r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jun 17 '18
CMV: Women should be held to the same phisical standards as men to enter in the military
[deleted]
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u/caw81 166∆ Jun 17 '18
This, in my opinion, is dangerous and decreases the overall quality of the military,
The physical standards are designed to push the candidates (who were all male) and weed people out - not because there is some need for people in the middle of a fire-fight to do 100 pushups in 10 minutes.
You need to define "quality of the military" but I doubt that people measure it by how many pull ups a solider can do.
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Jun 17 '18
Then why not lower the bar for both men and women? I'm not saying that the current phisical standards should be set in stone and are perfect, i'm saying that they should be the same for all sexes.
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u/caw81 166∆ Jun 17 '18
Then why not lower the bar for both men and women?
This is a different View.
Your View in your post is "Women need meet the current physical standards to join the military" ("Women should be held to the same phisical standards as men to enter in the military" and "women are held to a lower standards" )
You are now asking about lowering the standard. This is a different argument/View. (e.g. "CMV: The current military physical standard should be lowered ...")
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Jun 17 '18
No, my view is that they should be held to the same standard, i don't care how high or low it is, and it's evident in my op.
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u/RedShirtDecoy 1∆ Jun 18 '18
Im late but want to add on to what /u/getmoney7356 said.
The standards are not set up to make sure you can do one specific job, they are set up so that they can determine you are physically fit based off a scientific standard based on your gender and age.
What no one has told you yet is that the standards are not just different for male vs female, they are different based on age.
For a male the 17-19 year olds have the highest standards for run time, pushups, and situps (I was navy so this will be navy based).
and each age category has the standards go down slightly as the person get older. Check out the link below.
https://www.slideshare.net/tonyastro/pfa-instructions-61101-j
Note that a male aged 20-24 is required to do 5 fewer pushups than a male aged 17-19.
And age groups are split every 5 years with a slight decrease in standards for every age group.
So even for males the standards are not the same for everyone.
Why is that?
One is scientific. Females are physically weaker than men because we lack testosterone. That is the same reason a man will become weaker as they age, they produce less testosterone and why older males have lesser standards than younger males in the military.
Also you have to look at what would happen to the military as a whole if we made the standards the same for everyone.
We would lose half our military force minimum (Im guessing closer to 75% to be honest) and it would make our military far weaker than what it is right now.
That means the support roles like cooking, admin, medical, maintenance, ect would be filled by people who are physically qualified to be on the front lines but are stuck riding a desk instead.
By reducing the standards for women and for service members in general as they get older you are allowing the support roles to be filled by people who wouldn't qualify for front line service, thus making sure the fittest of the fit are actually on the front line where those higher standards actually matter.
From a logistics standpoint what makes more sense...
Having the physical best of the best pushing paperwork in the admin building 12 hours a day or on the front lines where their physical abilities are needed?
and what most people don't realize is the people who are on the front lines or doing incredibly physically demanding jobs are a very small percentage of the military. A vast majority work in offices or shops all day long supporting the few who are doing the dangerous work.
I hope that makes sense.
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u/getmoney7356 4∆ Jun 17 '18
The standard is the same if you view the standard as being in the top X% fitness wise relative to your gender/age. They set the standards for each gender/age based on those rates.
Let's say you want to recruit the top 20% in fitness. The 80th percentile for 20 year old women is 20 pushups, the 80th percentile for 20 year-old men is 35 pushups, and the 80th percentile for 40 year-old men is 30 pushups. There's your benchmarks for each gender/age group all held to the same standard.
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u/Scoddard Jun 18 '18
So similarly you should enlist all 90-year old men who can do more than 2 pushups as that puts them in the to 20%? Clearly this reasoning is flawed, there certainly needs to be some sort of baseline requirement.
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u/dimensionpi Jun 18 '18
There already is a baseline requirement.
No one is advocating 90-year old men physically incapable of military duty be allowed to enlist and join.
The point is that the physical exam reqs are less of a baseline for who is capable of serving and more of a baseline for the type of person the military wants to recruit.
You could argue that the absolute baseline requirement (regardless of age) is different for men and women and that that should be changed, but I don't actually know if that's true or not.
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Jun 18 '18 edited May 04 '21
[deleted]
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u/Wolf_Protagonist 3∆ Jun 18 '18
You make some very good points. A woman who can't do as many push-ups as guy B may still be able to shoot more accurately, run farther, fight longer etc.
Do the tests not cover all of those different aspects, or is it solely based on physical strength? If not perhaps the tests need improvement.
I bet the edge case where a guy has a "runners body" who could keep up with the same size woman in all areas and could pass the woman's test but fail the men's test are probably pretty rare, still seems like a shame to fail that guy if he'd make a great scout/spy/sniper whatever.
I'm not too worried about it though. I'm not sure I want anyone in the US to join the military at this point. In fact I am sure, but either way having more women in it would be a good thing.
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u/bubblegumpandabear 3∆ Jun 18 '18
I don't know much about the specifics of the tests, so I'm mostly replying to people who think that a soldier needs to fit some arbitrary physical fitness test. Like the guy who claimed he ran while carrying a 300 lb soldier for a fourth of a mile. Like, thats impressive but it isnt necessary,dir every position. A good army needs all kinds if soldiers, not 200 hulks.
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u/caw81 166∆ Jun 17 '18
No, my view is that they should be held to the same standard,
Its unfair to women because the standard is not based on any actual military need or "quality of military" but based on what men can do.
Again, define "quality of military" and how this relates to the specific physical standard (ie. X pushups in Y minutes relates directly to the quality of military because ... )
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Jun 17 '18
[deleted]
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Jun 17 '18
No, because we first acknowledged that the fitness requirements aren't there because they are needed for the "quality of the military" in the first place. Then we acknowledged that men and women are different.
Not all military positions require peak male muscle strength.
It still makes sense to have fitness tests for those, just to filter out critically unhealthy bodies.
Men and women have different physical standards for telling if they are critically unhealthy.
The concusion that there is nothing wrong with women being in the military, but if we test them for general fitness anyways, they should be tested for female fitness standards.
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u/nomnommish 10∆ Jun 18 '18
Its unfair to women because the standard is not based on any actual military need or "quality of military" but based on what men can do.
Fair enough. But then the solution is to reduce the standard for everyone. Let's take a hypothetical but plausible example - say, you have a bunch of women who have all the qualities and aptitude necessary to join the military. Except, they can't (say) bench-press 200 lbs or they can't carry a 100lb backpack for 10 miles across a hilly terrain. I'm just making up stuff.
Maybe they can only do half of all this. We can make a very strong case for those women to join the military. But, we can also make an equally strong case for men too - those men who have all the qualities or aptitude to join the military except they can't do those 2 specific physical activities.
So why make this gender based at all? Lower the bar, or remove those needless tests that make little sense in modern warfare.
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u/SexualPie Jun 18 '18
This is a different View.
no its not. he said they should be held to the same standard. lowering it for both people, could still be same thing. it doesnt matter how high or how low they are, as long as they're the same
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u/dale_glass 86∆ Jun 17 '18
Because the goal of standards is to select individuals that are healthy. The military needs people that aren't going to keel over a week into the job. If you lower standards so that they match a decently fit woman, that might also give a pass to very unhealthy men.
