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The US Marines tested all-male squads against mixed-gender ones

35 points by velodrome 11y ago

mattmanser 11y ago
Sounds deeply flawed given that the men had previous experience and the women didn't.
- omonra 11y ago
  All-male squads, teams and crews and gender-integrated squads, teams, and crews had a noticeable difference in their performance of the basic combat tasks of negotiating obstacles and evacuating casualties. For example, when negotiating the wall obstacle, male Marines threw their packs to the top of the wall, whereas female Marines required regular assistance in getting their packs to the top. During casualty evacuation assessments, there were notable differences in execution times between all-male and gender-integrated groups, except in the case where teams conducted a casualty evacuation as a one-Marine fireman’s carry of another (in which case it was most often a male Marine who “evacuated” the casualty)
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    Oh, so the trained soldiers who'd had loads of downtime to work out threw their packs to the top of the wall and the recently recruited green soldiers didn't? What a surprise... Seriously, why would they used inexperienced females mixed with experienced males if they didn't want to deliberately skew the result? They obviously had access to raw recruits, but there's a deeply flawed methodology using experienced men with inexperienced women.
    - omonra 11y ago
      Can you name one physical activity in which females can compete with males? Are there any gender neutral pro sports leagues?
      - ericedge 11y ago
        Women seem especially well-adapted to the trauma spaceflight inflicts, and have better caloric efficiency, at least according to this NASA study: https://www.nasa.gov/content/men-women-spaceflight-adaptation/ https://www.nasa.gov/content/men-women-spaceflight-adaptatio...
        omonra 11y ago
        I guess that sounds like justification to send women in space rather than put them in close form combat
        DanBC 11y ago
        Your question was whether there are any physical activities where women can compete with men. You were given one example where women outperform men in a physical activity. Here are more details of women who had less training than men managed to outperform those men in physical activity. http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13
        omonra 11y ago
        1. I fail to see women outperforming men on this test. I see them passing the tests - same as men 2. Even if we assume that they outperformed men on the tests, it does not qualify as 'outperforming men in a physical activity'.
      - mattmanser 11y ago
        That's not what I'm arguing at all and it's disingenuous to frame the argument that way. If they want the requirement to be an effective soldier is to be able to toss a pack of a certain weight to the top of a wall, then make it a training requirement and I'm sure suddenly lots of women would be able to do it. By framing this discussion as men are stronger than women, you're technically right, but it's a meaningless measure. The actual question is, can trained women be strong enough? That's what they were trying to simulate but they cheated and stacked the deck against the women. And your statement is meaningless against that measure. And the other disingenuous part of the 'tests' is that was every man in a squad able to carry a wounded man? Or did the squads just tend to volunteer the strongest person each time which by the laws of average, because men are on average stronger than women, would tend to be a man? So it's another massaged statistic.
- andosa 11y ago
  That's definitely a flaw in the study. On the other hand, I doubt using equally experienced males would change the conclusions significantly: majority of the tasks seem to have involved major physical effort, and you don't need a study to know that on average, males will perform better in physically demanding excercies.
  - mhd 11y ago
    Weapon use seems to have been a big part, and is that really a "major physical effort"? Unless you fire the rifle at the end of an obstacle course...
    - brohee 11y ago
      Ever ran with a machine gun? The fact the women seem to have done as well as men wrt hit probability using the M4 but not the heavier weapons, really point to physical limitations and not lack of skills. The casualty evacuation issue is also a major issue, men can carry both sexes, women will have trouble with many men, and will be completely unable to move the bigger men...
    - jimworm 11y ago
      From personal experience in target sports, strength and fitness plays a surprisingly big part in weapons use. Being able to handle a weapon with the least of effort while maintaining a low heart rate makes aiming a lot easier.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    It's not just a flaw, it invalidates every conclusion. Who knows what the results would have been if both the men and women had been inexperienced, instead of skewing it to the men. How much working out had the experienced men done? How many tricks and techniques had they picked up to add to their abilities? Also, what happens when both are experienced. Does it turn out that after a year the women build more strength on average to make up for present childhood norms emphasising femininity?
    - 11y ago
- bsaul 11y ago
  Thought the same, but the reason given ( requiring assistance for climbing a wall, or aiming abilities) seem to point more at pure physical abilities rather than tactical experience. Which is not really surprising. You wouldn't expect a female pro athlete to win against a male pro one, and the warfield is very physicaly demanding. Even in Israel, I don't think ground fighting forces are composed of women. I've heard they were assigned to radar and monitoring tasks (not 100% sure, though).
