Posted on Sep 11, 2015
Mixed-gender teams come up short in Marines' infantry experiment. What do you think?
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All-male ground combat teams outperformed their mixed-gender counterparts in nearly every capacity during a recent infantry integration test, Marine Corps officials revealed Thursday.
Data collected during a monthslong experiment showed Marine teams with female members performed at lower overall levels, completed tasks more slowly and fired weapons with less accuracy than their all-male counterparts. In addition, female Marines sustained significantly higher injury rates and demonstrated lower levels of physical performance capacity overall, officials said.
The troubling findings come as Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford prepares to make a crucial decision regarding the integration of female troops into closed combat roles. Faced with a Defense Department-wide mandate that will open all jobs to women by Jan. 1, he must decide whether to ask for specific exceptions to the mandate in order to preserve combat readiness. Officials said Dunford had met with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus about the decision but had yet to issue his recommendations.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/09/10/mixed-gender-teams-come-up-short-marines-infantry-experiment/71979146/
Long story but an interesting read. My take is two-fold. One, women simply don't have the experience that men do. That will (most likely) improve over time as women gain experience.
Two, women for the most part simply do not have the muscular strength and endurance that men do. That's basic physiology.
Data collected during a monthslong experiment showed Marine teams with female members performed at lower overall levels, completed tasks more slowly and fired weapons with less accuracy than their all-male counterparts. In addition, female Marines sustained significantly higher injury rates and demonstrated lower levels of physical performance capacity overall, officials said.
The troubling findings come as Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford prepares to make a crucial decision regarding the integration of female troops into closed combat roles. Faced with a Defense Department-wide mandate that will open all jobs to women by Jan. 1, he must decide whether to ask for specific exceptions to the mandate in order to preserve combat readiness. Officials said Dunford had met with Navy Secretary Ray Mabus about the decision but had yet to issue his recommendations.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/09/10/mixed-gender-teams-come-up-short-marines-infantry-experiment/71979146/
Long story but an interesting read. My take is two-fold. One, women simply don't have the experience that men do. That will (most likely) improve over time as women gain experience.
Two, women for the most part simply do not have the muscular strength and endurance that men do. That's basic physiology.
Women in the Military
Marine Corps
Infantry
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 74
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I'm not picking on the Marines, but their really into this macho thing. Marines are tough, and expect a lot from their members. I don't think they'll give the women Marines a fair chance---I suspect the deck was stacked against them from the start. If they want it to be fair---have an all female unit compete against an all male unit. That would be an interesting.
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SSgt (Join to see)
First off the females were going to fail to start with, you need to first train the females to male standard of fitness. In the marines its not a macho thing its that we have the highest standards. but the real question is this. Why do females not train to the male standard in any branch of service? Should we lower our male standards like they have done in the Army or train the females first to meet the male standards. remember above all this is the military if you join you chose this life style and career path but it is on the person to meet the standards and go past them.
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As this study wraps up; and on my early post , I have seen this movie before and the end results are the same. they simply don't stack up when it comes to combat roles. God made us different for a reason. this is nothing new, they tried this same study before the Gulf War. I don't see my marines changing the rules anytime soon. all this study proves to everyone is that people need to stay in their lanes. semper fi
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No surprise there. One thing good to say about the Jarheads as they conduct such tests w/far higher integrity than the Army.
If the Army actually conducted the tests as per normal light infantry work and not short term/short distance COIN ops, the ruck mvmts alone would wash out the greater number of women. I had to chapter men who couldn't carry 60% or more of their body weight, I'd be interested to see women having to carry what would be 70% or more of theirs as an equivalency
If the Army actually conducted the tests as per normal light infantry work and not short term/short distance COIN ops, the ruck mvmts alone would wash out the greater number of women. I had to chapter men who couldn't carry 60% or more of their body weight, I'd be interested to see women having to carry what would be 70% or more of theirs as an equivalency
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Cpl Robert Crockett
I wonder how the social stuff gets resolved. I think of "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. Basically the women soldiers get passed around the platoon for sex to avoid drama -- no favorites and no refusals. It would be quite a shock to the feminists if it were to come to pass.
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I remember a comment made by my French literature proffesor made when I was in Switzerland. He was an ex-member of the French paratroopers and a veteran of the Algerian war. He said "A woman can never be a man's equal. She can be his inferior or his superior but never equal."
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2 finally past Ranger course, but not too many GI Janes out there. They'd likely kick my old butt, yet none have jumped to the challenge, yet! Pulled 1 thru during training while the others blocked her partner a minute. Sorta train: A minute to kill, or die trying! , but she'd likely been snapped if reality:(
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Cant argue with the facts here. However I am curious since these new teams to include women haven't been working together as long as the all male teams. I wonder if through the turmoil if they will increase their performance. There are stages the teams go through before they are a well oiled machine. I am curious as they train together more if those short comings will shrink? At the end of the day there are only 2 things that will have they will either succeed or fail. I hope they succeed because there is no room for failure.
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I think every last man in any of these mixed units needs to be a volunteer -- and not the kind volunteered by higher-ups. If the women can truly cut it, as is the claim, there should be all-female infantry units...to prove the point.
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The results are as predicted. There is another factor, Female Marines physical fitness standards are also lesser than those for men. Until there is one standard, there will always be a gap in performance. If you make female PFT scores match those of males, you might see more parity in performance, but you will see far fewer females pass. I'd rather have a few, very capable, women in our Corps than a lot of women we have to carry.
