Should women be in combat?

Summary

Today, Explained: Should Women Be in Combat? Vox Podcast Episode Released on May 22, 2025

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Introduction

In the May 22, 2025 episode of Today, Explained, Vox hosts Noel King and Kurt Sonner delve into the contentious debate over the role of women in combat within the U.S. military. The episode scrutinizes the policies and perspectives of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has recently reignited discussions on gender integration in combat roles.

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Background on the Debate

The episode sets the stage by highlighting Secretary Pete Hegseth's controversial tenure, marked by his outspoken stance against what he terms "wokeness" in the military. From the outset, Hegseth has positioned himself against various progressive measures, including those supporting women in combat roles.

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Hegseth’s Stance and Policies

Noel King introduces Hegseth's position, noting his explicit challenges to women's participation in combat:

• Hegseth on Women in Combat (00:22):

  "We're done with that shit."

• Challenging Quotas (00:36):

  "These commanders meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted, and that disparages those women."

Hegseth argues that enforcing gender quotas undermines military effectiveness and standards.

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Revising Physical Fitness Standards

A significant portion of the episode focuses on Hegseth’s initiative to revise the Army’s physical fitness standards to be gender-neutral.

• Hegseth’s Directive (04:22):

  "We're ensuring that any combat position across any of the services and the services are evaluating that has the same standard for men and women."

The new directives mandate that women in combat roles must meet the same physical standards as their male counterparts, eliminating previous gender-based adjustments.

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Historical Context and Military Integration

The discussion provides historical context, referencing the 2015 directive by then-Secretary Ash Carter that opened all military roles to women, provided they meet the necessary standards.

• Impact of 2015 Directive (05:04):

  "As long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before."

This shift allowed women to participate in roles such as driving tanks, firing mortars, and leading infantry units.

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Experiences of Women in Combat: The Story of Emily Van Ass

A pivotal segment of the episode features Emily Van Ass, one of the first women to graduate from Ranger School and serve in combat roles.

• Emily’s Journey (17:40):

  "I was among the first women to graduate from the Army's elite Ranger School."

Emily recounts the challenges she faced, including skepticism from male counterparts and the physical and mental rigors of Ranger School.

• Facing Gender Bias (18:26):

  "There was half of this population of objective graders that just kind of hated my guts for even showing up."

Despite these obstacles, Emily emphasizes that she met the same physical standards as her male peers:

• Equal Standards (20:57):

  "I ran five miles in 40 minutes. I did 49 push-ups, 59 sit-ups, six pull-ups. I rucked 12 miles in three hours with a 45-pound ruck."

Her unwavering commitment challenges the notion that women cannot meet the demanding requirements of combat roles.

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Impact on Women in the Military

The episode explores the broader implications of Hegseth’s policies on female service members:

• Elimination of Support Structures (09:42):

  "The Pentagon and the military branches have eliminated barrier analysis groups... working on issues for women and various minority groups."

This move has led to concerns about the diminishing support and recognition for women’s contributions in the military.

• Physical Equipment Challenges (10:31):

  "Body armor designed for a small male body caused discomfort and injuries for many women."

Such issues highlight the ongoing struggle to accommodate women’s specific needs within combat roles.

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Reactions and Perspectives

The hosts and interviewees provide critical perspectives on Hegseth’s approach:

• Defining Lethality (23:36):

  "Lethality extends far beyond physical fitness... It’s tactical skills, decision making, leadership, grit."

The conversation underscores that military effectiveness is multifaceted and not solely dependent on physical prowess.

• Response to Hegseth’s Views (25:28):

  Emily expresses frustration: "It makes me irate, to be honest. It’s just a complete discountment of all of the accomplishments of the women that came before us."

There is a collective sentiment among female service members that Hegseth's policies undermine their hard-earned achievements and capabilities.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes by reflecting on the ongoing struggle for gender equality in the military. It emphasizes the resilience of women like Emily Van Ass, who continue to break barriers despite institutional resistance. The discussion leaves listeners contemplating the true meaning of military lethality and the indispensable role that women play in achieving it.

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Notable Quotes

• Pete Hegseth (00:08):

  "No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses. We're done with that shit."

