Their Own Self
FRED Columns
Their Own Self
FRED Columns
Women In Combat
Facts From A Closet
Occasionally I have written that placing women in physically
demanding jobs in the military, as for example combat, is stupid and unworkable.
Predictably I've gotten responses asserting that I hate women, abuse children, cannibalize orphans, and can't get a date. A few, with truculence sometimes
amplified by misspelling, have demanded supporting data.
OK. The following are from documents I found in a closet, left over
from my days as a syndicated military columnist ("Soldiering,"
Universal Press Syndicate). Note the dates: All of this has been known
for a long time.
From the report of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of
Women in the Armed Forces (report date November 15, 1992, published
in book form by Brassey's in 1993): "The average female Army recruit
is 4.8 inches shorter, 31.7 pounds lighter, has 37.4 fewer pounds of
muscle, and 5.7 more pounds of fat than the average male recruit. She
has only 55 percent of the upper-body strength and 72 percent of the
lower-body strength… An Army study of 124 men and 186 women done
in 1988 found that women are more than twice as likely to suffer leg
injuries and nearly five times as likely to suffer [stress] fractures
as men."
Further: "The Commission heard an abundance of expert testimony
about the physical differences between men and women that can be summarized
as follows:
"Women's aerobic capacity is significantly lower, meaning they
cannot carry as much as far as fast as men, and they are more susceptible
to fatigue.
"In terms of physical capability, the upper five percent of women
are at the level of the male median. The average 20-to-30 year-old woman
has the same aerobic capacity as a 50 year-old man."
From the same report: "Lt Col. William Gregor, United States Army,
testified before the Commission regarding a survey he conducted at an
Army ROTC Advanced Summer Camp on 623 women and 3540 men. …Evidence
Gregor presented to the Commission includes:
"(a) Using the standard Army Physical Fitness Test, he found that
the upper quintile of women at West point achieved scores on the test
equivalent to the bottom quintile of men.
"(c) Only 21 women out of the initial 623 (3.4%) achieved a score
equal to the male mean score of 260.
"(d) On the push-up test, only seven percent of women can meet
a score of 60, while 78 percent of men exceed it.
"(e) Adopting a male standard of fitness at West Point would mean
70 percent of the women he studied would be separated as failures at
the end of their junior year, only three percent would be eligible for
the Recondo badge, and not one would receive the Army Physical Fitness
badge…."
The following, quoted by Brian Mitchell in his book Women in the Military: Flirting With Disaster (Regnery, 1998) and widely known
to students of the military, are results of a test the Navy did to see
how well women could perform in damage control -- i.e., tasks necessary
to save a ship that had been hit.
Our ships can be hit. I know what supersonic stealthed
cruise missiles are. So do the Iraqis. Also from the Commission's report: "Non-deployability
briefings before the Commission showed that women were three times more
non-deployable than men, primarily due to pregnancy, during Operations
Desert Shield and Storm. According to Navy Captain Martha Whitehead's
testimony before the Commission, 'the primary reason for the women being
unable to deploy was pregnancy, that representing 47 percent of the
women who could not deploy.'" Maybe we need armored strollers. My friend Catherine Aspy graduated from Harvard in
1992 and (no, I'm not on drugs) enlisted in the Army in 1995. Her account
was published in Reader's Digest, February, 1999, and is online in the
Digest's archives. She told me the following about her experiences: "I
was stunned. The Army was a vast day-care center, full of unmarried
teen-age mothers using it as a welfare home. I took training seriously
and really tried to keep up with the men. I found I couldn't. It wasn't
even close. I had no idea the difference in physical ability was so
huge. There were always crowds of women sitting out exercises or on
crutches from training injuries. "They [the Army] were so scared of sexual harassment
that women weren't allowed to go anywhere without another woman along.
They called them 'Battle Buddies.' It was crazy. I was twenty-six years
old but I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself." Women are going to take on the North Korean infantry,
but need protection in the ladies' room. Military policy is endlessly
fascinating. When I was writing the military column, I looked into
the experience of Canada, which tried the experiment of feminization.
I got the report from Ottawa, as did the Commission. Said the Commission: "After extensive research, Canada has found little
evidence to support the integration of women into ground units. Of 103
Canadian women who volunteered to joint infantry units, only one graduated
the initial training course. The Canadian experience corroborates the
testimony of LTC Gregor, who said the odds of selecting a woman matching
the physical size and strength of the average male are more than 130-to-1. From Military Medicine, October 1997, which
I got from the Pentagon's library: (p. 690): "One-third of 450 female soldiers surveyed
indicated that they experienced problematic urinary incontinence during
exercise and field training activities. The other crucial finding of
the survey was probably that 13.3% of the respondents restricted fluids
significantly while participating in field exercises." Because
peeing was embarrassing. Or, (p. 661): " Kessler et al found that the lifetime
prevalence of PTSD in the United States was twice as high among women…"
Depression, says MilMed, is far commoner among women, as are
training injuries. Et cetera. The military is perfectly aware of all of this. Their
own magazine has told them. They see it every day. But protecting careers,
and rears, is more important than protecting the country. Anyway, for those who wanted supporting evidence, there
it is.
Test
% Women Failing
% Men Failing
Before Training
After Training
Before Training
After Training
Stretcher carry, level
63
38
0
0
Stretcher carry/up, down ladder
94
88
0
0
Fire hose
19
6
0
0
P250 pump, carry down
99
99
9
4
P250 pump, carry up
73
52
0
0
P250, start pump
90
75
0
0
Remove SSTO pump
99
99
0
0
Torque engine bolt
78
47
0
0
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