Are women fit enough to fight in combat?

Article here. Excerpt:

'It was a little over a year ago (January of 2013) that former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chief of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey ordered that combat-arm roles will be opened to women in all areas of service. Even Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) supported the 2013-policy reversal that excluded women from front line positions and elite command jobs (put in place in 1994). Women, which make up 15% of the armed forces, have found themselves in reality combat more and more over the past decade. Moving forward women will now be potential candidates for more than 230,000 jobs in Army and Marine infantry.

President Obama reminded the nation that “valor knows no gender,” which was a poignant statement considering that 150 American military women have died recently in Iraq and Afghanistan (out of 6598 total fatalities) and another 1000 have been wounded, just in the past two years. This new policy is parallel to America’s manifesto - committed to equality and standards of fairness. Applying it to US Military is a progressive and noble evolution. But if I am being honest, the concern is whether physical fitness standards and testing will be lowered to accommodate the variances between men and women, to allow women to pass and qualify.
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Women are still receiving significantly higher scores for physical tests that would be considered low or failing for men. So I have to ask again, is scaling helping or hurting our female soldiers become prepared? Or, are the training programs not designed well enough to develop the level of physical performance needed? Or, is the physical testing score a less important portion of a soldier’s overall skill sets? Are women equally performing in areas also critical to combat, intellectual resilience, pressure thinking, firearms skills, engineering aptitude and leadership?

I realized I might have asked more questions than I answered. I am clearly on the side of equality. But equality cannot just be ordained. When I think about the performance increases of women in the sport of MMA, a multi-discipline study, triathletes, a multi-discipline study and cross-fit competitors, a multi-discipline, it makes me realize that women are as trainable as men.'

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And finally, written by someone actually qualified to render a learned opinion!

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Men and women are biologically different in so many ways. You can load a woman up on chemical birth control so you don't have pregnancy and monthly cycles to worry about, and you can physically train her to pass a physical fitness test on a given day, but you still wont have a human who is equal to a man! You will have a human who has had to train harder and chemically alter herself and will still have a myriad of other physical and cognitive weaknesses compared to her male comrades.

I'm all for women serving in the military, but not at the risk of weakening the positions where we need our military to be the strongest. Financial efficiency is another concern. How much do we spend to accomodate women in these positions?

Serious question to MRA's: Generally speaking, do you believe women have equal physical and cognitive capabilities as men?

I see the answer to this question as the elephant in the room. It is not PC to ever indicate that you believe men and women are NOT equal. I'll start off the answering by saying I do not believe men and women are equal. Men are more capable of cognitive and physical production. This is why women need men more than men need women.

I don't understand why any MRA would be for "equality." Isn't that saying you believe men and women are naturally equal in cognitive and physical capabilities or saying women deserve handicaps so they can overcome their biological disposition and have equal outcome? IMO, in order to achieve gender equality we would either need to artificially inflate women or oppress men.

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In answer to Kris's question "...believe women have equal physical and cognitive capabilities as men? " I'd have to say cognitively, yes, physically, well in some ways they are weaker, in some ways they are stronger. But as far as the physical strength and conditioning to serve in a battlefield environment with all that involves I'd say men have the edge.

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there are many/any truly intelligent people who believe we all have the ability to be equal in all things. where we need to be treated equal is in the courtroom. that is mandated by the laws handed down by our forefathers.

the people running our country (into the ground) have an agenda. what that agenda is not about is truth, fairness, and equality before the law. destroying our military from within is a big part of their agenda, and they are succeeding beyond belief.

read a survey the other day where 1/4 of those questioned (u.s.) had no idea the earth circled the sun. probably an equal number don't have a clue about the moon's relationship w/ the earth. this is not ignorance. they had a chance at an education and we all saw how that came out. we cannot continue to lead the world embracing, even worshipping corruption, failure and stupidity; and, the world is evidently just now figuring that out.

what I see is a leader who despises everything about America. that was an attitude I first encountered in college in debates w/ my Arab roommate.

btw, I worked 2 part time jobs to pay for my education. his education was paid for by the government of Kuwait, from u.s. grants. using our resources while cursing us behind our backs. sound like anybody you know?

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