• Emily Van Ass (18:33):

  "Back in 2016 and 2017, it was so new to have women in Ranger school. I had dark times at that school."

• Emily Van Ass (25:13):

  "It makes me irate, to be honest. It’s just a complete discountment of all of the accomplishments of the women that came before us."

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This comprehensive exploration in Today, Explained provides a nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding the role of women in combat, the policies shaping their participation, and the personal stories that humanize this pivotal issue.

Transcript

[Noel King]

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth came into his job promising a war on wokeness and weakness in the US Military.

[Pete Hegseth]

No more pronouns. No more climate change obsession. No more emergency vaccine mandates. No more dudes in dresses. We're done with that shit.

[Noel King]

Hegseth has taken aim at women. He's challenged the idea that that women should serve in combat roles as they have for 10 years now. He's danced around whether women make the military less lethal, including at his Senate confirmation hearing.

[Pete Hegseth]

These commanders meet quotas to have a certain number of female infantry officers or infantry enlisted, and that disparages those women.

[Noel King]

Commanders are capable of meeting that next month. He's updating the army fitness test to make it more difficult and to make the standards the same for men and women. Coming up on Today Explained the war over Women warfighters.

[Kurt Sonner]

Quick favor before we get started here at Today Explained. We are planning for the future of the show and we want to hear from you to figure out how we can make our show even better for you. Visit voxmedia.com survey to give us your feedback. We want it voxmedia.com survey thank you.

[Unknown]

In every company, there's a whole system of decision makers, challenges and strategies shaping the future of business at every level. That's why we're running a special three part Decoder Thursday series looking at how some of the biggest companies in the world are adapting, innovating and rethinking their playbooks. We're asking enterprise leaders about some of the toughest questions they're facing today, revealing the tensions, risks and breakthroughs happening behind closed doors. Check out Decoder wherever you get your podcasts.

[Noel King]

This special series from the Verge is presented by Adobe Express.

[Unknown]

Support for this podcast and the following message is brought to you by E Trade from Morgan Stanley. With E Trade, you can dive into the market with easy to use tools, $0 commissions and a wide range of investments. And now there's even more to love. Get access to industry leading research and insights from Morgan Stanley to help guide your decisions. Open an account and get up to $1,000 or more with a qualifying deposit. Get started [e-mail] terms and other fees apply. Investing Involves Risks Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC Member SIPIC E Trade is a business of Morgan Stanley.

You're listening to Today Explained.

[Noel King]

I'm Noel King Sonner. Kurt is an investigative reporter at the War Horse. This is a national nonprofit newsroom that covers the military and veterans. Sonner recently wrote a piece titled War Women have Served in Combat Roles for a Decade. The Pentagon is reopening the debate, Pete.

[Unknown]

Hagsath has been pretty clear that he is skeptical of women in combat.

[Pete Hegseth]

Because I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.

[Unknown]

He's made statements in public in his book, during his time on Fox News saying that women should be able to serve in the military, but that combat roles specifically are not suited for women.

[Pete Hegseth]

When I'm talking about that issue, it's not about the capabilities of men and women. It's about standards. Standards that we unfortunately over time have seen eroded in certain duty positions, certain schools, certain places, which affects readiness, which is what I care about the most.

[Unknown]

Hagseth has talked a lot about standards and specifically sort of how they've fallen in recent years. Grooming, like uniforms, standards, these little things that make the military sort of disciplined, saying they've sort of fallen by the wayside. But the big one that I think he's interested in is physical fitness standards.

[Noel King]

Specifically, what are the physical fitness standards that he's referring to? What does he mean in general?

[Unknown]

The military branches have an annual or semiannual physical fitness test that all service members take, sort of regardless of what you do in your day to day job. And that tests how in shape you are, how fit you are. And, and I think when he's talking about physical fitness standards, he's generally talking about those standards.

[Pete Hegseth]

So for decades, the military I joined, there were different male and female physical standards because men and women are different and that's understandable. But there were certain jobs, combat moss, that were only for men, and so you had a male standard.

