Democrats’ Hegseth Hearing Theatrics Prove They’re Unserious About U.S. National Security
Republicans Would Be Stupid Not To Confirm Pete Hegseth As Secretary Of Defense
How ‘Gladiator II’ Rejected Masculinity
The left can’t handle Hegseth’s combat stance
Motherhood is the foundation of all civilization. A movement determined to dismantle society would inevitably target women’s femininity to disrupt the natural male-female dynamic, leaving behind an androgynous, gender-blurring culture that struggles to reproduce itself. In other words, the culture we largely see today. This explains why the far left is so fixated on advancing the “women in combat” agenda and why Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense has left leftists furious and discombobulated.
The media’s predictable criticism of Hegseth’s credentials, persona, and ideology began the moment Trump selected him to lead the Pentagon. However, the most surprising aspect of the backlash was the intense outrage directed at one of Hegseth’s less prominent beliefs. NBC News published a dramatic headline that read: “Pete Hegseth’s remarks about women in combat are met with disgust and dissent.”
As society debates protecting female-only spaces from male intrusion, perhaps it’s also time to re-evaluate the invasion of women into traditionally male spaces.
The “disgusting” comments came up during a podcast Hegseth appeared on last week. During the episode, he made what the left apparently considers the most scandalous claim imaginable. Hegseth said the military “should not have women in combat roles” and argued that “men in those positions are more capable.”
Pass the smelling salts.
It’s astonishing that, of all the “controversial” opinions Hegseth has expressed over years of cable news appearances, his opposition to sending women into the most grueling and physically punishing roles has drawn the most outrage. Dozens of hit pieces and angry responses from Democrats have focused on this position.
Follow the science
In today’s post-truth society, it might shock some to hear that women’s bodies are not designed to endure the physical demands of jobs that permanently injure even the strongest men. While debates about the physical toll of military roles often fixate on upper-body strength, the anatomical differences between men and women extend far beyond muscle mass and genitals.
Women’s wider thigh bone angles align their legs — from the knees to the ankles — in a way that makes them more vulnerable to stress and injury. This structural difference subjects women’s knees to more pressure, contributing to significantly higher rates of ACL tears among female athletes compared to their male counterparts. Additionally, women’s ACLs are not only smaller, but the intercondylar notch in the femur, where the ACL passes through, is also narrower, further increasing their susceptibility to injury.
Why would national policy automatically treat men and women as equals in combat roles? While popular culture may glorify “girlbosses” who strive to prove a point and criticize those who oppose “their right to serve,” the reality remains unchanged: Women face a greater risk of injuries, which can compromise their performance and unnecessarily endanger combat units. This is not speculation but established science.
In 2015, as the Obama administration pressured military branches to open all combat roles to women, the Marine Corps, under Gen. Joseph Dunford, conducted an extensive study to evaluate the impact of mixed-gender infantry units. The months-long study, which cost $36 million, compared the performance of all-male units to mixed-gender units. Unsurprisingly to those outside elitist political circles, the study found that mixed-gender units were not just a net liability — they were an absolute liability.
Here are some key findings, according to a summary of the report:
- All-male teams outperformed mixed-gender teams in 69% of tasks, excelling in 94 out of 134 assignments.
- In every tactical movement, all-male teams moved faster than mixed-gender teams, particularly when carrying heavy crew-served weapons. This trend was consistent across all military operational specialties.
- All-male teams demonstrated superior accuracy across all weapons systems, including male Marines trained as infantrymen and those from non-infantry MOS roles participating in the testing.
- Male teams outperformed integrated teams in routine combat tasks. For example, male Marines easily tossed their packs over an eight-foot wall, while female Marines frequently needed assistance. During mock casualty evacuations, all-male teams worked significantly faster unless using a fireman’s carry, where male Marines often carried the evacuee.
- The study found major differences in anaerobic power and capacity. The top 25% of female Marines overlapped with the bottom 25% of males for anaerobic power, and the top 10% of females matched the bottom 50% of males for anaerobic capacity.
- Female participants experienced notably higher injury rates and fatigue levels compared to their male counterparts. In the Infantry Training Battalion, women sustained injuries at six times the rate of men.
The Marine Corps report highlighted that even the strongest and most skilled female Marines, all graduates of the Infantry Training Battalion, struggled to match the performance of their male counterparts. Combat requires the most resilient and physically capable individuals, which is why placing women in infantry units defies logic.
The results revealed that while a few exceptional women might possess the ability to serve in infantry roles, they would still lag their male peers. This disparity could slow down units or create unnecessary risks for themselves and others.
