Article Claims Female US Infantry Troops Not Being Held to Same Standard As Men

I have been a supporter of women in the infantry with the caveat they should be held to the same standard as male troops.  However, this article claims through anonymous sources they were not:

Soldiers-in-training assigned to A Company, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, start their first day of Infantry One Station Unit Training on Sand Hill, Fort Benning, Ga. The class that started Feb. 10 was the first to include female recruits. [Army Times]
America’s first female Army Infantrymen are here, but not all of them made it through.

In fact, only eighteen of the thirty-two female infantry recruits made it through the One Station Unit Training (OSUT) program at Fort Benning, Georgia.

While the attrition rate doesn’t seem all that alarming, it strikes a more concerning tone when factoring in that the females needed only to meet the much-lower female standards for physical fitness that separate them from their previously all-male counterparts.

That said, there were some women who certainly gave their male colleagues a run for their money.

“There was even one female that did better than 90 percent of the males on the PT test,” said one 22-year-old male trainee, who reportedly had high PT scores. “Speaking as the person who had the second-highest PT score- she had me looking over my soldier the whole cycle. It was something that definitely made me better, and maybe kept me up nights a few times. But certainly by the end of the cycle, I was doing more push-ups, because I had her chasing me.”

However, some sources who graduated from within the unit -whom requested concealed identities to protect their new careers- claimed a clear double-standard between males and females in their training cycle, including lighter rucksacks and lower expectations.

“No way,” one soldier told Popular Military when asked if women were held to the same standards. “Lighter rucks, things like that.”  [Popular Military]

You can read more at the link, but the Army has said the same standards were used so who knows what the truth is.

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Flyingsword
Flyingsword
6 years ago

Men and women are different. This is no clearer than in pure physical strength. We, as a nation, are fools for doing this.

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
6 years ago

“…but the Army has said the same standards were used so who knows what the truth is.”

We do.

Smokes
Smokes
Reply to  ChickenHead
6 years ago

Shame on GI for linking this garbage article.

But first… CH…. Really? So which unit did you complete basic in? I finished at Fort Benning as a member of C Co. 3rd Bn 47th Infantry Reg. How about AIT? C Co. 551st Sig Bn. here…

If I recall, you aren’t prior service bub. You know jack and 5h1t about what happens in IET and jack dropped out in phase-1. 😛

I know first hand that the PT standards aren’t fully enforced in Basic Training regardless of the gender of the trainee. It’s all about the numbers and many a DS has forged a passing score for someone telling them “Hey it’s no big deal, by the end of AIT you’ll be up to snuff so no reason to cut you short here. I believe in you, you can do it!”. when what they really mean is “yeah our NCOER’s are based on meaningless quantifications and unrealistic baselines so I’m going to pass you so it doesn’t hurt my rating and my first look won’t end up in the trashcan; you’re some AIT group leader’s problem now”.

But…

Again shame on you GI for linking this garbage article. The article uses unnamed sources which is code these days for “5h1t we made up” and cites 0 verifiable facts that show any female was held to a lower standard. They say “some unnamed person claimed light rucks and lower expectations”.

Who? Who says so we can actually verify it from them? Is it just a claim or is there anything factual in existence to back the claim? Finally “lower expectations” the F does that have to do with passing?

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
6 years ago

Smokes, kindly consider that I can hold an intelligent conversation about the moon even though I have never been there.

Are you willing to claim that despite political pressure to graduate women, the exact same standards were strictly enforced on two groups of people with very different median abilities?

If this was the case, it runs counter to experience in pretty much everything everywhere.

But I’m curious to hear your reasoning.

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
Reply to  liz
6 years ago
liz
liz
Reply to  ChickenHead
6 years ago

Think of the savings in MREs!

setnaffa
setnaffa
Reply to  liz
6 years ago

You mean with half the army dead and the other half in PoW camps? /s

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
Reply to  liz
6 years ago

She always passes the tape test.

Smokes
Smokes
Reply to  ChickenHead
6 years ago

I was just giving you 5h1t, opinions are always welcomed. What I was seriously attacking was that trash trying to pass for journalism.

The assertion it pushes especially with that click-bait headline is that females are getting by on cheezed standards. The whole thing reeks of sweaty socks from top to bottom:
1. Popular Military (yeah whatever) is actually Bright Mountain Media, yet another company which pretends to “serve those who serve” but really just try to fleece the 5h1t out of them.
2. BMM is so shady this is the crap they pass off as bona fides/accolades: https://www.brightmountainmedia.com/publishing/
A metric ton of unverifiable and meaningless numbers preceded by a pukefest of fluff.
3. This particular piece in addition to many others on that site are written by “Staff Writer”… Staff Writer… are you f00king kidding me? Staff writer? Who the F is that? Can I send Staff Writer an email to ask questions? Can I check Staff Writer’s credentials or affiliations? No I can’t because it’s BS. For all I know Staff Writer in this case is some pissed off soldier who was in the very class talked about and had a grudge against a female there and emailed this junk to them.
4. As for the “anonymous claim” well what is it? If the standards set were held to then STFU, those are the standards if you don’t like them, don’t join. That or become a US Senator and have them changed. If the standards were cheezed off-the-books then offer proof or again STFU. I’m also going to make an assumption that “expectations” means “criteria” and if PopMil were a real news source it would’ve clarified that.
5. Requesting anonymity is a load of 5h1t in this case, no one’s life is in jeopardy by the matter being discussed. If your so-called career would be ruined by speaking on this it’s not a career worth having. If these statements really came from recent OSUT graduates then they’ve already ruined their careers by taking a big 5h1t on the Army Values.

There man, is that long enough? I’m drained.. was all pumped the other day for a funny post about that “What Koreans really think about the US Army” article and this I saw this garbage, completely ruined my comedy buzz. Anyway it’s Friday, I’m off until the 5th so …o

Smokes
Smokes
Reply to  liz
6 years ago

You know, for 30 years I’d of defended Lynda Carter as the woman worthy of wonder (well her and Erin Gray as Wilma Deering.. beedie beedie) but damn… Gal Gadot doesn’t just pull off the sexy, she pulls off the badass too. I missed most Batman and all Superman movies the last 10 yrs or so, slept through Bat V Sup but I think I’m going to pony up some $ to see this. A shame I’ll have to endure that c0ck5wab Chris Pine though.

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