The first female is slated to graduate from Marine IOC
on September 25th. But did she actually pass? My understanding is that the Army’s female Rangers did not. Will she actually get to serve as an 0302? My understanding is that Rangers are not.
Changing Times?
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Does she have a crew cut? Guys have to lose their locks, right?
Since we don’t know who she is. .. hmmm maybe Mattis is waiting on the transgender ban because she is a he. . .
MLH, When I first saw your post I wanted to ask this question, that is, what is the biological sex of the person? But I did not because I thought some may find it unhelpful.
Thanks for the answer.
BTW, what is the gender make-up of PTs? Are they mostly male?
Mostly female (in the civilian world, might be higher male percentage on active duty) though I think you will find more males in practice ownership and management.
I am lost on your Ranger comment. As far as I know, Ranger School is just an Atta Boy for Marines, and kind of a necessary, or at least extremely useful, bit in your jacket for promotion in the Army. Any Marine can ask to go to Ranger School. Rumour was back in the day Marines were highly motivated to do well while the Army pogues were just looking for a way to get the chit.
Dev, I agree that Rangers are pretty much Marine equivalent in skill (or the entire Corps are Rangers or better).
My point was that the two women who completed Ranger school (although, I have a couple of good sources who say that they did not pass and were going to be cycled through again but POTUS was on his way to congratulate them) are not serving as Rangers. Will the 1st female USMC 0302 get to, or, better(?), have to, serve as a infantry platoon commander?
Seems like a bit of kabuki theater to me – as do most of these ‘ground-breaking’, ‘ceiling shattering’ moments. What happens when the rubber eventually meets the road? Wondering…
Time to get un-PC. Feel free to correct my math.
The problem is that if the female pass rate is 10% and the male pass rate is 50%, each female officer who has passed has cost the Marines 4 net officers.
Marginal vs. average might lower the number a bit, but probably leaves the dynamic intact.
There are likely numerous other considerations such as spending extra time to give extra preparation to the females.
I think the female “pass” rate is 20%: 5 have tried and one is making it. Still a loss of 2.5 qualified JOs.
I believe a lot more than 5 tried. None made it any significant distance through.
Somewhere here there is a big problem with anatomy. Women are wide-hipped, in order to bear children. Such a geometry, however, makes it hard to carry a seriously heavy rucksack as the hips swing a good bit more. Over any significant time period they are going to trash their back/pelvis. Now we have shortened period of usefulness to the service and more service-connected injury.
When I augmented to the PT dept at Quantico for 6 weeks in the summer we had 2 female candidates with pelvic rami fractures. They were cycled through rather than dropped. That was in ’93 or ’94.
The female infantry officers are going to need to have started serious strength training in their early teens in order to have way above normal peak bone mass.