I was talking with an Army Reserve officer (Engineer Branch) who has been thorugh Ranger School and he had an interesting take on it. His opinion is that RS brought this on themselves by moving away from being a samll-unit tactics school and promoting itself as the Army's premier leadership school. Now that women are being placed in Infantry leadership positions, they have made it tough to argue that they shouldn't be allowed to attend. Of course the disagreement is still there about the mandatory passing rates and lowered standards, but the rest is an interesting premise. Thoughts?
A second argument that I have seen brought up time and again in regards to women serving in Infantry, SOF, etc. is the gym aspect. The explosion of CrossFit in popularity and the athletic women it produces has led many people to point at top CF women as being examples of women who would theoretically have little difficulty with the demands of being an Infantry or SOF unit. I think it's interesting that if a man performs well in the gym, it's almost a detriment at times as he is expected to prove out his gym performance in the field or risk being labeled a "pretty boy" who only can perform in a gym environment. Yet, when women perform well in the gym the attitude is that they are proof of the fact that women could breeze thorugh any physical challenge a training cadre could throw at them. The idea that being good at CF or whatever else is indicative of an ability to handle the day in and day out beating your body and mind takes at certain training courses is laughable. The gym may have some carryover to success in these courses, but it is far from a concrete indicator. It's indicative of the double standard in place, whether people admit to it or not, that women are almost handed a graduation certificate by some before even attending a course because they have a fast Fran time, while men who perform the same or better in the gym are looked at that much harder to see if they can hold up outside the controlled environment of a gym.
A second argument that I have seen brought up time and again in regards to women serving in Infantry, SOF, etc. is the gym aspect. The explosion of CrossFit in popularity and the athletic women it produces has led many people to point at top CF women as being examples of women who would theoretically have little difficulty with the demands of being an Infantry or SOF unit. I think it's interesting that if a man performs well in the gym, it's almost a detriment at times as he is expected to prove out his gym performance in the field or risk being labeled a "pretty boy" who only can perform in a gym environment. Yet, when women perform well in the gym the attitude is that they are proof of the fact that women could breeze thorugh any physical challenge a training cadre could throw at them. The idea that being good at CF or whatever else is indicative of an ability to handle the day in and day out beating your body and mind takes at certain training courses is laughable. The gym may have some carryover to success in these courses, but it is far from a concrete indicator. It's indicative of the double standard in place, whether people admit to it or not, that women are almost handed a graduation certificate by some before even attending a course because they have a fast Fran time, while men who perform the same or better in the gym are looked at that much harder to see if they can hold up outside the controlled environment of a gym.