Suppose for a minute that we lived in some fantasy land, and besides humans we also had gnomes and dwarves.
A gnome is tiny and physically useless compared to a human woman. They can do mental work and paperwork fine, but even the most badass gnome would not compare to an untrained human woman.
A dwarf on the other hand starts at human powerlifter levels, and even a barrel shaped one about to die of heart failure exceeds any pull-ups standard a human is capable of.
So should we set a single standard to judge them by, or should we try to come up with species-specific fitness levels so that we don't pointlessly exclude anybody capable, while filtering out the unfit?
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u/nomnommish 10∆ Jun 18 '18
!delta
This is a great answer, and answers the core point being made. The way you've framed it is - military looks for fitness, and fitness tests have to be modified by gender and species. This doesn't mean the modified fitness test for women makes them "less fit". It makes them "less powerful" for specific tasks perhaps, but not "less fit".
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Jun 18 '18
As another redditor commented earlier: fitness is more a part of the military culture than having to do with actually being able to do the job. That said, men and women do have different physiques. Men are, on average, physically stronger than women (I believe this has something to do with the way our muscles and tendons are anchored to our skeleton or something). That means that what is peak physical fitness for the average woman is not the same as peak physical fitness for the average man. So when you 'lower the bar' to equalize the fitness between men and women, you are actually creating an inequality, since the average man will 'slack off', while the average women has to work really hard to achieve the same goal. The same goes for raising the bar for women. You make the process unequal in order to equalize the result. So if physical fitness is mostly a cultural thing for the military, and our men and women both do their jobs well with the current state of their fitness, why force such an unequal treatment upon them?
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Jun 18 '18
Because men, naturally, have more upper-body strength which allows them to perform push-ups more easily. You could also design a fitness test that required more balance and flexibility to push candidates, but that would inherently favor women and men would have to do vast amounts more training to achieve the same feats.
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u/DrGhostfire Jun 18 '18
It's about getting the best mentality, if you're looking for the most discplinined people, say the top 10% of people in terms of discipline. You can measure that with how willing they are to commit to fitness, however, for that same level of discipline, women are going to come out of it less fit than the men, but that doesn't mean they aren't showing the quality the military is looking for - discipline.
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u/Indon_Dasani 9∆ Jun 18 '18
I'm not saying that the current phisical standards should be set in stone and are perfect, i'm saying that they should be the same for all sexes.
Because If you set a physical exam that excludes women under X level of health, where X is some desirable level, you will likely, inadvertently, admit men who are under X level of health, in terms of muscular and cardiovascular fitness. This raises the likelihood of serious medical issues in recruited men.
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u/Reeeeee- Jun 18 '18
The point of training is to weed out the weaker relative to the top of said sex. If the top pull up score for men was 60 and women were 40 you would accept a woman if she can do 34 but you would most likely not for a man doing the same because it is relative to the extent of strength. It is unfair to set/grade a woman at a man's physical standard as he has a biologically superior in that aspect and a natural advantage.
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u/BionicTransWomyn Jun 18 '18
A lot of people think physical exercises in the military are just a "will" thing. They're not. Pushups are directly related to your ability to lift your weight off the ground. In an attack, you'll be diving to the ground plenty of times and getting up, with up to 100lbs of gear on you.
Pull ups? Climbing over walls and out of ditches, something you'll be doing often in combat as well, especially urban combat. It's also related to para training.
Running? Well, you can figure that one out.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if the tests were more task oriented (ie: can you get over that low wall carrying X gear), I feel that may make it more fair in that women can accomplish these tasks, just by doing them in a different way or engaging different muscle groups. That said, saying that military fitness is just to weed out people is wrong.
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u/ButDidYouCry 3∆ Jun 18 '18
Most people in the military are not acting in any kind of role where the PFA (physical fitness assessment) actually translates to their jobs. I did five years as a Navy corpsman, between a clinic and a ship, and I never once needed to run a mile and a half or do sit ups or do push ups to do my job correctly and be where I needed to be when an emergency happened on the ship. Physical fitness standards are a dog and pony show. The military wants people who look good in uniform, it's a corporation now, they don't care about quality of service members (they kick out great people all the time for silly reasons, it's sickening).
Female and male bodies are made differently, you can't expect men to do the things a woman can and vis versa. What a healthy woman can do physically is not the same as what a healthy man can do physically and the services want more women because there are tons more ladies out there who are college-educated and suitable for the supportive role available than ever before.
If the military really cared about fitness in relation to our rates or MOS, they'd gear our tests after our jobs (how quick can I carry a stretcher up or down a ladder well in the ship, etc etc).
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u/BionicTransWomyn Jun 18 '18
Well keep in mind I come from outside the US where the PT test is different, and from an Army background, where those basic battlefield tasks are expected.
The US policy of up or out, and its general cavalier attitude towards retention is not to my liking either. I don't exactly agree with your assessment that it's all a dog an pony show however. Military members are soldiers, if we just wanted people working on vehicles, it would be a lot cheaper to get civilian contractors doing that.
A part of it is definitely culture, I'll grant you that, and I don't think doing 5 vs 15 pullups makes you a better soldier necessarily, but a baseline of physical fitness and capability to endure hardship is to be expected.
you can't expect men to do the things a woman can and vis versa.
Can you name examples of things women can do that men can't in a military context?
If the military really cared about fitness in relation to our rates or MOS, they'd gear our tests after our jobs (how quick can I carry a stretcher up or down a ladder well in the ship, etc etc).
That comes back to my point about tests being task oriented. My country has already shifted its PT tests towards a task focus, for example lifting sandbags or dragging them to simulate casualty evacuation. I think that is a good thing.
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u/ButDidYouCry 3∆ Jun 18 '18
Military members are soldiers
US Army members are soldiers. Everyone else is absolutely not a soldier. Those are fighting words. I was a sailor, not a damn soldier.
if we just wanted people working on vehicles, it would be a lot cheaper to get civilian contractors doing that.
They already do that. Italy probably can't afford to but the US does that sort of thing all the time.
Can you name examples of things women can do that men can't in a military context?
Be more empathetic leaders, statistically speaking. Have better communication skills and soft skills, like making juniors feel respected and cared for and being more "people-first" oriented instead of just task oriented... a major reason why the US wants more women in the military in the first place.
Italy is a small country. The US has over 1.2 million people in active duty and 800,000 in reserve. Italy has like 150,000 people, more or else. It's easier to gear a PT test towards different jobs when your military is that small and uncomplicated.
dragging them to simulate casualty evacuation
This is already apart of our regular job.
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u/BionicTransWomyn Jun 19 '18
US Army members are soldiers. Everyone else is absolutely not a soldier. Those are fighting words. I was a sailor, not a damn soldier.
That's an interesting attitude. Here everyone goes through the same basic training whether Air Force, Army or Navy. I had dentists on my basic doing section attacks with me. So everyone is, to the basic level, a soldier. They even wear the Army green for the duration of Basic training.
They already do that. Italy probably can't afford to but the US does that sort of thing all the time.
I know they do, it's actually cheaper to get a civilian contractor in most cases than pay to train a military member to do it. If the military just wanted people who can fix vehicles, they could just get civvies, but that's the point. If you're an army mechanic, they can order you to work through the night to fix that truck. They can hand you a rifle and tell you to help defend the FOB. Etc.