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - simonh 11y ago
    >Even in Israel, I don't think ground fighting forces are composed of women. Women have certainly served in combat roles, and been involved in action including lethal shooting, since 2000 (1). For example the Caracal combat batallion is 70% women(2), at least several of which are known to have been involved in firefights (clarification - killed people). There is also currently a sniper team lead by a woman officer and there is a female combat battalion commander. Edit: The calculation for Israel is different. They are a small country and need conscription in order to maintain a viable combat force. They have a stark choice. Include women in combat roles, or increase the service term for men, or reduce the size of their combat force. But the fact is they have shown that women are perfectly capable of being operationally effective. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces#Combat_roles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Fo... (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracal_Battalion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracal_Battalion
- rtets 11y ago
  this study is definitely deeply flawed - and disappointing as this would have been a really interesting set of results if it wasn't uncontrolled.
- bakhy 11y ago
  to say the least. they could have easily controlled for that, and gotten results which could serve as strong guidelines. their conclusion, stressing that "an inch" is enough to lose a war, makes it even sound suspicious. i mean, it is quite unsurprising that women will be worse in certain tasks, but a more correct study could have told us exactly where to draw the line. and in any case, IMO, gender should not be the criteria, but rather simply, e.g., can you throw the fucking pack over the wall? no? then desk job for you. what you have in your pants means nothing if you have the needed muscle and brains to do the job right. i mean, i'm a man, but i'm sure there are many women that could throw a backpack higher than me :D
- DanBC 11y ago
  There have been other tests of women against the male standard where women either did the same or outperformed the men, even though the women had more limited experience. http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13
eruditely 11y ago
Mark my words, some of the over the top diversity training is foreign intelligence, this is not a conspiracy theory. I grew up in an immigrant community but never ever met people who were as enthuasiatic as "diversity" or ultra integrationalist past the point of function as I hear about. One day I think we will find out that people were manipulating us at the points we were the most sensitive, that is our relationships to each other as human beings.
- Uhhrrr 11y ago
  The thing is, there's a predominant strain of American thought that believes perfect social harmony is attainable. You don't need a Communist plot to provoke it into its current form; you just need a sufficient number of more cynical people willing to levy penalties from the first group via grievances.
  - eruditely 11y ago
    Some of it is much too excessive, it's a perfect opportunity and no one suspects it at all. This will show up in the archives half a century from now.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  Are you saying that promotion of gender equality is a CIA plot? Can you elaborate a bit more about this “manipulation” you’re talking about, and what it is supposed to accomplish?
  - WorldWideWayne 11y ago
    Do you think "manipulation" and social engineering by our three-letter agencies is just a completely outlandish idea? These agencies have no problem overthrowing democratically elected governments in other countries (See Iran, 1953). They have no problem kidnapping people and feeding them LSD (See MK-Ultra). Henry Makow explains one theory here - http://www.henrymakow.com/001904.html http://www.henrymakow.com/001904.html - (Basically, "The hidden goal of feminism is to destroy the family, which interferes with state brainwashing of the young. Side benefits include depopulation and widening the tax base. Displacing men in the role of providers also destabilizes the family.") Say what you want about Henry; the guy is no dummy. And if you still think that the CIA and "the powers that be" don't want to influence society at large, then go look up Operation Mockingbird.
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
I wonder if this would reduce the incidence of rape and child abuse that occurs in warzones and peacekeeping missions.
- pas 11y ago
  Maybe. But probably the whole context and power dynamics is a lot more important (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England).
escherize 11y ago
The actual headline was "The US Marines tested all-male squads against mixed-gender ones, and the results were pretty bleak". > bleak Bleak means roughly "not hopeful or encouraging". That highlights the author's bias pretty clearly. Nevermind that this research has the ability to save lives. The findings are bleak to the author because they contradict ideas of equality of outcome.
- jacobolus 11y ago
  I think you’re projecting. They were ordered to open all combat roles to women. If that results in problems, that could well be considered “bleak” irrespective of other concerns about equality. Beyond the headline, the piece sticks narrowly to the facts. I don‘t think the author let any obvious bias through.
  - lawlessone 11y ago
    Is it not better to have the roles open but simply make sure that everyone that gets through meets a minimum standard?
- vacri 11y ago
  You're projecting, and the author has presented the information neutrally. The results are also bleak to gender-segregationists, since integration is mandated in less than half a year.
