Occasionally I have written that placing women in physically demanding jobs in the
military, as for example combat, is stupid and unworkable. Predictably I've gotten
responses asserting that I hate women, abuse children, cannibalize orphans, and can't get
a date. A few, with truculence sometimes amplified by misspelling, have demanded
supporting data.
OK. The following are from documents I found in a closet, left over from my days as a
syndicated military columnist ("Soldiering," Universal Press Syndicate).
Note the dates: All of this has been known for a long time.
From the report of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed
Forces (report date November 15, 1992, published in book form by Brassey's in 1993):
"The average female Army recruit is 4.8 inches shorter, 31.7 pounds lighter, has 37.4
fewer pounds of muscle, and 5.7 more pounds of fat than the average male recruit. She has
only 55 percent of the upper-body strength and 72 percent of the lower-body strength…
An Army study of 124 men and 186 women done in 1988 found that women are more than twice
as likely to suffer leg injuries and nearly five times as likely to suffer [stress]
fractures as men."
Further: "The Commission heard an abundance of expert testimony about the physical
differences between men and women that can be summarized as follows:
"Women's aerobic capacity is significantly lower, meaning they cannot carry as
much as far as fast as men, and they are more susceptible to fatigue.
"In terms of physical capability, the upper five percent of women are at the level
of the male median. The average 20-to-30 year-old woman has the same aerobic capacity as a
50 year-old man."
From the same report: "Lt Col. William Gregor, United States Army, testified
before the Commission regarding a survey he conducted at an Army ROTC Advanced Summer Camp
on 623 women and 3540 men. …Evidence Gregor presented to the Commission includes:
"(a) Using the standard Army Physical Fitness Test, he found that the upper
quintile of women at West point achieved scores on the test equivalent to the bottom
quintile of men.
"(c) Only 21 women out of the initial 623 (3.4%) achieved a score equal to the
male mean score of 260.
"(d) On the push-up test, only seven percent of women can meet a score of 60,
while 78 percent of men exceed it.
"(e) Adopting a male standard of fitness at West Point would mean 70 percent of
the women he studied would be separated as failures at the end of their junior year, only
three percent would be eligible for the Recondo badge, and not one would receive the Army
Physical Fitness badge…."
The following, quoted by Brian Mitchell in his book Women in the Military: Flirting
With Disaster (Regnery, 1998) and widely known to students of the military, are
results of a test the Navy did to see how well women could perform in damage control --
i.e., tasks necessary to save a ship that had been hit.
"Test .....................................................................% Women
failing .................................................% Men failing
.................................................................................Before
training /After ............................................Before training/After
Stretcher carry, level ..............................................63
.......................38 .................................................0
............................0
Stretcher carry/up, down ladder ..............................94 .......................88
.................................................0.............................0
Fire hose ...................................................................19
.......................16 .................................................0
............................0
P250 pump, carry down .............................................99
.......................99
.................................................9.............................4
P250 pump, carry up ..................................................73
.......................52 .................................................0
............................0
P250, start pump .........................................................90
......................75 ..................................................0
...........................0
Remove SSTO pump ..................................................99
.......................99
.................................................0............................0
Torque engine bolt ......................................................78
........................47 .................................................0
...........................0"
Our ships can be hit. I know what supersonic stealthed cruise missiles
are. So do the Iraqis.
Also from the Commission's report: "Non-deployability briefings
before the Commission showed that women were three times more non-deployable than men,
primarily due to pregnancy, during Operations Desert Shield and Storm. According to Navy
Captain Martha Whitehead's testimony before the Commission, 'the primary reason for the
women being unable to deploy was pregnancy, that representing 47 percent of the women who
could not deploy.'"
Maybe we need armored strollers.
My friend Catherine Aspy graduated from Harvard in 1992 and (no, I'm
not on drugs) enlisted in the Army in 1995. Her account was published in Reader's Digest,
February, 1999, and is online in the Digest's archives.
She told me the following about her experiences: "I was stunned.
The Army was a vast day-care center, full of unmarried teen-age mothers using it as a
welfare home. I took training seriously and really tried to keep up with the men. I found
I couldn't. It wasn't even close. I had no idea the difference in physical ability was so
huge. There were always crowds of women sitting out exercises or on crutches from training
injuries.
"They [the Army] were so scared of sexual harassment that women
weren't allowed to go anywhere without another woman along. They called them 'Battle
Buddies.' It was crazy. I was twenty-six years old but I couldn't go to the bathroom by
myself."
Women are going to take on the North Korean infantry, but need
protection in the ladies' room. Military policy is endlessly fascinating.
When I was writing the military column, I looked into the experience of
Canada, which tried the experiment of feminization. I got the report from Ottawa, as did
the Commission. Said the Commission:
"After extensive research, Canada has found little evidence to
support the integration of women into ground units. Of 103 Canadian women who volunteered
to joint infantry units, only one graduated the initial training course. The Canadian
experience corroborates the testimony of LTC Gregor, who said the odds of selecting a
woman matching the physical size and strength of the average male are more than 130-to-1.
From Military Medicine, October 1997, which I got from the
Pentagon's library:
(p. 690): "One-third of 450 female soldiers surveyed indicated
that they experienced problematic urinary incontinence during exercise and field training
activities. The other crucial finding of the survey was probably that 13.3% of the
respondents restricted fluids significantly while participating in field exercises."
Because peeing was embarrassing.
Or, (p. 661): " Kessler et al found that the lifetime prevalence
of PTSD in the United States was twice as high among women…" Depression, says MilMed,
is far commoner among women, as are training injuries. Et cetera.
The military is perfectly aware of all of this. Their own magazine has
told them. They see it every day. But protecting careers, and rears, is more important
than protecting the country.
Anyway, for those who wanted supporting evidence, there it is.