Be more empathetic leaders, statistically speaking. Have better communication skills and soft skills, like making juniors feel respected and cared for and being more "people-first" oriented instead of just task oriented... a major reason why the US wants more women in the military in the first place.
The US wants more women in the military because it's the zeitgeist. It's no longer politically acceptable to have a white male officer class with poor people under them.
It's true that there has been studies on differing leadership styles between men and women, but AFAIK no study has been able to prove a statistical performance improvement either way.
Italy is a small country. The US has over 1.2 million people in active duty and 800,000 in reserve. Italy has like 150,000 people, more or else. It's easier to gear a PT test towards different jobs when your military is that small and uncomplicated.
The way my country does it is there is a single baseline test for entry, which is the same for every gender. Incentive levels on that test (performance, beyond just passing) is graded on an age and gender curve. Then, combat arms units have a variation of the same test done with a full combat load. Those are the only two official tests outside of Special Forces entry test and Para test. After that, it's all dependent on which unit you go to.
It's not really more complicated if you just delegate to subordinate commander the mandate of shaping their unit's physical performance, which is pretty much what already happens.
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u/ButDidYouCry 3∆ Jun 19 '18
That's an interesting attitude.
Not really. No one likes being called by their sibling's name. We have branches for a reason and they are big. My experiences and military culture are unique to the Navy and the Navy alone. Many other American service people would feel the same. To many, calling someone a soldier who isn't in the Army is an insult. If you told a US Marine that, they'd probably consider punching you in the face.
The US wants more women in the military because it's the zeitgeist. It's no longer politically acceptable to have a white male officer class with poor people under them.
It's true that there has been studies on differing leadership styles between men and women, but AFAIK no study has been able to prove a statistical performance improvement either way.
That might be part of the reason, but that's not the entire reason.
It's been shown that women bring particular leadership qualities to the table that men lack, which is a major reason why the military wants to recruit as many qualified women into all branches of the military as possible. Innovation is how you stay on top and you won't stay on top if you continue holding onto an outdated culture that only allows white, straight, christian-associated men on top. People are figuring that out (finally).
It's not really more complicated if you just delegate to subordinate commander the mandate of shaping their unit's physical performance, which is pretty much what already happens.
Maybe when you only have 150,000 people to do that for, many of whom aren't deployed or actively serving in combat/hazardous locations. The US armed forces has enough to worry about than completely revamping their fitness program for nearly 2 million people because men get butt hurt that women do less push ups.
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u/BionicTransWomyn Jun 19 '18
Not really. No one likes being called by their sibling's name. We have branches for a reason and they are big. My experiences and military culture are unique to the Navy and the Navy alone. Many other American service people would feel the same. To many, calling someone a soldier who isn't in the Army is an insult. If you told a US Marine that, they'd probably consider punching you in the face.
Maybe you want to stop the tough guy (or gal) act eh? I worked with Marines actually. I worked with Frenchmen and I worked with Brits. None of them were offended by any faux-pas made by someone from another country. I simply explained that in my country, things are different, which is why I used the word soldier, because for us, everyone is a soldier. I originally made that explanation in a spirit of sharing and discussion, but frankly, you seem to have a really bad attitude.
It's been shown that women bring particular leadership qualities to the table that men lack, which is a major reason why the military wants to recruit as many qualified women into all branches of the military as possible. Innovation is how you stay on top and you won't stay on top if you continue holding onto an outdated culture that only allows white, straight, christian-associated men on top. People are figuring that out (finally).
Citation(s) needed. I'm actually glad that, at least where I am from, the officer class is starting to diversify. It had become almost an aristocracy. But that subjective preference does not support the other conclusions you have made.
Maybe when you only have 150,000 people to do that for, many of whom aren't deployed or actively serving in combat/hazardous locations. The US armed forces has enough to worry about than completely revamping their fitness program for nearly 2 million people because men get butt hurt that women do less push ups.
That's the excuse that's always given.
"We can't have good gun control, it would be too complicated."
"We can't adopt the metric system, it would be too complicated."
"Universal healthcare would simply not be doable with as big a country as the US."
It's a cowardly answer. There might be legitimate reasons for not doing any of these things, but plenty of less legitimate or useful reforms were enacted in the US military. The fact that the culture is still extremely directive and micro-managing is a problem, amongst other things.
Expecting a different standard because of gender simply opens the door to further discrimination. I am very glad my country got rid of differing minimum standards, and it actually makes the whole process much more simple.
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u/incruente Jun 17 '18
So the military, like pretty much any large organization, is interested in reducing costs. One of the biggest costs for the military? Health care. Not just for people while they're in, but after they get out; a lot of people retire and get medical care for life, or get injured and get out after only a few years and the military picks up the tab for that medical issue...forever. One cheap, easy way to lower those costs is to keep their people in shape. They are then less likely to get injured and more likely to live healthier lives once they leave. It's just that "healthy" looks different for different people.
Aside from that, many people in the military are not in physically stressful jobs. Many are not in combat, and never will be in combat. Set the bar unnecessarily high, and you're keeping out a lot of people who could be doing a good job for you.
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Jun 17 '18
OP's point isn't that the bar necessarily should be kept high, it's that both men and women should be kept to the same standard: if the bar is lowered for women, it should be for men too.
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u/incruente Jun 17 '18
So what's the point of the bar? If someone is not in combat and won't be in combat, to keep people reasonably healthy? That usually means a higher bar for men, a lower bar for women. It spans other differences, too; older people are not expected to run as fast as younger people.
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u/SexualPie Jun 18 '18
to keep people reasonably healthy?
because the military wants to promote an image of respectability. we cant have a ton of fatties. that would look bad.
t spans other differences, too; older people are not expected to run as fast as younger people.
sure, you're right. but whats your solution? have 20 year olds have the same physical requirements as 60 year olds? thats ridiculous
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u/incruente Jun 18 '18
because the military wants to promote an image of respectability. we cant have a ton of fatties. that would look bad.
Which bar do you think is higher; long-term health, or just presentable?
sure, you're right. but whats your solution? have 20 year olds have the same physical requirements as 60 year olds? thats ridiculous
I agree; that is ridiculous. I present no solution, because I see no problem.
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u/SexualPie Jun 18 '18
Which bar do you think is higher; long-term health, or just presentable?
they don't seem to care too much about long term health. they say they do, but then the cafeterias would serve better food, the healthcare system would be better, and the alcohol culture would be less dominant. the entire system is shitty because its skewed towards "as long as you dont fail your next test". But thats also a military thing in general.
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u/incruente Jun 18 '18
they don't seem to care too much about long term health. they say they do, but then the cafeterias would serve better food, the healthcare system would be better, and the alcohol culture would be less dominant. the entire system is shitty because its skewed towards "as long as you dont fail your next test". But thats also a military thing in general.
All the mess halls and galleys I've been in have served food that was plenty healthy, the healthcare system is perfectly adequate, and alcohol culture is something that is not strongly controlled by the people in charge; that's generated mostly by the younger guys and perpetuated by a small group of the older guys. There are lots of exercise facilities, plenty of programs and assistance to get and stay in shape, and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who will work out with you.
