Army gets lesson on gender equality

FORT MEADE, Md. - It wasn't the grime or the sweat of his early Army training that griped Staff Sgt. James Lipski. It was this: When he finished proving himself fit enough for the Army, he couldn't help noticing that some other soldiers seemed to have cruised through with a lot less effort.

"If men and women are wearing the same green uniform, shouldn't we meet the same standards?" asked Lipski.

The leadership has become increasingly convinced that the dual fitness standards have hurt male morale, and now, in the aftermath of a huge study of sexual conflicts in the ranks, leaders have decided to adjust the 12-year-old system to toughen the disputed standards for women.

But there's a complication: The tougher fitness standards will take away an advantage women have had in entering and advancing in the Army. As a result, the changes that gratify male soldiers meet resistance from some Army women and their advocates in the civilian world, who believe that - especially in light of the service's recent sexual-harassment scandal - military women need all the breaks they can get.

The debate offers a window into the Army's efforts to reshape its culture in the aftermath of the sex scandal, which began with the uncovering of drill sergeants' abuse of trainees at Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground one year ago.

And it provides insight into the leadership's continuing struggle to deal with physical differences between men and women, an issue conservative critics say the Army would prefer to fudge, even at the risk of combat readiness.

The conflict is not new. Male and female Army units were combined after the Vietnam War, and the two-tiered fitness standards have been drawing complaints from men ever since.

For the most part, Army leaders overlooked the grousing, attributing it to old-fashioned male attitudes they hoped would change with time.

But the earth shifted in the last year as the attitudes of male troops became a focus of efforts to understand the origins of Aberdeen.

On Army posts, in Congress and elsewhere, a broad agreement developed: "Our culture is badly broken, and we need to do something about it," said one senior Army officer.

A central question was why male soldiers who would risk their necks to help male buddies apparently wouldn't step forward to help a woman who was harassed by other men. This indifference of male soldiers - amply documented in the criminal sex-abuse cases at Aberdeen - suggested that men saw women as a separate and lesser class of troops.

And many officers saw the fitness test as an important reason why this was so.

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