Maggie's Farm

"Why women do not belong in the U.S. Infantry"

With all due respect to the female Marine officer I contend that women do not belong in the military at all with the exception of serving as nurses and admin. Over the last 45 years or so we have embarked on an effort to massively increase the numbers of women in the military going from about 2% in the 60's to about 15% today. It began with strict limits on career field and assignment choices for women but activists, mostly civilian activists, have broken down those barriers and women now serve everywhere in the military with the exception of forward combat. The effort now is to break down those barriers to women. But has it been a success? No, in fact it has been a disaster. The greatest negative effect has been dramatic decreases in physical and fighting skill requirements. The simple unadulterated truth is women couldn't cut it so the tough standards has to be cut instead. but not just for women, ironically the standards were "adjusted" for women only at first but that only highlighted their inabilities. This created conflict as every man in the military was fully aware that there was one standard for the men and a totally different standard for the women. The women felt that the two standards were a microagression aimed at them and demanded "equality". "Equality" finally came in the form of lowered standards for men and women alike. But even that wasn't enough the standards had to be lowered even more as more and more women failed the lowered standards. As it stands today only the special forces and some of the infantry standards are the slightest bit difficult. Make no mistake the standards prior to the 70's were tough; 20 mile forced marches with 90 lbs of gear; climbing barriers which forced the soldiers to climbup over the bodies of then fellow soldiers and then physically pull up the men over the barriers. Today the standards are low enough so that any female high school graduate can easily complete the physical challenges and the men's standards are comparably low so as not to make it obvious that the women are getting a pass. Some wil tell you that none of tis matters because the people who actually do the fighting are fit and capable. This is true ut it ignores the simple truth that when combat becomes "real" everyone is a fighter and everyone will be tested. When the base camp is overrun by the enemy yelling "don't shoot I'm only here to make the military look diverse" is not an effective defense. I propose something radical; Go back to the days when the military only had women in the medical and admin fields and bring back real physical and training standards for everyone else.

I will stand by what I said. The standards for men in the military have gone downhill since the 70's and that harms the effectiveness of the military. All of this was done to satisfy a few congresswomen and a handful of feminist actvists. If you doubt that women will drag down the effectiveness of an infantry unit in an actual war then I suggest we try a simple test. Create some female only units and put them into the fray.
Here's another great idea; lets start requiring women to register for the draft and require the draft boards to not differentiate between men and women in the next great war. After all what this is all about is either they can do the job and SHOULD do it or they cannot do the job and what we are really doing in this "equality" push is harmful to the mission.

I might add that my point about due respect for the female marine was sincere. For the most part I don't think women in the military are actively trying to reduce the overall effectiveness of their units and service. I think that like most of us they are simply living their lives and taking advantage of opportunities where they find them. I also think in the society we live in that women are being pushed into situations simply so that feminist can check off another box on their bucket list.