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2019-11-30 Home Front: Culture Wars

Why Are There So Few Women at West Point? Ask Congress.

[Politico] Three decades ago, when I graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, just 10 percent of the students in my class were women.

Since then, women have made gains in many areas of American society‐from Congress to corporate boardrooms. But at West Point the numbers have barely budged: By the time I retired from the Army, in 2014, just 16 percent of students were women.

In 2018, the number bumped up to 20 percent, but that is still low. The situation isn’t much better at the other service academies. The Air Force Academy’s 2018 graduating class was just shy of 22 percent women, and the Naval Academy came in only a bit better, at 25 percent.

How can it be that America’s military academies are still admitting and graduating so few women‐especially when these schools are free and prestigious, and across the country women earn 57 percent of all undergraduate degrees? This low percentage persists even now that all military occupations and units are open to women. The small percentage of women who do gain admission often perform better than their male classmates. Despite women making up just under 20 percent of the 2018 West Point class, eight of the top 10 graduates were women, and women made up 44 percent of honor roll students.

It turns out Congress might be limiting qualified women’s ability to access this elite educational opportunity.

By law, and with a few exceptions, West Point only considers applicants who have been nominated by a member of Congress from their state. (Lawmakers make their nominations based on an application and in-person interview.) A report released over the summer by the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center revealed that since 1994 women have never made up more than 27 percent of all congressional nominations made in any year for admission to the three military academies. According to the report, Democrats have, on average, given 22 percent of their nominations to women, while Republicans have given 20 percent of their nominations to women. (The CVLC made multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to get the data from the military for its report.)

Posted by Besoeker 2019-11-30 05:32|| || Front Page|| [11136 views ] Top

#1 Three decades ago, when I graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, just 10 percent of the students in my class were women.

Which only proves after 30 years, the author still has no clue as to the actual mission and purpose of the US Military academies.

As far as the author's advocacy of 'Female Engagement Teams' (FETS); the creation of diaper wearing, non-RON (daylight only) FET teams in AFG were (may still be) a sad turn of events which resulted in maiming and death of many innocent young soldiers. The WIA/KIA issue matters little to 'social justice' warriors however.

Posted by Besoeker 2019-11-30 05:38|| 2019-11-30 05:38|| Front Page Top

#2 the author still has no clue as to the actual mission and purpose of the US Military academies

Or any other attribute of Civilization.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-11-30 05:45|| 2019-11-30 05:45|| Front Page Top

#3 West Point was established to provide professional military officers and train engineers to build the country. It toss the latter mission sometime after WW2. The only degree obtained from the academy was an engineering degree prior to that.

Posted by Procopius2k 2019-11-30 06:24|| 2019-11-30 06:24|| Front Page Top

#4 Looking at specimens like Stavridis, Clark, McRaven, Turner et al, a few more women couldn't be any worse.

Posted by M. Murcek 2019-11-30 09:53|| 2019-11-30 09:53|| Front Page Top

#5 ~~Math~~ War is hard!

-- Combat Barbie

Posted by Unaitle Panda6599 2019-11-30 11:14|| 2019-11-30 11:14|| Front Page Top

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