Air Force accused of pushing woman through elite commando training after she quit, spurring investigation - "Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Jim Slife is calling for an inspector general investigation after claims surfaced that his organization is unfairly pushing an unqualified female airman through special tactics officer training... n anonymous member of the AFSOC community raised questions in an letter about whether the airman is receiving preferential treatment to stay in the pipeline, despite allegedly quitting multiple times. A special tactics source provided the full anonymous letter to Air Force Times on Thursday, as well as course records documenting an instance in which the female candidate self-eliminated during a land navigation event. Elements of the letter were corroborated by a second special tactics source who witnessed a separate instance in which the candidate quit in pool training... The situation highlights fear in the special tactics community that Slife and other AFSOC officials want to push a woman through the pipeline at all costs to score political points that could lead to prestigious assignments and promotions. “It seems like there’s a mentality that we need to be on the cutting edge of this,” a special tactics instructor familiar with the situation told Air Force Times. “It’s like, we have someone that’s close and need to make sure it happens.” In the letter, the author claimed the female airman has tried to quit training three times — twice in water training sessions and once during a solo land navigation course. They also alleged she was given extra chances to prove herself, as well as preferential treatment not afforded to other trainees who quit, such as working directly under Slife at AFSOC headquarters. “All accounts were ‘brushed under the rug’ since she was closely looked at, and her status monitored by Congress and AFSOC leadership (O-6 and above) on a weekly basis,” the letter alleged. In a statement emailed to Air Force Times Thursday, Slife said that most of what the author asserted about the woman “is either factually incorrect or missing important context” that would change their perception. AFSOC declined to specifically address any of the points made in the letter, citing privacy concerns. Slife reached out to the special tactics community in a letter Friday, assuring them that AFSOC has not lowered its standards to accommodate women... the female airman designed new standards for combat controllers despite neither earning a special tactics beret nor holding other jobs within AFSOC... “This action demoralizes the community and has created rifts amongst operators,” the author said. “Working directly for a three-star general officer in this way is atypical for any training candidate that quits the ST pipeline.” The letter also mentions multiple reports filed throughout her time in AFSOC, including a deep-dive on the woman’s experience in training and an equal-opportunity complaint that she was coerced into quitting... The instructor who spoke to Air Force Times denied that cadre members were harsher on the woman than they are on male candidates... The author alleged that Maj. Spencer Reed, the school’s commander, told the 352nd Special Warfare Training Squadron that the woman “WILL graduate, regardless of if she meets standards or not.” “[She] will gain a coveted ST beret and the title of the first female STO, despite the negative effects it has on the rest of the ST community,” the letter said... The community itself is grappling with the letter’s fallout. An unnamed special operations squadron held an all-hands meeting Wednesday to “remind our airmen to maintain professionalism and operational security both in person and online,” Stephens told Air Force Times. “There were multiple topics of discussion including teamwork, trust, OPSEC and professionalism,” she added. “There is no ‘gag order’ placed on any airmen.” While AFSOC doesn’t know the author’s identity, Slife chastised the anonymous writer for singling out the female trainee through “abusive bullying and vindictive harassment.”"
