Females fail Marine Infantry Officers’ Course again
The Washington Times reports that two more female Marines tried and didn’t quite make the standards at the Infantry Officers’ Course, although they’re getting closer;
It reported Wednesday that one of the women was pulled for falling behind schedule. The other made it to the course’s end but did not meet its standards, as did six men, the newspaper said.
[…]
“The women seemingly failed primarily due to struggles with upper-body strength,” embedded reporter Dan Lamothe wrote. “In one example, they both struggled to climb a 20-foot rope required twice. One Marine made it all the way up it once, but could not do it again. The other woman — and a couple [of] men — were unable to make it up the rope one time.”
The article makes it clear that there were men who failed for similar reasons in the class, so there is nothing surprising about the results to those of us who have been saying the same things all along since Leon Panetta made the political decision based solely on how he felt about the issue. The people who will be surprised are the social scientists who will think that something is inherently unfair about a system that doesn’t graduate females based on their sex.
Thanks to UpNorth for the link.
Category: Military issues
Just waiting for the “more realistic” standards to be published.
Again this whole “woman in combat outfits” was a POTUS, DOD “sound good solution to a feel good issue”, nothing more. No thought put into it at all except how it looks to the liberals and feminists. If this Marine example is a fore look at things to come the same will happen in SF, SEALS, Rangers and the like. There might be a few who make it through 11 Bravo but I doubt that as well. Thus the answer will be “separate but equal” standards. Gender normalization I think they like to call it. None of these ass hats pushing this through are thinking about the woman who will suffer the most in this new gender normal Armed Force.
Aren’t you misogynists over this issue yet? Women are just as tough and as strong as you are and once the standards are corrected and revised to finally accept the female as equal to the male you’ll see a brand new fighting force.
/sarc
No surprise, here.
Wasting time just to shove political correctness down the throats of the military.
This has always been my concern about this issue. As a woman who considered joining the military at one point, I was disappointed to find out that certain MOSs were not available to me. However, I found nothing inherently discriminatory about it; if certain physical standards were demanded for specific jobs, that’s reasonable. If it is determined by people who know far more about combat than me that it is not tactically sound to put women in combat, then so be it. Is it inherently discriminatory to reject men who fail the standard? No. I guess I just figure I as a woman don’t have a “right” to risk the lives of others in a military unit, or to compromise the functionality of that unit. Crazy, I know, but it works for me. Thank you to all of you who serve or have served. I am humbled by what you all do to protect people like me.
The first female to make it through this course will one day be the first female commandant (if she isn’t crippled in the process of having to actually serve day to day as an infantry officer, that is),
That, is what this is all about.
Veritas, I disagree. SOME women are as strong as men, but not all. Men, in general, run faster, are stronger, etc. It’s a reality. If the standard is deemed to be what is necessary in a combat solder, then lowering it is insanity. There should be ONE standard if all are considered equally capable to enter combat roles. Part of the reason there were two standards; one for men and one for women, is probably that their roles were different. And if we’re going to allow women in combat roles, then let’s do it right – obligate women to register for the draft. Not ONE of the feminists I know want that. Most of them want the privileges, with none of the risks or responsibilities, and that’s not fair.
@1. Here you go. Males = up the rope twice. Females = down the rope twice. Do you see how perfect that is? Both genders are required to travel the same rope, at the same distance, the same number of times!
until the standards are “re-evaluated” this will be the norm. we put women into the infantry training, they fail, the system is called unfair and sexist. if the star pupils selected for marine officer corse cant pass, how on earth are they going to pass enlisted infantry courses? (news flash, enlisted courses arent “gentleman’s” courses)
my older brother is a drill sergent in MO, and he has informed me that DS arent allowed to yell at or smoke privates any more. so how are they going to get the weaklings up to standard to pass anything? can we just scrap the whole social expiriement of the past 5 years and start over?
Follow-up to Cmt 9. In case anyone is wondering, it will be done with free-standing, roll-away steps, like the kind used at warehouses. Males go up the rope and walk down the steps. Females walk up the steps and go down the rope.
