Should Women Follow The same Regulations? [Archive]

Anonymous

12-31-1969, 08:00 PM

Laura, you asked about regulations, but I think what you're really asking about is physical standards.**Women and Men already do follow the same regulations, as we should.**In some cases, however, the physical standards differ, so I assume that's your question, and to it I answer.........YES, YES, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Equality without equality is a farce, and having a different standard based on gender is a travesty of justice at best and a blow to our National Defense at worst.**I’ve got 15 years of service in the Navy, (14 active, 1 1/2 reserves,) and I’ve thought long & hard about this issue.**I’ve got very strong feelings about it, & I believe most people do.**I’m going to speak from a Navy perspective, & trust that if I make a generalization about the military that isn’t consistent between services, a member from the different branch will clarify.**These are of course, just MY opinions.**And I apologize in advance to all the people I’m going to offend.**My points are this:**....................................1. Currently, men and women have different physical standards for the semi-annual PRT (Physical Readiness Test).**I score an “Outstanding” on my PRT, however I think my raw scores (47 pushups in 2 minutes, 87 situps in 2 minutes, and run 1 ½ miles in 12 minutes 10 seconds) would translate to an “Excellent” for a man my age.**(The scale is Fail-Sat-Good-Excellent-Outstanding.)**This causes lots of problems.**Men tend to feel they are being treated unfairly, and that women are being held to a different (and lesser)**standard.**Women tend to feel lesser, that not is much is expected of them.**I know my outstanding feels “cheap”, anyhow, when I talk to one of my male coworkers.**Any arguments of equality sound hollow after a PRT.**Overall, the current way of doing business is very bad for morale, cohesiveness, and pride...........................................2. Lots of people, however, (me included), sometimes forget to look at the big picture with the PRT, and that is:**WHAT IS THE PURPOSE BEHIND IT?**It's more than a flawed grading system; the entire reason for doing it is flawed.**In addition to being broken down by gender, the scores are also tallied differently for different age groups.**A 50 year old man is expected to do much less than his 18 year old shipmate.**There are some women who can run circles around me, but I do better than most.**Saying that if we “raise the standards, people will live up to them” isn’t really realistic in this case, because what it looks like to me is these standards were developed not to identify a minimum strength requirement, but to determine what an AVERAGE person could do if they were in reasonably good physical shape.**To reach this average, the number crunchers had to acknowledge that the AVERAGE man is stronger than the AVERAGE woman, and the AVERAGE wet-behind-the-ears-pup is stronger than the AVERAGE geezer.** In other words, this test isn’t designed to be a minimum standard for a job, the purpose of this test is to measure people’s physical fitness.**........................................ .......3. So the next logical question in my mind is, who really CARES how physically fit somebody is?**Is that REALLY relevant to the job at hand?**Now anyone reading this will naturally respond, “Of COURSE it is!!! You defend our country, and in doing so may have to do X…Y…Z..” …. And here’s where I throw up the BS flag and say NO, we’re looking at this completely backwards and it doesn’t make any sense.**(This doesn't mean I think we should scrap the PT program as a whole; I think it's good to have a healthy force, and excercising together is good for Esprit de Corps.)**The issue, however, should NOT be how fit we are.**The issue should be do we have the strength and endurance we need to be effective. And what that means is this:**Physical testing should measure the physical requirements for the job at hand.**For the Navy, for example, NOBODY who can’t carry a fully charged CO2 bottle, effectively handle a fire hose with a firefighting team or wear an OBA without sucking down all the oxygen in half the time should be allowed to serve.**Harsh?**Maybe, but realistic.**If that means fewer women (because the AVERAGE is less strong) or a younger force (because the AVERAGE pup is stronger), then that’s what ought to be done.**(Quite honestly, though, I think most people serving now are capable of meeting these standards , and yes, that definitely includes the women.)**In the Army and Marines, I suspect these standards would need to be higher.**In the Air Force, probably lower.**(Sorry, AF.)**..........................................4. In addition, there should be physical tests to determine qualification for the more physically demanding jobs, that exceed the “minimum” standards for each service.**Obviously, the Navy Seals would have a much higher standard.**But on a perhaps less obvious point, a Yeoman shouldn’t have to do any more than the minimum physical standards for the service, but an HT**(Hull Technician, welder), who is handling heavy metals all day, sure ought to.**There are lots of steps in between the paper pushing and the G.I. Joe/Jane jobs, and there’s really no reason to require a paper-pusher to be a rock-hard fighting machine.**(No, I’m not either one, so no attacks from anyone, please.)** Currently, the military requires all personnel entering the service to take an ASVAB test, which is similar to an ACT or SAT, but much easier, and geared more to the vocational vice the academic.**It’s supposed to work as a gauge to determine who’s likely going to succeed in the various jobs, &**serves as a qualifier as well.**Without a certain minimum score, you can’t get into certain jobs or schools.**The scores are different for the different occupations.**I submit that a job in the military is more than just brains, you’ve got to have the brawn as well, and our tests should reflect exactly what we want our people to be capable of in both areas.**.........................................5 .** I recently read an opinion from a man who was upset with another aspect of our current PRT testing, and I can understand why.**Our annual evaluations have a block on there for military bearing, and part of that mark correlates directly to PRT scores.**Not raw scores, which would be the same for everyone, but Good, Excellent, etc, as I previously explained.**This carries the appearance of inequality one insidious step further…. It looks like the women are getting an unfair advantage on performance evaluations as well as a result.**Granted, it’s only one area, but the ramifications of that kind of discrimination are colossal.**Since all the Hull Technicians (for example) are evaluated against each other, it sure makes sense to me that all the Hull Technicians ought to get out there & do their physical ability test together, & a pass or fail on THAT is**what ought to be used as a gauge for their evaluations.**Our current way of testing them (the PRT, with everybody else) is too low a standard for their physical strength requirements, anyhow.**The argument could be raised that it then wouldn’t be fair for the HTs who are competing against the other members of the crew for evaluation groupings.**(Groupings is a PC term for rankings amongst their peers.)**Well, as it is, the HTs require a lower ASVAB score than some ratings, but they aren’t required to do a lot of studying to compete with the more brainy rates. (No offense, HTs, I know many of you are very brainy.)**In fact, we take exams to advance in our jobs, and although I need to solve a few trigonometry or algebra problems to determine signal frequency or wave angle, there's no reason in the world that a cook should have to do that.**And I don't even want to THINK about what a Nuclear Power person is required to know.**Point is, if the HTs have to be more physically strong but not as bright to effectively do their jobs, than so be it.**Strength SHOULD be part of the standard they’re evaluated on, because their strength directly impacts their ability to perform their job.**......................................6. I’ve been asking a lot of questions of my friends at work lately as a result of some opinions I’ve been reading, and I think one of my Marine buddies summed it up best.**After 18 years of service, he’s done his time in the world’s hot spots.**He said, “Hell no I don’t care if there’s a bunch of women workin’ with me out there.**Had a couple out there, & they did just fine.**All those arguments about hygeine and sexual harassment and all are a bunch of crap.**When we’re all out there on the front, things get real simple, and people forget all that PC sh1t & just do the job, including the women.**But they better make damned sure they don’t lower any standards just to get ‘em out there, because the standards are all the same when we’re layin’ out there in the dirt.”**He’s absolutely right.

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