From 2022. Weird. We keep being told that DEI doesn't result in lower standards
Whistleblowing is only good when it pushes the left wing agenda
What Hegseth's military fitness rules may mean for women servicemembers - "Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the implementation of new fitness standards for the military. In addition to the newly proposed annual fitness exam, Hegseth's speech emphasized "gender-neutral" testing with men and women required to meet the same minimum physical performance benchmarks. Speaking to hundreds of high-ranking military officials in Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth said it was important that certain combat positions return "to the highest male standard," acknowledging that it may lead to fewer women serving in combat roles... he supports women serving in combat roles so long as they meet the same standards as men -- an approach the military says has been in place for nearly a decade. Some experts in exercise science and in the history of women's service in the military told ABC News that while there is room for improvement in military fitness, they are concerned there's a false narrative that female servicemembers are the only ones not meeting certain fitness standards. "To me, Hegseth wants a military that looks a certain way ... which [is] definitely male and muscular," Jill Hasday, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School with expertise in sex discrimination in the military, told ABC News. "It seems like his expectation is that once they enforce more 'rigorous standards,' more women will be pushed out."... beginning in 2026, the U.S. Army's new fitness standards will require both male and female soldiers to meet the same minimum physical performance benchmarks for the demands of the battlefield... Hegseth's comments drew criticism from female veterans, particularly those who held combat roles. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat from New Jersey and a former Navy helicopter pilot, released a statement saying there is "no evidence that women cannot ably serve in combat positions." "Eliminating the current highly rigorous standards for women in combat positions has nothing to do with increasing lethality and everything to do with forcing women out of the Armed Forces," she said. Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot and Democratic Senate candidate in Kentucky, posted a video on Facebook stating there is no male standard or female standard for roles, including flying a fighter jet or being an artillery officer. "Since combat roles have been open for qualified women, there have always been one standard for those jobs," she said. "It's a slap in the face and offensive to suggest otherwise.""
Weird. We keep being told that it's a myth that DEI means that standards are lowered for minorities
Women on the front line, from forgotten commanders to cross-dressing soldiers | HistoryExtra - "‘In most cases yes you do get this deliberate forgetting. And you get, you know, you get people, the US has many different Congressional inquiries and hearings on the subject of whether or not women should participate in combat. And nearly all of them, somebody will say something like, well you know women have just never done this. Or only in a country that was seriously barbarian and wrong would you get them to put women into combat... it's the evidence of women's physical capacity to be on a battlefield full stop that gets suppressed and one of the things that we have lots of evidence of, remember I said before that the battlefield is actually a surprisingly co-ed place. There are lots of women on it. Those women may not have been fighting but they were experiencing all of the same level of physical hardship and danger as the men around them... a lot of these women who are on the battlefield, they're there providing services… probably many of them probably were [prostitutes] but they were also doing things like laundry and they were also doing provisioning...
In Europe for a very long period of time, so from the 15th century for a couple hundred years, the siege is the most common type of warfare there is. Outnumbered battlefield battles by about ten to one...
When we deny women combatant status and warfare, when we say to them you cannot fight, it is an unbelievably effective way of saying: you may think that you are equal, you may think that you can do everything in the same way a man can do, except for this. This is one thing, combat, that you cannot do. And the reason you can't do it is because you're not good enough. You're not physically capable enough. You're not brave enough, you're not strong enough. In fact you're lacking in all the attributes that we consider to be core to leadership in society. Now, we can have an argument about whether or not those are the right attributes to record [sp?] a society. We can also have an argument about whether or not warfare in general is good for society. But the reality where we live is that warfare is a prominent part of every country in the world, and when you deny women the right to participate in it you are actually very significantly impacting gender equality, because you are telling women they are incapable.’"
Naturally, she conflates women being present on the battlefield with women being in combat roles, much less systematically deployed. No surprise this mischievous conflation is made
Armed forces need to suffer in their core mission because social engineering is more important
Support for female combat soldiers dependent on sector, study finds
Interestingly, in Israel, despite female soldiers being brutalised on October 7th, most still support women in combat roles
Latest Female to Graduate Ranger School Is 37-Year-Old Mother of Two - "The last remaining female soldier of the original group of 19 women who tried out for Army Ranger School in April will graduate from the punishing infantry leadership course. Maj. Lisa A. Jaster, a combat engineer with the U.S. Army Reserve, is 37 and a mother of two children. The average age of a student in Ranger School is 23 years old, according to Army officials... The West Point graduate had to repeat all three phases of the two-month course"
Russell says female Army Ranger records destroyed - "Oklahoma Congressman Steve Russell isn't giving up his quest to determine whether the first women to graduate the U.S. Army's elite Ranger School were given special treatment when receiving tabs in August. Tribune News Service is reporting that Russell, a Republican freshman from Oklahoma City, sent a second letter last week to the Secretary of the Army demanding access to Ranger school records for classes that included female soldiers. In the letter, Russell, expressed concern that some of the records he requested have been destroyed. "I was somewhat puzzled by the Army officials informing me that many of the documents I am requesting might not be delivered as they may have been shredded,” Russell said in the letter."