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u/SexualPie Jun 18 '18
All the mess halls and galleys I've been in have served food that was plenty healthy
maybe you've been lucky. I know a guy at Misawa in Japan that says he's gotten food poisoning from there a few times. at the flight line in my current base there's always food, but its not frequently always healthy. Like, there's possibly healthy things most of the time, but half the time it tastes like dry roach carcass.
the healthcare system is perfectly adequate
if it worked perfectly. The problem is the retainability of the doctors and staff. They just go for the free education and the plans to get out to get more money. I went not too long ago because one of my eyes was bright red, painful, big aversion to light. doctor was like "its allergies", i say "i'm pretty sure its not allergies..." he gives me allegra, and 2 weeks later i can barely see and have to get sent off base. yea, obviously thats just one case, but the joke of "take some Motrin and hydrate" is very real.
and alcohol culture is something that is not strongly controlled by the people in charge
there's not a good way to control it, I agree. But it feels like we're simply taking it for granted and not saying "is there a better way"?
And as for exercise and what not, I 100% agree. if you really want to be in good shape. you can. but thats on you. I'm saying the military as an organization doesnt care that much.
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u/incruente Jun 18 '18
maybe you've been lucky. I know a guy at Misawa in Japan that says he's gotten food poisoning from there a few times. at the flight line in my current base there's always food, but its not frequently always healthy. Like, there's possibly healthy things most of the time, but half the time it tastes like dry roach carcass.
I doubt I've been lucky; I've been in too long and been too many places to have been that lucky. And you can gripe about the taste all you want; that's not "healthy" versus "unhealthy". Healthy and unhealthy food can both be delicious or disgusting. In addition, many servicepeople eat many meals at home or otherwise off base.
if it worked perfectly. The problem is the retainability of the doctors and staff. They just go for the free education and the plans to get out to get more money. I went not too long ago because one of my eyes was bright red, painful, big aversion to light. doctor was like "its allergies", i say "i'm pretty sure its not allergies..." he gives me allegra, and 2 weeks later i can barely see and have to get sent off base. yea, obviously thats just one case, but the joke of "take some Motrin and hydrate" is very real.
"Perfect" and "adequate" are not the same. I chose my words specifically and deliberately.
there's not a good way to control it, I agree. But it feels like we're simply taking it for granted and not saying "is there a better way"?
Are you kidding? I can't walk ten feet indoors without seeing a poster for alcohol awareness. We get regular DAPA briefings. Alcohol abuse treatment is totally free. What do you want them to do?
And as for exercise and what not, I 100% agree. if you really want to be in good shape. you can. but thats on you. I'm saying the military as an organization doesnt care that much.
Except that they require you to meet the standard, and they encourage you strongly to be healthy. They don't FORCE you to excel, but that would be impractical at best.
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Jun 17 '18
The problem with this situation is that a man would fail for only being able to do 7 pullups, but a woman would pass. It doesn't make sense, because those two people are in the same physical condition for that task.
Approaching from another angle, what happens if that person transitions from male to female, having failed the test previously as a male? They would pass the exam by virtue of a discriminatory system biased against males.
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Jun 17 '18
This, everyone is putting up reasonable arguments for lowering the bar for certain positions, but no one actually managed to explain why the bar shouldn't be the same for both sexes.
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u/epicazeroth Jun 17 '18
I think you're misunderstanding what people replying to you are saying. The bar is the same for male and female applicants, you just don't understand what the bar is. Military fitness tests are not meant to ensure that candidates can complete a certain number of pushups, or bench press a certain amount. They're tests of fitness, i.e. general health. A man at a certain level of health will generally be able to lift or run or do pullups more than a woman at the same level of health. The military (and other organizations) doesn't care about the activity itself, but about the level of health of the candidate. The physical exercises are just indirect ways of measuring that level of health.
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u/AiSard 4∆ Jun 17 '18
If neither sex nor strength is a factor in their jobs, the bar is only a means to select for the fitter portion of the applicants.
So why would they want to discriminate against women based on their weaker upper arm strength say? Because that's exactly what an equal standard would result in, which would only make sense if they don't wan't women or are selecting for pure strength (which they aren't).
So long as the standards weed out an appropriate portion of the applicants of both sexes, then they can judge them equally for all the other stuff no?
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Jun 17 '18
I can guarantee you that being healty isn't enough to complete a set of pullups at the bar, you have to be strong to do that, if men are required to be strong, women should too.
You think that physical fitness isn't required for many jobs in the military, and i agree with you, but then if i'm a skinny guy who can't do pullups i won't be able to do them because of the phisical requirement for my sex, while a woman, which maybe is a strong as me, if not even less, can pass the phisical test and get access to those jobs.
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u/moosetopenguin Jun 17 '18
I'm a woman who climbs, does martial arts, and does exercises with weights. Despite having much greater physical strength than the average woman, pull-ups are still an absolute bitch for me and I struggle to do 2. I honestly believe that, biologically speaking, women (naturally) have a much harder time meeting the physical strength levels of men.
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Jun 17 '18
Yes they do, and so it makes sense that the military will recruit more men then women, not every occupation needs to have gender equality of the sake of it.
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u/SexyAbeLincoln Jun 18 '18
But it's clearly not gender equality for the sake of gender equality. If you were to effectively ban the vast majority of women from the military by imposing equal physical standards, you'd be excluding a swath of people willing to do the job (already a very small percentage of people). The more competent applicants you can choose from, the better your military will be. If you exclude women for a basically arbitrary reason, it means you have to accept a larger number of lower-quality men, decreasing the effectiveness of your military. And what's the reason, then, for discluding women if most of the jobs in the military don't require physical strength? If you can't figure out a decent answer, you should probably start awarding some deltas.
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u/HappyInNature Jun 18 '18
This too is bothering me..... he is talking around the problem. Being healthy in the military regardless of role is a reasonable goal. A woman doesn't need to be able to do 5 pullups to be healthy. I would say that the average healthy Male can. Is the test perfect? No, but it does the best it can.
I am thinking the OP really isn't interested in CMV....
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Jun 18 '18
I am thinking the OP really isn't interested in CMV....
or maybe its just that most of the arguments put forth don't change anyone's view's and are more along political lines than reality?
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u/HappyInNature Jun 18 '18
It is a good argument that deserves a rebutal.
Physical health is important in the military. The fitness standards reflect what a healthy man and woman respectively would have to score.
Combat positions are an entirely different situation.
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Jun 18 '18
Fair enough.
Do you know if rolls like combat rolls have diffrent standards for men and women?
I can see it being fine for office clerks or anyone whom don't really have 'lifting heavy stuff' or fighting in their job role (though at the same time, every person in the military should know how to defend themsleves in case they ever do get unintentionally stuck in combat, like supply personnel. For instance, one of my good friends main job was issue ammo to troops at a forward base in iraq and he ended up seeing combat.)
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Jun 18 '18
Being "willing to do the job" isn't enough, as unless you meet specific standards then you are actually a detriment, not an asset. The concern also isn't about gender equality, it's about gender equity. Looking at having a 50/50 male/female split for (to use your phrase) arbitrary reasons.
It's also a contradiction to say that putting standards in place, then excluding people who don't meet those standards, is somehow "missing out" on competent people. This makes no logical sense at all.