vacri 11y ago
What about testing for soft-skills? Would an integrated-gender unit be better at pacifying an area because it was more able to communicate with the locals? A regular criticism of the US military by it's allies in Iraq was that it's soldiers so rarely got out of their fortresses and armed vehicles and actually pressed the flesh, an action that significantly helps with pacification.
- pluma 11y ago
  Frankly, the US military isn't exactly known for its de-escalation or cultural sensitivity. My uncle served in a peacekeeping mission where they had the misfortune of coming in after the Americans, who had made it a habit to drive their tanks along the curbs so they'd be welcomed by rather disgruntled locals.
peteretep 11y ago
So the caveat about 50% in is huge enough as to render the exercise almost entirely pointless, and they could have easily controlled against it had there been any will to.
- masklinn 11y ago
  Here it is for those who can't be arsed to look for it (emphasis mine): > many of of the male study participants had previously served in combat units, whereas female participants, by necessity, came directly from infantry schools or from noncombat jobs.
bsder 11y ago
Sigh. Why didn't they use inexperienced soldiers of both sexes in the experiment? I smell some junior officer figuring out a way to deliver the result that his senior officer really wanted to hear. Now, to a certain extent, doubly inexperienced is also skewed because it would be quite removed from actual battlefield performance.
- dctoedt 11y ago
  > Why didn't they use inexperienced soldiers of both sexes in the experiment? That likely would be flawed in its own right --- these days there are probably few infantry squads composed solely of combat virgins. The Corps summary suggests that the study might have tried to control for lack of combat experience: "Male provisional infantry (those with no formal 03xx [i.e., infantry] school training) had higher hit percentages than the 0311 (school trained) females: M4: 44% vs 28%, M27: 38% vs 25%, M16A4w/M203: 26% vs 15%." [1] [1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-corps-force-integration-plan-summary.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-co..., linked FTA
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > That likely would be flawed in its own right --- these days there are probably few infantry squads composed solely of combat virgins. But since they weren't testing all-female squads, but integrated squads and all-male squads, this is easy to address: determine an appropriate and typical distribution of experience levels. For the all-male squads, use men of this distribution. For the integrated squads, do the same, only replace some-to-all of the combat-inexperienced men from the typical experience distribution with combat inexperienced women. Then you are getting a fair representation, without either skewing the overall experience distribution so you have atypical squads on both sides, or skewing the experience distribution low on only the integrade side so you aren't comparing like against like.
zelos 11y ago
Should we really be comparing the two genders at all? Is it possible to just set minimum standards - "must be able to run x km in y minutes", "must be able to get x% of rounds on target at y m" - and then accept anyone who meets or exceeds those?
- irremediable 11y ago
  I tend to agree with this. Playing devil's advocate a little: it might still be important to test how the gender mix affects group dynamics. You might have a case where a mixed-gender squad is more cohesive, say; or you might have male soldiers being overprotective of female soldiers.
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  The study is not primarily comparing genders, it's comparing gender-integrated squads with all-male squads. Accepting or denying people based on individual performance does not necessarily account for whatever psychological differences might be at play in those types of squads. For example, the article mentions that male marines tended to be the ones who fireman's-carried an "evacuee" in gender-integrated squads. Maybe the women are capable of doing it, but the men feel some psychological pressure to do it instead of them (e.g., chivalry), or the women expect the men to do it (e.g., chivalry), affecting the way the squad operates. The squad also mentions higher rates of injury among women marines. That said, maybe there are some individual performance standards that cause these squad differences disappear. For example, perhaps both male and female marines who can run an 8 minute mile get injured less in training, but fewer women than men can run the 8 minute mile. Setting that as the time standard might eliminate the discrepancy at the squad level. The study appears to call out considerable performance differences however (1): > The well documented comparative disadvantage in upper and lower-body strength resulted in higher fatigue levels of most women, which contributed to greater incidents of overuse injuries such as stress fractures. > Anaerobic Power: Females possessed 15% less power than males; the female top 25th percentile overlaps with the bottom 25th percentile for males. Anaerobic Capacity: Females possessed 15% less capacity; the female top 10th percentile overlaps with the bottom 50th percentile of males. Aerobic Capacity (VO2Max): Females had 10% lower capacity; the female top 10th percentile overlaps with bottom 50th percentile of males > Within the research at the Infantry Training Battalion, females undergoing that entry-level training were injured at more than six-times the rate of their male counterparts. 27% of female injuries were attributed to the task of movement under load, compared to 13% for their male counterparts, carrying a similar load. The military is right to study these things and try to do so objectively. And I don't see why it's wrong to compare genders or races - it sometimes leads to useful advances like studies of disease that affect certain parts of the population and not others (breast cancer, sarcoidosis, etc.) The point is that we're speculating and more data will lead to better decisions. (1) https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-corps-force-integration-plan-summary.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-co...
