The Military and Veterans' Room
The Army is rolling out a new fitness test: Will it hold back women?
The new test will hold back women, older soldiers, and reservists (who will have much less opportunity to train on the actual equipment). It is age and gender agnostic.
But combat is age and gender neutral. So it will be interesting to see how the Army reacts to the bad pass rates for certain groups of soldiers.An Army initiative to create a stronger, fitter fighting force has yielded a dramatic gender gap, raising questions about whether the service might unintentionally compound barriers for women trying to move up the ranks.
Recent Army figures show that 54 percent of female soldiers failed the new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), which is being rolled out on a provisional basis, compared with 7 percent of men during the second quarter of 2020.
That reflects a significant improvement over last year, when leaked data showed that over 80 percent of a smaller cohort of female test-takers failed the six-event exam. But some women fear they won’t be able to pass even with additional training or will continue to score lower than men, potentially affecting their career prospects in an institution already struggling to shed historical gender and racial disparities.
The test, which will become the service’s official fitness test next month, has prompted a broader debate over whether the service’s focus on fitness and strength will elevate physical prowess over other qualities, such as effective and ethical leadership, or make it harder to retain troops with skills needed in an era of high-tech military competition.
Army officials say the new age- and gender-blind fitness test, the first of its kind in the U.S. military, was developed to reduce injuries and better prepare soldiers for the demands of warfighting, expressing confidence that training will help female troops eventually meet the new standards.
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Originally Posted by Peter1469