[Unknown]

In March, Hegseth released two memos basically directing the military services, the different branches, to reevaluate their standards to specifically look at their physical fitness standards and in particular how those standards relate to combat specialties or combat positions.

[Pete Hegseth]

We're ensuring that any combat position across any of the services and the services are evaluating that has the same standard for men and women.

[Unknown]

The memos said basically they should revisit how they've changed since 2015. And I think it's important to note that date is probably not random. That's the year that Secretary Ash Carter said that all jobs in the military would be open to women.

This means that as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before. They'll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars, and lead infantry soldiers into combat.

The Army Was sort of already looking at some changes to its physical fitness test. But the newly released test seems to be in response, at least at some level, to this request or this directive by Hagseth to reconsider physical fitness standards.

[Noel King]

Okay, so the standards for the army are gonna change. What were they and what are they changing to?

[Unknown]

Army's yearly or semi yearly fitness test. It was called the army combat Fitness test. They're now changing it to the army fitness test. And historically, the army combat fitness test was graded on sort of a scale. So the standards were different for men and they were different for younger and older people. They call it sort of age and gender norming. That's the test that the army has been taking. There's going to be some changes to how that's scored. In general, the standards are going up just a little bit across the board. People might are going to have to do more push ups. There are some changes in some places to the timing of the run. But the big change really is for women who want to go into combat armed specialties or who are already in combat armed specialties, they're going to have to meet basically the male standard.

[Noel King]

Okay, if I'm a literal minded person, I might say, you know, it makes sense to me that women should have to meet the same standards as men, especially maybe even only if they weren't doing their jobs as well as men. So we now have some years of data on this. In those combat jobs, did we have evidence that women were not doing them as well as men, not doing them well enough?

[Unknown]

There really hasn't been evidence. There are sort of two things I think are important to consider. One is that the army and the military branches sort of look at or make a distinction between fitness standards and occupational standards. So while the physical fitness test for the army, the army combat fitness test has been gender normed and age normed. Every woman who serves in a combat role has had to meet occupational standards. So basically, these physical demands that the job requires, tasks that test how well you can really do the physical parts of the job. And that's gender neutral. They're graded the same for everyone. The debate over women in combat didn't come out of a vacuum. It came out of Iraq and Afghanistan where women were doing the job alongside men in a lot of cases.

[Emily Van Ass]

I basically got an email that was kind of mysterious and was like, can you meet these physical requirements? Do you want to deploy with a special operations unit? And I said, yes. You know, you deployed to Afghanistan and you're attached to a special Operations unit. So I was attached to a Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha.

[Unknown]

There were lioness teams, these female engagement teams that because of cultural reasons would, you know, be involved in raiding and clearing houses, engaging with women. And they were exposed to a lot of the same combat threats that men were.

[Emily Van Ass]

I guess I'd say like, the thing about combat is that everyone has a role to play, but it ends up being much more than just, you know, your assigned role. Like I carried ammunition, I carried like extra equipment for other people because technically.

[Unknown]

Their time on the front line didn't count as combat. They weren't getting awards, they weren't getting promotions. You know, being in combat counts for a lot in the army and the Marine Corps. So it was impacting their careers, impacting promotions, it was impacting benefits they could get after they got out of the military. And so a lot of the decision making around women in combat was based on the fact that women were doing these jobs. They just weren't being recognized for it.

[Noel King]

Is there anything else that the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth is doing that suggests it might want to reopen the question of whether women should be in combat?

[Unknown]

I think that there are a number of things that are causing concern for women in the military. One is just sort of the scrubbing of Defense Department websites of accomplishments of women and other military minority groups. But kind of more concretely, the Pentagon and the military branches have eliminated barrier analysis groups, which was really an Air Force initiative that the other services were starting to emulate that worked on issues for women and various min minority group saying basically, how can we remove barriers to their service? How can we make them better? How can we make them more lethal? How can we help them do their jobs better? And how do we develop body armor that fits women's bodies? Because that's been a big problem is that small body armor, which is issued often to women, is designed for a small male body.

[Noel King]

The bottom was so heavy and didn't fit. It would clank up against my hips and it would cause bruises on my ribs.

