Last year, Hegseth introduced new sex-neutral fitness standards that sought to eliminate sex-based grading for combat soldiers on the military’s physical fitness exam. That exam includes a 3-mile run, push-ups or pull-ups, and an abdominal plank. When the standards were announced, some analysts worried it could lead to fewer women enlisting.
But a new report from The War Horse, a nonprofit newsroom, suggests that Hegseth’s new standards were not making the military more masculine, as he seemed to hope. The report found that 90% of female Marines in combat roles who took the fitness test passed or exceeded expectations.
I’ve never seen someone obtain so large a position while being so underqualified for it. Danger, danger Will Robinson!
That’s still a loss of 10% of the women, compared to 4% of the men. Itay simply be a game of incremental exclusion, not one big purging.
I struggle to believe incremental exclusion is anywhere near Hegseth’s goals. Incremental doesn’t describe anything they’ve done so far.
While that may be true, that it failed to work as well as hoped, that by no means is “backfiring”.
It would have to either have pulled even more women in, caused more men than women to be out of the military, or at least catch specific people important to him in it.
Calling it backfiring is to try to relish things going against his objectives, but instead it was a partial success. From here, he has the opportunity to tune things and improve the result next time with zero regrets about having done this wave.
It isn’t his goal, it’s the result of his incompetence. He isn’t capable of a significant success without the method being crude and straightforward cuz he’s a dumb dumb. He can’t act with complexity or subtly, it’s psychologically beyond his potential. He’ll try a bunch of stuff he thinks will work, as he has, it will mostly fail, he’ll get yelled at and threatened by Trump and he’ll migrate to those crude and straightforward methods to get results rather than suffer Donald’s wrath. He’s a child trying to prove he’s capable and he’d rather hurt others with crude, cruel and destructive methods than fail and be hurt by daddy Trump.
Its literally the psychology of a child with an abusive, demanding parent, who hurts classmates and cheats at everything to get the results that will avoid getting hurt by that parent, and Trump is the archetypical tyrannical, narcissistic parent, who hurt ppl to get what he wants. The two are reliving their own childhood dynamics with each other but in the fucking white house. Its a disgusting and extreme portrayal of the social dynamics of Republican and right wing households all over America.
I suspect Journalist and OP don’t understand the word “Backfire”.
I want to see Kegs-breath pass his own physical test.
Of all the things wrong with him, I would not be surprised if he at least had the physical fitness to meet his standards. I suspect his obsession with this stuff carries over to him personally, and he likely compulsively works out.
His liver may be pretty trashed, but that doesn’t get in the way of these tests.
I’ve seen videos of him working out. They were not impressive.
And live stream it for entertainment purposes.
I read about this - around 96% of men pass, and 90% of women. Really good results, the test is not easy.
I know my athletic daughter, the gymnast, could always beat guys at pull -ups when she was little because she was so light and strong and could just crank them out like it was nothing. Push ups will ever be easier for men, weight distribution, but pull ups are a strength -to-weight situation so a trained woman can sometimes be at an advantage.
Pull ups aren’t on the physical exam as far as I know.
Though a gymnast will normally crush at planking and that is on there
Its right there in the article and even cited in this thread, do you even read?
Sorry about that I was thinking of the army fitness test, didn’t realize the Marines had pull ups still on it. Thought they were dropped
(Edit: you only have to do the pull ups if you can’t do the pushups apparently, you can choose either or on the Marines apparently)
The push up thing always confused me. Basic weight distribution in men is heavier in the chest and women being heavier toward the hips and thighs. So from a purely physics standpoint and my basic understanding of levers, in a second class lever the further a weight is from the fulcrum, the more work that has to be done. So wouldn’t that make pushups easier for women? I mean negating the basic strength differences but also subject to those same strength to weight ratios?
I guess it’s just shoulders, then? I do think shorter people would have an advantage and women generally are shorter as well. But I have not known a woman who could beat a similarly fit guy in push ups.
I know I could not do one good push up until I had too much mass to manage a pull up, lol. I can now because of yoga, my strength is more distributed than when I was dancing, and there is a lot of tricep work in power yoga.
Because the women applying know they will be held to a much higher standard than the men, as always. So they are prepared.
Bonus points to: knowing that they will have to fight off their fellow, extra rapey, enlisted counterparts.
Edit: before I get the colic boys giving wojak tears
On average, during the war in Afghanistan, 24% of active duty women and 1.9% of active duty men experienced sexual assault
This is why in any field I tend to have more confidence in anyone that goes against the stereotype, because it is more likely they really wanted to do it and likely worked harder to get there.
If someone likely were told every five minutes “you should be a doctor” becomes a doctor they are potentially there just because they are “supposed to”. If conversely they get told they should consider a different career every step of the way and still gets to be a doctor, now that person had some drive.