“The Marine Corps‘ high standards cannot be lowered, nor can we artificially lower them to ensure a certain percentage of females will qualify,”
Bullshit, Marine Corps. You did just that with smaller obstacle course to become a female Marine and lower physical requirements such as hanging on a fucking bar.
Maybe if they had the same requirements for females already I could take this comment seriously or for that matter have any faith that they would indeed not reduce standards. I’m guessing the Corps is just hoping former Marines don’t spill the beans on how the Corps really is when special Marines are involved.
ONe of my female friends is going into the Marines as band. Since January, she has dropped 38 lbs and built more muscle than I thought she even had. She’s completed P90X twice (normal and double), P90X2 once and is now on P90X2 doubles. She is planning to switch to the Insanity exercise plan after she finishes this one and use it until she ships in October.
Why am I telling you this? Because her recruiter had them do a modified PT test and she passed it with a higher score than the 0311s that were doing hometown recruiting duty (or whatever the leave after Marine Boot and AIT is called). That included climbing a 25 ft rope, up and down, before one of the 0311s even reached the top.
Yes, the standards are high and hard, but they are not impossible. Motivation and training are what women require if they want to succeed at the course. My friend went from not being able to run 200 meters before she was winded to sprinting the straights and running the rounds of a college track for an hour. She was motivated to pass USMC Boot so she trained her ass off, literally and figuratively.
That is what is required of these female Infantry candidates. This is not something that you should just sign up for. Prepare, train, get the proper motivation, but above all else, TRAIN FOR IT! In the Army, you don’t see someone flying a desk for three years sign up for Airborne school without preparing for it physically, first.
@8 – sorry Pam, your argument doe not hold water. Basic Training standards for all were compromised 35 years ago to accommodate women who were going into the same MOs as men with the expectation that they would do the same job. Ever since, there have been two sets of standards, one female, one male – for service members going into the same units doing the same things. If the requirements were different, why would they draw the same pay and have the same MOS? And, if the required standards are the same, why are the real requirements, tests, etc. different?
In my best Gomer Pyle voice…. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise….
Now, when will they cease this experiment? They cannot get any females to qualify, and if and when they do it will be in such an insignificant number that it would be pointless to continue this PC Run Amok insanity.
Females can be promoted absent a sting in the Infantry. Just as much as their male counterparts in those MOS’s to which they have been able to hold. How is it discriminatory for the females and to the males in those jobs??? I cannot recall that question being asked, but it should be, as that has been a huge part of the argument why woman should be allowed into Combat MOS’s. That without those positions, they could not be promoted on par with male counterparts… seems to me they have male counterparts within their MOS’s.
@8 my comment was straight up sarcasm….thus the /sarc….
Women struggle to match the upper body strength of males as indicated in the original post. There have been numerous posts citing the studies. No one here thinks the standards should be changed, but realistically many suspect that will be the case to satisfy the political reasons for this initiative from Panetta.
The women in combat move seems more like pandering than an attempt to strengthen the war fighting capability of the combat arms. If there is concrete evidence that this move makes the force more lethal by all means those studies should be released and the public and the military should be informed that adding a small percentage of females will make the combat arms even deadlier our enemies.
In the absence of such evidence, or a strong theoretical case in support of women in combat adding lethality to the combat arms, what is actually being proposed is a purely political rules change that will detract from the lethality of the combat arms to satisfy a perception of a lack of opportunity for females. While you are welcome to hold an opposing view point, I can not be convinced at this time that this move is necessary or beneficial to the combat arms components of the military.
I do not believe that the standards should be changed for females, but I do believe that different jobs (or job groupings) should have a certain set of standards above and beyond the normal base standard.
For instance, in the Infantry, you should have to do a ruck march in a certain amount of time as well as more infantry-related physical activities that are similar to the more common tasks.
In Supply School, there were females going through the Armorer Course (and a couple of males), who couldn’t pull the charging handle of an M2 or Mk 19 to the rear. Heck, one male sprained his wrist when he tried to “soft release” the charged spring of an M2. I, on the other hand, could single-person lift those crew-served weapons (which are two-person lifts).