Field hygiene and gender equality : r/army - "Company is going to the field for 10 days. Our max before this has been 5. They've mandated females will be run home every 3 days to shower. Nothing for males. I've read through 21-10 where it states shower runs should be done without sexuality preference. Simple question. Can they do this?"
Nearly Half of Female Soldiers Still Failing New Army Fitness Test, While Males Pass Easily - "More than seven months after the official launch of the Army Combat Fitness Test, or ACFT, nearly half of female soldiers are still falling short, with enlisted women struggling the most, Military.com has learned. The data again raises questions about whether the Army's attempt to create a fitter force is creating more barriers to success for women. Internal Army figures from April show 44% of women failed the ACFT, compared to 7% of men since Oct. 1. "Female soldiers continue to lag male soldier scores in all events," according to a United States Army Forces Command briefing obtained by Military.com... "The ACFT -- as part of the Army's overall physical readiness program -- continues to evolve, reduce injuries and empower Soldiers to perform basic Soldier tasks," a FORSCOM spokesman told Military.com in a statement Monday. "The ACFT is in a transitional period. Data already shows that the ACFT is a better measure of a Soldier's ability to successfully complete combat-related warrior tasks and battle drills." It's difficult to overstate how crucial fitness scores in the Army are, particularly in combat arms units such as the infantry and cavalry. High and perfect fitness scores can open opportunities for schools such as Air Assault and Ranger school, which greatly improve the odds of promotion. Good physical fitness scores can quickly snowball into career progression."
Clearly, for gender equality, the test needs to be made easier
Female Ukrainian Soldiers Suffer Lack of Women's Resources: Report - "Women described wearing ill-fitting uniforms and body armor, stumbling in "huge" men's shoes, suffering a shortage of sanitary pads, and developing health problems due to an inability to properly relieve themselves on the battlefield. "Try to go to the toilet in the woods at 4 degrees Fahrenheit," a 24-year-old female soldier identified only by her first name, Julia, told the Beast. "All of us got cystitis or inflammation of the ovaries and back pain. After a year of the war we have a bouquet of all sorts of health issues." But Julia and her 28-year-old sister Alina, both of whom left their tech jobs to join the fight when Russia invaded last year, told the outlet that the lack of female urination devices is "the least of the problems we have." Ukraine's female soldiers are being outfitted in uniforms that are several sizes too large and are often forced to sport "huge" pants that can hinder their speed and mobility during critical moments on the battlefield, they told the outlet. "The hardest is to run in the army's standard, 30-pound-bulletproof vest — which just never fits snugly to the body with boobs like mine," Alina said. "If I take the army armor off and get wounded or get killed, there would be no compensation paid to me or my family. Our lives, our security, often depend on what we wear on our body and our feet, how healthy we are."... "Our country is constantly under attack, so even pregnant women fight against Russian invaders until they are seven months pregnant," he told The Beast. "I currently have requests for specially designed uniforms and other important items from at least 10 pregnant soldiers. We have shortages for every single item.""
Weird. Anita Sarkeesian tells us that boob armor is sexualising women. She needs to educate female Ukrainian soldiers about their internalised patriarchy!
