Posted on Dec 31, 2013
Marine Corps Delays Pull-Up Requirement for Females
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http://www.stripes.com/marines-delay-changes-to-female-pull-up-rules-1.259871
45% of Females and 1% of Males unable to meet standard, but according to one female Marine Capt, it's not an issue of capability..........
What are you thoughts?
The Marine Corps has delayed changes to its female pull-up standards after data showed that many potential Marines were unable to meet the new standards.
Marine Corps
Standards
Women in the Military
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 13
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CSM
This is just fine and dandy for Marines but I would be pissed if the Army tried implementing this! Women want equal opportunity not equal treatment.
Equal opportunity means having the same chance as everyone else to perform the exact same standard.
Equal treatment means everyone gets to wear ASU skirts, shave their heads and see the same docs. Equal treatment is stupid because the two genders are not equal. This whole issue is beyond ridiculous.
This is just fine and dandy for Marines but I would be pissed if the Army tried implementing this! Women want equal opportunity not equal treatment.
Equal opportunity means having the same chance as everyone else to perform the exact same standard.
Equal treatment means everyone gets to wear ASU skirts, shave their heads and see the same docs. Equal treatment is stupid because the two genders are not equal. This whole issue is beyond ridiculous.
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SSG Robert Burns
Yea the bad part was I had to go get on the t-cups equivalent ride at Bush Gardens to make up for it. 6'2" 215lbs crammed up in there looking like a clown. Parenthood....
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CPT (Join to see)
...but using your same analogy of height, there's an important point to be made. At the amusement park, height rules have a good reason behind them. On the other hand, the Florida State Troopers were forced to change their hiring standards because they required that all Troopers be a minimum of 6' tall. The problem was that they could not prove that the height standard was an absolute requirement to successfully do the job (but there is definitely an intimidation factor there when you get pulled over). At the same time, since less than 5% of women are that tall, and since there are races that tend to be shorter than others, it was ruled discriminatory. <div><br></div><div>It is not just about whether a person can meet the standard, but whether the standard is actually relevant. How would you argue that Pull Ups are a flat out necessity to be a Marine, but totally unnecessary to be an Infantry Soldier in the Army? Why isn't emotional stability a standard? Or how about pain tolerance? Or whether or not you're a "bleeder"? </div><div><br></div><div>I am not saying standards should be lowered, bent, whatever. I am saying is that they should be relevant.</div>
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SSG Robert Burns
Fair point but I don't think it applies here. The Marine Corps has decided that pull ups are way to measure fitness capabilities of their marines and the Army has decided to measure it other ways. They are different organizations with different missions and different standards. It doesn't make either one irrelevant. I personally believe the pull-up is a great way to measure combat ability for individuals, especially when it comes to pulling yourself up a wall or out of a flipped over truck with a full combat load and maybe a wounded buddy.
Just like the ht req. is for a good reason for roller coasters, I believe that the ht req for state troopers when it was implemented was for a good reason too. I don't think it was meant to be discriminatory, just effective in intimidation, deescalation, and physical dominance.
We do the same thing (or did when I was there ) for soldiers on the DMZ. Heck we even do it for the color guard. LOL
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It's actually 55% were unable to meet the standard; 45% passed. I'd also be interested to know the rest of the APFT stats. What are the pushup percentages and are they the same as males?<div>You want to know why they "delayed" the changes? Because now they'd be chaptering out over half of all female recruits who come in. Pretty soon they'd just stop recruiting women at that rate.</div><div>If I know that 9 of 10 men I recruit will pass and only 4 of the 10 women I recruit will, well that's an easy decision.</div>
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SFC Jones - you hit upon a great point about "equal treatment" and SGT Woods touches on "equal opportunity". And some great back and forth from SSG Burns.
It can and never will be equal. We all know that "on the average" due to physiological differences, there will always be a performance difference. And as MSG Quick has pointed out, there are always those outliers that do better/worse than the average and against the opposite sex, but that is not the norm.
Now, when a recruit shows up at the MEPS station, do males/females have different options?
I know that it used to be that for males, the first screen that was shown was all combat arms and they really tried to push you to those jobs as that was what the army needed filled. Now, with equal opportunity, will new female recruits be "pushed" into those jobs at the same rate as males? or are we only going to allow those females who "want" to go combat arms do that?
Doesn't sound equal to me if I'm a male, sounds like I will have less diversity or opportunity for jobs than what females will have.
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