The Obama Administration announced it was opening up  combat positions to women.

California State University – Fullerton student Keith Fierro shares his views on this change in military policy.

Of the several victories women have won in this country since enfranchisement in 1920, the least liberating of them is having mothers of small children being blown to pieces in frontline combat…

Progressives hoping to see the change happen have yet to show the country what this would do for either women or the military. So far the leading selling point is this: now they can be men. Much of the left’s position on the issue focuses on the misguided notion that women can do the job as well as men. This is quite a statement, primarily because everyone knows it’s false.

To clear things up right out of the box: no, this isn’t to say that women “can’t” fight, or that that they don’t want to. It isn’t to say that women shouldn’t be able to serve their country through military service, or that many haven’t already done so. I’m only saying that the citizenry has certain moral and strategic incentives to keep women out of military combat. Lastly, I’m not operating under the false notion that military service only requires physical strength, but that it requires a lot of it.

The addition of women into job fields tailored to be filled by strong men (I have a problem labeling military service in this way for the reason that it’s not just another job) has already shown to be a bad idea.

Case in point. Brian Nichols, who was the defendant in a rape case in 2005, wrestled a gun from a female deputy in an Atlanta court house. Nichols then went on a rampage shooting and killing four people. To pretend that the same would have happened to a male deputy misses the point. It’s no question that a female officer (probably six inches to a foot shorter and much lighter than her male counterpart) doesn’t offer the same amount of protection against a 200 pound man.

But just to illustrate the point, after Nichols escaped the court house and led police on a manhunt, Maj. Skip Platt described how, being surrounded by male police in an apartment, Nichols gave up “without a struggle.”

Would male officers have handled the situation better if any portion of their squad were female? Does it need to be tested?

Fierro concludes by noting, “We have the luxury of a civilian control of the military. This should mean that common sense will trump weightless calls for equality in all areas of life regardless of the effect.”