Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military to adopt gender-neutral physical fitness tests for combat personnel. It was a reversal of a controversial Biden-era move in which women and older soldiers were allowed to pass through the ranks with lower scores on required physical fitness tests. (See earlier story)
Uniform standards are necessary for peak readiness and to allow U.S. forces to prepare for future conflicts, Hegseth believes. He has instructed each military branch to submit proposals for new standards within 60 days. Approved standards are expected to be in place within six months.
"All entry-level and sustained physical fitness requirements within combat arms positions must be sex-neutral, based solely on the operational demands of the occupation and the readiness needed to confront any adversary." (Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, April 1, 2025)
During an interview on Washington Watch Wednesday, Representative Pat Harrigan (R-North Carolina) – a West Point graduate and now a member of the House Armed Services Committee – told show host Tony Perkins this is a good move.
“Combat is completely and totally unforgiving. It’s something that demands physical strength, endurance and mental toughness. The enemy simply does not adjust based on who you are or where you came from,” he said.
According to Harrigan, who you are matters a great deal to soldiers when they consider the man or woman next to them as they put their lives on the line together. If it’s known that one soldier arrived in that dangerous situation through a simpler and less demanding path, trust is undermined. Teamwork and chemistry within a unit breaks down.
Hegseth faced intense scrutiny over his views on women in combat roles during his confirmation hearings in January. He was highly critical of the lowering of standards and gender-based quotas.
“It’s not about the capabilities of men and women. It’s about standards, and this committee has talked a lot about standards – standards that we unfortunately over time have seen eroded in certain duty positions, certain schools, certain places, which affects readiness. Which is what I care about the most: readiness on the battlefield,” he said in response to a question from Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire.)
There’s no doubt that women in the armed services have had to battle preconceived notions about their readiness, Major Kristen Griest, the first female infantry officer, wrote in 2021. She was a captain then.
Bad for women
But lowering standards hurts women in the military, she said, according to Military.com.
"Under a gender-based system, women in combat arms have to fight every day to dispel the notion that their presence inherently weakens these previously all-male units," Griest wrote in an essay for West Point’s Modern War Institute. "Lower female standards also reinforce the belief that women cannot perform the same job as men, therefore making it difficult for women to earn the trust and confidence of their teammates."
The old Army Physical Fitness Test judged women based on standards that were far below those for men, which jeopardized mission readiness and "reinforced the false notion that women are categorically incapable of performing the same job as men,” Military.com reported.
The current standards allow women to advance if they can pick up 20 pounds less weight than men. Also, women and older men might get a minute or two longer to complete a run, The Associated Press reported.
Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Bob Maginnis wrote an entire book on women in combat roles and explained that the Obama administration began this philosophy. Since then, his and Biden’s administrations have sought to make it a functional reality.
Now, nine years later “we know that A) very few military women are interested in combat duty; B) the Pentagon’s assurances that military readiness will not be compromised are seriously flawed; and C) until Trump, our top uniformed leadership surrendered to feminist ideologues without a fight,” Maginnis told The Washington Stand.
What Hegseth has done is simply recognize that men and women are different, said Maginnis.
“Across recent and mostly Democrat administrations, those differences were blurred to the point of insanity. As a result, the military departments watered down their standards for many combat positions to access women. However, as most combatants understand, that reduction in standards negatively impacted readiness,” Maginnis argued.
Unethical for sure, potentially deadly
Geist called the lower standards “wholly unethical.”
"This scenario is inconvenient and bad for morale during a training exercise," she wrote. "In combat, it could be deadly."
Harrigan agreed. Combat “pushes everybody to their limits," he pointed out. "It simply punishes weakness without hesitation. I think the Pentagon made exactly the right decision this week by ending gender-based physical fitness standards for all combat roles.”
Harrigan says the new standards will ensure the elimination of “sub-standard performance.”
“You have to have a certain capability, and you’re not going to fall below that. That’s how you build trust in a military unit.”
