Hegseth made military fitness tests ‘harder’ for women in combat roles — 9 in 10 female Marines are passing
Last September, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a directive requiring sex-neutral fitness standards for all troops in combat roles.
Women serving in combat specialties have always been required to meet the same job-specific standards as men, based on the physical demands of their chosen field. But broader physical fitness tests taken by all service members once or twice a year have historically been scored using age- and sex-based standards.
New spring physical fitness test data show that 91.38% of women Marines who have taken the test since January have met or exceeded that threshold, and 96.53% of men have.
Why is this good news? Hegseth has repeatedly called into question whether women in combat positions are held to sufficiently rigorous standards. This data shows, as one advocate put it, that “the vast, vast majority of the women who are in this career field are doing just fine.”
For the 17th consecutive year, Iceland ranked first in a global gender gap index
In the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Index, Iceland ranked first globally for the 17th consecutive year, closing 93% of its gender gap as of 2026.
The country’s overall score rose by 0.5 percentage points since last year, and remains the only country to above 90% overall — Finland is in second with 87.2% and Norway in third at 85.7%.
While Iceland still lags in economic participation and opporutnity, with the gender gap 81.6% closed, it shines in closing the gap health and survival, 96.1%, and political empowerment, at 95.4%.
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