Gender Roles In Military Culture

Problem
Political neutering of our gender roles is having a damaging effect on our military culture. Senior enlisted leaders need to understand how social engineering is distracting military leaders from their true intended purpose of cultivating a devastating fighting force. The return of common sense policy application will allow leaders to recalibrate their focus on real issues of combat preparedness facing our service men and women. This paper will discuss what led to the current “gender neutral” movement and give discussion to and recommendations to maintain peak physical readiness while still honoring equal opportunity.
Background
The World Health Organization states, "sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women and gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women" (Mills, 2011).
At that time, civilian distain for congressional law makers led to the election of “76 Democratic freshmen in the House and eight in the Senate, with a surprising number of activists elected from formerly safe Republican districts, with the majority of them running almost solely on anti-military and antiwar themes” (Webb,1997). On Jan 24, 2013, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta rescinded the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule for Women stating, "the Department's goal in rescinding the rule is to ensure that the mission is met with the best-qualified and most capable people, regardless of gender" (U.S. DOD, 2013). Equal opportunity should not be confused with equal ability though. This is evident and accepted worldwide when the competing at the Olympics games. Nations, send their top physically fit human beings to compete on the world stage and not one event is held male against female. Retired Colonel Allen West