<p>Women do not command US submarines. </p>
<p>You can point to all the ancedotal stories you like, the fact remains, on average, a male is stronger and faster than a female. The Army women’s basketball team will never beat the male team, they won’t let a female cadet in the boxing ring with a male, and a male will always hold the world record in weightlifting.</p>
<p>That being said, I would agree that if a female passes realistic physical requirements for the job, she should be allowed to do the job. I would submit that in many cases, the physical training requirements do not reflect the potential physical requirements required under unusual circumstances. Take your example of women commanding US Navy ships, the only physical requirement is that the officer pass the general Navy-wide PT test (which has different standards for men and women) which is the same for doctors, cooks, and musicians in the Navy band. Under normal peace-time and combat missions, the engineering watch officer directs engineering operations in the engineroom. Should you be injured when a fire breaks-out or a torpedo strikes the engineering spaces, would you prefer that a female who can’t do one pull-up be the one there to pull you to safety? </p>
<p>From experience, I can also say that I have seen women who were not up to the physical task required under normal conditions. On tugboats, I observed none of the women (and I mean none) had the physical strength to handle the lines. On a tugboat with about a crew of eight, generally two women stood around and watched the male linehandlers.</p>
<p>I don’t think we really disagree-- I just don’t think realistic physical standards have been implemented for PC reasons. Once the standards are implemented, anyone who passes the standards should be allowed to do the job. In the military, in many aspects, there is no substitute for physical prowess and men almost exclusively possess that prowess. You’ll convince me otherwise, when an all female USC football team beats ND.</p>