Amid a scandal about accidentally sharing sensitive information, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is making a move about military standards, specifically standards for women serving in combat roles.
In a Sunday memorandum, Hegseth said that: “All entry-level and sustained physical fitness requirements within combat arms positions must be sex-neutral, based solely on the operational demands of the occupation and the readiness needed to confront any adversary. In establishing those standards, the Secretaries of the Military Departments may not establish standards that would result in any existing Service member being held to a lower standard.”
A copy of the memo available through the Department of Defense website showed the that portion underlined in the above paragraph was underlined in what appears to be Hegseth’s handwriting.
“For decades – the military I joined – there were different male and female physical standards, because, men and women are different, and that’s understandable,” Hegseth in a video posted to X Wednesday. “But, there were certain jobs – combat [Military Occupations Specialties, or MOS] – that were only for men, and so you had a male standard.”
He went on to say that in 2015, when former President Barack Obama was in office, MOS roles were opened up to both men and women.
“Fine, that’s their decision,” said Hegseth. “But, they never changed the standards in a lot of those roles. So, you still had higher standards for men than for women in a lot of those combat MOS. Some changed it, but not all did. We’re fixing that.”
According to Hegseth, this will help the U.S. military develop the “most lethal” forces. He said the move is “long overdue.”
Hegseth – a combat veteran who served in the National Guard and later as a FOX News host – has a stance on women serving in the military that has given many people in the U.S. pause, including some Republican lawmakers. During his Senate confirmation hearings earlier this year, he was questioned about them, as well as his three marriages.
“Democrats say Hegseth’s lack of experience running a huge department, his past comments about women and Black troops, and allegations of excessive drinking and sexual misconduct make him unfit to serve,” the Associated Press explained. The New York Times also reported that his own mother accused him in a 2018 email of mistreating women but later apologized for it.
In a podcast episode from last November, Hegseth said: “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”
While USA Today noted that he seemed to reverse his position weeks later during his “uphill path to Senate confirmation,” the outlet said “women veterans and servicemembers remain wary that a blanket removal of women from combat positions,” or the military in general could be the defense secretary’s real goal.
“We as a community are very suspicious,” said Lorry Fenner, a 26-year Air Force veteran and a former director at the Service Women’s Action Network, as quoted by USA Today. It said that the new standards could impact the thousands of women serving in the Army’s artillery, armor, and infantry branches. Overall, there are more than 6,700 enlisted in the army and nearly 3,000 female officers serving in the combat arms branches of air defense and field artillery, armor, aviation, engineers, cyber, infantry, and special Forces, according to Maj. Travis Shaw, an Army spokesperson.
Military.com reported this week that “officials did not immediately answer questions about whether the move was an effort to push women out of combat roles,” regarding Hegseth’s memo. However, officials did tell the outlet that “the memo’s push to increase standards for what Hegseth sees as close combat roles will consider physical fitness, body composition and even grooming standards.”
For some background on military fitness testing, Military.com noted that the Army formally adopted the Army Combat Fitness Test, or ACFT in 2022 after a decade of debate. Then the plan was abandoned “when the service determined that mapping physical standards to occupational specialties was too complex,” the outlet said.
As it stands, one soldier may hold an infantry designation but be assigned to a non-combat role like recruiting, while another may work in an administrative role in a front-line unit, Military.com further explained. It said Hegseth’s memo also “may cause further complications because it applies an Army-focused approach to other services, particularly the Air Force, Navy and Space Force, which do not have ground combat roles outside of their respective special operations units such as the Navy SEALs,” units that already have their own “grueling fitness expectations.”
According to USA Today, the military’s most selective roles have actually always maintained gender neutral standards. Still, Hegseth has directed the heads of military departments to submit a plan to make all physical fitness standards for combat positions “sex-neutral” within 60 days. He wants those plans to be implemented within six months.
Shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January, he issued Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which also said that “expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for Military Service.”
Hegseth issued this order as fallout from an article in The Atlantic called “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans,” continues to unfold. Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic reported Hegseth texted him war plans via the messaging app Signal (not approved for the communication of sensitive information) on the morning of March 15 regarding the U.S. bombing Houthi targets across Yemen.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that the Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced that he would review Hegseth’s use of the messaging app to convey those plans. That review will also look at the handling of classified material by other defense officials.
AP-NORC poll results released during Hegseth’s confirmation hearings revealed that just 19% of the public approved of Hegseth’s appointment as secretary of defense, including just 41% of Republicans. Polling by J.L. Partners for DailyMail.com released this week by that outlet found that 54% of Americans believe that Hegseth should resign. Among Republicans a higher percentage (38%) thought he should resign than the 33% who believe he should stay in his position.