Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 42
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Marionne T. Mangrum)
Marine Corps 1st Lt. Marissa Loya, a female engagement team commanding officer, crawls through a doorway 30 December 2012 during
a patrol in Marjah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The team worked with infantry Marines by engaging women and children in support
of the International Security Assistance Force.
This always seems to happen. As traditionally male
military occupational specialties (MOSs) are opened
to women, the standards are questioned and maligned
as unfairly discriminatory as women’s inability to
achieve them is exposed.
Development of Double Standards
Double standards were developed because every
time women are tested, they prove that they cannot
consistently achieve men’s standards and that they
suffer many more injuries than men do in the attempt.
Proponents pushing more military opportunities for
women have never insisted women achieve the men’s
standards because their lack of qualification would
mean fewer women in the ranks. They could not
achieve the standards when the military academies
first were integrated. In his 1998 book Women in the
Military: Flirting with Disaster, Army veteran Brian
Mitchell cites results for physical testing at West
Point and Annapolis:
When 61 percent [of female West Point
plebes] failed a complete physical test, compared to 4.8 percent of male plebes, separate
standards where devised for the women.
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Similar adjustments were made to other
standards. At Annapolis, a two-foot stepping stool was added to an indoor obstacle
course to enable women to surmount an
eight-foot wall.2
Mitchell also reports that when women were integrated into the Air Force’s Cadet Wing,
The [Air Force] academy’s physical fitness
test included push-ups, pull-ups, a standing
broad jump, and six-hundred-yard run, but
since very few of the women could perform
one pull-up or complete any of the other
events, different standards were devised for
them. They were allowed more time for the
run, less distance on the jump, and fewer
push-ups. Instead of pull-ups, female cadets
were given points for the length of time they
could hang on the bar … . They fell out of
group runs, lagged behind on road marches,
failed to negotiate obstacles on the assault
courses (later modified to make them easier), could not climb a rope … . The women
averaged eight visits to the medical clinic;
the men averaged only 2.5 visits … . On the
March-April 2015 MILITARY REVIEW