Source:
CNN
As a woman who has served in the US armed forces: I think this is problematic. Not knocking my fellow females in uniform, some of whom are perfectly capable of performing every one of those tasks, but there are bigger issues here.
First, some (perhaps all, not sure) of the armed services have different physical standards in place for men and for women. Number of pushups, time in which one must run a mile, etc. And of course, standards are more lax for women than for men. When I was in, women could elect (and many did) to meet the higher male standards, but it was not required. As long as the physical requirements for women are more relaxed, the perception will be that women may not be capable of pulling their own weight (NPI) in a crisis.
Second, it's a mistake to underestimate normal human urges, or the degree to which they would affect a mind that was subjected to great stress for long periods of time. Men do behave differently toward women, and women toward men. While I acknowledge that any given person can choose to ignore their natural instincts for any given period of time, stress, fatigue and prolonged intimate interaction - all of which combat units face - have a documented effect on instinct-regulating mental techniques such as willpower.
Both of those - the perception that female soldiers are weaker, and the fact that each sex is at least marginally distracted by the presence of attractive members of the opposite - are serious problems that no amount of "sensitivity training" can overcome.
There's nothing inherently wrong with having women in martial roles and many of us would be brilliant at it, as anyone who has ever had PMS (or a spouse with PMS) can attest. But there are so few women who both (a) physically qualify and (b) would choose to work in a combat zone that having all female units - a potential workaround - is probably not feasible.
All in all, I don't approve.