Last year, Hegseth introduced new sex-neutral fitness standards that sought to eliminate sex-based grading for combat soldiers on the military’s physical fitness exam. That exam includes a 3-mile run, push-ups or pull-ups, and an abdominal plank. When the standards were announced, some analysts worried it could lead to fewer women enlisting.
But a new report from The War Horse, a nonprofit newsroom, suggests that Hegseth’s new standards were not making the military more masculine, as he seemed to hope. The report found that 90% of female Marines in combat roles who took the fitness test passed or exceeded expectations.
While that may be true, that it failed to work as well as hoped, that by no means is “backfiring”.
It would have to either have pulled even more women in, caused more men than women to be out of the military, or at least catch specific people important to him in it.
Calling it backfiring is to try to relish things going against his objectives, but instead it was a partial success. From here, he has the opportunity to tune things and improve the result next time with zero regrets about having done this wave.