I saw this blurb in passing on Yahoo:
WASHINGTON
(AP) — More than half of female Marines in boot camp can't do three
pullups, the minimum standard that was supposed to take effect with the
new year, prompting the Marine Corps to delay the requirement, part of
the process of equalizing physical standards to integrate women into
combat…
Associated Press
I'll let someone else read it all because this shite irritates me to no end. As in 'makes my blood boil'.
Here's why:
1. Any fit adult, or adolescent for that matter, considering
military service(as in trained to kill people to defend country, fellow, soldiers and self), should at minimum have the body strength to pull their own weight up. Imagine alligators snapping at your heels.
2. Military weight requirements, at least when I was in (the 80's), actively made it harder for a woman the same strength as a man her size to be excepted. If you looked at the charts, the maximum weight for my height as a female was something like 145lbs. You can be very fit at that weight with my height IF you have a small frame.(I have a medium frame). If you don't, that number is more like a minimum, than a max. .The male requirements for my height max out at 170lbs, which is close to the weight I am now. I am not fat. Think about it.
IMO this drastic difference was a based on the flawed assumption that women were
always heavier because they were fatter. Whereas the assumption for men, much more logical, was that to have the strength to do the job, they needed to be a certain weight. To check that was muscle, not fat, their were the strength tests. Why that logic wasn't applied to women, I don't know. Make the weight the same(muscle mass), use the strength test to check that it's muscle not fat. But that leads to the second problem...
3. The military's strength tests for women, at least when I was in, seemed to be designed to get women in the military, not to make sure they could do the job. Compare the men's PT test max of run 3 miles in 20mins(? working from memory here), 80 situps in two minutes, and 20 pullups to the women's 1.5 miles in 15 minutes,hang for 30 secs, and 50 situps in a minute.
Run 1.5 miles in 15 minutes is a MAX? Are you serious? 1.5 MILES? When I'm lean(about 150-155 lbs) I can blow that in my sleep. And I'm much older than these young women who in theory should out preform me. This is insulting.
But when you're in the service, you have so much shite to keep up with, you take your breaks when you can. I trained to male standards, and they knew it...allowing me to coast during my tokenism influenced female PT tests. I always maxed out the "hang"(lol) and situps. Ironically, then I wasn't as good a runner and never maxed out. I put that down to being 120 lbs and energy starved. Even I was under the impression I needed to eat less, or at least lots of rabbit food, to be fit, believing exercising like a maniac would be enough. It only get's you so far without ample macro nutrients(protein, etc). I've learned since.
So the MILITARY created a situation guaranteeing that female recruits would be weaker than male recruits. For this conversation it's irrelevant what anyone thinks women can do, or the average fitness of females in this society(which sucks). The only thing that's relevant is ensuring
women recruited are strong enough. This is perfectly possible.
So why'd did the military commit to this foolishness? Off the top of my head;
1. Quotas. The push for gender parity made people rush for a stop gap. And as a stop gap it would be fine. But this stop gap thinking lingered...or malingered...decades after it was needed. The military isn't alone in this; police departments also share this foolishness. I deeply respect fire departments for NOT doing this. Unfortunately not enough women are attracted to being firefighters so there hasn't been enough social pressure to change the reasons why woman lag in the strength department. Thanks to institutions like the military and police forces wimping out this leads to another major factor...
2. Limited by fitness of recruits available. If the tests for female recruits had been the same as for male recruits, true many women wouldn't qualify. But that would have put pressure on other institutions, like High School physical fitness programs, to find out why. Remember how high school PE made you a strong and fit person? Neither do I. I had to go out of my way to find the gym in my junior and senior years. It wasn't complete crap, but it reflected that society was confused about how one got consistently fit. And I'll never forget the FEMALE PE instructor who taught boys PE who believed girls couldn't run a mile. Seriously. No, really. Even though I wasn't doing any real running then, I didn't buy it. It sounded very unlikely. Weren't there women running marathons on telly? Were they mutants or something? So being given a pool of girls trained by people who didn't believe in them didn't help.
This is exacerbated now by a situation where cash strapped schools systems have cut their PE programs. This means the recruiters should expect their recruit pools of both genders to suffer. But boys considering military service will go out of their , way are encouraged culturally to go out of their way, to find a gym and supported by friends and family. Girls have zero, read zero, cultural support while at the same time being told eating more will make you fat, exactly NOT the thing you need to do as an adolescent trying to build muscle.
3. Inertia. Self explanatory. But making a pool of potential victims was never a good idea. You would think they learned from the pathetic military rape scandal(something else that makes my blood boil). It's not rocket surgery :
"Let's
make a sub group of female soldiers inside our macho culture that on
average is weaker than the male soldiers, encourage aggression and
sexual violence (Abu Ghraib) and be completely surprised when the men
start targeting their fellow female soldiers. Surprised, I say! How
did that happen?"
Then one shining day someone got over the idea of women in combat. Lovely. I should give them points for trying. *gives point* But carrying the baggage of failures past, their first attempt wasn't as successful as they needed.
Their solution? Throw out the strength requirement.
OR
Find out why some of these women didn't develop the strength and learn how all of them can.
Body strength is the deference between being a physical force or a victim. It should go without saying to operate with confidence in a "macho" culture you NEED to hold your own, whether you're going into combat or not. If you can't protect yourself, you can't protect your mates or country. Frankly the military should prioritize increasing female strength requirements to have parity with male requirements if only for the safety of female soldiers.
It does make a difference. When I was in I was never targeted for any sexual serious harassment except once one evening when it was hard to see who I was, and the guy's own mates told him to stand down. They knew me.
But in a backhanded was this is good news.
Half the women could qualify. At one time most people assumed
no women could do three pull ups.
That means they all can if they want to AND are shown how.
My suggestions to military fitness "engineers":
1. Raise the
weight requirements for female recruits to match males of the same height.
2. AT THE SAME TIME,
make physical tests the same for both genders.
3.
Make a media announcement a couple years before easing these changes in, to inform and put pressure on educational institutions. This will give them the motive to push for funding of PE programs.
4.
Respect the limits of boot camp training. Boot camp will not "build" anyone up. At least not physically. There isn't enough time and there isn't enough heavy muscle stimulation followed by rest. It
appears to work as a strength program for people with muscle that has gone soft and flabby, or people who haven't finished growing.
Boot camp is to train fighting conditioning. For that you need a recruit that already has the raw physical ability. I can say from personal experience boot camp did not increase my strength at all.
It really isn't rocket surgery.
[
Notes on text: even though I was in the Navy, in my program we trained with Marines. Details of my recollection about requirements may be wrong. The author is about 160lbs, and, when conditioned, can do 6-8 pullups at a time on a good day. In the past, up to 14ish, but I weighed less]