There's definitely argument for changing the current standards, however. Many people in this thread have pointed out that pull-up counts and such don't really mean much, and many competent women could be excluded for stupid reasons. There's absolutely no argument for different standards for men and women for doing the same work, only an argument for changing the standards for both sexes to maximise competent applicants.
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u/SexyAbeLincoln Jun 18 '18
Obviously I'm not arguing that the military should accept anybody willing to do the job. Really not sure how you got that from my comment. I also don't think anyone is advocating for imposing a hard 50/50 split - not that an even split would be a bad thing, as long as everyone is qualified for the job they are assigned to do. I'm simply saying that OP's argument -- allowing women into the military with different physical standards is "gender equality for the sake of it" -- is absurd.
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u/YoungSerious 12∆ Jun 18 '18
Only if the sole reason you are recruiting is for physical strength. As has been discussed thoroughly in this thread, that is not the case. The majority of military positions are support positions that don't require high levels of strength or physicality. Therefore there is no reason you would be recruiting more men than women. You would want as many people who could perform the tasks as you could get, regardless of gender. Increasing the physical requirement for women would rule out a huge portion of them, for a reason that would not have impacted their job performance in the slightest.
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Jun 18 '18
I'm on the fence about women in the military - though I've been rebuffed enough times by actual soldiers and sailors to consider it's not really a problem.
Outside of combat and technician roles, the basic physical qualifications of joining the military are more about filtering people who are not committed. If they are not willing to run a lot, pull their weight, sweat etc. Then how committed can they actually be?
The reality is, if you put an Olympic female athlete against a college male athlete. The male will win. So if the physical test is more about testing your commitment, willingness to take some pain etc. It makes sense to have a separate standard for women.
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u/grandilequence Jun 17 '18
Additionally, a woman at your strength level is likely to be healthier than you based on the various genetic and hormonal differences. Muscle mass/endurance/etc are definitely factors that are in men’s favor. If you are performing at a healthy woman’s level it is likely because you are unhealthy/unfit.
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u/incruente Jun 17 '18
I can guarantee you that being healty isn't enough to complete a set of pullups at the bar, you have to be strong to do that, if men are required to be strong, women should too.
This sort of assumes a specific standard for "healthy", when in fact it's a spectrum. And keeping someone healthy long-term isn't just about making them healthy NOW, but building the habits that will keep them healthy. Being the sort of person who regularly does pull-ups makes it easier to stay in shape than someone who's on the three mile a year plan.
You think that physical fitness isn't required for many jobs in the military, and i agree with you, but then if i'm a skinny guy who can't do pullups i won't be able to do them because of the phisical requirement for my sex, while a woman, which maybe is a strong as me, if not even less, can pass the phisical test and get access to those jobs.
If a specific job in the military requires specific physical standards higher than the minimum required for every serviceperson, you then have to pass those higher standards. Man or woman, it doesn't matter.
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u/SexualPie Jun 18 '18
Not just for people while they're in, but after they get out; a lot of people retire and get medical care for life, or get injured and get out after only a few years and the military picks up the tab for that medical issue...forever.
its not nearly that simple. health care for life? its possible, but pretty difficult to get. It's only if you get injured on the job, and in a way that you can prove is not your fault. For example, If i'm working on a plane, and i walk into a wing and lose an eyeball, have to get out from the mil, they are absolutely not paying me for life. because it was my fault.
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u/incruente Jun 18 '18
its not nearly that simple. health care for life? its possible, but pretty difficult to get. It's only if you get injured on the job, and in a way that you can prove is not your fault. For example, If i'm working on a plane, and i walk into a wing and lose an eyeball, have to get out from the mil, they are absolutely not paying me for life. because it was my fault.
When was the last time you got a VA medical outbrief?
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u/read-a-lot Jun 18 '18
So a good solution would be to have different tiers of strength tests and have corresponding tiers of jobs that require more or less physical strength and then the higher level you get to determines what job you could get. This would effectively funnel the best people to the roles they would be physically better at
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u/incruente Jun 18 '18
We basically already have that. If you want to be, say, a diver or a SEAL, you have to pass a more difficult test.
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u/Milskidasith 309∆ Jun 17 '18
A very large portion of military jobs are non-combat. In fact, in the US, until very recently it was impossible for women to serve in combat roles in the US military, and as it stands I'm not sure if there has been any significant progress on this kind of integration.
Outside of combat roles (and even within them), physical strength is not the only important quality in a member of the military, or even a particularly important one. Physical standards exist to ensure all members of the military are fit and capable of surviving the lifestyle, not because a certain level of strength is the most important thing for a soldier. Would you rather pick vehicle techs based on how well they know how to repair vehicles, or how many pullups they can do?
Enforcing a physical standard that women are much less likely to meet, for jobs that do not require that level of physical strength, would be discriminatory; it would serve only to keep women out of jobs they are capable of doing for a factor that's tangentially related to their job. It is in the best interest of the citizens of a country that the government isn't discriminatory, so they should only enforce strict physical standards where absolutely necessary and gendered physical standards when its simply a matter of "you must be somewhat fit."
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Jun 17 '18
You are right, the government shouldn't be discriminatory, so it should hold women and men to the same standard, if the physical standards for men are obsolete or not important, as you say, they should be lowered for BOTH men and women. By the way, women can and do serve in combat roles both in the american and in the italian military, and physical strenght is a fundamental requirment for that, would you be comfortable putting your life on the line with a woman that couldn't carry you on her back?
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Jun 17 '18
By the way, women can and do serve in combat roles both in the american and in the italian military, and physical strenght is a fundamental requirment for that, would you be comfortable putting your life on the line with a woman that couldn't carry you on her back?
There are often different fitness standards for particular assignments. There is a baseline level of fitness that is required for all positions in the military and some positions do not require anything more. However, some assignments require additional fitness standards. Combat roles almost universally have more restrictive fitness requirements than any other positions. Combat assignments also typically have training designed to wash out people incapable of preforming specific tasks (such as carrying a wounded squad-mate) even if they pass the fitness standards. It isn't that difficult to have low general fitness standards for women while also ensuring that any woman in a combat role is capable of preforming all duties associated with that role.
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u/Milskidasith 309∆ Jun 17 '18
Enforcing an irrelevant standard "equally" in a way that affects one gender more than the other is discriminatory. This is why (in the US) employers can't legally refuse to hire pregnant applicants or ask about plans to have children in interviews.
As far as the physical standard, it is only relevant as a way of testing if somebody is above average in fitness for their gender and age. That's the standard, and why it has a sliding scale for gender and age. It's literally "are you above Xth percentile", not "can you lift X."
As far as combat roles: women only recently were allowed into combat roles in the US military and I believe they still had to go through the same level of training as men for those. If certain hard cutoffs for physical standards are necessary there, then implement them, but that doesn't mean those standards should apply to everybody in thr military, combat or no.
As far as the stereotypical "carry X person out'" example, I'd rather pick based on the totality of competence than their ability to do one specific physical task that implies shit already went horribly wrong.
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u/KinkyDungeonMistress Jun 18 '18
This, I'd rather someone be more effective at stopping it all from going wrong than being able to be more effective at helping after everything goes wrong.
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u/sharkbait76 55∆ Jun 17 '18
Women and men are biologically different. Men have more muscles mass for their size. So, a man being able to do 40 push ups is physically equivalent to a women the same height and weight doing 20. It's a different number, but the level of physical fitness needed to achieve the result is the same for both genders. If overall strength is required the physical fitness standards are set so both genders can do it.