dctoedt 11y ago
FTA: “Of all the consistent patterns we can discern in war, there are two concepts of universal significance in generating combat power: speed and focus. ... speed is a weapon.” [1] (quoting the Corps publication Warfighting [2]). FTA: "Research from various U.S. and allied military studies reveal that the two primary factors associated with success in the task of movement under load are 1) lean body mass and 2) absolute VO2 Max." [1] [1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-corps-force-integration-plan-summary.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-co... [2] http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCDP%201%20Warfighting.pdf http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCDP%201%20Wa... (1997; couldn't find a more-recent one).
FrightHorse 11y ago
A great many people seems to be very upset that a large portion of the non-integrated squads had experienced Marines, as if this negates the test. Two things: First, the integrated squads had experienced Marines as well. They selected randomly (within criteria) to have the MOS (Military Occupational Speciality) and experience distribution a typical combat unit would have. That means both junior and senior Marines. That also means that, as combat MOS's have not yet been integrated, women will by definition be inexperienced in combat roles. This does not mean the women were inexperienced Marines. Second: This is not an experiment about what's fair, it's to test what's real right now. And when women are integrated into combat roles en masse, this is what that will look like. Women will be less experienced and will be both integrated with, and adversary to, experienced male combatants. This is a test of the current situation--everyone is green once. But that changes. And women will gain significant combat experience. You'll see an evolution in training to shore up potential weaknesses and exploit inherent strengths (and they are manifold) that women bring to the table. That said. As it currently stands with women having had less experience, there is the very real potential that those units they are integrated into will experience a s degraded combat capability until training learns to compensate for certain inherent physical and psychological differences between the sexes (not to mention internal cultural hurdles that they inevitably be faced with). Degraded capability means an increased likelihood of casualties in combat. As I said, I believe this will change. I believe in five years this type of test will yield far, far closer results. The question is this: Is that painful (and very likely lethal) initial period worth the ultimate goal of total integration? Is the risk to our servicemen and servicewomen worth that ultimate reward? I believe it is. I was pro-gender integration before I joined the US Army, I was pro-integration during my six years in the Service, and I remain fervently pro-integration years later as a significantly balder and fatter man. It's worth it. But don't hide yourself away from the fact that there will be pain.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  It seems the military in general does not believe the initial painful period would be worth the ultimate goal of total integration. The article quotes a government study from 1992: A military unit at maximum combat effectiveness is a military unit least likely to suffer casualties. Winning in war is often only a matter of inches, and unnecessary distraction or any dilution of the combat effectiveness puts the mission and lives in jeopardy. Risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires or interests of an individual, or group of individuals, is more than bad military judgment. It is morally wrong. This was 1992, when there didn't exist the taboo we have today of not speaking against gender integration and government and military leaders could speak their minds.
mekal 11y ago
2017 - This just in...so it turns out it may have been the men slowing down the integrated squads in that US Marine "evaluation" a few years back . Yesterday an all-female squad dominated their traditional all-male counterparts in everything except for the wall climb. With the on-going shortage of tactically relevant walls to climb in Iraq, we may start to see more female only units leading the way.
sarvinc 11y ago
When I joined the Army I weighed ~ 120lbs. Less than a year later I had completed basic training, advanced infantry training, jump school and the Ranger Indoctrination Program (programs completed in the order listed). After graduating RIP I served in special operations as an Airborne Ranger. I'll never forget something that happened during my first training mission with the 75th Ranger Regt. After several hours of rafting and patrolling I was walking up a hill carrying a full load plus an M4. I was sucking hard, covered in sweat and my whole body was on fire. A tabbed E4 walks by me, not a drop of sweat on him, and up the hill like it's nothing. He looks over at me, as he's walking by, and says "you're carrying that and I'm carrying this." He was carrying a 240G (probably 5x the weight of my M4). I leave it up to you to form your own interpretation of his words. ~5 years in Regiment I weighed 170lbs and could run through everything I did my first deployment carrying twice the weight. The importance of training is immeasurable.

