This past Monday, on March 31, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a seismic and long-overdue shift in U.S. military policy. He established a single, gender-neutral physical fitness standard for all combat arms roles. In a video posted on X, Hegseth declared, “For far too long, we have allowed standards to slip. We’ve had different standards for men/women serving in combat arms MOSs and jobs…. That’s not acceptable, and it changes right now!”
This decision marks a departure from decades of separate male and female fitness benchmarks, which critics point out have eroded combat readiness by allowing disparities in capability. Hegseth’s rationale is straightforward—standards have slipped, and the battlefield does not discriminate by gender. The standards for females are so different from the male standards that it becomes evident that women can be slotted into these roles without being remotely capable of meeting their physical demands. Hegseth’s order acknowledges what countless military members will tell you: A unified standard is not just preferable; it’s essential.
Historically, the U.S. military has tailored fitness tests to account for physiological differences between men and women. For instance, the Army’s old Physical Fitness Test (APFT) required women to meet lower thresholds for push-ups, sit-ups, and running times than men. When the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) was introduced in 2019, it initially aimed for gender neutrality to reflect the demands of combat roles opened to women in 2016. However, pushback from high female failure rates led to a reversion to gender-normed scoring in 2022. These failure rates were behind the test being redesigned and delayed multiple times before being implemented in the Army. In its first version, the female failure rate was 84%. This compromise, intended to boost retention and “equity,” instead highlighted a stark reality: separate standards lead to individual capabilities.
The year-long experiment compared all-male units to mixed-gender ones across tasks like marching under load, obstacle navigation, and weapons accuracy. All-male units outperformed their counterparts in 69% of tasks, completing them faster and with greater lethality. Mixed units, adhering to lower female standards, showed reduced efficiency, and women suffered injury rates twice that of men—10.5% versus 5.2%. The study concluded that physical differences compromised unit cohesion and effectiveness. Critics might argue the sample was small, but the findings align with broader observations: when standards diverge, readiness suffers.
While these studies are helpful when trying to prove a point, they only show what the naked eye can see. Namely, that there is a biological difference between men and women. Of course, that difference will show up in the most demanding physical circumstances. Every single military branch routinely tests the physical fitness of its members. That is because, unlike other jobs, the job of a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine is to be physically and mentally strong. The job is to train for grueling circumstances in which they will be asked to do physically demanding things and make difficult choices under pressure.
Combat is unforgiving, and it does not care about DEI. A tanker that can’t load a 120mm round endangers her crew. A soldier who can’t carry a wounded comrade risks a squad’s survival. As Hegseth rightly recognizes, gender-neutral standards ensure that every combat arms member meets the same minimum threshold, regardless of sex. This isn’t about exclusion—it’s about the one-word mission of the force—lethality.
Currently, the DOD is still allowing women to serve in these roles. It excludes only those who cannot meet one objective standard. Those standards are designed to ensure that warfighters and their units can do their assigned job. The left will claim this shift is sexist and regressive, but combat isn’t a social experiment—it’s a brutal reality where physical prowess often dictates outcomes. As the new Army ad notes, “Strong people are harder to kill.” The military can’t afford half-measures when lives and national security hang in the balance. One standard isn’t just a policy change; it’s a return to the principle that fitness outranks all else in war.
