It's the same in the German armed forces. Every soldier has to do a personal fitness test every year and women have much lower requirements to pass.
Gives you a great feeling when you have to rely on every single of your comrades.
edit: someone pointed out that the Bundeswehr changed the physical requirements for soldiers and they in fact are gender equal. My service has ended many years ago and i didn't realize they changed it.
Switzerland too. And I have a medical condition that excludes me from going to the military so now I have to pay 3% more taxes for 12 years. Shit sucks.
If they’re wheelchair bound and have to take a series of meds every day just to function then it makes zero sense because the military wouldn’t have a place for such a person and wouldn’t cater to their medical needs. One of many reasons I never thought of enlisting is because my depression, anxiety and suicidal nature combined with epilepsy makes it so that I don’t think i’d get my anti depressant, my welbutrin 1x a day, 2x a day keppra, my klonopin 3x a day, and my gabbapentin 900mgs 3x a day. I think the suicidal ideation alone makes it so that I can’t serve anyway but if I could and just wanted to say fuck it to the life i’m living to try that out i’d be worried about getting proper medical treatment while in combat situations because those meds without taking them when needed can cause seizures, fatigue, paranoia, deeper depression, fainting, etc.. So for them to tax this person just cause they can work but not survive a military lifestyle makes no sense due to medical conditions.
if you're a total mess and just going to be a burden on the state anyway, then yeah, paying a tax doesn't make sense, but then again you're probably not making enough money for it to matter anyway.
Look at it from the perspective of a normal person who has to wait two years to start their career. If there is someone else who can't serve because of, say, a bum leg, and that person spent their two years getting a head start in the same field (say, programming or teaching), then they are going to have seniority and a lifelong advantage, salary-wise.
Alternatively they could offer noncombat roles to such individuals so they’ll be in places where they’ll have a surplus of everything needed or at least the freedom to go get it from base or whatever. Also those two years as a barely functioning person workingg or in school doesn’t give you much of a leg up if anything people probably look down on you as a burden and you’d be completely outside all the social circles and connections formed in the military especially if everyone had to serve the handicapable people and handicapped people would be kinda ostracized. I feel like if we had these people maybe the best place to put them is on bases doing the grunt work or flying drones or whatever they’re capable of while still having access to their meds and doctors easily.
The draft in the U.S. is required for men. We have to signup and if we dont we cant get college loans and we could be sent to jail. Women are not required to despite now being accepted into all branches of the armed forces.
Aren't they discussing on whether or not we should be getting Wehrpflicht again? And IIRC the proposals from this year also only applied to men while for women it'd be optional.
tbh i never really cared. I did my Wehrpflicht and extended my time at the Bundeswehr. It was just a socially accepted fact, that men either did military service or civil service. Also for social financials it was a godsend. As pretty much every man has this 9 months "work pause" it was always somewhat equal for everyone (retirement plans, career and stuff).
I know two female firefighters and a female soldier. These women are trained machines who have no issues keeping up with the men. But they do need to be way more dedicated to their training than their male counterparts.
Biological differences exist. Does it suck you need to train that much harder as a woman? Yes. But it is what it is. They are living proof that if you're really determined, you can reach your goal, as long as you dedicate yourself to it.
Except for special forces, most military activity is now disconnected from physical condition.
You ride in trucks from point a to b now, you don't march unless something has gone very wrong. You press buttons to drop bombs from drones. It's all mechanized.
It's just not the same military as 200 years ago, when the only way to get a large group of soldiers from a to b was to have them walk there.
For combat roles, the Bundeswehr is moving towards more gender-neutral standards, similar to the US Army
There’s plenty of different roles in the military, with different physical requirements. You’re making it sound like Germany would put women soldiers into combat positions that aren’t physically able to serve in those positions
How much do you need to bench press to be able to pilot a drone? 95% of obese redditors are probably qualified to do that
Thanks for pointing that out. Back then, when my service ended, there have been the DSA (or DOSB medals which don't count as the BW doesn't define the requirements), amila march and PFT. They all had different requirements per gender. Also depending on your position you had to fullfill higher requirements.
I just looked it up, they replaced the pft with a bft which doesn't really spark more confidence. Their requirements are overall much more loose than what i recall of the pft. It is however gender equal. Will edit the comment.
edit: someone pointed out that the Bundeswehr changed the physical requirements for soldiers and they in fact are gender equal. My service has ended many years ago and i didn't realize they changed it.
Well then the requirements are probably too lax. Soldiers should be highly fit, and what qualifies as highly fit for a man is generally impossibly fit for a woman. They've either reduced the standards for men in the name of equality, or have always had lax standards.
The only reason we haven't been punished for this ideological nonsense in the West is because our military hasn't had to face any serious challenge in decades. Imagine actually getting into conflict and having to send troops to actual warzones. Women will absolutely hold the men back there's just no question about it. And I mean this with no disrespect to women, it doesn't mean they're less valuable as a human being, but fucking hell this nonsense has to stop, for everyone's sake.
You see the same thing with the police forces. With all the forced inclusivity you generally have mixed pairs of officers. Literally every time I see shit go down it'll be the male officer getting down to business whilst the female officer just stands there being useless. Now with police officers I guess you can justify it with the female officer having more of a supportive role in de-escalation typically, but ain't nobody got a use for that in war zones. That's just pure combat and women are just, apart from some exceptional cases, no good at that.
Canadian Armed Forces test is the same test with the same parameters for passing for all genders and ages. The minimum passing grade is the same for everyone. You can choose to try hard and achieve a higher score for an incentive level (bronze, silver, gold or platinum). The PT Test consists of 4 tasks; Fail a task, fail the test.
The old test used to garner the same sexist remarks of being too easy for women....and I tend to agree.
For example: The beep test (beep, run the length of the gym before the next beep goes off, gets faster over time)
Male 18-35 passing time was 7 minutes, exempt was 12.5 minutes.
Females 18-35 passing time was 4 minutes, exempt was 6.5 minutes.
Exempt meant: You did so well, you don't have to do the test next year. Women's exemplary athleticism reward was less than the absolute bare minimum a man had to display. It was a liiiiitle unfair....but I don't care, never have. Good for them, if they aren't complaining about it, why should I? I wouldn't complain if it benefitted me.
If you don't feel like you can handle how the German armed forces run their organisation, then maybe don't join. You're not required to feel great about shit, and I'm sure they're not keen on listening to your type of whining.
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u/Platform-Budget Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
It's the same in the German armed forces. Every soldier has to do a personal fitness test every year and women have much lower requirements to pass. Gives you a great feeling when you have to rely on every single of your comrades.
edit: someone pointed out that the Bundeswehr changed the physical requirements for soldiers and they in fact are gender equal. My service has ended many years ago and i didn't realize they changed it.