- Pete Hegseth faced intense questioning over his comments about women in combat roles.
- Hegseth walked back his opposition but said he’d order a review of gender-neutral standards.
- The military does not have a quota for women in combat roles as Hegseth had suggested.
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, walked back his outspoken opposition to women serving in the US military’s combat jobs as he faced intense questioning from lawmakers on Tuesday.
Hegseth, an Army veteran of Iraq and Fox News host, had built a large following with blunt commentary that criticized female troops and claimed standards had been lowered to help them. But in the Senate hearing, he signaled he wouldn’t attempt to ban women from combat roles, a backtrack that may have been necessary to get enough votes.
Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and Iraq veteran whose support has been seen as pivotal, asked if Hegseth supports women continuing to serve in combat roles.
“Yes, exactly the way that you caveated it,” Hegseth said. “Yes, women will have access to ground combat roles, given the standards remain high, and we’ll have a review to ensure the standards have not been eroded in any one of these cases.”
Hegseth said that if he’s confirmed by the GOP-led Senate, he would initiate a review of gender-neutral standards within the Pentagon for combat jobs held by female service members.
Hegseth had been a vociferous critic of the 2015 lifting of combat exclusions for women.
“I’m straight-up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said in an interview after Trump’s re-election in November. Combat roles include jobs in the infantry, artillery, and special operations, among others.
“They’re gonna change the standards, they’re gonna push the quotas,” he continued during the interview. “They pushed that under Obama in a way that had nothing, zero to do with efficiency… with lethality,” he said.
The military does not have a quota requirement for women who fill combat roles and Hegseth’s claims to the contrary provoked a confrontation before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Commanders do not have to have a quota for women in the infantry,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said during questioning. “That does not exist.”
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
According to Military.com, almost 700 female Marines currently serve in infantry jobs, over 700 serve in the Navy’s submarine forces and nearly 4,000 in the Army hold combat-related jobs. Roughly 98% of the Army’s armor and infantry jobs were held by men as of 2020.
Since opening ground combat jobs to women in 2015, critics have contended that women who passed notoriously grueling training is a result of lowered physical standards, putting combat missions at-risk of catastrophe.
Ground combat roles were opened to female service members only after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan in which women routinely found themselves in a grey zone, operating outside the wire at a time when restrictions on women in combat at times burdened units with bureaucratic red tape.
In the hearing, Hegseth emphasized his focus would be on the Defense Department’s warrior ethos and making troops and the arms they carry even deadlier, implying that his earlier opposition to women stemmed from concern over fair and rigorous standards.
“Our standards will be high, and they will be equal — not equitable, that is a very different word,” Hegseth said in his opening statement. “When President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense.”
Since women began attending sought-after training schools, allegations have popped up about unequal treatment. Military news site Air Force Times reported in 2021 concerns from a female student at the Air Force’s special operations course who questioned whether course standards were lowered for her.
The US Army has repeatedly said it did not lower standards for female soldiers at Ranger School, over 100 of whom now wear its coveted tab on their sleeve.
