Back in the days of "wooden ships and iron men," sailors believed that having women aboard was unlucky. Not the most sophisticated analysis, perhaps, but put a few dozen women with several hundred or several thousand men in the isolated world of a ship at sea and you needn't look far to find the problems. Pregnancy, for one; some U.S. Navy ships have reported as many as 25% of the female sailors becoming pregnant during the tours of sea duty. Add the predictable sexual tensions, rivalries among the men for the attentions of the women, questions of sexual harassment, the need for separate quarters, and the lowering of physical standards for the female sailors and "unlucky" seems a fairly accurate description.

These problems are known and documented ever since the Navy decided it was a good idea to send women to sea. That they reduce a ship's combat efficiency is clear though this means nothing to "progressive" policy makers. It's "fair" and that's all that counts.

Now, the most anti-military president in our history has decided, without any study or consultation or "national conversation" of the sort that liberals usually love, that women should be sent into ground combat roles as well. A more boneheaded decision is hard to imagine.

Yes, the Red Army included women in WWII. But the Red Army had one tactic – direct frontal assault (and casualties be damned). Women were as useful as men for cannon fodder. And yes, the Israeli army includes women in combat roles, though not nearly as much as is usually claimed and little Israel probably has no choice anyway considering the odds.

When women were admitted to the service academies we were told that physical standards would not be lowered. They were. We're now being told that standards won't be lowered for women in combat but the women's standards in Army and Marine boot camps already are lower than men's. Why? Because – surprise, surprise - women just don't have the physical strength or stamina of men.

The evidence of our senses aside, Marine Corps studies have shown that women, on average, have "40% less muscle strength, 47% percent less lifting strength, and 26% slower marching speed" than men. That's biology, not sexism.

That a few women are stronger than a few men is irrelevant. Women simply are not built for, and cannot be conditioned for, carrying heavy packs and weapons over long distances in awful terrain and conditions, then fighting hand-to-hand if necessary against male enemy soldiers. Moreover, women who actually are in the military seem to know this. An article by Marine Captain Katie Petronio which appeared last year in the Marine Corps Gazette is instructive. Titled "Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal," this article can be found at http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal.

The first two women admitted to the Marine Corps' grueling Infantry Officer Course last October flunked out; one of them didn't get through the first day. Now, the Corps is having trouble finding women officers who will even volunteer for the course.

Psychologically, women aren't built for combat either. They do not naturally possess the kind of warrior spirit that is essential for ground combat troops. And, at another level, do we really want to have to deal with the obvious consequences of having American women as POWs in the hands of barbarians?

"Progressives" will dismiss all of this as Neanderthal thinking but facts are still facts. That some women "can do the job" is not the point. "Gender equity" doesn't win battles. Combat efficiency, not some goofy, gender-neutral, politically correct bit of social engineering should determine the policy. And this is so obvious that one might reasonably ask whether Mr. Obama is deliberately trying to weaken the American military. Deliberately putting women into direct ground combat is what one military writer has rightly called "felony stupid."