The Many Problems with Coed Marine Boot Camp

Double standards for women have been in place since their full integration into the military in 1948 because every time they tested against men’s standards, they didn’t perform as well as the men and retained more injuries. Also, men and women don’t like being treated the same. What’s neutral between men can be considered harassment to a woman and vice versa, and what’s tough for women tends not to be challenging enough for men.

When West Point was integrated and 61% of female plebes failed the men’s physical fitness test (PFT) compared to less than 5% of men, separate lower standards were created for women. It was the same in the Air Force’s Cadet Wing when they couldn’t perform the pull-ups or complete most of the men’s other standard tests. In every branch’s PFT, women have more time to run and don’t have to do as much or the same requirements as men. In 2013, the Marine Corps tried to get female recruits to achieve the men’s minimum three pull-ups and gave active duty females the option to do pull-ups instead of the arm-hang. They dropped the requirement when, in over a year of boot camp cycles training for the goal, less than half of female recruits (compared to 98% of males) could make the standard and only 15 percent of active duty females elected to do them at all.

Marine General John Kelly is right in saying “There will be great pressure” to lower the standards to accommodate women and fulfill the Obama administration’s destructive policy. While claiming there will be no quotas, Mabus has already demanded an increase to 25 percent female representation in the ranks. The only way to satisfy that requirement is to lower those standards. They will call them gender-normed “new” standards, and “equal” will be equally lower for all.

Recruiters now have an impossible task to perform. Women are already five times harder and more expensive to recruit because very few women want to join the military and fewer are qualified. While having to pull in much greater numbers to reach that 25 percent, the young women who can make combat standards is a yet smaller pool, even in the age of Crossfit. Now that the women’s combat exemption is to be fully repealed, the potential for involuntary assignment to combat jobs and competing with men in those jobs are all deterrents for young women thinking of enlisting.