system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: The Army Should Not Make Their Fitness Tests Different for Each Gender

I read a story today about how the army is considering making their fitness tests different depending on gender. They found that women were not passing at the same rates as men, so they are considering lowering the bar / changing the tests that women do. I feel like this is a bad thing for 2 main reasons.

1. The fitness test getting easier means less fit people in the army which means a less qualified army, could lead to more deaths. I have no evidence of this, just seems like it would happen.
2. Everyone should be on an even playing field. If it's sexist to say that women are not as fit as men, it should be sexist to propose lowering the bar for women too, right? I'm not sure if I'm sexist for saying women should take the same tests, or sexist for saying they should take an easier one.

So they had two options from what I can tell; either accept that not as many women will pass as men (which might lead to really bad PR when some news outlet 'exposes' the military for letting men in more than women) or lower the bar (which might lead to really bad PR when some news outlet 'exposes' the military for suggesting that women need different tests).

I'm not sure there's a good option here. IMO they should keep the tests the same.

Talking about the Army ACFT fitness test here.

I maintain a belief that for specific roles where we need to set a bar for the safety of everyone, that bar should be the same regardless of gender. I'm not sure if there's any specific tests for specific roles that have different standards for men and women.

Edit 3: common points people keep making. "those tests aren't important for the job they are doing" - then stop testing for that in the first place. "doesn't matter how many pushups you can do to fly a heli" - then don't test for pushups! Not changing my view with that logic.

"they have different strengths that aren't in the tests and are important for their role" so include tests for those things that effect their score.

"fitness means something different for everyone, it's relative" - they apparently already account for body differences and adjust scores accordingly, at an individual level, for fitness. No issues here. 

EDIT AGAIN! Removed some outdated stuff in the post now that I've learned so much thanks folks! 

My view is now like this: 
Testing for health / fitness? Test the individual while accounting for their body weight / size so that you get an accurate sense of how healthy they are. Not man vs woman, test on an individual level though. 
Testing for a specific role? One, universal bar that is the same for everyone, because reality doesn't care about why you can't do something. Regardless, don't split it up between two sexes (sorry about saying gender when I meant sex so many times).
gpt
Military fitness tests are a complicated issue.

On the one hand, ideally you want every soldier to meet the high physical standards required by frontline combatants. Any soldier *might* end up in actual combat, even if their job is something else, and if that happens, you need to be able to depend on them to perform. If they're not fit enough, bad consequences can happen.

On the other hand, if you *really* hold everyone to those standards, the results can be even worse. Some extremely competent and talented support personnel are simply not going to be able to reach that level of fitness, and if you end up kicking the support personnel out for failing those tests, then the remaining soldiers will suffer even more without backup.

While you want to push everyone to meet the physical standards required for combat, pushing too hard can create more problems if you're forcing out too many skilled soldiers.