35 points by velodrome 11y ago

mattmanser 11y ago

Sounds deeply flawed given that the men had previous experience and the women didn't.

omonra 11y ago
All-male squads, teams and crews and gender-integrated squads, teams, and crews had a noticeable difference in their performance of the basic combat tasks of negotiating obstacles and evacuating casualties. For example, when negotiating the wall obstacle, male Marines threw their packs to the top of the wall, whereas female Marines required regular assistance in getting their packs to the top. During casualty evacuation assessments, there were notable differences in execution times between all-male and gender-integrated groups, except in the case where teams conducted a casualty evacuation as a one-Marine fireman’s carry of another (in which case it was most often a male Marine who “evacuated” the casualty)
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Oh, so the trained soldiers who'd had loads of downtime to work out threw their packs to the top of the wall and the recently recruited green soldiers didn't? What a surprise... Seriously, why would they used inexperienced females mixed with experienced males if they didn't want to deliberately skew the result? They obviously had access to raw recruits, but there's a deeply flawed methodology using experienced men with inexperienced women.
  - omonra 11y ago
    Can you name one physical activity in which females can compete with males? Are there any gender neutral pro sports leagues?
    - ericedge 11y ago
      Women seem especially well-adapted to the trauma spaceflight inflicts, and have better caloric efficiency, at least according to this NASA study: https://www.nasa.gov/content/men-women-spaceflight-adaptation/ https://www.nasa.gov/content/men-women-spaceflight-adaptatio...
      - omonra 11y ago
        I guess that sounds like justification to send women in space rather than put them in close form combat
        DanBC 11y ago
        Your question was whether there are any physical activities where women can compete with men. You were given one example where women outperform men in a physical activity. Here are more details of women who had less training than men managed to outperform those men in physical activity. http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13
        omonra 11y ago
        1. I fail to see women outperforming men on this test. I see them passing the tests - same as men 2. Even if we assume that they outperformed men on the tests, it does not qualify as 'outperforming men in a physical activity'.
    - mattmanser 11y ago
      That's not what I'm arguing at all and it's disingenuous to frame the argument that way. If they want the requirement to be an effective soldier is to be able to toss a pack of a certain weight to the top of a wall, then make it a training requirement and I'm sure suddenly lots of women would be able to do it. By framing this discussion as men are stronger than women, you're technically right, but it's a meaningless measure. The actual question is, can trained women be strong enough? That's what they were trying to simulate but they cheated and stacked the deck against the women. And your statement is meaningless against that measure. And the other disingenuous part of the 'tests' is that was every man in a squad able to carry a wounded man? Or did the squads just tend to volunteer the strongest person each time which by the laws of average, because men are on average stronger than women, would tend to be a man? So it's another massaged statistic.
andosa 11y ago
That's definitely a flaw in the study. On the other hand, I doubt using equally experienced males would change the conclusions significantly: majority of the tasks seem to have involved major physical effort, and you don't need a study to know that on average, males will perform better in physically demanding excercies.
- mhd 11y ago
  Weapon use seems to have been a big part, and is that really a "major physical effort"? Unless you fire the rifle at the end of an obstacle course...
  - brohee 11y ago
    Ever ran with a machine gun? The fact the women seem to have done as well as men wrt hit probability using the M4 but not the heavier weapons, really point to physical limitations and not lack of skills. The casualty evacuation issue is also a major issue, men can carry both sexes, women will have trouble with many men, and will be completely unable to move the bigger men...
  - jimworm 11y ago
    From personal experience in target sports, strength and fitness plays a surprisingly big part in weapons use. Being able to handle a weapon with the least of effort while maintaining a low heart rate makes aiming a lot easier.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  It's not just a flaw, it invalidates every conclusion. Who knows what the results would have been if both the men and women had been inexperienced, instead of skewing it to the men. How much working out had the experienced men done? How many tricks and techniques had they picked up to add to their abilities? Also, what happens when both are experienced. Does it turn out that after a year the women build more strength on average to make up for present childhood norms emphasising femininity?
  - 11y ago
bsaul 11y ago
Thought the same, but the reason given ( requiring assistance for climbing a wall, or aiming abilities) seem to point more at pure physical abilities rather than tactical experience. Which is not really surprising. You wouldn't expect a female pro athlete to win against a male pro one, and the warfield is very physicaly demanding. Even in Israel, I don't think ground fighting forces are composed of women. I've heard they were assigned to radar and monitoring tasks (not 100% sure, though).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- simonh 11y ago
  >Even in Israel, I don't think ground fighting forces are composed of women. Women have certainly served in combat roles, and been involved in action including lethal shooting, since 2000 (1). For example the Caracal combat batallion is 70% women(2), at least several of which are known to have been involved in firefights (clarification - killed people). There is also currently a sniper team lead by a woman officer and there is a female combat battalion commander. Edit: The calculation for Israel is different. They are a small country and need conscription in order to maintain a viable combat force. They have a stark choice. Include women in combat roles, or increase the service term for men, or reduce the size of their combat force. But the fact is they have shown that women are perfectly capable of being operationally effective. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces#Combat_roles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Fo... (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracal_Battalion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracal_Battalion
rtets 11y ago
this study is definitely deeply flawed - and disappointing as this would have been a really interesting set of results if it wasn't uncontrolled.
bakhy 11y ago
to say the least. they could have easily controlled for that, and gotten results which could serve as strong guidelines. their conclusion, stressing that "an inch" is enough to lose a war, makes it even sound suspicious. i mean, it is quite unsurprising that women will be worse in certain tasks, but a more correct study could have told us exactly where to draw the line. and in any case, IMO, gender should not be the criteria, but rather simply, e.g., can you throw the fucking pack over the wall? no? then desk job for you. what you have in your pants means nothing if you have the needed muscle and brains to do the job right. i mean, i'm a man, but i'm sure there are many women that could throw a backpack higher than me :D
DanBC 11y ago
There have been other tests of women against the male standard where women either did the same or outperformed the men, even though the women had more limited experience. http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html http://history.nasa.gov/printFriendly/flats.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13

