Women who served in the US military are pushing back against Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement that the requirements for combat roles will “return to the highest male standard”, saying the standards have always been the same for men and women.
“None of us have ever asked for special treatment,” Elisa Cardnell, who served in the US Navy for eleven years, told the BBC.
Speaking to hundreds of generals on Tuesday, Hegseth reiterated his beliefs that the military had lowered standards to accommodate women and put service members at risk. His new directives would bring them back to a higher level, he said.
“If it means no women qualify for combat jobs, then so be it,” he said.
A lot of people cannot fathom a world outside of their own sphere of problems, emotions, ambitions and dreams, and live basically on autopilot through their lives.
I am not going to say there’s a difference between stupidity and evil, because material outcomes are what matter to me most so they’re basically the same, but I would make the point that until we bring everyone up in cognitive capability, we’re always going to have people who want to feel like the hero, and want to achieve that feeling by joining something larger than themselves.
As individuals, I firmly believe you can change people. I’ve done it countless times, in one-on-one discussion, you can make people feel new things, you can make people question what they know, you can change people’s direction.
But as populations? We are a liquid. We are water. You cannot contain water nor judge it for being water and seeking it’s level. The only thing we can do is try to change the conditions in which that water flows and settles.