I do know that boys and girls are different. Men generally have more muscle mass and women generally have more muscular elasticity. In other words, men are generally stronger and women are generally more flexible. However, having worked as a personal trainer at a fairly well-used gym, I have seen women who could out-lift me and men who taught yoga and could do better than the senior students.
With that said, Infantry have had to train to the same standard. That standard has kept the USMC Infantry alive. To lower it would do nothing more than let people who are not as fast, strong, or limber into combat jobs that require speed, strength, and flexibility.
In other words, if someone wants into a job that they do not qualify for, they should seek to improve themselves rather than get the qualifications for the job lowered. We have seen what they had done in the business world with Affirmative Action and I sure as hell don’t want to see that kind of environment in the U.S. Military.
The president’s garden gnome, Martin Dempsey, could not be reached for comment.
Why does no one point out the promotion advantage in the army of getting more points for less pushups when compared to males. It descriminates against males.
No fuggin’ shit.
They will eventually get through it at the current physical standard. When the right women are trained from the start on upper body..I.e. pull ups they eventually build those muscles. It is only a matter of tinr and they should be able to attempt the course for as long as their is a woman wanting to volunteer. Because after all the physical component is the only reason a wonan or nan should not graduate the course.
“They will eventually get through it at the current physical standard. When the right women are trained from the start on upper body”..
Like I’ve stated numerous times on this subject. If you pick and choose you will eventually find that woman that can get through the OIC course.
The problem is that you shouldn’t buzz through scores of our most fit Women Marine officers to try to find that one bad ass. Once the door is open, you have to start treating the women 2nd Lts the same as Male ones. If their is an opening or a need for 2nd Lts to go to IOC women need to fill their share of the quota, whether they desire to or not.
The same with enlisted the enlisted MOS. You are going to have a cetain percentage of the class that is going in with a chance of a 99% fail rate.
Its a waste of good Marines who could be working in Communications, Avionics supply, Administration or the legal field.
I may not have a dog in this particular fight, as I’m a career firefighter who was never in the military, but I often hear people on the left side of this issue cite my job as an example of how women can supposedly do any job just as good as men. Now I will be the first to admit that I have no problem with female firefighters on general principle. We hold them to the same standard of end-result performance (i.e. “Throw a ladder to that window, I don’t care what method you use, just get it done”). Those that can meet the standard do well, those that can’t get weeded out. For the stuff we do, there are multiple techniques that can be used to make up for lack of physical strength, and sometimes being small *is* an advantage. For example, I have successfully taught a 5-foot-nothing, 85-pound Chinese chick to drag and lift my 230-pound ass over obstacles. However, I am smart enough to know that my job is vastly different from a combat arms MOS in war. For starters, nobody is actively trying to kill us on the fireline. In combat, even a well-trained woman is at a distinct natural disadvantage compared to just about any male. She can do all the Kung-fu-MMA-MCMAP-combative shit in the world, and it might not make any difference at all against a 75-125-pound weight disparity. As I understand it, there’s a lot more to modern interpersonal combat than just shooting and/or calling in drone strikes. Then there’s the issue of endurance. On a vegetation fire, we will carry 30-60 pounds of gear plus a 60-pound hosepack for a few hours at the most. That pack gets lighter as we drop sticks of hose along the way. If we are going farther out than hose can reach, especially for longer periods (no more than a few days), we pack lighter, with each firefighter carrying a hand tool or chainsaw with fuel, an MRE, half a roll of asswipe, extra bootlaces, and not much else. On a structure fire, our total load… Read more »
@23, Good post Whitey,
That being said, while a lot of fields and careers can be gender inclusive as a whole their are certain areas within those fields where you have to screen who does certain tasks.