eruditely 11y ago

Mark my words, some of the over the top diversity training is foreign intelligence, this is not a conspiracy theory. I grew up in an immigrant community but never ever met people who were as enthuasiatic as "diversity" or ultra integrationalist past the point of function as I hear about. One day I think we will find out that people were manipulating us at the points we were the most sensitive, that is our relationships to each other as human beings.

Uhhrrr 11y ago
The thing is, there's a predominant strain of American thought that believes perfect social harmony is attainable. You don't need a Communist plot to provoke it into its current form; you just need a sufficient number of more cynical people willing to levy penalties from the first group via grievances.
- eruditely 11y ago
  Some of it is much too excessive, it's a perfect opportunity and no one suspects it at all. This will show up in the archives half a century from now.
jacobolus 11y ago
Are you saying that promotion of gender equality is a CIA plot? Can you elaborate a bit more about this “manipulation” you’re talking about, and what it is supposed to accomplish?
- WorldWideWayne 11y ago
  Do you think "manipulation" and social engineering by our three-letter agencies is just a completely outlandish idea? These agencies have no problem overthrowing democratically elected governments in other countries (See Iran, 1953). They have no problem kidnapping people and feeding them LSD (See MK-Ultra). Henry Makow explains one theory here - http://www.henrymakow.com/001904.html http://www.henrymakow.com/001904.html - (Basically, "The hidden goal of feminism is to destroy the family, which interferes with state brainwashing of the young. Side benefits include depopulation and widening the tax base. Displacing men in the role of providers also destabilizes the family.") Say what you want about Henry; the guy is no dummy. And if you still think that the CIA and "the powers that be" don't want to influence society at large, then go look up Operation Mockingbird.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

I wonder if this would reduce the incidence of rape and child abuse that occurs in warzones and peacekeeping missions.

pas 11y ago
Maybe. But probably the whole context and power dynamics is a lot more important (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England).

escherize 11y ago

The actual headline was "The US Marines tested all-male squads against mixed-gender ones, and the results were pretty bleak". > bleak Bleak means roughly "not hopeful or encouraging". That highlights the author's bias pretty clearly. Nevermind that this research has the ability to save lives. The findings are bleak to the author because they contradict ideas of equality of outcome.

jacobolus 11y ago
I think you’re projecting. They were ordered to open all combat roles to women. If that results in problems, that could well be considered “bleak” irrespective of other concerns about equality. Beyond the headline, the piece sticks narrowly to the facts. I don‘t think the author let any obvious bias through.
- lawlessone 11y ago
  Is it not better to have the roles open but simply make sure that everyone that gets through meets a minimum standard?
vacri 11y ago
You're projecting, and the author has presented the information neutrally. The results are also bleak to gender-segregationists, since integration is mandated in less than half a year.