IronDuke on X - "And, here with have British Army girls... *Women unable to vault over wall*"
Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 on X - "Biological Female Marine Vs. Biological Male Marine"
BIOLOGY MATTERS: Female Squares Up with Male Marine In Competition - YouTube
Women Don’t Belong in Combat Units - WSJ - "The Obama-era policy of integrating women into ground combat units is a misguided social experiment that threatens military readiness and wastes resources in the service of a political agenda. The next defense secretary should end it. In September 2015 the Marine Corps released a study comparing the performance of gender-integrated and male-only infantry units in simulated combat. The all-male teams greatly outperformed the integrated teams, whether on shooting, surmounting obstacles or evacuating casualties. Female Marines were injured at more than six times the rate of men during preliminary training—unsurprising, since men’s higher testosterone levels produce stronger bones and muscles. Even the fittest women (which the study participants were) must work at maximal physical capacity when carrying a 100-pound pack or repeatedly loading heavy shells into a cannon. Ignoring the Marine study, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened all combat roles to women in December 2015. Rather than requiring new female combat recruits to meet the same physical standards as men, the military began crafting “gender neutral” standards in the hope that more women would qualify. Previously, women had been admitted to noncombat specialties under lower strength and endurance requirements. Only two women have passed the Marine Corps’s fabled infantry-officer training course out of the three dozen who have tried. Most wash out in the combat endurance test, administered on day one. Participants hike miles while carrying combat loads of 80 pounds or more, climb 20-foot ropes multiple times, and scale an 8-foot barrier. The purpose of the test is to ensure that officers can hump their own equipment and still arrive at a battleground mentally and physically capable of leading troops. Most female aspirants couldn’t pass the test, so the Marines changed it from a pass/fail requirement to an unscored exercise with no bearing on the candidate’s ultimate evaluation. The weapons-company hike during the IOC is now “gender neutral,” meaning that officers can hand their pack to a buddy if they get tired, rather than carrying it for the course’s full 10 miles. Lowering these physical requirements risks reducing the American military’s lethality. A more serious effect of sex integration has become taboo to mention: the inevitable introduction of eros into combat units. Putting young, hormonally charged men and women into stressful close quarters for extended periods guarantees sexual liaisons, rivalries and breakups, all of which undermine the bonding essential to a unified fighting force. A Marine commander who served in Afghanistan described to me how the arrival of an all-female team tasked with reaching out to local women affected discipline on his forward operating base. Until that point, rigorous discipline had been the norm. But when four women—three service members and a translator—arrived, the post’s atmosphere changed overnight from a “stern, businesslike place to that of an eighth-grade dance.”... Long before infantry integration became a feminist imperative, evidence was clear that a coed military was a sexually active one. In 1988 then-Navy Secretary Jim Webb reported that of the unmarried enlisted Navy and Air Force women stationed in Iceland, half were pregnant... Mr. Trump chose to ban transgender people from serving in the military rather than tackling gender integration. Mr. Trump cited the cost to taxpayers of sex-reassignment surgery for soldiers, but those costs are minute compared with the future medical bills for women’s combat-battered bodies. And women pose a far greater challenge to combat-unit cohesion than do transgender troops, because of their numbers and the nature of sexual attraction. The argument for putting women into combat roles has always been nonmilitary: Combat experience qualifies soldiers for high-ranking Pentagon jobs. But war isn’t about promoting equality. Its objective is to break the enemy’s will through precise lethal engagement, with the lowest possible loss of American life. The claim that female combat soldiers will perform as lethally as men over an extended deployment entails a denial of biological reality as great as the one underlying the transgender crusade. Female engineers and others did return fire when attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan. But performing well in incident-related combat is a far cry from serving in a dedicated ground-combat unit, with its months of punishing physical demands. The incoming Pentagon chief can expect an aggressive grilling on gender integration from the Senate Armed Services Committee. He should promise to resolve the claim that, when it comes to combat, there are no significant physical differences between men and women. He could do it by pitting an all-female infantry unit against an all-male unit and seeing how they measure up. "
From 2019
SAS Australia fans slam the show for forcing model Erin Holland to carry Dan Ewing - "Erin Holland was the second celebrity to quit SAS Australia during Tuesday's episode. The 32-year-old model handed in her armband after failing to carry Dan Ewing on her back around an assault course. And fans watching at home felt the challenge was unfair, with the slender beauty forced to haul around a full-grown man."
