Against cooties
Donald Trump is not the only one fighting an imaginary war. Trump thinks there is one going on in Portland. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is waging one against military fitness double standards that don’t exist. There will be one standard going forward, the former Fox News Weekend co-host insists: the male standard.
To review (ABC News):
In addition to the newly proposed annual fitness exam, Hegseth’s speech emphasized “gender-neutral” testing with men and women required to meet the same minimum physical performance benchmarks.
Speaking to hundreds of high-ranking military officials in Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth said it was important that certain combat positions return “to the highest male standard,” acknowledging that it may lead to fewer women serving in combat roles.
“If it means no women qualify for combat jobs, then so be it,” Hegseth said.
One problem. There is no standard for men and another for women.
BBC:
“I am sick and tired of Pete Hegseth lying about women in the military and standards,” former US Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath said in a video on Instagram.
“There has always been one standard for those jobs,” she said. “There was never a man’s standard or a woman’s standard for flying a jet.”
Elisa Cardnell, an 11-year US Navy veteran told the BBC:
“These standards have always been gender neutral, and they have always been set at a high standard,” she said. “Of course, not all women are going to make those, but not all men do either.”
It is a weird obsession Hegseth has.
“Eliminating the current highly rigorous standards for women in combat positions has nothing to do with increasing lethality and everything to do with forcing women out of the Armed Forces,” responded Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.).
“Secretary Hegseth has said he does not believe women should serve in combat,” said Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot. “Now he is trying to make that happen by escalating his war on women in the military, despite presenting no evidence that women cannot ably serve in combat positions.”
ABC News again:
“To me, Hegseth wants a military that looks a certain way … which [is] definitely male and muscular,” Jill Hasday, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School with expertise in sex discrimination in the military, told ABC News. “It seems like his expectation is that once they enforce more ‘rigorous standards,’ more women will be pushed out.”
That is exactly it, a friend noted. Most boys outgrow wanting to keep girlz out of the tree house because of “cooties” by age 11, she said.
Hegseth is 45.
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