In the newest issue of The Weekly Standard, Mackubin Thomas Owens has a must-read article on the wrong-headed move to make available to women the option to fight alongside their male counterparts in combat units.
One of the most glaring reasons why this would result in disaster:
The trouble is that the desire for equal opportunity is, in practice, usually translated into a demand for equal results. Consequently, there has been a watering down of standards to accommodate the generally lower physical capabilities of women. This has had two consequences.
First, standards have been reduced so much that, in many cases, service members no longer are being prepared for the strenuous challenges they will face in the fleet or field. Second—and even more destructive of morale and trust—is the fact that when the requirement can’t be changed and the test cannot be eliminated, scores are “gender normed” to conceal the differences between men and women. All the services have lower physical standards for women than for men. Two decades ago, the U.S. Military Academy identified 120 physical differences between men and women, not to mention psychological ones, that resulted in a less rigorous overall program of physical training at West Point in order to accommodate female cadets.
For those who see this move as the next step in the continuing evolution towards a fully egalitarian society, crashing through the next barrier erected by the sexism of the past seems logical. But those who think this forget that the principle of equality is itself grounded in the things that make men and women different by nature. Trying to overcome these differences is a fools errand and leads to a rejection of true political equality, one based on the consent of the governed. Whether or not those voicing the above opinion are actually trying to achieve the kind of equality on which our country is based is a different question altogether.
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