[Unknown]

And then the Pentagon basically removed all of the members of some 40 plus defense advisory committees. They're these basically independent committees that advise the Secretary of Defense on everything from R and D to how the military handles sexual assault.

[Noel King]

Is there any sense that Secretary of Defense Hegseth is overstepping and some of this may be relitigated later on?

[Unknown]

I think there's a chance that it will be sort of reconsidered later on, but. But a lot of this really, for the most part is the secretary's prerogative. He can, he can stand up or dismantle these committees. He has a lot of decision making authority. He can direct the military branches to do xyz. I think a lot of the concerns people are, are having now is that these big questions like women in combat are going to be addressed without sort of the independent study and counsel that have historically accompanied big decisions in the military.

[Noel King]

Pete Hegseth is an unusual choice for secretary of defense. He has, in some ways, I think it's fair to say, targeted women in the service. What do you hear from your sources, from your women's sources in the military about what they think of him and how they're feeling about all these proposed changes?

[Unknown]

Hegseth and military leadership are focusing on sort of small culture wars questions rather than some of the big questions that are facing the military. And I think, you know, one thing that I've heard is that Hagseth talks a lot about lethality and the, the importance of lethality and that sort of woke, quote, unquote, woke culture in the military is undermining lethality. But they haven't really seen a definition of what lethality is. I think a lot of people in the military would like to, to get a clearer understanding of how he defines lethality.

[Noel King]

Sonar Kurt. She's an investigative reporter at the War horse, which is a national nonprofit newsroom that covers the military and veterans. Find [e-mail] Coming up, a lady veteran who did something that secretary of defense Hegseth couldn't support.

[Kurt Sonner]

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[Noel King]

Support for today's show comes from NPR's Planet Money. Here's the Noel King Unified Theory of Everything. They will try to pull the wool over your eyes. They will try to keep you in the dark. Who are they? I don't actually know. But I do know that if you understand the economy, if you understand why you get paid what you get paid, if you understand why you pay what you do for gasoline and eggs and rent, if you understand why your 401k was doing so well a week ago and then today it's in the toilet, then you become a person who cannot be fooled. Understanding economics is a very important thing, maybe even one of the most important things, but it is not always easy stuff. This is where NPR's Planet Money comes in. I worked at Planet Money for a couple of years and the whole job there is to take big economic concepts, ideas, facts on the ground and to make them understandable with storytelling and humor and really great interviews. And Planet Money, I will tell you for My Money delivers week after week after week and has been for more than a decade. It is an important show if you want to understand the world around you, and I highly recommend it. You can tune into Planet Money every week for entertaining stories and insights about how money shapes our world, stories that cannot be found anywhere else. Listen now to Planet Money from npr. Support for the show comes from Greenlight. Growing up, did your parents ever tell you money doesn't grow on trees? Mine didn't, but their Nissan was duct taped together. So point made. You can pick up where my parents or yours left off and help teach your kid about money with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families. It helps kids learn how to save investors and spend wisely. You can send money to the kids, you can keep an eye on what they're doing and they in the meanwhile, will build financial confidence and skills in a fun way, like with games. One of our colleagues at Vox Otisham has used Greenlight. Here's Oda.

[Unknown]

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[Noel King]

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[Unknown]

This is today Explained. Ranger School is kind of a crucible event for the Army. It's a three phase school in which individuals are deprived of food and sleep and warmth and kind of basic human comforts and forced to make decisions and lead in complex situations and then they're evaluated on those leadership decisions. So Ranger School was founded in 1952 and it's kind of touted as the premier leadership training and evaluation school for the Army. And women weren't given the chance to or the opportunity to attend until 2014. So it took the Army 62 years to realize that women could be leaders too.

[Noel King]

Emily Van Ass served in the army for seven years as an infantry officer. She was in fact in the first group of women to commission as infantry officers. That was in 2016. And she was among the first women to graduate from the Army's elite Ranger School.

[Unknown]

I went to Ranger School on the 1st of January, 2017. And I woke up, you know, 3am that day in Fort Benning, Georgia. Shaved my head, quarter inch all the way around, just like the men. Took my last hot shower, choked down some French toast, and then I drove to Camp Rogers. And I remember being like very acutely aware of the pain that the school would inflict, both physically and mentally. But I very much considered it a prerequisite for my job as an infantry officer. I was also very aware that there was kind of half of this population of objective graders that just kind of hated my guts for even showing up.