Unfortunately, military leaders ignored these findings. As efforts to integrate women into combat roles intensified, reality began to catch up. By 2021, the Army faced significant challenges, including a staggering 65% failure rate among female recruits on its gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test.
None of this should come as a surprise. As a 1992 report from the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces correctly observed:
Unnecessary distraction or any dilution of the combat effectiveness puts the mission and lives in jeopardy. Risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires or interests of an individual, or group of individuals, is more than bad military judgment. It is morally wrong.
Why is the left so obsessed with women in combat?
At first glance, the left’s obsession with placing women in combat seems uncanny, given its general disdain for military service and criticism of so-called toxic masculinity. Social engineering to promote women over men in professional settings might align with their goals, but brute warfare?
When viewed through the lens of the transgender agenda — which seeks to unravel the natural distinctions between masculinity in men and femininity in women — the push for women in combat begins to make sense. This agenda aims to extinguish feminine energy in a generation of young women, fostering a childless, confused society where men no longer understand how to approach or regard women. Hyper-masculinizing women has stifled their innate nurturing tendencies over the past two generations.
The left has groomed an entire generation to believe it’s normal to idolize women cosplaying as warriors. But this is no less absurd than men competing in beauty pageants. In both cases, some individuals might blend in at first glance, but closer inspection reveals the disconnect. Neither scenario aligns with biological realities, and both ignore the long-term consequences for a society that has lost sight of what it means to be a woman.
This context explains why the loudest criticism of Pete Hegseth isn’t about his broader political views, his stance on Ukraine, his military strategy, or even his position on abortion. Instead, critics focus on his belief, shaped by his combat experience, that women should be protected and cherished as nurturers of future generations — not thrown into the blood-soaked chaos of the battlefield. As society debates protecting female-only spaces from male intrusion, perhaps it’s also time to re-evaluate the invasion of women into traditionally male spaces.
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"Be all that you can be!" Where men can be women and women can be men; where soldiers must wear masks all day on American bases but can't carry firearms; where the entire purpose of the military is to fight other countries' battles but not the one at our border; where getting women to act like men is the only religion allowed in the military, except when they invariably can't meet the standards and the military lowers them to make them "fair" for all.
That is sadly the state of play in what was once the pride of the nation, after decades of the left rotting out our armed forces with left-wing politicians serving as generals.
For many years, conservatives have known that military leadership has become politicized. The focus shifted from combat readiness to social experimentation, and the left finally conquered the one institution that was considered a bastion of traditional American values. But Tucker Carlson has now exposed that it's worse than even we realized.
Last Tuesday night, Tucker Carlson commented on Biden's celebration of the military becoming more feminine: "While China's military becomes more masculine, as it's assembled the world's largest navy," America focuses on making our military "become more feminine — whatever feminine means any more, since men and women no longer exist."
Tucker was commentating on Biden's celebration of the military making apparel for women, including "designing body armor that fits women properly; tailoring combat uniforms for women; creating maternity flight suits; updating — updating requirements for their hairstyles."
Carlson prefaced his critique of the president with his now famous line, "So we've got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits."
"Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It's a mockery of the U.S. military," Carlson added on his show Tuesday. Carlson drove home the point by noting how "the Pentagon is going along with it" and that this entire feminine focus "is a mockery of the U.S. military and its core mission, which is winning wars."
For most Americans with common sense, Tucker was expressing their anger and sorrow at what has happened to our military over the years. What none of us expected was the response of the military leaders from all service branches sending out memes about Amazonian women and outright celebrating the concept of pregnant women in combat. Reminiscent of Rush Limbaugh's parody "we're fierce, we're feminists, and we're in your face," many active-duty feminist generals sent out social media memes basically suggesting that women are the strongest and most effective part of combat readiness, taking the absurdity of gender-bending to the next level and exemplifying Tucker's point better than he could have on his show.
Women lead our most lethal units with character. They will dominate ANY future battlefield we’re called to fight on… https://t.co/5cIpZ4pOo0— SMA Michael Grinston (@SMA Michael Grinston)1615435204.0
Putting aside the absurd values and strategy behind this gender-bending agenda, it's quite shocking how active-duty generals are able to spar with a civilian media figure to this extent. It's one thing for the secretary of defense to engage in political battles, but we have never seen active-duty military allowed to become so political. It's as if they are trying to compensate for 20 years of egregious rules of engagement and lack of mission clarity by training their fire on a civilian with no holds barred. Now we know why we've been in Afghanistan for 20 years.
