Pentagon officials said Friday that an Army colonel who wrote an internal email suggesting photos of attractive women should be avoided in promotional materials has stepped down from her duties involving a gender study. 
 
 Army spokesman George Wright said Col. Lynnette Arnhart had agreed to step aside, and Gen. Robert Cone, commander of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Eustis, Va., had accepted the gender integration study's leadership change "in order to protect the integrity of the ongoing work on gender integration in the Army." 
 
 The content of the email was first reported by Politico this week. In the email, Arnhart stated that "average-looking women" should be used in Army materials used to attract women for combat roles, Politico reported. 
 
 In addition, Wright said that Col. Christian Kubik, a public affairs officer also with the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, was suspended for his involvement in the email pending an investigation. 
 
 According to the email chain obtained by Politico, Kubik forwarded Arnhart's email to other public affairs officers, cautioning the use of photos "that glamourize women" would undermine the Army's gender integration efforts. 
 
 Wright confirmed that the email existed but didn't provide copies to The Associated Press. Messages seeking comment from Arnhart, who worked at the Training and Doctrine Command's analysis center at Fort Leavenworth, and Kubik about the staff changes weren't immediately returned. 
 
 Earlier Friday, Kubik said in a statement that Arnhart's comments were internal, "nothing more" and didn't reflect official Army policy. 
 
 "The intent was to help ensure that images depict professional female soldiers as they are," he said. "And to ensure that they are recognized on their hard-earned achievements as members of the professional arms." 
 
 Theresa Vail, a Kansas Army National Guard soldier who is also the reigning Miss Kansas, was critical of the email, saying Arnhart's comments reflected entrenched stereotypes that attractive women aren't competent enough to serve in combat or other military roles. 
 
 "It's the sad truth. It's the unfortunate reality," Vail said Friday. "From what I've been getting, women are outraged." 
 
 The military is trying to figure out how to implement policy changes to move women into battlefront jobs, including infantry, armor and elite commando positions. Updated physical and mental standards that are equal for men and women are being devised for thousands of combat jobs. The military has until Jan. 1, 2016, to open as many jobs as possible to women and explain why if they decide to keep some closed. 
 
 Vail, 23, enlisted in the Army when she was 17 and was told she "too pretty join the military," she said. 
 
 "I've always been stereotyped. I pray that more women will stand up to this and take a stand," Vail said. "It's not going to just take me. It's going to take an army of women." ||||| The Army should use photos of “average-looking women” when it needs to illustrate stories about female soldiers, a specialist recommends — images of women who are too pretty undermine the communications strategy about introducing them into combat roles. 
 
 That’s the gist of an internal Army e-mail an Army source shared with POLITICO. 
 
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 “In general, ugly women are perceived as competent while pretty women are perceived as having used their looks to get ahead,” wrote Col. Lynette Arnhart, who is leading a team of analysts studying how best to integrate women into combat roles that have previously been closed off to them. She sent her message to give guidance to Army spokesmen and spokeswomen about how they should tell the press and public about the Army’s integration of women. 
 
 (PHOTOS: 30 amazing photos of the Army) 
 
 “There is a general tendency to select nice looking women when we select a photo to go with an article (where the article does not reference a specific person). It might behoove us to select more average looking women for our comms strategy. For example, the attached article shows a pretty woman, wearing make-up while on deployed duty. Such photos undermine the rest of the message (and may even make people ask if breaking a nail is considered hazardous duty),” Arnhart said. 
 
 She wrote that a photo of a female soldier with mud on her face that news agencies used last spring “sends a much different message—one of women willing to do the dirty work necessary in order to get the job done.” 
 
 (WATCH: Women rule the workforce? Check the numbers) 
 
 Arnhart’s note was originally sent to two people, including Col. Christian Kubik, chief of public affairs for the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. He forwarded the email to all public affairs officers supporting TRADOC with the note: “A valuable reminder from the TRADOC experts who are studying gender integration — when [public affairs officers] choose photos that glamorize women (such as in the attached article), we undermine our own efforts. Please use ‘real’ photos that are typical, not exceptional.” 
 
 In a statement, Army spokesman George Wright said the comments “were an internal email conversation” and “not an Army position.” 
 
 After POLITICO first reported on the e-mail in Tuesday’s Morning Defense, critics seized upon Arnhart’s guidance as proof that today’s Army culture has a long way to go before women will be treated as equals. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Sexual assault issue not resonating) 
 
 Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) tweeted that it was “another example that @USArmy just doesn’t get it as it debates if pretty girls should be used in pamphlets.” 
 
 One Army source said, “It scares me to think that these are people involved in gender integration.” 
 
 As deputy director of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command’s Analysis Center in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Arnhart is helping lead “an extensive study of the institutional and cultural factors associated with integrating women into previously closed” positions. 
 
 In a story published by the Army earlier this month, Arnhart is quoted as saying, “As we move toward integrating women into previously closed occupations, we must do so with the understanding that the leadership and culture of a unit — the history, lineage and social dynamics — are crucial to successfully dealing with changes that will occur.” ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
– An Army colonel has stepped down from a study on women in combat after she urged military spokespeople to use less-attractive women in publicity shots, the AP reports. "In general, ugly women are perceived as competent while pretty women are perceived as having used their looks to get ahead," Lynette Arnhart said in an internal email obtained by Politico. "It might behoove us to select more average-looking women for our comms strategy." She cited an ARMY Magazine piece which "shows a pretty woman, wearing make-up while on deployed duty." "Such photos undermine the rest of the message (and may even make people ask if breaking a nail is considered hazardous duty)," Arnhart wrote. She had been leading an analysis of how to bring women into new combat positions before agreeing to leave the study. A general accepted her exit "in order to protect the integrity of the ongoing work on gender integration in the Army," says an Army spokesman. Col. Christian Kubik, who reportedly forwarded Arnhart's words to fellow military PR people, has been suspended.