US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has previously expressed opposition to women serving in combat, has ordered the military to develop gender-neutral physical fitness standards for frontline troops, a memo released Monday said.
I had time to think about this. And I think the smartest thing would be to subsidize women so they can reach the same or close to same fitness standard as men, rather than reducing their fitness stadard, or pumping up men’s fitness standards.
subsidize women
What does this mean in the context of fitness tests and standards?
You inject them with testosterone. Subsidize the hormones and the girls will pass fitness standards with ease.
Good. I am against all nongender neutral things. I actually view this as a rare Good Step among the Trump Regime’s ocean of horrid discrimination.
Make more things gender neutral please.
Hegseth previously argued that women should not serve in combat roles, claiming it complicates military operations and reduces effectiveness.
I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. It hasn’t made us more lethal. It has complicated fighting.
In his 2024 book, he described women as “life-givers” and implied they are unsuited for combat units, stating,
“We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units."
“Women are life-givers, not life-takers.”
(My apologies if you used sarcasm)
That was rude of you.
looks like i will give your post it’s first downvote.
my comment had nothing to do with Hegseth. I expressed appreciation for Gender Neutral things. Take your hate and drama somewhere else; don’t contaminate my comments with it. You clearly want me to express hate at Hegseth, which I hadn’t done, so you are trying to push the hate. So no. Blocked. Try that and my hate hits you, not who you are rudely trying to direct it at. I dont give a fuck about Hegseth’s historical comments. I am addressing the switch to Gender Neutrality.
This is one of those things that really depends on how it’s implemented. If they just abolish the female scoring column and force everyone to use the male scoring column then there are so many more questions. Will women be judged 1 to 1 against men? or will promotion boards develop an idea of where women should score on the male column? Are they going to get rid of age too and just score everyone as if they were 18 still? Is this going to be a new test for all services?
PT tests have already been undergoing a lot of changes recently. And the one thing that combat arms troops have asked for is simply a score one must meet to be in a combat unit that isn’t age or gender scaled. The minimum we would ask of someone in such a unit, such as marching 12 miles in 3 hours with a standard rucksack. This would be separate from the general test which is scaled and meant to make sure we maintain a physically healthy force.
I don’t think that’s what fuckhead and company have planned though.
All entry-level and sustained physical fitness requirements within combat arms positions must be sex-neutral, based solely on the operational demands of the occupation and the readiness needed to confront any adversary
This tells me they want to change the general physical fitness test in combat units, the same test used to promote people, decide who goes to schools, and can lead to being discharged if you continually fail it. This is not what we asked for. For those unaware the military has been working on overhauling physical fitness tests to more closely resemble combat tasks for nearly a decade now. This has been a measured and science based project until now. And the part that tells me it isn’t going to be that anymore is when the Secretary of Defense believes he knows what the operational demands of any specific combat unit are. And says this like it hasn’t been what the military has been doing.
And before some keyboard warrior comes through here talking about upper body strength to carry wounded people under fire you should know that 20 plus years ago in Infantry Basic Training we were told you don’t do that. You make the area safe and then you roll their ass onto a stretcher, you tie them down and literally drag them out. And since then we’ve gotten much better drag stretchers because that is by far the preferred method to get casualties to a vehicle. We’ve also had women in frontline units for over a decade now. Even in 2003 while they were officially banned, we brought their units to the frontline because we needed them. Even in a peer to peer combat posture. As a combat infantry veteran I would far far rather have a woman in my patrol that has been trained to work with us because we’ve recognized it’s something we need; than I would have a woman that I need but also have to train under fire because we put our heads in the ground to satisfy some stupid fucking civilian idea of machismo.
Heh. 30 years ago we had female troopies who could carry my ass across a field in a fireman carry with one hand free. That was a requirement, and the women in training at that time were all hard as hell and easily capable of doing that.
You all got stretchers, eh?
There are things besides fitness that are relevant to combat situations. In the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which takes place in a war zone in Afghanistan, we see the female news reporter is able to talk to the female residents in a combat zone and gain information about who was sabotaging a US-built well. The male soldiers weren’t allowed to speak to the women of the village, and had no way of getting this info.
Women make up 50% of the world population and sometimes you just need a female soldier to properly work with the locals. If men cannot get information from some populations because of their gender, then it makes sense that rules might be slightly bent to allow women to take part in combat roles. As a soldier, I wouldn’t want to be miss relevant info just because no one in my troop could talk to half the local population- that ignorance of knowledge puts my life at risk too.
It’s not even bending the rules. Unless you make gender a specific disqualifying thing. The standard for combat is not and never has been to be an Olympic athlete. Some women routinely score higher than some men on the Army Physical Fitness Test. What Hegseth’s quotes tell me is they’re going to go on a quixotic quest to find a minimum score that no woman can meet. However that’s going to disqualify a large group of men as well, and require the men that remain to work out multiple times per day instead of train necessary combat tasks.
In short, this administration has no clue what constitutes fighting shape in the military.
Personally, fitness tests is a fitness test and has nothing to do with combat. I’ll always remember our company high PFT in SOI dropping out of the 25k hump. The guy who literally “set the standard” by being the fastest and doing the most pullups was on the ground saying he couldn’t walk. Nice kid, but toughness doesn’t necessarily equate with fitness.
And once I got to my unit I decided there were plenty of Marines who didn’t belong there, and that there were women who could probably outdo them. Of course, this warred with my desire to walk around in my silkies and make homoerotic jokes with my buddies, but perhaps that’s not the whole point.
