Freda'sMom
10-Year Member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2011
- Messages
- 299
The Marine Corps, along with the other services, has been evaluating how to comply with the order to gender-integrate its combat arms specialties by the end of this year, or apply for special exemptions.
If the enlisted females can make it, what is the issue with the female officers failing the course?
Is it simply a failure to prepare by the candidates, or is something else going on to ensure female officers are not passing?
With the two most recent drops, there have been 29 attempts by female officers to pass the course since women have been allowed to volunteer, with none making it to graduation.
Only four female officers have made it beyond the initial day of training, a grueling evaluation known as the Combat Endurance Test, or CET. Male officers also regularly fail to pass the CET, and the overall course has a substantial attrition rate for males.
The results of the Marine Corps’ experimentation thus far has revealed a pattern: Female enlisted Marines have been able to graduate from the enlisted School of Infantry’s Infantry Training Battalion in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, though at a lower rate than male enlisted Marines, while female officers have faced great difficulty in graduating from the course in Quantico.
If the enlisted females can make it, what is the issue with the female officers failing the course?
Is it simply a failure to prepare by the candidates, or is something else going on to ensure female officers are not passing?