The social engineers will demand lower standards.
This month, eight women washed out of the Army’s prestigious Ranger School after 11 others didn’t make it past the first cut, and none of them will earn the vaunted black and gold Ranger “tab.”
Yet. And that’s actually a good thing.
No, they didn’t get a chance to move on to face the grueling demands of the leadership school’s mountain phase, and for the moment, at least, they’ve paused this first experiment to open Ranger School to women for the first time.
But some headlines are declaring this a failure, which — intended or not — suggests it’s a sign that women can’t handle close-quarters combat or some of the military’s other highly demanding tests. This groundbreaking coed class, though, was far from a failure.
In fact, women made it past some of the physical hurdles at nearly the same rates as men. And the fact that no female candidates moved forward this time doesn’t spell the end of women tackling the Army’s toughest leadership course, which spans two months, three phases and endless physical obstacles, including sleep and food deprivation. The last eight women standing this time around are attempting the first phase of Ranger School once again and they are in good company — with 101 men who also didn’t finish this time, but earned the right to try once more.
Most importantly, what the result so far demonstrates is that the Army has stood by what Ranger School graduates and female soldiers alike have demanded: maintaining the incredibly high standard of what senior military leaders call the “Army’s most physically and mentally demanding course” while making room for women who could handle the test and sought the chance to meet that bar. No one wanted any slack cut, and none was.