The inclusiveness of the military has been a divisive issue for the past few years as identity politics has taken center stage on many political issues. 

The biggest issues as of late are the “transgender ban” and the women in combat roles. The “transgender ban” affects a very small portion of the population. It is roughly 0.6% of the population in the United States.

The other issue, women in combat, affects half of the population and the outcry has been far greater. Women in combat roles has been controversial for many reasons. A few of those include female health issues, mental strength disparity, physical strength disparity, and tradition.

Imagine the surprise when the news broke that the first female trying to become a SEAL dropped out of training after only one week!

The standard of the military since the dawn of time has been to put the most physically qualified men into place because the standard biological drive is for men to fight and protect the women and children of the world.

The stark disparity in physical strength alone should be enough to prohibit women from combat roles. According to the CDC, in the United States the average man is 5’ 9” and 196 pounds. The average woman is 5’ 4” and 167 pounds.

Three inches and 30 pounds is a big difference when considering what soldiers in combat must physically be capable of. In boxing and MMA, there are weight classes not because of fighting skill, but because one hit from a heavyweight could seriously injure a featherweight, even if the featherweight is the better fighter.

When factoring in the stress of being on the front line that Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, or any kind of infantry have, there are many men who aren’t fit for these the combat roles because of how difficult the physical standards are. Considering few women can best an average strength man in a strength competition, these leaves even fewer women capable of front-line combat duty.

So, what did the military do to allow women in? More specifically, what did they do to allow women into combat roles? They reduced the standards and effectively endangered any men serving with these women serving on the front line.

An average woman has around half of the upper body strength of a man. The lower body disparity isn’t as large, but still exists.

Just to get into the Navy, not the Special Forces, you have to meet stringent physical requirements. Women are held to a high standard, but still a lower standard than men are held to for the sake of getting women into combat roles.

Navy SEALs are the most intense and one of the most feared fighting forces in the world. The last that you want to do with that force is water it down by allowing in women who don’t meet the same standards as men.

There are millions of men that can’t make it into the military because they can’t meet the physical requirements. There isn’t a change in the standards for them, so there shouldn’t be a change in the standards for anyone else.

As mentioned before, a woman training to be a Navy SEAL dropped out of the program after one week. According to Fox News, the female midshipman voluntarily decided to not continue participating in a summer course required for officers who want to be selected for SEAL training, Lt. Cmdr. Mark Walton, a Naval special warfare spokesman said.

The standard for service are so difficult that only 25% of the most physically and mentally qualified men in the United States make it through SEAL training. If the military keeps lowering their standards for certain groups, the special forces will soon be nothing like the elite fighting force they are intended to be.