vacri 11y ago

What about testing for soft-skills? Would an integrated-gender unit be better at pacifying an area because it was more able to communicate with the locals? A regular criticism of the US military by it's allies in Iraq was that it's soldiers so rarely got out of their fortresses and armed vehicles and actually pressed the flesh, an action that significantly helps with pacification.

pluma 11y ago
Frankly, the US military isn't exactly known for its de-escalation or cultural sensitivity. My uncle served in a peacekeeping mission where they had the misfortune of coming in after the Americans, who had made it a habit to drive their tanks along the curbs so they'd be welcomed by rather disgruntled locals.

peteretep 11y ago

So the caveat about 50% in is huge enough as to render the exercise almost entirely pointless, and they could have easily controlled against it had there been any will to.

masklinn 11y ago
Here it is for those who can't be arsed to look for it (emphasis mine): > many of of the male study participants had previously served in combat units, whereas female participants, by necessity, came directly from infantry schools or from noncombat jobs.

bsder 11y ago

Sigh. Why didn't they use inexperienced soldiers of both sexes in the experiment? I smell some junior officer figuring out a way to deliver the result that his senior officer really wanted to hear. Now, to a certain extent, doubly inexperienced is also skewed because it would be quite removed from actual battlefield performance.

dctoedt 11y ago
> Why didn't they use inexperienced soldiers of both sexes in the experiment? That likely would be flawed in its own right --- these days there are probably few infantry squads composed solely of combat virgins. The Corps summary suggests that the study might have tried to control for lack of combat experience: "Male provisional infantry (those with no formal 03xx [i.e., infantry] school training) had higher hit percentages than the 0311 (school trained) females: M4: 44% vs 28%, M27: 38% vs 25%, M16A4w/M203: 26% vs 15%." [1] [1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-corps-force-integration-plan-summary.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-co..., linked FTA
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > That likely would be flawed in its own right --- these days there are probably few infantry squads composed solely of combat virgins. But since they weren't testing all-female squads, but integrated squads and all-male squads, this is easy to address: determine an appropriate and typical distribution of experience levels. For the all-male squads, use men of this distribution. For the integrated squads, do the same, only replace some-to-all of the combat-inexperienced men from the typical experience distribution with combat inexperienced women. Then you are getting a fair representation, without either skewing the overall experience distribution so you have atypical squads on both sides, or skewing the experience distribution low on only the integrade side so you aren't comparing like against like.

zelos 11y ago

Should we really be comparing the two genders at all? Is it possible to just set minimum standards - "must be able to run x km in y minutes", "must be able to get x% of rounds on target at y m" - and then accept anyone who meets or exceeds those?

irremediable 11y ago
I tend to agree with this. Playing devil's advocate a little: it might still be important to test how the gender mix affects group dynamics. You might have a case where a mixed-gender squad is more cohesive, say; or you might have male soldiers being overprotective of female soldiers.
Pyxl101 11y ago
The study is not primarily comparing genders, it's comparing gender-integrated squads with all-male squads. Accepting or denying people based on individual performance does not necessarily account for whatever psychological differences might be at play in those types of squads. For example, the article mentions that male marines tended to be the ones who fireman's-carried an "evacuee" in gender-integrated squads. Maybe the women are capable of doing it, but the men feel some psychological pressure to do it instead of them (e.g., chivalry), or the women expect the men to do it (e.g., chivalry), affecting the way the squad operates. The squad also mentions higher rates of injury among women marines. That said, maybe there are some individual performance standards that cause these squad differences disappear. For example, perhaps both male and female marines who can run an 8 minute mile get injured less in training, but fewer women than men can run the 8 minute mile. Setting that as the time standard might eliminate the discrepancy at the squad level. The study appears to call out considerable performance differences however (1): > The well documented comparative disadvantage in upper and lower-body strength resulted in higher fatigue levels of most women, which contributed to greater incidents of overuse injuries such as stress fractures. > Anaerobic Power: Females possessed 15% less power than males; the female top 25th percentile overlaps with the bottom 25th percentile for males. Anaerobic Capacity: Females possessed 15% less capacity; the female top 10th percentile overlaps with the bottom 50th percentile of males. Aerobic Capacity (VO2Max): Females had 10% lower capacity; the female top 10th percentile overlaps with bottom 50th percentile of males > Within the research at the Infantry Training Battalion, females undergoing that entry-level training were injured at more than six-times the rate of their male counterparts. 27% of female injuries were attributed to the task of movement under load, compared to 13% for their male counterparts, carrying a similar load. The military is right to study these things and try to do so objectively. And I don't see why it's wrong to compare genders or races - it sometimes leads to useful advances like studies of disease that affect certain parts of the population and not others (breast cancer, sarcoidosis, etc.) The point is that we're speculating and more data will lead to better decisions. (1) https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-corps-force-integration-plan-summary.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-co...