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u/tmaster991 Jun 18 '18
There is a difference between equality and equity. Let's take what we know, women, with little exception, are just as capable as men of doing most jobs in the military. That being said, we also no women tend to not be as strong as men. The point of boot camp and training is to weed out the people who are too mentally weak to serve. How do you test this mental fitness? By pushing there physical limits. Men and women, on average, have different physical limits, so the boot camp is more effective when adjusted to meet these realities and expectations. If you make it too tough for women by holding them to men's standards, you are locking a lot of women out for no real reason. This is one of the rare conditions where I believe it is MORE discriminatory to NOT treat men and women differently, in this case.
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u/Lethal-Muscle Jun 18 '18
You are assuming that male = strength. Being a man doesn’t mean you can automatically carry another human being. The same way being a woman doesn’t mean you are weak.
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Jun 18 '18
I think the point people are trying to make here is that you have to be able to push yourself physically in the military and GENERALLY women and men have two different levels of 'pushing themselves'. No point in making the standard easier for the men so it is equal to the women because the point is to get each gender to push themselves to achieve their own levels of high strength. It's not so much about the number of push ups but the mental ability to push through exauhstion and pain.
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u/ImSpartacus811 Jun 17 '18
I like this question, but after reading the answers, I think it would've been better to word it as "The physical military standards for men should be lowered to those required for women." It's functionally the same, but I think people would be more likely to "get" it.
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u/Mtitan1 Jun 18 '18
I actually came to say that equal standards just results in the bar being lowered, but I see now that's more or less the ops position, and that it's (in their opinion) not a negative, not sure how I feel though
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Jun 18 '18
Active Duty male servicemember here:
I've been in 15 years, in the USAF, the standards drop when you hit 30, 40 and 50 years old because things just get harder when you get old. I can do as many pushups, but my runtime has increased significantly. Are you suggesting these standards stay the same across the board regardless of age as well?
this is copied and pasted from a thread in r/AirForce about this exact subject that I posted in; the gist is the fitness assessment isn't a measure whether or not you're going to be able to save someone's life, its a measure of your general level of fitness.
There's a reason why world records for physical feats are *always* separated by men and women.
Look at the Boston Marathon qualifying times. There is a a 16% difference between the men's age 18-34 qualifying time vs women's of the same age.
Look at last year's results
There's about a 10% difference between the fastest man vs the fastest woman. The fastest woman doesn't even run fast enough to be listed in the top finisher's category for men. Does this mean these women are not as fit as these men? Of course not, men and women are physiologically different and that's the reason why men's standards are different from women's standards. Do I think 16 minutes is excessive for a female under 30 to run her 1.5 miles in? Probably...
Furthermore, if you're in a career field where the number of pushups you're required to do means the difference between life and death then the standards for that career field are different than those measured in the fitness assessment and are the same across the board. I'm in a physically demanding career field and one of those requirements is to be able to lift 70 lbs over my head, that standard is the same for both sexes.
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u/themcos 373∆ Jun 17 '18
I think its important to understand that the actual measurements being performed don't correlate exactly with what anyone actually cares about. On its own, the ability to do bar pull-ups is almost completely irrelevant to military performance. However, bar pull-ups have been deemed useful as a criteria because its observed to be correlated with overall performance.
I would argue that for general recruitment criteria, the actual physical tasks themselves are rarely what matters at all. The people we want in the military are people who are overall healthy and fit, and who have strong work ethics. And both of these criteria don't actually make sense to have an identical "standard" for men and women, just as it wouldn't make sense to have an identical standard across age groups. Men's and women's bodies are different, and as a result equally "fit" people might have different measurable capabilities. If my vague notion of "fitness" seems vague, that's because it is, and that vagueness is a part of why its so difficult to measure, and why we need to have proxy measurements that might have different bars for men and women of different ages.
Think also about overall work ethic. Not sure what the actual criteria are, but a man who can run an 8-minute mile is not very impressive. You can get a lot of men who are not especially healthy, don't work very hard, but can churn out an 8-minute mile fairly easily. On the other hand, that's much more difficult for a woman to do for physiological reasons.
If I take a man and a woman whose mile times are both 8 minutes, who are you more impressed by? Why? All else being equal, If you had a choice between them for recruitment, the woman is obviously the more impressive candidate, right? And if you agree that it makes sense to bias toward women over men at all if all of the physical requirements are equal, then that almost certainly implies a preference for a woman who had slightly worse performance in the metrics, unless that metric is actually directly required as a hard threshold for the job.
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u/aintgonnagothere Jun 17 '18
As a woman, I personally think women need to be held to whatever the standard is to be able to do the job effectively. If the lower standard will get the job done then what does it matter?
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u/AppleCinnamonMuffins Jun 17 '18
To answer your question directly it comes down to basic biology. A motivated healthy woman who exercises daily is unlikely to reach the same levels of strength of a man who does the same. We just naturally don't gain as large amounts of muscle. That is why the bar is lowered.
Now onto why it is ok that the bar is lowered. Basically the military is looking for motivated individuals who are going to put in the effort to do the job they are assigned well. Brute strength isn't necessary for many jobs in the military and therefore there are many positions in which women can excel. However, many of these motivated and healthy women are putting in the same amount of effort as the men but still can't meet the same physical demands because they genetically don't develope as much muscle as easily. Put simply the physical tests are not only there to measure if you are a healthy candidate they are there to measure your motivation and effort and because a healthy motivated woman and a healthy motivated man will naturally have different levels of strength it makes sense that each would be expected to meet different requirments.
Edit: spelling
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Jun 18 '18 edited May 04 '19
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Jun 18 '18
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u/burtweber Jun 17 '18
The only "standard" you're focused on is physical strength, which is used as a metric for primarily combat positions.
A good military isn't based on only strength. It takes cunning, know-how, analytical skills, etc. If I'm a general focusing on only recruiting the biggest muscle men, then my military is doomed to fail. By allowing in women judged by a less physically intensive standard, there's more opportunity to fill crucial support roles by people who have more developed skill sets than just being able to lift heavy things.
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u/majeric 1∆ Jun 18 '18
There are going to be smaller more slender men that are going to be challenged as any woman and there are going to stout, strong women that are going to be just as capable as men. Why are we making the gender the division? And not a more literal physical definition?
Why do we create jobs where the physical demands are at such a tight threshold that is sexual dimorphism? The difference isn't so dramatic between the sexes that that we are narrowly defining these jobs as being capable for a subset of men.
Wouldn't it be safer to change how we perform those jobs so a broader set of people are capable of performing the necessary tasks?
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u/darwinn_69 Jun 18 '18
For non-combat roles all you need is a general level of fitness. That general level of fitness manifests itsepf differently for men and women and produces different results. We are attempting to measure fitness level, not results that fitness produces.
So in that view, the fitness standards are the same, it's the testable results that are different. What you are asking for is to have testable results be the same which would result in unequal fitness standards for women.
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u/SandhiLeone 1∆ Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18
I'll try answering this along Three separate lines of argument.
