[Morgeruat]

It is a good question, and the US military has similar rules, the Army uses a 2-mile standar, the Air Force uses 1 1/2 miles, and I don't know about the navy and marines. The standards are different simply because physiologically women are different, they build muscle in different places, have different centers of gravity, etc and providing one set standard while ideally more useful doesn't reflect the same level of fitness between the genders (or among differing age groups). The standards aren't so much for making sure that you can cover a certain amount of area in a certain amount of time, but rather to make sure that people maintain a uniform level of fitness. {/end fitness spiel}

{edit} it hasn't been my experience that women are looked down for being able to do less, or having less required of them rather, at least from my experience in the Signal corps. (Which may not be totally representative of everyone's experiences with women in the military)

[ 04-21-2005, 10:16 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]