[Noel King]

They hated you for showing up because you're a woman.

[Unknown]

Back in 2016 and 2017, it was so new to have women in Ranger school. I used to think, like, I don't have to just be good. Like, I have to be lucky. I have to get a grader who is willing to let a woman pass. I had dark times at that school. I tasted real failure. I sat under a poncho in torrential rain and I shivered so hard my whole body cramped. I put on a ruck that weighed 130 pounds and I crawled up a mountain on my hands and knees. I hallucinated a donut shop in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains and I cried one morning when someone told me I had to get out of my sleeping bag. But I think all of those experiences are such, like, quintessential Ranger School experiences. They're what everyone kind of goes through there. The point of the school is that failure, that suffering, it's not inherently bad, right? In a way, I like to think, like, Ranger school was the most simplistic form of gender integration that ever could have happened. Because if I was contributing to the team, there was no individual out there that really had the luxury of disliking or excluding me.

[Noel King]

Did you only cry that one time?

[Unknown]

I think it was just once at Ranger School. Yeah.

[Noel King]

Damn.

[Unknown]

It was a cold morning and I just really didn't want to get out of my. Who had been like 10 minutes of sleep, and I was like, no, please, 10 more minutes. But you did it. You just did it. And then you kept going.

[Noel King]

Well, you just did it. Most of us didn't. Okay, so when you wanted to give up. I'm going on a tangent here just because I find this fascinating. I'm so sorry. I'm of the age where, like, I was like 13 when GI Jane came out. So I just think this is so badass. When you wanted to give up, why didn't you, like, what did you tell yourself? Was it like, I'm a woman and I must prove a point? Or was it like, fuck, no. I, Emily, am certainly not gonna pull out of something that I want. Like what. What was going through your head?

[Unknown]

I don't think I ever really considered quitting at Ranger School. I just knew that it was something that I could get through and had, like, the confidence to continue. I think I had a thought going in of, like, what could be so bad that would make me quit? And, like, the answer that I found throughout the school was nothing.

[Noel King]

Did you ever feel when you were in Ranger school like they had lowered the standards for you compared to the men who were alongside you?

[Unknown]

No, never. I did the same thing that the men did. I did the same Ranger physical fitness test that all the men took. I ran five miles in 40 minutes. I did 49 push ups, 59 sit ups, six pull ups. I rucked 12 miles in three hours with a 45 pound ruck. I climbed the same mountains. I carried the same stuff. I carried the same exact packing list they did, plus 250 tampons. For some reason, at no point were the standards lowered for me.

[Noel King]

Whose idea was it for you to carry 250 tampons? It wasn't yours.

[Unknown]

It was not mine. Yeah. A misguided effort to have everyone very prepared for the first women coming through range school.

[Noel King]

Let me ask you a question. About six pull ups, were there any men who you were physically superior to, like in Ranger school. Are there. Was. Were there any men who could only do five pull ups, or was it basically like, look, women have different. Women have different levels of strength, upper body strength, and so six is good, but that's sort of the low point.

[Unknown]

No, not at all. It's six pull ups or you don't get to do Ranger school. You get dropped on the first day. So everybody does six pull ups.

[Noel King]

So in Ranger school, there's only one standard for the fitness test. Everybody's got to meet it.

[Unknown]

Correct.

[Noel King]

And that allows you to get out of Ranger school and say, look, fellas, I took the same test as the men and I passed. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is saying that army combat jobs should only have one standard of fitness for both men and women. And there's part of me that thinks, doesn't that allow the women who meet the standards to be like, look, we met the same standards as the men. Nothing suspicious here, guys.