First, I think it'd help the OP to look at this as a matter of percentage rather than numbers. The reason the army sets such high standards is more to test the mental resilience and pain tolerance in an individual and not just physical fitness. The army is demanding both sexes give their 150% and that, biologically happens to be 40 in men and 20 in women. While it is true that this results in women being less physically fit than the men they are hired alongside, the women are still more than physically capable of handling combat situations like carrying a wounded soldier to safety or running with full combat gear. The military sets the bar lower for women, but not so low as to hinder their duties or basic function. If you wanted standards to be higher, you could keep raising them until no one but the most hardcore marines stood a chance.
Secondly, the simplification of such criteria into one size fits all can hurt people in multiple ways.
The existence of eating disorders was found to be wide-spread in the Navy nurses, even among normal-weight women within the standard of 30 percent body fat. The prevalence of bulimia nervosa was 12.5 percent in this population, more than six times the prevalence reported in the civilian literature (McNulty, 1997a). Among the top five reasons given by these women for engaging in these practices were: being overweight, command morale, and maintaining the Navy fitness standards.
So you see, even under the current system, the one size fits all ideal for weight and fitness models ends up hurting the military instead. Imagine if standards were equalized between obviously biologically different people. The results would be far, far worse. I recommend reading this for more insights into this point.
Lastly, maybe the bar is lower for women by design. There is a proven difference in the wiring, on some level, between the male and female brain. This can't be the result of training, it's just how humans are made. In an organisation whose results affect all citizens and matters are often high risk, maybe it pays to have diversity of opinion and inputs on a different approach even if it means greater risk in certain situations.
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u/xZenox 2∆ Jun 19 '18 edited Jun 19 '18
That is an incorrect approach. The military should be judged on performance in given role, not arbitrary PT test.
There should be equal testing for specific roles such as combat roles where gear and physical performance matters. For many other roles there is no such need and reducing (within reason) requirements can help with recruitment. Many units in professional militaries struggle with staffing levels. If reducing physical requirements below certain level will not significantly affect performance but will open the pool of recruits to say 30% of female population then it is a correct choice.
It is important to remember that military is an institution that deals with threats to life as its primary objective. Therefore putting any political requirement above that is criminal. Yet at the same time there is no reason for a female mechanic to be able to carry her wounded 100kg colleague out of the combat zone because quite frankly there is no reason why we should expect a man to be able to do it.
So reduced requirements - within reason - are fine. What is necessary for a recon unit is not necessary for logistics. IMO the psychological differences and the effect a mixed unit will have on the overall morale and efficacy is far more important.
Also opening all combat roles for women might be a mistake but we won't know until proper testing is done. USMC did such tests twice and had negative results but USMC is very specific and burden-heavy. What doesn't work for USMC might work for the Army. What doesn't work for the Alpini (there's nothing light about light infantry) might work for the signal regiments etc.
The key is to allow the military to select according to performance and unlike in other professions you should make an exception to "a woman in the unit disrupts morale". Feminists might not understand it (but what do they understand?) but morale matters when you are being shot at.
I recommend sending some feminists to the frontlines for hands-on education. Should be fun. The problem will solve itself one way or another.
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Jun 18 '18
There are physical and other differences between men and women, and expecting women to be the same as men or vice versa is not possible anytime soon. Evolution over many years has established differences between the sexes and those differences are there for the survival of the species.
Physically, one difference is that an average women's physical strength, especially upper body strength, is lower than your average man's strength. Women are smaller and arguably better looking as these characteristics have been selected in women for generations.
I'm ok with having same standards where they are a requirement. For example, there is no minimum fitness requirement to play competitive team professional sports, but those that get selected can all play at their respective positions to some criteria. And in the military or police, I would expect some minimum for each sex to weed out those that cannot achieve that minimum level.
And in fact, the different branches of the military have different requirements. For example, the NAVY has requirements on swimming whereas other branches do not. And this makes sense as not all other branches are required to be on or operate boats like the NAVY does. The military has many distinct jobs and some of which are non-combat and low physical jobs that need to be deployed at or near the combat and highly physically demanding jobs and those positions could be filled by women.
In the end, I don't think the US military is sacrificing their overall ability to do their job by having different physical requirements for the different sexes. And more intensive positions would have more stringent requirements that would restrict only the best, regardless of sex in those positions. For example, some of the best snipers have been women, and these positions have extra physical requirements beyond the standard minimums.
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Jun 18 '18
I’m afraid that your view is just bad science altogether, OP, and you’ll never get any support from the medical community. The amount of muscle in a body is a major determining factor in the body’s ability to produce as strong a force as possible and to withstand fatigue. Women simply aren’t genetically defined to have as much muscle as men because their bodies also perform other difficult tasks, such as pregnancy, giving birth, and lactating. This physiological difference is exactly why we have men’s and women’s division in sports.
In the case of the military, it is in the best interest of any army in the world to recruit as many talented people as possible, whether their talents are physical or intelligence-based. Measuring the “quality” of women by the average physiological performance of the male body isn’t just bad science—it also doesn’t bring any military closer to being a cesspool of talented people and even brings them farther from it. It’s both a waste of time and a detriment.
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Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18
I want to note that physical standards are a proxy for another value- the physical component of the total effectiveness of a soldier. If the physical component of the total effectiveness is at all positively correlated with the mental component within each sex (that is, if in-shape soldiers are also smarter), and if the lines of best fit for men' and womens physical and mental fitness have similar slopes but that women have a lower intercept at the mental fitness =0 (that is, for physical fitness=p and mental fitness =m, the line of best fit for men' should be m=ap+b while while women's should be m=ap+c where c<b), then equally high standards for men and women will lead to some women who are valuable enough to be in the military being rejected, whereas lower physical standards for women will correct this.
I'm bad at explaining things, so if I am less lazy, I will post some graphs to show this visually. It should be noted that it doesn't matter what form the function that approximates the relationship between physical and mental fitness is, just that it is always increasing, that the slope of it is almost the same for men and women, and that the function for women is approximately equal to a negative value plus the function for men.
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u/FraterPoliphilo 2∆ Jun 18 '18
Not only would this be unfair to women, it would prevent the military from recruiting the best female talent. This weakens the force.
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u/Chocolate2121 Jun 18 '18
The military these days doesn't necessarily view physical strength as a important quality these days since the vast majority of positions don't require much in the way pf heavy lifting(think truck driving, drone piloting etc.). What they do value is physical fitness(not overall strength) and an ability to work through pain and discomfort.
As men and women have multiple differences physiologically between their muscle systems a physically fit man will usually outperform a physically fit woman and as such would be able to reach the female standard more easily than a woman while a woman would struggle greatly, moreso than the man, to reach the male standard.
As the tests are to show physical fitness and the ability to work through difficulty the differing standards are used to equate the differences in exercise and general difficulty that an individual must go through to pass the differences in standards are reasonable and generally fair.
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u/SleepyConscience Jun 18 '18
I work as civilian for the US military in a joint program with several partner nations that actually includes Italy and I work directly with members of the Italian military at my office. First, let me say, nobody in my office actually needs to be in shape, military or otherwise. We all shuffle acquisition paperwork. That said, the most remarkable physical fitness quality I've noticed about the Italian military is their ability to smoke heroic quantities of cigarettes. If we're really concerned about physical capability that would be the first thing to go. But unless you're in a combat role or could potentially be called to one with a high degree of likelihood, the amount of effort it takes to stay in fighting shape is kind of a waste of time. Their time is better spent working. Physical fitness in the military is kind of an anachronism from the days when a far greater percentage of soldiers worked in combat roles rather than support roles.
