Study Finds All-Male Marine Units Outperform Mixed Gender Units By Huge Margin

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September 13, 2015 by JImbo

Marine study finds all-male infantry units outperformed teams with women (USA Today)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/10/marine-study-finds-all-male-infantry-units-outperformed-teams-women/71971416/

 

I can’t find the actual study, but it the article seems pretty clear and reflects anecdotal experience from decades of soldiering.
In the 134 core tasks:
Mixed squads won in 2 (1.5%)
They tied in 50 (37%)
All-male squads did better in 92 of them. (69%)

That’s just on physical teamwork tasks. I wonder if the study gets into the logistical and morale effects of mixed units. Let’s just say that for starters all-male units can’t get pregnant…at high rates… while deployed overseas.

Nuff said.

This is not saying that women can’t do anything. No one says they can’t be soldiers. In fact, our worst female soldiers are probably better than most of the best male soldiers in armies around the world.

The question is how much efficiency do we want to give up to have mixed-gender units… just for the sake of political correctness?

You could fix SOME of this by simply eliminating the easier physical standards for women. Currently they have a super-easy Physical Fitness test to encourage more women to join.

You COULD make their standards the same as men and while the injury rates would remain high probably (and the pregnancy/morale factors would still factor in) the ability to haul gear and such would be increased.

The downside to that is the vast majority of women can’t pass the mens’ standards and would rather quit rather than try. The number of women in the military would shrink drastically and feminists would go nuts. However, those few women who DID make the mens’ standards would be REALLY fit.

So which is it?
Combat efficiency or political correctness?