Feminist blogger Gooseberry Bush writes in her post G.I. Jane (emphasis mine):

There’s absolutely no reason why women can’t be drafted and no reason why they can’t serve in the military right alongside of men in every capacity. Israel requires compulsory military service for both men and women. If women defer to men who say that they want to exclude us in order to protect us, then we rightly deserve to have privileges withheld from us. We’ve given them that power by appointing men as our protectors while we cower in the corner and bite our fingernails, like some simpering love interest in a Hollywood action movie marketed to men, written by, directed by, produced by, and starring men. It’s time we got all Lara Croft on their asses.

Well, no reason except for the large difference between women and men, which is why feminists always lobby for different standards required of women at the same time they argue that women can be firefighters, police, or serve in combat positions in the military. For example, consider the Marine Corps Combat Fitness Test (CFT). According to Pfc. Michelle Mattei:

The Marine Corps’ Combat Fitness Test measures a Marine’s physical readiness for battle with three real-time combat drills. Each assessment is designed to determine various aspects of combat fitness. Every active-duty Marine and reservist is required to meet the Corps’ recently implemented CFT standard.

You hear that? Every Marine must pass this test, including the women. See, that proves men and women are equally fit for combat, right? Well, sure. So long as you fudge the test for women. I haven’t found the latest requirements, but here is what the minimum standard was for men and women as of 2008:

Note that while some account is made for age, the oldest, weakest, and slowest men must meet a higher standard than the youngest, strongest, and fastest women. In the case of the ammo can lifts, the lowest standard for men is more than twice that of the highest standard applied to women.

Despite all of our technical advances, combat is still a literal, physical fight. Michael Yon describes this frequently in his blogging on Iraq, as he does in his post Gates of Fire:

When the bullet hit that canister, Prosser—who I thought might be dead because of all the blood on his leg—was actually fighting hand-to-hand on the ground. Wrapped in a ground fight, Prosser could not pull out his service pistol strapped on his right leg, or get to his knife on his left, because the terrorist—who turned out to be a serious terrorist—had grabbed Prosser’s helmet and pulled it over his eyes and twisted it. Prosser had beaten the terrorist in the head three times with his fist and was gripping his throat, choking him. But Prosser’s gloves were slippery with blood so he couldn’t hold on well. At the same time, the terrorist was trying to bite Prosser’s wrist, but instead he bit onto the face of Prosser’s watch…

…Prosser quickly reholstered his pistol and subdued him by smashing his face into the concrete.

Even with all of our technology, that fight ended up as a no holds barred ground fight where the victor bashed the loser’s head into concrete. This brings me to an article from the Cleveland Scene about the death of a female Marine* titled Fallen Angel. Welmer linked to it in a recent post on The Spearhead about the deaths of female service members in war zones. In that story lies the full contradiction of the feminist view of women as warriors. It starts off spreading it thick about how tough the female Marine was. We are told those on base called her the Fiery Angel, and it is at first suggested that she made it a habit to hone her ground fighting skills by wrestling with men on base as just another one of the guys:

One day in October 2008, two months into her tour in Iraq’s notoriously bloody Anbar province, the feisty [redacted] wanted to try out some new grappling techniques, according to the story of a sailor who was also stationed on the base. It led to an impromptu wrestling match between the two, and [she] came away from it with an injury.

As improbable as this story might sound to anyone whose life experience isn’t limited to watching episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, we learn in the article that it matched with what the Marine told her own mother:

the story closely matched what her daughter had told her on the phone the night before her death.

The Marine’s father found the story harder to swallow, and after keeping the pressure up he ultimately heard what really happened. The true story was a tale of feminist myth-making colliding head on with an ever stubborn and in this case fatal reality:

In a phone conversation with a female NCIS investigator, he learned that on the day before [she] died, she had been spending downtime with other Marines and a group of U.S. Navy sailors when one sailor snarled, “Marines ain’t shit” at them.

Armed with nothing more than the power of moxie, the former cheerleader and choir girl turned Packaging Specialist decided to physically punish the Sailor for his words. Borrowing a phrase from Gooseberry Bush, she decided to go all Lara Croft on his ass:

Enraged, [she] rushed the sailor. “I’m going to show you what a Marine is!” she shouted, and proceeded to knock the much larger rival to the ground.

Unfortunately for her, this was neither a video game nor a movie, and the man she assaulted had the bad taste to fight back:

the sailor then jumped back to his feet, grabbed [her], and body-slammed her. Her head whip-lashed onto concrete. The scuffle was broken up by witnesses, and [she] retreated without seeking medical attention. But within a few hours, she complained to commanding officers and fellow Marines of a headache. The next day, she was dead.

Now all of a sudden instead of portraying the female Marine as a tough-as-the-guys modern day GI Jane, the tone turns to her as a helpless victim of the very Sailor she assaulted:

[her] father understands the law. What he doesn’t understand is why the sailor wasn’t held accountable for slamming a much smaller woman to the ground. He was never given the name of the sailor in question, and the name of the sailor and the eyewitnesses were redacted from the report. “Shouldn’t the sailor at least be charged with manslaughter?” he asks today.

For those keeping score at home, the feminist line is:

Women are just as capable in physical fights/combat as men, and can perform the very same roles as men, even those which require significant physical strength. When opening up traditionally male jobs to women, different physical standards must be established which apply only to women, because we all know women aren’t as big/strong/fast as men. Men must continue to meet the same high standards they always have, because the job requires great physical strength and a weaker man couldn’t do it. Men who hit women back are acting criminally, because that is no way to treat a lady.

*I’ve decided not to use the Marine’s name in this post so that it won’t come up under a search of her name by friends or family members.