The first Navy SEAL team was formed under President Kennedy in 1962. Since then, in the legendary 55-year history of the SEALs, there has not been a single female SEAL. Is this because the Navy SEALs are sexist and bigoted? Not at all. It’s simply that men are better equipped to be SEALs than women, just as women are better equipped for some jobs than men.

This is biology, not bigotry. This is science, not sexism. And the moment, there’s nothing stopping a woman from being a SEAL — as long as she could qualify. To date, since the door has been open for women to apply, not a single woman has made the cut.

No Time for Hurt Feelings

Last Friday, the Washington Post reported that “the Navy announced that the first woman to begin the process for elite Navy SEAL training has withdrawn herself from the applicants pool, according to the Associated Press. The woman, whose identity the Navy will not disclose, dropped out of a summer course for officers who want to be selected for the SEALs. She was the only woman in the pipeline.”

So, no woman has so far made it through the pipeline, let alone made it to final training, let alone made it to the infamous “hell week,” let alone made it through hell week. Is it possible a woman will become a SEAL one day? It certainly is. But if there is never a female SEAL, that will only mean one thing: Women aren’t biologically equipped to be SEALs. Nothing more, and nothing less.

And what if this hurts someone’s feelings? What if it makes some women feel left out? The SEALs could care less. They are involved in life and death missions, in carrying out difficult, surgical strikes, constantly putting themselves and others at risk. You don’t play games with this, nor do you care who feels left out or offended. This is war. This is survival. This is not a game.

SEAL trainers do everything in their power to break the will of a trainee. They know that if a person will quit under the pressure of training, they will quit (or fail to function properly) in the midst of a hellish mission. So, you weed out those who are weaker, either mentally or physically or emotionally. Based on simple biological realities, women have not made the cut so far, since everyone has to be able to carry the same load.

Again, this may change one day, but if it never does, it’s not because the SEALs are sexist. It’s because they are SEALs.

It Doesn’t Mean Men Are Tougher in Every Way

Does this mean that men, on average, are tougher than women? Hardly.

Depending on the setting and circumstance, women can outperform men, be tougher than men, be smarter than men, be more tenacious than men, and be more resourceful than men. And how many men would like to try giving birth to children?

But the world’s strongest person is a man. The world’s fastest person is a man. The world’s tallest person is a man. The person who can jump the farthest or vault the highest or throw a heavy object the farthest is a man. Again, this is science, not sexism; biology, not bigotry. This is simply the way we are made, like it or not.

And rather than bemoan our differences, we should celebrate them. Differences in the sexes is part of what makes the world turn.

So, when a husband and wife raise their children together, they quickly learn the differences between male perceptions and female perceptions, between male sensitivities and female sensitivities, between male responses and female responses. They also learn what each one’s strengths and weaknesses are and when one should defer to the other.

This is a beautiful thing. We should embrace it rather than denigrate or deny it. In many important ways, men and women are not the same.

Dominating Different Fields 

We also need to remember that there are countless areas where women put men to shame. Rather than resenting that, especially if hurts them in the job market, men should appreciate female gifting.

Women tend to be better caregivers than men. That’s one reason why a government census reports that “there were 3.5 million employed nurses in 2011, about 3.2 million of whom were female and 330,000 male.”

Is this because the nursing profession is anti-male? Is it because the nursing industry is run by feminists? Obviously not.

For some reason, women are now dominating the field of forensic science, making up roughly 80 percent of those now entering the field. And perhaps they will prove to be the best forensic scientists out there. So be it.

This is neither right nor wrong. It simply is.

It would be wrong if a woman doing the same job as a man did not get equal pay, or if the door of opportunity was not opened equally for qualified women as for men, or if anti-female prejudices kept qualified women down.

But to acknowledge differences between the sexes is healthy, realistic, and good.

Let People Be People

Over at The Federalist, Glenn T. Stanton wrote (with sarcasm), “The Google guy behind the infamous gender memo, James Damore, is a troglodyte. An embarrassing, knuckle-dragging, flat-earther who is under the silly illusion that men and women have inherent differences. Google properly fired him for just being stupid. At least that’s the fashionable story.

“But the truth is that it was Damore who got it right. (And his main concern was how to get more women working at Google, after all.)”

Stanton also noted that

U.S. News reports that “Women may lag behind men in areas like engineering, for example, but they far outstrip men in earning biology degrees.” For instance, women make up 80 percent of the students enrolled in the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. Wendy Williams, a professor in Cornell’s Department of Human Development, explains that “Women are choosing to do different things. Everyone doesn’t want to be an electrical engineer or to do computer science, and that’s not a failure or flaw.” Allowing women to choose what they want to do, without external and ideological pressure, is empowerment.

Exactly. Let people be people, let them choose the professions they want to follow, and let the most qualified among them make it to the top regardless of sex (or color or ethnicity).

The truth be told, it’s somewhat sexist to make a fuss about any of this.