific standards to which she referred.
Whereas the plank standards the Navy originally released in 2020 were gender neutral for all age groups, the new standards are slightly different for men and women, according to the Navy.
The Air Force PT maintains separate scoring standards for males and females and breaks each gender into nine age groups: under 25, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59 and over 60.
If someone can do the job, and they are teachable and physically capable, and can execute, go for it. But there has been, and continues to be, this over the top effort to display things that are not quite as they seem.
wy69