"Four Women Pass Marine Corps Infantry Test For The First Time" Army headed in same direction?

Participating in combat operations is not the same thing as being trained, equipped and deployed for the purpose of offensive combat operations in combat arms specialties.  Defensive perimeter patrols and manning a turret for security are not the same. 

Is the object here equality?  Okay, let's drop bifurcated fitness standards for men and women.  Why should women be able to take a substantially easier fitness test and get the same/better consideration for promotion than a man--and if you think that making fitness tests easier for everyone is the answer you already show your bias.  Why are women not required to register with the selective service in order to receive federal educational benefits?  Is anyone railing for equal treatment under the law in these respects?

When a man enlists he is usually given a first, second and third choice for MOS preference.  Even if infantry is listed nowhere, many men find themselves in the 0300/XXB occ-field.  Now they are expected to serve alongside and rely upon people who are inherently physically weaker and frail, and this increases risk to life and limb.  If weaker team members only got themselves killed that would be one thing, but this is not the case. 

In other endeavors these differences are acknowledged.  In which sports do women compete for top ranks with men.  Boxing?  Women can qualify for male weight classes--why is this not being pursued?  Basketball?  Let's unite women's college basketball and the WNBA with men's programs.  Football? (Right.) 

But let's look at less strenuous sports.  Women don't even compete with men in golf, bowling or curling.  When I noticed that women and men don't compete with one another in top tier curling I was baffled.

Rowing is a very good example.  Not only do men and women not participate together, women's' times are consistently lengthier than men's'.  Even more relevant: stress fractures to the ribs are very common among women in crew--their skeletons are less able to endure the same strain as men in the SAME sport. (Even though they are slower.)  It is a fact that women, though mentally tough, are physiologically weaker and more frail.  This isn't a bigoted rant; it is science.  Basic science.

This doesn't mean that there aren't some women who can't out perform some, or even most men, in certain physical tasks, but the fact that these cases are very exceptional proves my point.

 Offensive combat ops are extremely physical and, at times, push military personnel beyond their training.  Relevant, objective objections to women's inclusion within the infantry are not the same as reasons utilized in arguments against integration of persons of diverse ethnicity or sexual orientation.

When I was in, I consistently performed 20 dead hang pull-ups, over 60 sit-ups in less than 2 minutes and ran 3 miles in under 18 minutes to earn points towards cutting score.  Where are the politicians/civil rights activists clamoring to give women the same opportunity to prove themselves by the same tests as men? (Queue crickets chirping here.)

...that's what I thought.  (For the record, civil rights activists have maintained that requiring women to meet the same physical standards as men is an exclusionary practice--which is an acknowledgment that women are inherently physically weaker and more frail.)

Let's keep in mind that we are currently discussing these issues in desert conditions.  I have participated in combat ops in forests, jungles--both in Asia and Central/South America--as well as deserts.  At times I had to carry up to three radios, two PRC 77's and an FM--for coordinating air.  And let's not forget the encryption gear.  Let's see these women hump in Panama and Honduras under these conditions.  Mount Mammer-Jammer and a certain Ridge near San Onifre seemed demanding at the time, but the rigors of SOI didn't compare to duties actually performed in the FMF.  

These women's SOI graduations are not strides in equality; they are a tribute to making exceptions in the name of inequality--that is, a tribute to hypocrisy.

Require women, across the board, to register with the selective service, require women to meet the same physical standards as men--without making tests easier, and put female recruits in the same pool for occ-field selection as men--those would be steps towards true equality.  (This should be the order in which these steps should be implemented.)

What we see here is a dog and pony show that will make our Corps less combat effective and result in unnecessary casualties.