Haha yeah I’ve always said the real test is the 12 mile march in 3 hours. If you can’t walk, you ain’t infantry. But the Army, (my ex), in all it’s wisdom wants to measure all this other stuff. I could get on board with a weighted drag and a sprint too but it’s really not necessary.
Yeah, I joined the Marines in 2009 and we were the first class at PI to do the Combat Fitness Test. But there’s that word again, and it ends up being another PFT. Even I could 300 the CFT and I was never a PFT stud, just pretty good. But neither tested my mettle like walking really far with a bunch of shit on my back or not sleeping.
They could be using this to boot women who get pregnant out.
i’m torn. As a gender abolotionist, I think more things should be gender-neutral.
The general fitness test has never been about combat. It’s been about keeping the force healthy. It’s scored by age and gender because it’s used in promotions and deciding school slots; so it’s desirable to make sure your scores reflect your effort and level of fitness compared to a similar cohort. The combat arms branches have been asking for a gender and age neutral minimum but after a decade or so of research it’s been clear that such a test is easily replaced by a different minimum score for select units. It’s literally just +25% at any age/gender point in the graph and then having them walk 12 miles in under 3 hours with a rucksack.
Yeah, this doesn’t make sense to be gendered unfortunately the people behind it are likely pursuing alienation rather than equality
For combat MOSs, they should all be expected to pass the same physical fitness standard. You either raise the female standard to the same level as males, and have fit females. Or you can lower male standards and have less fit male and female service members in combat. Or you can meet somewhere in the middle and still have less fit male and female service members in combat. Personally, I say raise the female standard for combat MOSs to that of males.
Combat is not about equality. It is about lethality and that is it.
We already have a gender neutral standard. Walk 12 miles in under 3 hours with gear and shoot at least 30/40 targets on the rifle range. If you can carry your load, shoot, and communicate, then you’re going to be an effective combat soldier. Everything after that is promotion points and being healthy.
What if you can shoot your load, and communicate that you’re carrying?
That’s good for a few paychecks in the black couch industry…
JD, is that you?
I approve the weakening of the US armed forces. That way when you fuck heads start invading Greenland, Panama, Mexico or Canada at least some of your morale and effectiveness will have been sucked away.
If we took the money we wasted larping around being “world police” our taxes would stay the same and we could all have universal healthcare and insurance/pharma companies could get bent. Of course, that whole fascism thing became the bigger fish to fry, for now.
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.
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.
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.
The Infantry already has a soft standard of scoring higher than minimum. You meet that or you get extra PT, no school slots, no promotions, and may even get transferred out of combat units. But also we’ve seen guys that did 180 (the minimum in 2003) operate perfectly fine in combat. This canard that combat arms needs more than a file clerk is just being used to exclude women. The minimum is actually high enough to operate in combat. Units are doing the higher soft standard because it’s a way to operate at a higher level. But they will deploy someone doing a 180 on their test and put them in a squad that’s fighting in a city after an 8km foot movement. Heck we would rather someone who scored the minimum but can walk with their gear than someone who scored higher but didn’t have that walking endurance.
Was with you till the draft comment. I didn’t think anyone should be drafted. If the people don’t willingly enlist, either your cause is shit, or your benefits don’t offset the risks.
I don’t want to be drafted either but I think there do seem to be cultural benefits to universal conscription and mandatory military service. These countries seem to be much less willing to go to war than countries where only certain classes or groups of people are represented in the military.
Three of the worst offenders, the US, Russia, and Israel, are examples of the latter. The people making the decisions to go to war tend to be in the class or group that avoids military service.
Israel has universal conscription last I knew and they don’t seem to give a hoot about bombing everyone. I don’t think mandatory military service makes them any less willing to go to war.
They don’t. Until June 2024, Ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) were exempt from military services under an arrangement known as Torato Umanuto. Furthermore the draft only applies to male and female Jews, male Druze, and male Circassians in the first place. All other ethnic groups are excluded.
Haredim have historically been very active on the far right of Israeli politics. They’ve made up a significant portion of settlers and have been major proponents of the expansion of settlements. Their loss of draft exemption last year was met with widespread protests but some are hopeful it will eventually contribute to political change. Policies like this are slow to take effect though, and generational prejudices don’t disappear overnight.
I agree nobody should be drafted, but that’s not reality, so everyone should be forced.
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.
They have a point on that one. The point of the army is to defend your country, not to look like a cool warrior. It’s not even about hate.
I’m not going to down vote you over it because most people outside the military don’t know. But the Army just spent 10 years making a fitness test that more closely resembles combat tasks. Hegseth is not saying this in good faith.
So they make them pass the combat standard anyway? So this was all pointless?
Yup. Every soldier needs to be able to fight. The last 20 years has seen enemies actively avoid attacking combat arms units and going after traditionally non combat units wherever possible. That and the ability to press anyone into the frontline is why everyone needs to be able to pass the test.
Also, to make things even more interesting, combat units already hold their soldiers to a soft standard that’s higher than non combat units. You won’t get discharged for not meeting it but you will do extra exercises, get held back on promotions, and not go to schools for additional skills. If they thought their women weren’t making the standard they literally just wouldn’t promote them, and they’d highly encourage them to change jobs.
Which is precisely why the Army came up with ACFT 20 years of war in the middle east taught us what soldier need to be combat effective, so let’s just keep it.
He should go hand to hand with a female soldier. I’d pay to see her give him a beating.
I would find a wave of advancing pissed off mama bears absolutely terrifying.
