“The Defense Department has scaled back its women’s advisory committee, dismissing all Clinton-appointed members, cutting support staff and steering the panel to deal with readiness issues, not women in combat,” The Washington Times reports.

David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said yesterday in an interview he wants more control over the issues DACOWITS undertakes. He is moving DACOWITS from a ‘free form charter’ to an agenda set by his office. At the top of his list is recruiting and retaining highly qualified women, maintaining their “well-being” and finding ways to help military families.

[…]The creation of a new-style DACOWITS comes amid persistent complaints from pro-military and conservative women’s groups that DACOWITS during the Clinton years focused on a feminist agenda. The panel repeatedly pressed for creation of more combat assignments for women, despite the military command’s consistent contention that such changes would impair combat readiness.

[…]Mr. Chu said that as far as he is concerned, Congress settled the combat issue in the early 1990s, when it approved women on most combat ships and aircraft but drew the line at ground combat.

A (female) student of mine (Sarah, smile!*) just completed a wonderful argument paper on the failings of the military’s gender norming policies. One remarkable statistic she provided me with (and I can’t remember the exact percentage, so I’ll simply generalize) is that the overwhelming majority of women undergoing battlefield training cannot throw a grenade far enough to avoid being injured by its detonation.

I don’t think the issue of women in combat should even be broached until we do away with the PC posturing and identity politics that infected the military in the 90s; to this day, a faux egalitarian culture threatens to put unprepared soldiers in harm’s way.

*A friendly imperative, this — not an allusion to the fine Hall and Oates tune of the same name