General: No Dual Standard for Female Marine Infantry Recruits
If you think the Marine Corps prepares its women differently, 'you're crazy,' he says.
Fifty-three of the 173 women who have entered the enlisted infantry school have graduated, while roughly 3,600 men pass the course annually on average.
A recent critique on how the Marine Corps is preparing women to break a glass barrier to combat roles is “crazy,” according to a general and Iraq War veteran who commands one of the largest formations of Marines in the Pacific.
A decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan has produced a modern military cadre seasoned by combat. The ambiguous front lines of these conflicts often have forced women into combat positions despite regulations against their holding such jobs. The military, as a result, has been experimenting with how to change these restrictions formally.
The Marine Corps' results so far have been mixed: 53 of the 173 women who have entered the enlisted infantry school have graduated, while roughly 3,600 men pass through that course each year on average. And so far, no female officers have emerged from the grueling Infantry Officer Course, considered one of the toughest in the military. Fifteen female Marines have tried, but only one has made it past the first day.
Marine 2nd Lt. Sage Santangelo, herself a prior IOC candidate, wrote a highly publicized op-ed in The Washington Post in late March lamenting what she believes is an institutional bias in the Marine Corps that sets women up to fail.
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“I believe that I could pass, and that other women could pass [IOC], if the standards for men and women were equal from the beginning of their time with the Marines,” she wrote, “if endurance and strength training started earlier than the current practice for people interested in going into the infantry, and if women were allowed a second try, as men are.”
Having dual standards creates and fosters a difference between male and female Marine trainees that undercuts the military’s new obligation to integrate its military units, she added.
“Women aren’t encouraged to establish the same mental toughness as men,” wrote Santangelo, who revealed to the Marine Corps Times that her op-ed was screened by multiple military officials. “Rather, they’re told that they can’t compete. Men, meanwhile, are encouraged to perceive women as weak. I noticed that women were rarely chosen by their peers for some of the harder tasks in basic training.”
Lt. Gen. John Wissler, who began his career as a combat engineer, commands the III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, Japan. He said Friday that women entering the Marine Corps, who receive initial training in segregated units, undergo the same preparation and level of competition as their male counterparts.
“If you don’t think that’s a competitive environment, you’re crazy,” he said, citing the 4th Recruit Training Battalion at South Carolina's Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, where all entry-level female enlisted Marines are trained. “The quality of the drill instructors, the level of performance those Marines are required to maintain, the absolute pressure that’s pressed on them is identical.”
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Basic schools are segregated to create an environment where enlisted recruits and officer candidates “can focus on becoming Marines,” Wissler said while at a breakfast meeting with reporters. They have to fire the same weapons, swim in the same pools and climb the same hills.
“When they’re for the first time in their life called Marines, there’s no difference in the pressure, the things they’ve had to undergo, the achievements they’ve had to do,” he said. “They’ve all done the same things. It just allows us to focus better, we feel, to get them to the point where they can stand on their own two feet and execute the responsibilities of the U.S. Marine.”
The Marine Corps does have different physical fitness standards for women and men beginning their training; women, for example, perform a flexed-arm hang instead of pullups. For the enlisted and officer infantry schools, female candidates must adhere to the same standards as men. The Marine Corps has consistently said that will not change.
Women and men are trained together in Marine Combat Training Battalion, Wissler added, pointing to the entry-level school required for every Marine after initial training. It teaches skills such as marksmanship and other combat techniques before recruits go on to specialize in a military occupation.
Santangelo’s article caught the attention of Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos in early April. He subsequently announced that women would be allowed to retake the IOC, and offered Santangelo a posting in Afghanistan while she waits to attend flight school.