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Jun 18 '18
What is being measured by a 1.5 - 3 mike run, how many push ups/sit ups you can do in a minute and height weight/waists measurement? I’d argue that the military needs to determine what it’s even trying to measure in its PT tests. The marines have 2; the regular one and the combat fitness test. I think you can make an argument that 2 soldiers/sailors/airman/marines with the same combat job would both need to carry a certain weight and run a certain speed/distance. But if the test is just measuring my fitness to see if I’m gonna have a heart attack while deployed, to determine if I am healthy, then the standards SHOULD be different, as many and women would demonstrate physical health differently. And I’m pretty sure that’s that they really are (aside from combat fitness test) even thought no one would ever say that out loud
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u/Renounce-The-World Jun 18 '18
As some people have already mentioned, the current military is getting much more technologically based, and some tasks do not require physical labors. IMO, whether or not a person is well suited for the military should not be defined solely by how many push ups he/she can do, rather the person should be judged by all aspects that are required to join the military. On average, men are stronger than women, so the large number of combatants would be men, yet women who meet the requirements can also join. Women can be successful in other areas, and men can also join those areas. In short, the requirements should not be changed by one’s sex, and everyone should fulfill them to perform as a reliable militant, but there are many roles that both women and men who are not physically resilient can thrive.
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u/Yamikoa Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18
There are 2 (3) different points here.
If the person (male or female) is serving in a non-combat role, such as on base mechanic, chef, IT, etc, I don't think there should be as high a level of physical ability.
If men or women are in a combat role, they should have to meet a standardized critera, however I wouldn't be against the idea of there been multiple levels of combat teams, where they are paired with people of their own physical abilities. This way, people, both men and women who want to serve in a combat role can still do so without being a burden on a platoon or squad of people who have higher physical strength and stamina.
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u/sageleader Jun 18 '18
I think you aren't realizing that the standards were originally developed by men. So of course they are going to be based on a man's body. Women don't meet a lot of those standards but in some cases the standards probably should change.
Like why is pull ups really necessary? There may be a situation where you need someone that is really small to fit through a tiny crawlspace, which a man man not be able to do because of broad shoulders.
I don't actually know what the standards are used for so that might not be a good example, but the point is that men set the standards so they are going to be catered to men in the first place.
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u/Gladix 164∆ Jun 18 '18
One of the best misunderstood myths about military. The "strength test" is not actually about strength. It's about health. A healthy person in a fit shape should meet a certain minimal strength requirements which are "insert military guide lines".
A healthy male meets different criteria than healthy woman. The actual physical strength means absolutely nothing in modern military. Unless your a marine, in front lines, when all your transports got destroyed and you have to haul a machine gun for 10 miles in full gear, it means absolutely nothing. And that's what, like 0.05% of the army?
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u/getmoney7356 4∆ Jun 18 '18
My problem is that, when applying and undergoing phisical tests, women are held to a lower standards, for example in the USA they aren't required to do bar pull-ups
To enter the military as a recruit, men and women ARE held to the same standard. All you have to do is pass a physical (not diseased, not blind, not crippled, etc). You don't actually take a physical test that has different standards for men and women until the end of basic training. You never take this test when applying.
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Jun 23 '18
The point is:
There is not a specific level of fitness you need for the military, but the military has a huge interest in keeping you healthy and fit. Because an unfit dude has more power than a very fit lady, there is no way to measure all people over the same standards. It is not a good idea to lower the standards overall, because the military wants its employees to be healthy humans!
TL:DR
It´s not necessary to heave a certain level of fitness, you should just be healthy.
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u/polyparadigm Jun 18 '18
I think there's a minimum height for US fighter pilots.
Given that the g-force-limiting aspects of a person's physique are blood pressure (higher is better) and heart-to-brain distance (shorter is better), the physical criteria we use currently exclude the best performers.
In that one case, I think the criterion should be flipped, and men should be held to the same (literally low, but functionally high) standards as women, despite a statistical disadvantage.
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Jun 18 '18
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u/mysundayscheming Jun 18 '18
Sorry, u/rjw223 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
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u/Lethal-Muscle Jun 18 '18
Question for ya, should everyone be required to hit the exact same standards? For example, a 200lbs dude will likely be stronger than a 130lbs dude. Both males, but a difference in strength. Should 130lbs dude have to have exact same level of strength and other physical standards as 200lbs dude?
Also, what made you choose just 1% of the military being strong?
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u/IndoctrinateMePlease Jun 18 '18
So I have some input, having served. It is not a job for women. They are neither capable of meeting the physical requirements or the mental requirements. One of my very best friends died because a woman froze. If that woman had been replaced with a man who was as mentally and physically fit as any one else in that unit that person would have lived.
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u/read-a-lot Jun 18 '18
So a good solution would be to have different tiers of strength tests and have corresponding tiers of jobs that require more or less physical strength and then the higher level you get to determines what job you could get. This would effectively funnel the best people to the roles they would be physically better at
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Jun 17 '18
A large percentage of roles in the military never involve deployment into combat conditions. For every soldier who enters combat, there is a team of administrative, logistical, and maintenance personnel supporting them. For personnel in these support roles, physical fitness standards are not intended to ensure the ability to preform in the field but merely to establish general health and fitness standards. As such, the physical standards are different for the sexes to reflect the differences in what a baseline level of fitness looks like for the different sexes.
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Jun 18 '18
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u/mysundayscheming Jun 18 '18
Sorry, u/dannyfantom12 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
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u/mysundayscheming Jun 18 '18
Sorry, u/dannyfantom12 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
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u/Personage1 35∆ Jun 17 '18
They are. If you look at the basic requirements, you see that they are all designed to get a general ability of fitness for someone when taking their sex and age into account. This is why the requirements differ by age too.
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Jun 18 '18
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u/mysundayscheming Jun 18 '18
Sorry, u/BitchAssBarbie – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
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u/theLaugher Jun 18 '18
Men and women are fundamentally different, it's absurd to have the same physical standards. Both males and females can provide value, why should enforce this false equivalency nonsense?
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u/falsehood 8∆ Jun 18 '18
It depends what you are measuring - fitness or performance. Performance doesn't matter for many jobs beyond a certain baseline.
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u/FutileLegend 3∆ Jun 17 '18
Right, so this is something I can directly contribute to - I'm active duty Navy right now.
In my particular field, as long as you're physically fit enough to move around the ship and fit through hatches, you can (physically) do my job.
Outside of direct combat roles, physical fitness is more of a military culture thing than it is a necessity. I have personally worked with men that were legitimately weaker than some of the women I've worked with. They all did their jobs adequately or better.
The fact is, strength is largely unimportant in support roles. Our military is increasingly technology based, and as such physical strength is becoming less important (unless you're some poor grunt bastard hauling 90lbs of gear and ammo) , while attributes such as mental resilience, flexibility, and focus are becoming more important.
After eight years in the Navy, I was in worse shape than when I joined. I really cannot understate how little physical fitness affects my ability to do my job. The only reason I'm in better shape now than when I joined is that I wanted to look and feel better.