Equality means treating women with kid gloves
Canada's 1st female defence chief 'can't believe' U.S. senator would question a woman's role in combat : r/CanadianConservative - "This from the woman who literally tried to flee the battlefield and abandon the troops under her command with all of her personal possessions in tow until the Americans she relied upon for the evacuation straight up refused to accommodate her."
‘Like taking back our ability to vote:’ Pete Hegseth’s comments about women in the military met with outrage
To left wingers, all "rights" are fundamental
Nathan Spearing on X - "In 2005, I was 22 and had one of the top PT scores in my platoon in Ranger Battalion. One night, one of my mates was shot and completely immobilized. I worked with a small group of men to get him to the casualty evacuation point, while our platoon continued the raid. Dragging him through the streets of Iraq that night I felt like I'd never worked out in my life. I was one of the most physically fit men in an elite light infantry unit and this combat related task took me well beyond my physical capacities. Woman shouldn't do these jobs ever. They can't without endangering the mission and the men around them. Confirm Hegseth. Raise the standards (A LOT)!"
Eric Daugherty on X - "🚨 SMACKDOWN: Pete Hegseth just gave Senator Kirsten Gillibrand a lesson about how the standards in the military have gone down.
GILLIBRAND: You have disparaged women in the military.
HEGSETH: I have NEVER disparaged women in the military. My critiques have been instances where standards are lowered. I spent months talking to servicemembers, all ranks. They ALL told me that the standards have been changed inside infantry training units, ranger school, infantry battalions...
GILLIBRAND: Give me ONE example.
HEGSETH: Commanders meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers, or infantry enlisted. That DISPARAGES those women who are incredibly capable of meeting standards."
Matt Walsh on X - "This debate about whether standards are lowered for women is absolutely asinine. It is an incontrovertible fact that women are held to a lower physical standard than men in the military, police, and fire department. If they were held to the same standard, there wouldn’t be any women in any of these jobs."
Tom Kratman on X - "Another little thought: I was initially willing to give the first female graduate of Army Ranger School, which is, by the way, the living soul of the United States Army, the benefit of the doubt. And then congress subpoened the records from that class. And then the Army begged for some time. And then the Army used the time to destroy the records. SecDef, find the colonel who ordered the records burnt. Find his boss. Find his boss, too. Then court martial them, reduce them to E1, and send the lot to play rock hockey at Leavenworth for the rest of their lives."
Pete Hegseth on X - "Different physical standards for men and women in the U.S. military have existed for a long time. BUT, there were also combat roles that were male-only. Then, under Obama, all combat roles were opened to men AND women. BUT, different physical fitness standards for men and women remained. Today at @DeptofDefense — we fix this. All combat roles are open to men and women BUT they must all meet the same, high standard. No standards will be lowered AND all combat roles will only have sex-neutral standards. Common sense."
(PDF) Evaluation of the Performance of Females as Light Infantry Soldiers - "A few countries permit women to serve in combat roles, but their long term performance in these positions has not been reported. The incidences of overuse injuries and attrition of 85 male and 235 female recruits in a light infantry brigade was followed in a three-year prospective study. Females were shorter (162 cm, CI 161–163 cm) than males (174 cm, CI 173–176), had more body fat (18.9 kg, CI 18.2–19.6 kg) than males (12.6 kg, 11.3–13.8 kg), had lower V ˙ O2max (36.8 mL·min−1·kg−1, CI 35.8–37.78 mL·min−1·kg−1) than males (50.48 mL·min−1·kg−1, CI 48.4 to 52.48 mL·min−1·kg−1), had more stress fractures (21.0%, 95% CI 16.2–26.5%) than males (2.3%, CI 0.3–8.2%), and had more anterior knee pain (41.2%, CI 34.9–47.7%) than males (24.7%, CI 16.0–35.2%). Three-year attrition was 28% CI 22–34% for females and 37% CI 26–48% for males. The females in this study successfully served as light infantry soldiers. Their lower fitness and high incidence of overuse injuries might impede service as regular infantry soldiers."
