VICTOR JOECKS: Women shouldn’t be in combat roles

It’s amazing how controversial common sense is these days. Look at the reaction to Pete Hegseth’s comments about women in combat roles.

Donald Trump tapped Hegseth as secretary of defense. He served in the Army National Guard, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. He has talked repeatedly about the problems he sees in today’s woke military.

“We should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said on a podcast in November. “It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”

That wasn’t a popular opinion with the propaganda press.

“Pete Hegseth’s remarks about women in combat are met with disgust and dissent,” NBC News said.

What a shocker that the woke military establishment wants women in combat. Here’s why Hegseth is right.

First, it’s important to define terms. Hegseth isn’t saying women shouldn’t be in the military or even combat. In the modern battlefield, even cooks and IT specialists may need to start shooting. Many women have performed valiantly under fire. Hegseth is referring to certain physically demanding jobs, such as infantry and special operations.

Next, this issue is a part of a larger debate — whether the differences between men and women are innate or societally imposed.

“The new woman revealed by this scientific data is as strong, strategic and smart as anyone else,” states the blurb for the book “Inferior: How science got women wrong — and the new research that’s rewriting the story.”

Many people agree. “Among those who see differences between men and women, there is little agreement about whether these differences are mostly based on biology or on societal expectations,” Pew Research reported in October.

If the differences between men and women were imposed by society, it would be less concerning to have women in combat roles. They aren’t. Look at how mediocre males dominate women’s sporting events.

Or consider the Army Combat Fitness Test, which consists of six events. The Army originally wanted it to be sex-neutral. But too many women failed, so the Army instituted lower scores for women. For instance, an 18-year-old man has to deadlift 340 pounds three times for max points. For an 18-year-old woman, it’s 210 pounds.

These physical strength differences matter in combat. In 2015, the Marines put out a study comparing male squads with mixed-sex ones. The all-male teams were faster on 69 percent of tasks. The squads with women were faster on 1.5 percent of tasks. The all-male squads “were faster than the gender-integrated squads in each tactical movement,” it found. Also, women were more than twice as likely to suffer a “musculoskeletal injury.”

A handful of exceptional women can likely meet the minimum physical standards for these demanding combat roles. The military still shouldn’t allow them in.

For one, if sex-neutral standards produce few qualified women, leftists will push to lower those standards. It already happened in the Army’s Ranger training.

More fundamentally, men act differently when there’s a woman in the group. That’s especially true when the men are 18 to 24, full of testosterone, and the woman is attractive and physically fit. Romantic relationships inside a unit are a distraction that hurts morale and cohesion.

The military routinely discriminates in ways society wouldn’t tolerate in other jobs. If you are too fat, old or slow, you can get kicked out. That’s permitted — even encouraged — because the military should prioritize its ability to kill people and break things.

Having women serve in combat roles makes the military less lethal, so women shouldn’t serve in combat roles.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.