One of my post military jobs was being a journeyman pipe fitter in a shipyard. While an almost exclusively male job, there were females in the trade. Four of the five were sub par, nothing to do with their sex, they were just as dumb as a box of rocks. The last one was pretty sharp, as a matter of fact she ended up running a small crew of her own. The thing was that NONE of them were ever assigned to putting in the larger pipe (8″ and above) because they weren’t strong enough to “man handle” the heavier pipes, and they weren’t strong enough to put the proper torque on the larger bolts. Even with the chainfalls, aligning pins, cheater bars, etc you had to have a lot of upper body strength to put in the larger systems.
I wonder how Teh Socialist Dweebs will look at the failures? By numbers, or by percentages? (out of, say, a total class of 50. Just SWAGing this number)
By the numbers: 2 female failures, 6 male failures.
By the percentages: 100% female failure (2 out of 2), 12.5% male failure (6 out of the remaining 48).
OR – percentages again: 4% failure (females – 2 out of 50), vs 12% failure (males – 6 out of 50).
Just give it your best guess. Which one will make the Corps look worse?
SGT Johnny is the Team Leader of a “modern” Light Infantry team. That team consists of SPC Kenny, PFC Tiffany, and PV2 Brad. SGT Johnny’s unit is preparing to deploy and running training exercises. PFC Tiffany fills the role of Grenadier in the team. She was able to pass the “new, re-evaluated” standards to become an 11B, and so far has at least been able to keep up with the males in her unit in order to deploy and be a vital part of the team acting as the primary explosives support for her team and the squad. But wait, suddenly, PFC Tiffany finds out she’s pregnant! Oh no! PFC Tiffany, either by choice or by accident, had unprotected sex (or heck, was protected and it still happened) and now PFC Tiffany is no longer combat effective. For 9 months, plus. SGT Johnny’s team is now without their Grenadier that the Army paid to train, that SGT Johnny spent the time preparing for war, and who the rest of the squad and Platoon relied on to fill that position. PFC Tiffany misses the entire deployment because she’s having a baby while the male members of her Company are fighting and doing their job. Or, better yet, PFC Tiffany and PV2 Brad are the ones who had sex together. PV2 Brad is now going to be a Father to his own team members baby because he couldn’t keep his little Private privates in his pants around PFC Tiffany. Or, how about this. SGT Johnny is the father of PFC Tiffany’s baby. He knows about it, but nobody else does yet. SGT Johnny’s team is out on patrol in Afghanistan and SGT Johnny is in love with PFC Tiffany and doesn’t want to see her hurt. So he makes SPC Kenny and PV2 Brad do all the dangerous details and missions, while he favors PFC Tiffany because he has romantic feelings for her and got her pregnant. Now, replace SGT Johnny with SGT Amanda and PFC Tiffany with PFC Timmy in that last example if you want. Same results. Welcome to the… Read more »
@27: Lance Coolie Sparkles blows half of the entire company’s command while they get dishonorably discharged Lance Coolie Sparkles gets sent to another command to ruin it because females are held under absurd double standards.
Source: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/06/05/5-marine-ncos-guilty-of-fraternization.html
@25, valid point but more likely they’ll just ignore it.
Another issue I’ve rarely heard discussed is the second- and third-order effects. Many women who attempt infantry training will suffer injuries that end their military career or at least keep them chained to a desk for the rest of it. How many of these female soldiers, had they not been allowed to go through training that their bodies are not designed to handle, would have made excellent MI soldiers, MPs, EOD techs, or engineers? Hell, even the one in a million who actually makes it through the training (if the standards aren’t lowered) will still be below average in the infantry world, yet could have been a major asset to the military in a different field.
On the pregnancy issue–if you do allow women in combat arms, why not mandate those who make it through the training and get to a line unit take birth control pills? Their first line will watch them swallow the pill if that’s what the unit commander deems necessary, the whole 9 yards. Don’t take your pill and get pregnant? Automatic UCMJ. No different than those of us in deployed environments who have to take malaria medication despite the severe side effects it causes for some people (not me personally as long as I take it in the morning).
Golly, it’s “sexism” again… remove the rope obstacle for women and tell the enemy they’re not allowed to make women do stuff like that in war!