You’re exactly right:
Women in the Army Are More Likely to Be Killed by Fellow Soldiers Than Enemy Combatants
A first-of-its-kind analysis by The Intercept found that in the Army, women are more likely to be killed by their fellow service members than by enemy combatants, in a reversal of the threat soldiers are trained to face. Between 2011 and August 2025, at least 41 women died by homicide in the Army — more than half of them at the hands of other service members or veterans. Using Defense Department manpower data to calculate per capita death rates, The Intercept found that active-duty Army women face a higher risk of homicide than male soldiers, the opposite of national and global trends.
In many cases, women in the Army are killed by current or former romantic partners. Over 70 percent of victims had an intimate relationship with the perpetrator at one point, and the rate of homicides among women soldiers from intimate partner violence is at least three times higher than the national average.
I do wonder how that compares to the DV rates for Law Enforcement. I would tend to assume it’s a bit worse among LEOs actually. Armed forces tend to draw from a slightly wider pool, with the more… enthusiastic ending up in law enforcement after discharge.
24% seems low. The Invisible War goes into some horrific details about this issue.
I’m certain it is. The military self-selects for a specific type of person.
Alcoholic man with daddy issues makes dumb decisions based on feels
based on feels
No, remember, when men do it, it’s “instinct”; when it’s women doing it, it’s “feelings”.
That’s right, I forgot to masculinize the term so as not to make them feel emasculated. Like “man bag” instead of “purse” and “man soap” instead of “hand soap”
The women exceeded expectations… well i want that limp dick fuck face to do the test as well! show me how fit you are loser!
Show us your damn Nazi tats, low T Pentagone Peter Brian!
This guy is such a moron. The only reason he even has the job is that donnie was sure he’d be loyal to donnie and donnie saw him on the TV.
The fact that this fucking asshole is playing a role in judging the ranks, and even getting to meddle in the Scouts is a goddamned outrage.
I hope he goes to prison in the aftermath.
Low T Petey B, Secretary of Whores
For Marines, Ladies have to do a weird hold on the pull-up bar. Men have to do 3 pull ups. Yep, the most elite men in the country (huge /s) only have to do three pull-ups.
Minimum of 3 pull-ups.
But yeah… the minimums aren’t insanely hard.
If the wars continue, and they will, there will be a draft.
Tell the recruiter that you’ll frag an officer as soon as you’re given a gun
Or grenade… can’t forget where the term originated
Nope. Well, not unless the fascists rig the lottery to only draft POC. Which, tbf, sounds like exactly something they would do.
Not just POC. This would explain why they are so intent on getting voter rolls from blue states. If there is a draft, they probably want to be able to draft anyone on the political left so they can send them off to die and leave all the MAGAts at home to survive, breed, and vote.
I hope they do, I don’t think organizing their opposition into an army is going to go well for them.
Next test: Pee distance?
Don’t give Kegs-breath any ideas. At least that’s something he could beat a female marine at.
I dunno… I’ve seen a woman get some good distance.
And Petey probably has aiming issues from all the drinking.
From the linked “report” (more like an article):
According to Marine Corps data, 91.38% of women and 96.53% of men in combat arms who have taken the test since January have met or exceeded that threshold.
I like human beings. Not human doings…It has worked out in the long run…
Human dongs?!
Great username, btw
How is this a backfire though?
The goal was to have women fail the physical fitness exam because they think women are inherently less fit than men across the board.
Failing to achieve a goal does not always come with a backfire. What was the penalty Hegseth incurred?
Idk, I would say setting lower standards for women is thinking ‘women are inherently less fit than men’ tho.
I’d be curious to know if it was lower standards or different standards before this change.
20+ years ago (so, grain of salt), the minimums on the fitness tests were different for men and women. Also for service members over a certain age.
I work in orthopedics and rehabilitation, we see a lot of military members because we have a couple different bases in our state and only have one large medical campus close to them.
I have had more active duty military in my clinic this year than the last couple years combined. Most of them are senior NCO or older officers who have been forced to do an exercise routine that is designed to challenge people half their age.
Past a certain age, you just need more recovery time than younger people. These guys basically had desk jobs, and now they are having to exercise 5 days a week. Of course you are going to acquire a bunch of injuries in your senior ranks. Been seeing a ton of overuse injuries for the foot, ankle, and knees.
Most of them are senior NCO or older officers who have been forced to do an exercise routine that is designed to challenge people half their age.
They’ll retire earlier with higher disability checks. Unplanned retirements may cause gaps in institutional knowledge.
I support less women killing innocent people.
But don’t atop there. Please, kick out all the Men too. The world is a safer place when the US military has nobody in it.
