The Pentagon has launched a six-month review of women serving in ground combat roles, a move officials say is intended to assess military “effectiveness” but which critics argue could be used to justify rolling back a decade of gender integration in the armed forces.
In a memo circulated last month, Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel Anthony Tata directed Army and Marine Corps leaders to evaluate the “operational effectiveness of ground combat units” ten years after the Department of Defense lifted all remaining restrictions on women serving in combat roles. NPR reported on the memo after obtaining a copy.
The directive asks military leaders to submit data on readiness, training, performance, casualties, and command climate for ground combat units, along with detailed information on individual service members’ ability to deploy, including physical and medical measures. The memo also requests any internal studies or research — including materials not publicly released — related to the integration of women in combat.
Units have been instructed to provide a point of contact to the Institute for Defense Analyses by January 15.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told NPR the review is meant to ensure standards are upheld and that the U.S. military remains, in her words, “the most lethal military.” She said combat standards would be “elite, uniform, and sex neutral,” adding that “the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn’t care if you’re a man or a woman.”
Wilson said the department, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, would not “compromise standards to satisfy quotas or an ideological agenda.”
Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News host, has long been outspoken in his opposition to women serving in ground combat units. In a November 2024 podcast interview with former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan, Hegseth said bluntly that women should not be in combat roles, arguing their presence has made military operations “more complicated” rather than more effective.
During a September address to senior military leaders at Marine Base Quantico, Hegseth announced directives aimed at returning every combat position to what he described as “the highest male standards,” stating that if no women qualified for certain jobs, “so be it.”
Women currently make up a small share of ground combat forces. According to NPR, about 3,800 women serve in Army infantry, armor, and artillery units, with more than 150 having completed Ranger training. Roughly 10 women have passed Green Beret training, and the Marine Corps has about 700 women in ground combat roles. In all cases, women must meet the same standards as men. Women were formally admitted into all ground combat positions in 2015.
Critics say the review is less about readiness and more about ideology. Ellen Haring, a West Point graduate, retired Army colonel, and senior research fellow at Women in International Security, told NPR the review appears designed to exclude women from combat roles.
“It’s exactly what he said all along,” Haring said of Hegseth. “He’s against women in combat and he’s going to get them out. It’s going to be an effort to prove women don’t belong.”
Another West Point graduate, Khris Fuhr, who previously worked on gender integration for Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, echoed that concern, calling the review “a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.”
As the Pentagon gathers data over the coming months, the review is likely to intensify a long-running debate over gender, standards, and combat readiness — and raise questions about whether the future of women in frontline military roles has already been decided.
