US army halts gender neutral fitness test as women struggle

Authored by nzherald.co.nz and submitted by DangerousDeveloper

The US army is considering scrapping its new gender neutral fitness test because women have been failing in much larger numbers than men.

Research showed that the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), which is the same for male and female soldiers, was leading to lower results for women with a knock-on effect for promotions.

An early Pentagon study showed women were failing the ACFT at a rate of 65 per cent, compared with 10 per cent for men. Congress has halted implementation of the new test and the army has begun an independent review into whether it is fair. It has been suggested that the standard test could be evaluated differently for men and women.

The test includes six events - a maximum deadlift, a standing power throw, hand-release push-ups, a sprint, drag and carry, leg tuck, and a two-mile run. Those taking it must score at least 360 points out of a possible 600, and those who achieve higher scores are more likely to be promoted.

• US election: Donald Trump's request for huge military-style farewell parade rejected by the Pentagon

• Joe Biden reverses Trump's ban on transgender in the military

• Trump's last day: 12 National Guards removed from Joe Biden inauguration due to far-right links

• US warns of military response to rocket attack on Iraq base

However, average scores for women so far are said to have been 100 points lower.

Congress has now declared that the test in its current form should not be a factor in deciding whether someone gets promoted. Expected changes include how core body strength is tested in the leg tuck. Instead of hanging from a bar and tucking legs to their chest, soldiers will instead be given the option of doing a two-minute plank exercise. Early research showed female soldiers' scores improved with the plank option.

The US army is considering scrapping its new gender neutral fitness test as women have been failing in much larger numbers than men. Photo / Getty image

Last month, an army official said a possible solution for the gulf in test scores was using "gender-specific" percentile groupings when considering promotions. Rather than using their raw scores, men and women would separately be categorised in the top 1 per cent, top 10 per cent, and so on.

An army officer told Military.com: "We have to figure out a way to make it fair to both genders."

All US soldiers have been able to take the new test since October, but it will not count towards promotions until March 2022.

PolarWolf314 on March 14th, 2021 at 18:49 UTC »

I live in NZ and NZ Herald is a joke lmao, they managed to turn a minor delay from KFC into “KFC IS SO OVERRUN THAT THEY RAN OUT OF CHICKEN”

Alert_Confusion on March 14th, 2021 at 16:28 UTC »

"US Army halts gender neutral fitness test."

Shows picture of Marines instead of Army.

Edit: Marine Recruits to be precise

lodelljax on March 14th, 2021 at 15:25 UTC »

This is about the change, this article is very summarized, and does not go into the detail. To put it in anecdotes, I have female non commissioned officers (NCOs) , think sergeants who were maxing their old pt test, and thus were competitive within their Military occupational speciality (MOS) for promotion. The new PT test is a good test a better test, however it is very difficult to max especially for females, with two events in particular, the deadlift and the knee tuck. So the new test was changing the competitive nature of promotion. They recently changed that part so now for promotion it is based where you stand in your gender. Fair enough.

The test itself is better than the old one. It is harder to administer, and given the effort we really should have gone with a realistic test. Drag a body 25 meters, climb over a six foot wall, sprint 100 meters wearing body armor, a longer run. Pass fail. Basically a timed obstacle course followed by a pass fail series of sprints and a pass fail long run.

Comments about the event, here are videos everything done in I think 90 minutes (someone looked that up) Event 1 and 5 are where we are seeing problems.

Event 1. Deadlift. https://youtu.be/Eef09p0NIrM

Event 2. Power throw. https://youtu.be/ihpqz2Wtooc

Event 3. Hand release push up https://youtu.be/oX7339XfbSM

Event 4. Sprint drag carry. https://youtu.be/e74I7lgNu_8

Event 5 knee tuck pull up. https://youtu.be/bXSHlJVjpIM

Event 6 two mile run. https://youtu.be/DMuaZKnkvG4