New combat positions for women in the IDF, same old obstacles - "As more and more combat positions open up to women in the IDF, some roles will remain off-limits to the fairer sex — most of which are jobs that lead to the upper echelons of the army. The Israel Defense Forces now has three mixed-gender combat battalions — Caracal, Lions of the Jordan and Cheetah (known in Hebrew as “Bardelas”)... Unlike their male counterparts, who can be drafted into infantry units whether they like it or not, female recruits have to volunteer for combat positions. To boot, they have to agree to extend their mandatory service from two years to almost three... Though more women are serving in combat roles, positions in infantry and armored brigades have been deemed too physically demanding for female soldiers. The equipment they have to be able to carry is too heavy, the distances the soldiers have to be able to travel are too far. At least this is what the IDF’s Medical Corps and the army’s gender affairs adviser to the chief of staff have determined. These are not decisions based on women’s intellect, determination, or desire to serve. They are based on simple equations of body mass, muscle type, bone density and other physiological attributes, Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Yuval Heled, head of the Institute for Military Physiology at Tel Hashomer’s Sheba Medical Center, told The Times of Israel... As it is, female combat soldiers suffer from stress fractures and other injuries at a dramatically higher rate than their male counterparts. In the IDF’s mixed-gender Caracal Battalion, 40 percent of the female soldiers had some kind of injury, and in the Artillery Corps, that number was close to 70%, the IDF revealed this summer in the army’s Bamahane magazine. Female soldiers suffered about twice as many injuries as the male soldiers in the same units did... some of those efforts to find only the most physically fit and suitable candidates are limited by budgetary and manpower restrictions, Shavtai said. “Equality costs money,” Shavtai said simply. While they are in the army, the IDF has begun providing female combat soldiers with lighter, better-fitting equipment — like helmets and bulletproof vests — that both better protect them and prevent some of the bone and joint stress injuries that plague female soldiers. “You know what happens?” Shavtai asked rhetorically. “When there are extras, the male combat soldiers ask for them. Because they are better than their old vests, they argue over who gets them,” she said with a laugh. But the amount of specialized equipment the IDF can provide to female soldiers is limited by its expense... “We took each of the professions and we did an analysis for each of the positions. None of them disqualified women, none of them. What it said was this: Here’s the criteria, not for a female combat soldier, but for any combat soldier in Golani, the requirements are X, Y, Z,” Heled said, using the Golani Infantry Brigade as an example. While some of those positions were opened up to women, in light of those findings, others could not be. “We gave them all the criteria. And anyone who can stand up to those criteria, can be a Golani soldier. The reality is that we don’t have any female combat soldiers in Golani. Maybe in the future there will be, but they’ll need to fulfill those criteria,” Heled said. That a woman may never serve in — or lead — the Golani Brigade may seem insignificant, but those infantry and armored brigades are almost always the starting points of IDF generals’ careers."
From 2016
Prevention of pelvic stress fractures in female army recruits - "In 1991-1992, a pelvic stress fracture incidence of 11.2% was recorded in a cohort of 143 female Australian Army recruits. An incidence of 0.1% was recorded in a cohort of male recruits trained in the 1992-1993 year using a nearly identical program. A number of preventive strategies were instituted in an attempt to reduce the high incidence of injury in female recruits. Route march speed was reduced from 7.5 to 5 km/h, running occurred on softer surfaces, individual step length was promoted instead of marching in step, march and run formations were more widely spaced, and interval-running training replaced traditional middle-distance runs. Pelvic stress fracture incidence decreased significantly to 0.6% in an immediately subsequent cohort of 161 female recruits (chi 2 = 15.12 for 1 df; p < 0.001). It is likely that the preventive strategies reduced bone strain by reducing the frequency and forces of impact during the training period."
Clearly, having women in the military doesn't result in lower standards
