The U.S. Marine Corps has just lowered its standards ... by raising the acceptable weight limit and body fat composition thresholds of its female recruits.  

In its effort to ensure inclusiveness and to fully integrate women into combat roles, the nation's finest will now accept women who cannot even do a basic pull-up. We're not sure how a woman can perform properly in a combat role if she cannot even perform something as basic as a pull-up, but hey, maybe we just don't understand inclusiveness.

In addition to the lax physical fitness requirements, according to the Corps' new guidelines, female Marines will now be allowed to weigh up to seven pounds more than before, per inch of height. 

For instance, a 5-foot-6 woman can weigh 161 lbs -- all well and good if the weight comprises mainly muscle mass, but we're not sure that's the case for women who can't do a pull-up. 

The Washington Post reports:

The changes were among those outlined by the service’s top officer, Gen. Robert B. Neller, in a message released Friday. Neller also called for an overhaul of the service’s combat fitness and physical fitness tests, annual requirements that determine who is allowed to stay in the Marine Corps.

The boosted maximum weight requirement for women comes as the U.S. military moves to fully integrate women in all combat jobs for the first time following a historic decision last year by the Pentagon. In preparation, some female Marines have hit the weights — and then found themselves above weight requirements, Neller told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February.

​ “We will monitor the effects of these adjustments for two years and then adjust if required to ensure our standards continue to contribute to the effectiveness of our force and enhance our ability to respond when our nation calls,” he said.

Other changes that will stem from Neller’s review were outlined by Marine Corps Times over the weekend. In one significant decision, the general gave Marines the option to replace pull-ups — which were not required for women — with pushups on the physical fitness test.

For years, the test has included pull-ups, crunches and a three-mile run. But female Marines were allowed to do a much easier exercise on a pull-up bar known as the flexed-arm hang. That will be replaced entirely with pushups, with male and female Marines alike able to achieve top scores only if they do pull-ups.

As you can see in the graphic above, taken from the Marine Corps official website, different standards apply to men who are required to perform push-ups, and to women who are only required to perform a "flexed-arm hang."

The Marines' new guidelines have also eased-up on the body-fat requirements (negating my previous statement about weight being no big deal if it's "muscle mass") -- as long as they can still score high on their fitness exam (which excludes pull-ups), they're good to go. 

This is so absurd. Women fight to be "treated equally" -- no different from men -- but then are happily held to a different, in this case, lower standard to secure their positions.

While I am a proponent of the reality that men and women are different and thus deserve to be treated accordingly, in this case lives are literally on the line, so not passing basic physical muster is simply unacceptable. It is one thing if women are to perform non-combat roles, but this is a different case entirely.

The U.S. military is no place for participation trophies for men or women who are out of shape and risk our national security and the safety of their brothers in arms.