- Joined
- Feb 2, 2008
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- 3,059
You are wrong: It absolutely is true of the military and it is exactly the approach they take and that's exactly why the Congressional Research Service report includes the comment. The PT tests are absolutely gender normed. Even the Marine Corps gender norms their tests- (no pullups for the woman's test). Gender norming is wonderful if the objective is to assess relative physical fitness within that group. However- if the requirement is to move 381 pounds worth of gear with 3 people in an approach march- then either all 3 are capable of carrying 127 pounds each or others are going to carry significantly more- gender norming- that standard of military equality- does not apply. I would love to say that it was a real surprise that the first 2 women to volunteer for Infantry Officer School in the USMC failed- but it was exactly what most expected. The response though is that it is some kind of a mysery and is only a small sample that you can't draw conclusions from. But it's small in large part because it is a foregone conclusion as to what will occur should the standards be absolutely the same which is true of the MC experiment. The population being asked to volunteer for that study knows as much and are responding by not volunteering.Bruno, I know what you are saying and you are just repeating the past justifications. The following statement is not true and never has been.
This is simply political twisting to try and justify something. It takes a certain amount of energy to move 100 lbs from point A to B and it doesn't matter who or what moved it. Simple physics.However, in the past, the Services have used this and similar terms to suggest that men and women must exert the same
amount of energy in a particular task, regardless of the work that is actually accomplished
If a woman can do the job without accomadations, great let her do it. If she can't, well she can't.
Do I believe that there are some women who could do the job? Sure. Do I believe that there are enough of them to demonstrate that it is viable for the Army/ Marine Corps? Nope- but more importantly the data that will support or invalidate any conclusion is going to be suspect in my opinion as I have been around long enough to know that the US is mostly in the hands of those who believe in the Lake Woebegone effect (all the Children are above average) and that the first response when there are disparate levels of success in any arena is to blame the test. In the Army-I'm pretty confident in saying that absolutely will happen (and I'm pretty confident that others who have been around the Army for a week or so mostly think so as well). So saying "if they can do it with the same standards" is meaningless because that's not how the system works.
Bluntly-this is being pushed primarily by those who don't care about the abstract effects on an Infantry Company as long as they get promoted- because this is not an issue that is framed around the good of the Army or Marine Corps. In this case: "What is good for GM is not good for the Army" to steal a line from long ago.
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