Active Women In Combat Roles

Active Women Combat Roles? Integrating women into the military has been a long and drawn out process for many years, until now. “All military occupations and positions will be open to women, without exceptions beginning in January 2016,” says Defense Secretary Ash Carter (Pellerin par. 1). Unlike Army and Navy, Marines are still against women in combat; the Marine Corps released a study that painted a bleak picture womens effectiveness in combat suggesting women are weaker, more prone to injury, less adept at shooting weapons accurately, and their presence is a potential catastrophe for unit morale (Mulrine par. 3). Although some women are as physically capable as men, women should not have active combat duty in the military because females …show more content…
Dr. Pamela McCauley, ergonomics and biomechanics expert, addresses that physical strength requirements for combat are significant. Research confirmed that a positive correlation between muscular strength and extremity performance for lower and upper extremities (52). Concluding that women tend to have less skeletal muscle mass than men, especially in the upper body. This limits women’s combat effectiveness by preventing them from carrying heavy equipment with their upper bodies, such as a one-hundred and ten pound woman carrying a thirty pound machine gun; assuming her destination is a few miles away, she would tire rapidly under the excess amount of weight. Physical readiness plays a considerable role in the development of our armed forces. If men and women are given different physical readiness tests, soldiers will not know who is qualified to deploy and nor who they can count …show more content…
Critics argue that women integrating into male combat units would also develop a sense of intersexual cooperation. “By opening infantry, artillery and other battlefield jobs to all qualified service members regardless of sex, the military is showing that categorical discrimination has no place in a society that honors fairness and equal opportunity,” (New York Times). Putting an end to gender discrimination would result into a plethora of opportunities and increase our numbers, though it would not be as effective. Allowing women in active combat roles reduces combat effectiveness: the negative correlations between physical readiness, common male instinct of protecting women and females biological inconsistency to perform on the field. Women should not serve in active combat roles for the greater good of our