Women in infantry: It isn’t ‘if,’ it’s ‘when.’ So quit whining and get out of the way.

By Carl Forsling
Best Defense guest columnist

In every area of life, women and men are becoming more integrated. That’s not only a product of radical feminism, that’s the product of a thousand factors, from WWII to the sexual revolution to technological advances. In most areas of life, this is a huge plus — we are harnessing the intellect and labor of 50% of the population that was consigned to household chores in earlier eras. How many potential brilliant female leaders, writers, scientists, etc prior to 1950 lived out their lives fetching their husbands’ drinks?

Of course, the military is different, because the costs of personal failures are greater, more immediate, and borne by the unit, not just an individual, as with endeavors in the civilian world. Nevertheless, the whole “Judeo-Christian concept of womanhood” is fading, and on the whole, that’s probably a good thing for society. In any case, whether it’s good or not, or whether one likes it or not, it is what it is. Each succeeding generation venerates womanhood as a separate entity less and less.

That leaves us with two barriers to women in combat — the social/sexual, and the physical capability questions.

Eventually, that social/sexual component is going to fall by the wayside. Yes, I know the whole “18 to 21 year old hormones” thing. That acknowledged, you look at the young people today, and they are much more likely to have platonic friendships with the opposite sex, for example. That’s a function of the changes in society mentioned earlier. The integration of women on aircraft and ships hasn’t been flawless, but it hasn’t been a disaster, either.

That leaves the physical. A minuscule percentage of women have the ability to keep up in the infantry. Nevertheless, we can quantify the standards required. It’s only a matter of political will to keep the standards high in the face of outside pressure.

I don’t know whether this year is the year that we’re ready for full integration. I know that in 1995 we weren’t ready for the military to fully accept homosexuals, but 15 years later, that time had come, and it would’ve been wrong to not do so. Similarly, women will eventually be integrated into all combat arms.

The question is not “if,” but “when.”

Carl Forsling is a retired Marine Corps MV-22B and CH-46E pilot with multiple deployments, both as a pilot and as a military advisor. He writes frequently as Senior Columnist for Task&Purpose. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University.