NPR reports that the Pentagon will be conducting a review of using women in ground combat positions. The article begins: "The Pentagon is mounting a six-month review of women in ground combat jobs, to ensure what it calls the military 'effectiveness' of having several thousand female soldiers and Marines in infantry, armor and artillery, according to a memo obtained by NPR." Note the scare quotes around "effectiveness". The bulk of the article makes it seem that Secretary of War Hegseth just has it in for women, noting the number of women serving in ground combat roles and including the following from "experts":
Ellen Haring, a senior research fellow at Women in International Security, is a West Point graduate and retired Army colonel with 30 years in uniform, dismissed the Pentagon review as a way to exclude women from ground combat.
"It's exactly what [Hegseth] said all along," she said. "He's against women in combat and he's going to get them out. It's going to be an effort to prove women don't belong."
Meanwhile, Khris Fuhr, also a West Point graduate who worked on gender integration for the Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, said an Army study between 2018 to 2023 found that women performed well in ground combat units, and in some cases had higher scores than male soldiers. She called the upcoming Pentagon study, "a solution for a problem that doesn't exist."
Only at the second to last paragraph does the article reveal:
Marines privately bristled at the announcement [in 2015 requiring them to incorporate women into combat units]. They conducted a training exercise in the Mojave desert in 2015 that found gender-integrated units were slower, less lethal and more prone to injury than all-male units. Marine officers also said accepting women would lead to greater risk, meaning more Marine combat casualties. ...
And then even the final paragraph tries to backpedal and downplay that finding. In short, the article tries to paint Hegseth as an unreasonable sexist pig and it is only well past the point that most readers would have stopped reading does the article reveal objective evidence to support why Hegseth would order a review.
The real lede to this article should have been, however, that the Pentagon sees the possibility of war in the future and no longer has the luxury of coddling feminists.
Related:
- "IDF: Women can't serve in combat units due to physiological differences"--Jerusalem Post (April 17, 2023). An excerpt:
The IDF has conducted several pilot programs for the integration of women in combat positions, upon which it said the military often bases its decisions. From 2020-2021, it conducted an analysis of combat positions for women, a follow-up to a previous study that determined there was a low probability for women being able to fulfill the physical requirements of certain units, such as armored and heavy infantry. The IDF is conducting further analysis and review of the issue.
The ability to carry heavy weight, in particular being repeatedly burdened with heavy backpacks for long distances, subjected women to a significantly greater risk of injury than men, the IDF said.
- "Israel Stops Training Women Combat Soldiers Over 'Health Risks'"--NDTV (May 30, 2025).
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has ended a pilot programme under which female soldiers due to health and fitness concerns. The trained women were to serve in "combat mobility units" that deliver equipment and supplies to infantry forces in enemy territory and recover wounded soldiers, but IDF Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Eyal Zamir decided to pull the plug on Thursday (May 29), according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.
As per IDF, though the professional performance of females undergoing the combat course was strong and equal to their male counterparts, their "physical and combat fitness levels fell short of the standards required for the role".
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