David,
OK, then I stand corrected on that point. However, my main issue is that there should be ONE standard – based on the physical needs of individuals in a particular role. Not two based on the gender of those in that role. And then I think we have to have an honest discussion of some of the uglier realities about women in a combat theater. But the discussion should be had by those who actually know the realities of combat, not by politicians and political correctness experts.
If pregnancy is your big worry, you must understand that not all birth control pill prescriptions work for all women. And other prophylactics require forethought, which includes the diaphragm, the condom, and morning after pill.
The alternatives are the IUD for women in combat or having their tubes tied in a reversible procedure, and reversible vasectomies for the men. I agree that you’re going to have trysts in the trenches and hormonal hugging, but if that’s your biggest worry, these are the best solutions. And before you say “Oh, men shouldn’t have to have vasectomies”, then why is the burden of birth control always placed on women?
One of a commander’s tenet is “Capability of one’s unit.” Pregnancy sure puts a damper on that one.
You really think they are going to allow the military to force women to take birth control or men to get vasectomies? Those things aren’t exactly safe procedures. And birth control can have lasting effects on a woman’s body.
If you think pregnancy isn’t a “big deal” than you’ve missed one of the biggest points.
I’m not so much worried about the hormones kicking in as much as the infantry taking in an influx of Soldiers or Marines not physically able to take the day in day out pounding that Grunts take. If an Infantry company loses 10% of its strength on their movement to contact because Susie, Jenny and Anne only weigh 100 pounds and they break after 2 miles with a ruck the enemy is already kicking your ass.
@35 – I agree.
What you mention about hormones is particularly interesting. Given the fact most women would loose a tremendous amount of weight, coupled with the fact the physical portion of the rigors of infantry training will also likely reak havoc on the hormone balance of some women. One of the female candidates who was dropped from the last IOC training class ruined her own monthly cycle for a length of time. I can only imagine this would harbor some deep seeded medical issues in the future if one were to play around with hormones and such.
In regard to weight, a pound of muscle takes up far less room than a pound of fat. Fat is mostly water. If women lose too much body fat, which happens to women in sports like figure skating and gymnastics, they stop having their periods. Both of those sports require physical strength, but elite figure skaters are much thinner than elite gymnasts.
Loss of monthly cycles will also affect bone density. It’s the worst part of menopause. You lose your monthly cycle, you lose bone mass, and bingo! Osteoporosis. The extreme requirements of this kind of training will have that effect on female candidates..
If they’re going to do this properly (which I, personally doubt) and have it succeed, the normal body weight and height requirements will have to change, and the people running this program will have to include a baseline bone density measurement prior to training. If they don’t, they’re aiming at failure.
Fades, I do know about the effects of birth control. But unless you have a better suggestion….? None of this has been thought through properly. Only the agenda matters.
As to the birth control aspect I am sure that at some point we will have DoD approved pro-sodomy powerpoint presentations.
@32, the birth control burden in this scenario is on the women because men can’t get pregnant and because a man can impregnate a woman and still do his job. The issue is combat readiness, not keeping women from getting knocked up just for the hell of it. A pregnant woman is not combat ready. A man who has recently impregnated a woman is.
then there is the fact that no birth control method short of sterilization is 100% effective. 99% effective means 1% mothers.
How much time and effor is being spent in pursuit of futility? I wholeheartedly agree that some (probably tiny) percentage of women will prove to be as tough, fit, and strong as their sudccessful male counterparts. But why waste all the time and effort necessary to find out? How many have to be weeded out? How many wasted cycles, how many unneeded and ultimately futile PCSs, how many changes in class cycles etc? Every woman who goes through the OBC and fails adds to the cost of finding that one successful candidate. She has to attend the course, she’s not available at another unit whose needs have to be filled, she fails the course, has to PCS yet again, the course has fewer than optimum students, graduates fewer than optimum officers… maybe one graduates successfully, and good for her – but how much money was wasted trying to get her there and through the course? How smart is it to spend about ten million dollars to eventually produce one infantry lietenant?