[Unknown]

I think gender neutral standards for combat arms is very important. Like, it should not be discounted how important physical fitness is for combat arms. I think there's nuance in determining, like, what is a standard that is useful for combat arms. Right. But, but I think it's an important thing. And there have honestly been gender neutral standards for combat arms and things like Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course, which is kind of the initial kind of basic training for officers going into the infantry. There are gender neutral standards that you have to meet. You have to run five miles in 40 minutes, you have to do a 12 mile rock. Like, all of those standards have remained the same. Pete Hegseth is specifically referring to the Army Combat Physical Fitness Test. And to a certain extent, I agree it should be gender neutral for combat arms, but I think there's nuance in determining what exactly does combat arms entail physically.

[Noel King]

Secretary Hegseth has a lot to say about women, and sometimes he says it directly and sometimes he alludes to it. What he often does is he talks about lethality as something that is critically important for the military. He says the army in particular needs more of it. But he never really defines what he means by lethality. What is the definition as you understand it?

[Unknown]

There's a component of lethality that is physical fitness, and it should not be discounted. But lethality extends far beyond that, right? It's tactical skills, it's decision making, it's leadership, it's grit. It's the ability to build trust and instill purpose in a group of people. It's how Quick. A fireteam in my platoon can react to contact, how well my saw gunner can shoot, how quickly I can employ and integrate combat assets, how fast I can maneuver a squad. All of those things take physical fitness, but they certainly take more than just physical fitness. So I think there's more to lethality than just how fast you can run and how many pushups you can do.

[Noel King]

To your average civilian like myself. I hear lethality, and I think I do. I think of the dictionary definition, the ability to kill. Does this definition of lethality involve the ability both physically and emotionally and psychologically to kill another person?

[Unknown]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Noel King]

And so when Secretary Hegseth casts doubt on the ability of women to be as lethal as men, do you think there's. Do you think there's some stuff baked in there that maybe gets to his idea of what women are willing and able to do?

[Unknown]

Yeah, possibly. I think the SecDef's message is, like, pretty clear. Like, according to him, the women in combat arms achieved success because the standards were lowered for them. We were never accommodated, and the standards were never lowered.

[Noel King]

So what's your response, then, to hearing the Secretary of Defense say women don't belong in combat?

[Unknown]

I mean, it makes me irate, to be honest. Like, it's just a complete discountment of all of the accomplishments of the women that came before us. There's this Rupi Kaur poem that I love and that, like, gives me solace and strength in these moments where it just feels like I'm having the same conversation on a repeat these days. And it goes like, I stand on the sacrifices of a million women before me, thinking, what can I do to make this mountain taller so the women after me can see further? It's exhausting to have this conversation again, but at least I get to relive the accomplishments of some incredible women that have added so much to that mountain.

[Noel King]

Do you think that if Secretary Hegseth could take a look at what you did in Ranger school and he could hear from you that there were no second chances, there were no excuses, There was no babying the men didn't treat me nicer just because I was a woman, do you think that he'd change his mind about women serving in combat?

[Unknown]

I'd like to think he would, but I've met plenty of people who. Whose mind couldn't be changed by reality. I'd love if he went to Ranger school. He has a lot of opinions about Ranger school. For someone who's never been, he may have gone and failed. I'm actually not quite sure, but he does not have his Ranger Tab.

[Noel King]

What is a Ranger Tab? For civilians, a Ranger Tab is what.

[Unknown]

You receive upon graduating Ranger school, which means you have passed all three phases and you are now Ranger qualified in the military.

[Noel King]

Aha. So you have that and the Secretary of Defense doesn't.

[Unknown]

He does not. Though he has a lot of opinions about Ranger school.

Hold up.

[Noel King]

I got a new we gonna ride together, fight together that's how we get down. Emily Van Ess. She has since left the military, and today she works for a defense technology company. That song you're hearing is this Will Defend by the army rappers. They're part of the US Military. Today's episode was produced by Victoria Chamberlain with an assist from Denise Gara. It was edited by Miranda Kennedy. Fact checked by Laura Bullard. Engineered by Andrea Christon's daughter and Patrick Boyd. I'm Noel King. It's today explained everyone's here for a.

[Unknown]

Purpose I'm here representing mine Took my passion to the armed forces Me and Brittany gonna shine United States the fights of grace not here to waste no time, no find a place to rise of grace this will defend or die let's just be honest this country's amazing. I can't not to die.