A VICTORY FOR TECHNOLOGY:

The ability of women to perform in combat will be a direct result of how they are trained. If you consistently train women to march and fight under 85-pound loads, they will match or exceed these demands. But we have to move beyond simply demanding equal performance, and look to the potential to transform gender relations in military culture. In the best-case scenario, full integration may reduce the risk of sexual harassment and assault. Discrimination and rape are used as tools of dominance and control, but if the last point of control is removed, perhaps the motivation to enforce the status quo will disappear. Change could extend to life outside the military as well. Narrow and distorted messages about young women and their bodies could be challenged. Women could be raised to know that weight training and functional applications of strength are a form of empowerment consistent with feminism.

The military is certainly taking a positive step in this direction, but there are times when this still seems to me like wishful thinking.

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