(NewsNation) — Comments on women in the military made by President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to head the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, have garnered criticism.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles,” Hegseth said during an appearance on “The Shawn Ryan Show” last week. “It hasn’t made us more effective, it hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”
While Hegseth said he’s served with women, and they’ve been “great,” institutions shouldn’t have to “incentivize” that in positions where “men are more capable.”
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While Hegseth cited a 2015 U.S. Marines Corps report that stated all-male units were faster and more lethal than mixed-gender units, critics said it was biased. Newsweek notes that the lobby group Women in International Security called its research methods “fundamentally flawed.” After it came out, then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said he had problems with the study: namely, that “it started out with a fairly large component of the men thinking this is not a good idea.”
“When you start out with that mindset, you’re almost presupposing the outcome,” Mabus said.
The 44-year-old current co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” served as an infantry captain in the Army National Guard and did tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois took Hegseth to task over his remarks on women in combat roles.
“We can’t go to war today without our women military members,” Duckworth said.
Duckworth is an Iraq war veteran and Purple Heart recipient who was one of the first women to fly combat missions as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. When her helicopter was hit by a grenade in 2004, she lost both legs and some mobility in her right arm, NewsNation partner The Hill reports.
If she could talk to Hegseth, “I would ask him, ‘Where do you think I lost my legs, in a bar fight?'” Duckworth said in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Wednesday.
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Women in the military
Overall, the number of service numbers dropped 2.7% in 2022, though the percentage of women in the military inched upward, according to a Department of Defense report from 2023.
Women, the Defense Department says, make up about 17.5% of the active-duty force. The number of uniformed women serving in special operations, including those in operator and support roles ― has increased significantly in recent years.
The overall proportion of women in special operations forces went up from 7.9% in 2016 to 12% in 2023.
More than 2 million of the veterans currently living in the United States are women. They are the fastest growing group of veterans as well — by 2040, women are projected to make up 18% of all veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs said.
NewsNation’s The Hill and The Associated Press contributed to this report.