Optimizing U.S. Army Combat Readiness:A Proposal for Gender-Specific Fitness Standards with Gender-Neutral Combat Tasks Revised EditionSeptember 2024

This dissertation explores the U.S. Army's implementation of the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), introduced in 2020 to replace the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT). Although designed to better assess soldiers' combat readiness, the ACFT has sparked significant criticism for its legal, practical, and ethical implications. Initial trials revealed stark disparities, as the ACFT drastically lowered standards for men, reducing their failure rate to negligible levels and making the test 20 times easier compared to the APFT. Additionally, men now achieve the "highly fit" category at three times the rate they did under the APFT. A survey of 424 participants revealed that men outperform women by 3.29%, even when age and gender norms are applied, a margin that is statistically significant. This margin persisted despite the survey including an unusually high number of highly fit females, which created a sampling bias. This result highlights the ACFT's inadequate adjustments to accurately reflect female performance. Text analysis conducted on a corpus of Army combat manuals reveals a disconnect between the ACFT's emphasis on brute strength and doctrinally prescribed combat competencies, suggesting that this strength-centric approach redefines rather than reflects combat requirements. Comparing the two fitness tests, I found that the ACFT replaces events that previously helped equalize scoring metrics between genders, such as the sit-up with a plank event that focuses more on shoulder stability and upper body strength, and the traditional push-up with exercises like the hand-release push-up, which repeatedly pounds breast tissue against the ground and seems structured to specifically challenge female physiology. These changes indicate an intent to limit female integration into combat roles, despite legislative efforts to promote gender equity. The study calls for gender-specific fitness testing alongside gender-neutral combat task assessments to ensure fair physical fitness evaluations and effective combat readiness.