women in combat: the differences between the genders should be recognized and taken into account

I saw this when I was sitting in the doctor’s office the other day. Weight Watchers, in fact, has a book out called Weight Watchers She Loses, He Loses: The Truth about Men, Women, and Weight Loss.

They featured a man and his daughter, who between them lost a tremendous amount of weight because they did it together.

The representative from weight watchers said that men and women view weightloss in different ways, and that a woman carries less lean muscle mass than a man, so a man could be making progress while eating the same thing that a woman does who isn’t making any progress with weight loss.

This goes back to my previous posts on women in combat and why it’s a bad idea.

Women are not completely interchangeable with men because they carry less lean muscle mass. There is no way that this inherent fact can be altered. And that is why on physical training tests, women can’t keep up with the men. In a situation such as the battlefield, or flying an airplane, adjusting scores to help women pass couldn’t possibly help them succeed; in some cases it’s completely setting them up for failure.

Let’s go back to those great charts. The following charts are from the Statement of Dr. William J. Gregor, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Ret) to the Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender-Related Issues, December 2, 1998 based on the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test Results) for ROTC cadets at summer advanced camp over a period of 7 years (1992-1998).

Several studies, according to Lt. Col. Gregor, have indicated that the Army Physical Fitness Test is the best predictor of physical performance.

These results are from ROTC tests, and these recruits are generally older, have had some type of prior military service, and have had 1-3 years of physical training before going to Advanced Camp. He points out that the physical fitness level of these recruits is generally much better than that of regular enlisted. In order to graduate from basic training, you have to score a 50 on each event. For the push up event, for example, it’s been gender adjusted so that a man needs 32, and a woman 13. This puts her at a disadvantage, because there is no lightening of the loads you are required to carry in a combat situation. The weight of ammo, rucksack, Kevlar, weapons, supplies, crates, communications gear, remains the same, regardless as to the strength of the soldier. But strength means you’d be able to pull someone at least your size out of a humvee wreck or a plane crash, and carry out other duties that would be normal in a combat situation, and would be helpful to your chances of survival.

This chart shows that a small number of women achieved the absolute minimum level of aerobic fitness set for men. It also demonstrates what is widely known in competitive sports; women have a fraction of the aerobic ability that men do. It’s simple biology.

The American Physiological Society pointed out in Gender Issues Related to Spaceflight: A NASA Perspective that

22 percent of the active astronaut corps are women (35 of 158). The average female astronaut is 42 years old (43 years for men) and weighs 60.7 kg (81.2 kg for men). In general, the average woman is 10 cm shorter and 13 kg lighter and has 11 percent more body fat, 8 percent less muscle mass, 10-14 percent less hemoglobin mass, and a lower level of aerobic fitness than her male counterpart. These gender differences can be expected to influence exercise capacity and thus the ability to perform specific tasks during spaceflight.

Further,

The average aerobic fitness, expressed as the maximal oxygen uptake of adult women is 2.0 l/min, compared with 3.5 l/min for men. When adjusted for differences in body weight, the average maximal uptake for women is 40 vs. 50 ml/ kg for men. (These differences can be reduced still further.) Thus, for any task requiring a given absolute oxygen uptake, the average woman is working at a higher percentage of her exercise capacity than the average man.

This would result in a higher heart rate, higher body temperature, greater stress, and a quicker onset of fatigue during the exercise. These more severe exercise responses may result in a greater number of injuries and less tolerance for a stressful environment. For example, in a study of 124 men and 186 women during basic combat training, the women had a 51 percent injury rate compared with 27 percent for the men.

But let’s get back to those charts.

In the 2-mile run, there was a significant difference. Only 2.5% of women were able to achieve the men’s average. Men are simply better suited for this type of endurance test than women are.

This chart shows the results of the pushups test. This confirms what we know from physical fitness tests, studies and personal trainers, that women’s upper body strength is a fraction of that of men (40-50%), and so just 4.5% of women achieved the male average, and women still lagged far behind the men.

So these are not hyperbolic reasons to exclude women from combat, this is a very real, very sincere look at the biology behind what it is we’re talking about here. Adjusting test scores in the civilian world doesn’t have much of an impact except perhaps to make it more difficult for the people you’re trying to make ‘equal’ by making the playing field ‘unequal’ to include them.

If you’re talking about test scores for fighter pilots, and adjusting those to include women because they don’t fair as well, what do you suppose the ramifications of that would be? Add it up. It makes absolutely no sense to do this in order to pull women into a live-or-die situation and then stack the deck against them because their biology doesn’t give them the natural ability to do well.

Altering test scores also has the result of making the men they’re supposedly competing against – rather resentful of what’s being done in order to include these women.

I think the entire idea of women in combat is appalling, and I am ashamed that we’ve drifted so far left as to force upon our tried and true military culture – a feminist culture that wants to make our fighting force completely androgynous.

And I do want to acknowledge the Pentagon’s visit and their looking at my women in combat posts.

I am fully aware that the politically correct line in the military now is to NOT COMPLAIN about women’s performance; you might get sued for sexual harrassment or some other misleading and ridiculous stupidity.