I'd like to emphasize, this is not the fault of WMs. People in general will live up, and live down, to the standards you set for them, and the US military has been setting them up for failure for nearly a century.
I'd like to emphasize, this is not the fault of WMs. People in general will live up, and live down, to the standards you set for them, and the US military has been setting them up for failure for nearly a century.
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Cpl Brad MarkW
COL Germano would heartily agree with you. However, I have to point out, if that theory was true, why do Marines bother getting a 300 when their is a "passing" minimum 3rd class score? If, as you say, people only rise to the level set for them, why do Marines bother getting higher than that? Very few if any male Marines I knew stopped at the minimum PFT score. A 300 was simply the standard you worked for. Granted, some never got it for various reasons, like the bigger boys had issues with the run but in the end, anyone with less than a 260 was basically considered a sh1tbird, at least in the 0311 world I lived in. Nothing stops any WM from working out to achieve the male standard. They get nothing extra for it but if it was me, trying to advocate for equality of the sexes, I think it would go a long way to push myself to say as a woman you got a 270 or even a 300 PFT at the male standard. It would have certainly garnered my respect. But they don't, because they can't. The average female Marine (I understand we're not supposed to use WM anymore because it's somehow demeaning?) can't achieve that not because we expect less of them, but because a woman's body is simply different from a man's. Everything from upper body muscle mass to ligament and joint strength is different. If you change the the standard to be "One Standard", the male standard, a lot of women would fail, or score low and not be competitive for promotion. The USMC has around 7% women now as it is. What if that falls to 3%? What if women don't ever get promoted because on the one standard scale they score consistently lower than male marines? The outcry from the PC crowd and their congressmen would be deafening. In order to keep the one standard, you'd have to lower the over all standard to maintain that 7%. At the senior officer and Enlisted level, politics become a part of your career. You want to get promoted? You gotta tow the party line and achieve the expected results, or, get passed over.
So in theory - yes, I agree that the military sets them up for failure with a lower standard but until we throw the PC crap out the window, that's the way it will be. I offer this: the only people limiting themselves are women - COL Germano proves this with her article - that women, when pushed, do better and can achieve better. But is that enough to perform at the male standard? The subject article of this posts says no. The USMC cherrypicked the best and absolute highest performing women to participate in this experiment. The picked the most progressive and motivated officers and NCOs to lead them. They wanted it to succeed so much they stacked the deck, arguably with women who could get high scores on the male PFT chart. And they didn't perform as well as their all male counterparts. Experiment over.
http://time.com/4032419/colonel-germano-low-expectations-limit-female-marines/
So in theory - yes, I agree that the military sets them up for failure with a lower standard but until we throw the PC crap out the window, that's the way it will be. I offer this: the only people limiting themselves are women - COL Germano proves this with her article - that women, when pushed, do better and can achieve better. But is that enough to perform at the male standard? The subject article of this posts says no. The USMC cherrypicked the best and absolute highest performing women to participate in this experiment. The picked the most progressive and motivated officers and NCOs to lead them. They wanted it to succeed so much they stacked the deck, arguably with women who could get high scores on the male PFT chart. And they didn't perform as well as their all male counterparts. Experiment over.
http://time.com/4032419/colonel-germano-low-expectations-limit-female-marines/
Colonel Germano: Low Expectations Limit Female Marines
Women need to face the same high performance standards as men to achieve the same results
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Couple of Different ways to look at this female soldiers who wish to be a combat arms soldier should be allowed if she can meet the same physical strength and endurance requirements that her male counterparts need to achieve the mission. I can't speak for the other services but in the Army when I was on active duty the APFT standards were not the same for male and female soldiers I doubt that has changed even now. Equalize the physical performance standards then it may be more acceptable to male combat troops to have females in their midst no combat troop wants to go into combat with a weak link male or female. Yes there are female members of the military that are stronger and more physically fit then their male counterparts, I remember seeing the Post Records for the APFT in the main post field house and in one event a Female held the post record, and there were several female names in the top 10 in that event and the other 2 as well. Heard a COO of a company who spoke at a Business Rally who had a great motto "Performance Is The Equalizer"
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There's one reason and ONLY ONE reason for all of these socio-political experiments in and with the Military, the absence of a DRAFT and the AVM. The AVM NEVER ever provided enough men to support the mission and defend the country, any country. Napoleon Bonaparte understood that better than anybody else. Conscription is, has ALWAYS been, and will ALWAYS be the ONLY way to have enough soldiers. Nothing else will do. Anything else is so costly that can bankrupt even the richest of Nations. As is already doing to ours.
Absolutely nothing of these shenanigans would be necessary, we would not be having these discussions if there was a DRAFT. Back in the days nothing of these Absurdities were even though of, much less heard of.
One day years ago, an Army recruiter dare call my home asking to talk to my daughter. I told him off and said to him these very same things. I also told him that as long as my daughter is under my roof she was not joining the AVM.
The Highest Moral Standards EVER are set in the Scriptures, and as per the Scriptures is Men who are to defend a nation. And Conscription was and is what the Scriptures mentioned.
Absolutely nothing of these shenanigans would be necessary, we would not be having these discussions if there was a DRAFT. Back in the days nothing of these Absurdities were even though of, much less heard of.
One day years ago, an Army recruiter dare call my home asking to talk to my daughter. I told him off and said to him these very same things. I also told him that as long as my daughter is under my roof she was not joining the AVM.
The Highest Moral Standards EVER are set in the Scriptures, and as per the Scriptures is Men who are to defend a nation. And Conscription was and is what the Scriptures mentioned.
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