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Gender norming is the practice of judging female recruits, employees, or job applicants in the civilian workforce by less stringent standards than their male counterparts. Gender norming serves as an affirmative action policy to increase the proportion of women in male-dominated professions, particularly the US military's officer corps. Fitness, in particular, is determined in relation to the average female officer rather than to the average male officer. This is done by accounting for genetic differences such as the marginally lower average upper-body strength of women. The terms "norm" or "normie", which refers to the average woman in a military corp.,derives from the term gender norm.

Contents

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• 1 Gender norming in practice
• 2 Opposition to gender norming
• Study's
• 3 Notes
• 4 Further reading
• 5 External links
• 6 See also

Gender norming in practice[edit | edit source]

The US military has adopted gender norming at West Point, calling it a system of "equivalent training."^[1] The objective is to ensure that positions are filled with a balance of both genders, and requires that women are given less physically challenging tests than men in order to attain the same fitness rating.^[2]

One of the ways that scores can be skewed is the introduction of "gender diversity dividend" which grants women additional points purely based on gender.

The "worst performing decile" is another example that makes the minimum score equal to the mean of the lowest performing score. Unlike the gender diversity dividend It has all soldiers held at the same standard. The down fall is the inevitable lowering of the performance minimum.

Opposition to gender norming[edit | edit source]

David Brinkley, deputy chief of staff for operations at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, told the AP “the men don’t want to lower the standards because they see that as a perceived risk to their team,” and “the women don’t want to lower the standards because they want the men to know they’re just as able as they are to do the same task.”^[4]

Another opponent of gender norming, Walter E. Williams, wrote that "officers who insist that females be held accountable to the same high standards as males are seen by higher brass as obstructionist and risk their careers."^[5]

Another opponent of gender norming is Elaine Donnelly, the founder of the Center for Military Readiness.

Studies

In the year of 2014 the Interim CMR(Center for Military Readiness) special report was released providing in-depth statistical data on gender norming in the marines and co-ed combat. Marine corps commandment General James Amos started the program in 2012 trying to discover if there was a way to include women without reducing the difficulty of the performance exam. The data depended on a series of exams that tested the strength and agility of the subjects in various obstacles run by the Marines infantry officer course (IOC). About 409 men and 379 women volunteered to participate in a combat fitness test that included pull ups, clean and press, 120 mm tank loading simulation and more. The data collected showed that women underperformed greatly where the only way for them to pass the exam is to lessen requirements. Some concerns were that the experiment focused on upper body strength, a skill vital for surviving on the field.

Another study focused on the "training to task" hypothesis. It was purposed that perhaps if women were "training to task" or going through a rigorous training course, they would eventually reach a suitable standard. In 1997 this belief was disproven by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. The study proved that women would show some improvement in their upper body strength. But when the study was done to men they also improved there performance cancelling out the increase for the female counter parts.