As for the substance of the gender-bending argument, how many of you actually believe that a military leadership so dedicated to promoting women in combat really remains neutral when it comes to passing women through the combat training tests? Well, just one month ago, before Tucker prompted the generals to tout women as stronger than men, the Army Times reported that the military is considering halting its gender-neutral Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) test, as female soldiers were failing at a rate of 65%, in order to make it fair to both genders.
So, much like having both sexes compete together in sports, women are exactly like men, until they are not. Which is perhaps why Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is now promoting "mindfulness and yoga" as part of combat readiness – of course, while wearing masks.
What are the benefits of incorporating mindfulness and yoga into Basic Combat Training? Engaging with Soldiers from… https://t.co/2VFMezGN9B— TRADOC CSM (@TRADOC CSM)1615554000.0
A Pentagon study has found up to 65% of women were failing the ACFT, compared to just 10% for men, according to the Telegraph. Lt. Col. Margaret Kageleiry of TRADOC told the Army Times last month that the Army "is looking at means to apply those scores based on gender to account for biological differences."
Oh, so you mean there are actually biological differences that make life-and-death differences in combat readiness? Who knew?
The reality is that the Marines already studied this issue very carefully in 2015, but their findings were ignored. When Obama began integrating women into infantry and other combat units, the Marine Corps, under General Joseph Dunford, was the only service branch to question this absurdity. The service conducted a study of 400 Marines (300 male and 100 female) over many months at a cost of $36 million, in which all-male teams and integrated teams were studied performing numerous tasks similar to those they would carry out in real-life combat. In infantry testing, in nearly every category, mixed teams came up short compared to the all-male teams.
Here are some key points, according to a summary of the report:
- Overall, the all-male teams outperformed teams with integrated female members 69% of the time, in 94 out of 134 tasks.
- All-male teams were faster than integrated teams in every tactical movement, and this was especially evident when heavy crew-served weapons were being moved. This held true across all Military Operational Specialties (MOSs).
- The all-male teams were more accurate shots than the integrated teams across all weapons systems. This included male Marines trained as infantrymen and those in a different MOS who were part of the testing.
- The all-male teams performed much better on routine combat tasks. When climbing an eight-foot wall, male Marines would toss their packs to the top, whereas female Marines "required regular assistance getting their packs to the top." When carrying out mock evacuations of casualties, all-male teams were much faster except in cases where the evacuee was carried in a fireman's carry, and then it was usually a male Marine doing the carrying.
- The top 25% of females overlapped with the bottom 25% of male Marines in the study for anaerobic power, and the top 10% of females corresponded with the bottom 50% of males for anaerobic capacity.
- Most importantly, the female participants sustained significantly higher injury rates and levels of fatigue than their male counterparts. In the Infantry Training Battalion, females were injured at six times the rate of male Marines.
It's important to keep in mind that these were some of the strongest and most talented female Marines, drawn from graduates of the Infantry Training Battalion. Yet at the end of the day, combat is a job only for the strongest and most resilient of men, not just average men, which is why it makes no sense to promote an agenda of women in infantry units.
Overall, the results showed that while some exceptional and unusual women might be capable of serving in the infantry in a vacuum, even they would lag far behind their male counterparts and end up slowing down their units or placing themselves or others in unnecessary danger.
The study and the recent admission from the Pentagon about women failing the ACFT – despite five years of moving heaven and earth to get as many women through it as possible – prove the simple yet blunt conclusion of a 1992 report from the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces correct:
Unnecessary distraction or any dilution of the combat effectiveness puts the mission and lives in jeopardy. Risking the lives of a military unit in combat to provide career opportunities or accommodate the personal desires or interests of an individual, or group of individuals, is more than bad military judgment. It is morally wrong.
So much for "following the science." Women in combat was the original "wear your mask to stop the spread." In both cases, politics trumps science. It's just a matter of time before they begin celebrating pregnant female Navy SEALs.
Now the same Marine Corps is attacking Tucker on Twitter for essentially opining on what its own study showed. The military is also abusing the soldiers with endless mask-wearing while performing exhausting physical exercises, while the science has shown that it has failed to stop the spread among these predominantly young recruits who are not even in danger from the virus.
The same generals promoting gender-bending are the same ones proposing masks, endless nation-building follies, and more Saudi military recruits – while opposing using troops at our own border and arming soldiers on their own bases. Donald Trump was right when he said in 2016 that our generals have been "reduced to rubble."
Meanwhile, all civilians should be asking themselves the following question: Does China actually fear a military wearing masks and run by feminist generals?Get the Conservative Review delivered right to your inbox.
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