dctoedt 11y ago

FTA: “Of all the consistent patterns we can discern in war, there are two concepts of universal significance in generating combat power: speed and focus. ... speed is a weapon.” [1] (quoting the Corps publication Warfighting [2]). FTA: "Research from various U.S. and allied military studies reveal that the two primary factors associated with success in the task of movement under load are 1) lean body mass and 2) absolute VO2 Max." [1] [1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-corps-force-integration-plan-summary.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2394531/marine-co... [2] http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCDP%201%20Warfighting.pdf http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCDP%201%20Wa... (1997; couldn't find a more-recent one).

FrightHorse 11y ago

A great many people seems to be very upset that a large portion of the non-integrated squads had experienced Marines, as if this negates the test. Two things: First, the integrated squads had experienced Marines as well. They selected randomly (within criteria) to have the MOS (Military Occupational Speciality) and experience distribution a typical combat unit would have. That means both junior and senior Marines. That also means that, as combat MOS's have not yet been integrated, women will by definition be inexperienced in combat roles. This does not mean the women were inexperienced Marines. Second: This is not an experiment about what's fair, it's to test what's real right now. And when women are integrated into combat roles en masse, this is what that will look like. Women will be less experienced and will be both integrated with, and adversary to, experienced male combatants. This is a test of the current situation--everyone is green once. But that changes. And women will gain significant combat experience. You'll see an evolution in training to shore up potential weaknesses and exploit inherent strengths (and they are manifold) that women bring to the table. That said. As it currently stands with women having had less experience, there is the very real potential that those units they are integrated into will experience a s degraded combat capability until training learns to compensate for certain inherent physical and psychological differences between the sexes (not to mention internal cultural hurdles that they inevitably be faced with). Degraded capability means an increased likelihood of casualties in combat. As I said, I believe this will change. I believe in five years this type of test will yield far, far closer results. The question is this: Is that painful (and very likely lethal) initial period worth the ultimate goal of total integration? Is the risk to our servicemen and servicewomen worth that ultimate reward? I believe it is. I was pro-gender integration before I joined the US Army, I was pro-integration during my six years in the Service, and I remain fervently pro-integration years later as a significantly balder and fatter man. It's worth it. But don't hide yourself away from the fact that there will be pain.

xlm1717 11y ago
It seems the military in general does not believe the initial painful period would be worth the ultimate goal of total integration. The article quotes a government study from 1992: A military unit at maximum combat effectiveness is a military unit least likely to suffer casualties. Winning in war is often only a matter of inches, and unnecessary distraction or any dilution of the combat effectiveness puts the mission and lives in jeopardy. Risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires or interests of an individual, or group of individuals, is more than bad military judgment. It is morally wrong. This was 1992, when there didn't exist the taboo we have today of not speaking against gender integration and government and military leaders could speak their minds.

mekal 11y ago

2017 - This just in...so it turns out it may have been the men slowing down the integrated squads in that US Marine "evaluation" a few years back . Yesterday an all-female squad dominated their traditional all-male counterparts in everything except for the wall climb. With the on-going shortage of tactically relevant walls to climb in Iraq, we may start to see more female only units leading the way.

sarvinc 11y ago

When I joined the Army I weighed ~ 120lbs. Less than a year later I had completed basic training, advanced infantry training, jump school and the Ranger Indoctrination Program (programs completed in the order listed). After graduating RIP I served in special operations as an Airborne Ranger. I'll never forget something that happened during my first training mission with the 75th Ranger Regt. After several hours of rafting and patrolling I was walking up a hill carrying a full load plus an M4. I was sucking hard, covered in sweat and my whole body was on fire. A tabbed E4 walks by me, not a drop of sweat on him, and up the hill like it's nothing. He looks over at me, as he's walking by, and says "you're carrying that and I'm carrying this." He was carrying a 240G (probably 5x the weight of my M4). I leave it up to you to form your own interpretation of his words. ~5 years in Regiment I weighed 170lbs and could run through everything I did my first deployment carrying twice the weight. The importance of training is immeasurable.