New York City Fire Department drops physical test to boost female hiring

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Mike Buchanan

Many years ago the physical tests for prospective fire fighters in the UK were reduced in intensity so that more women could be hired. New York City has gone one step further – here. The original New York Post piece is here.

Elizabeth Crowley nominated herself for our ‘Gormless Woman of the Month’ award with this comment:

There are still concerns that excessive testing methods within the Fire Academy are being used to keep women probationary firefighters from graduating.

Maybe one day Ms Crowley will find herself in a burning building when an all-female fire crew turns up, none of whom were subjected to ‘excessive testing methods’, none of whom are physically strong enough to carry her to safety, and thereby save her life.

About Mike Buchanan

I'm a men's human rights advocate, writer, and publisher. My primary focus is leading the political party I launched in 2013, Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them). I still work actively on two campaigns I launched in early 2012, Campaign for Merit in Business and the Anti-Feminism League. In 2014 I launched The Alternative Sexism Project, aiming to raise public understanding that the sexism faced by men and boys has far more grievous consequences than the sexism faced by women and girls.
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  • Any feminist who is prepared to lobby/argue for the relaxation of standards for members of the fire-service, solely to increase the proportion of women in the service, conclusively destroys their credibility across the board.

    The reason is simple. If they are willing to ignore selection criteria, which could mean (and undoubtedly have meant) the difference between life and death, then they have clearly abandoned reason, in favour of ideology and their opinion cannot be trusted on anything.

    • epistemol

      I agree Paul, but they abandoned reason for ideology a long time ago in favour of the endless repetition of lies.
      The technique is find to an untruth that resonates ( that is, winds people up ) and repeat ad infinitum and on every repetition someone somewhere believes it.
      I suppose you could call this approach quantity over quality.
      I suggest a reply in kind ( in addition to reason and logic, not instead of ).
      I would offer “feminism spreads lies like coughs and sneezes spread diseases” for your consideration!

      • Of course that’s true, but not everyone sees it.

        My point here is that applying female quotas in the fire service, is such a blatantly idiotic and downright harmful exercise, that it should make even those complacent individuals, who lazily believe that feminism is a benign movement which only seeks equality for women, realise what an insane and pernicious ideology it really is.

        I’m old enough to remember the excesses of the ‘Loony Left’ of the 70’s and 80’s.

        Now we have the ‘Loony Fems’.

        I’m glad to see that J4M&B includes in the proposals in its manifesto, under the section ‘Employment’:
        ‘Recruitment and promotion should be based on individual merit, not on gender or any other characteristic’.

        The lowering of standards in the fire service, is a powerful example of why this proposal needs urgently to be implemented

  • epistemol

    The further we go up a blind alley the further we eventually have to come back down it.

  • Of course the standards in various services effectively exclude loads of men! I can’t imagine how such things get approved. I assume is by people far from the actual practical work . The fire services are not so big an employer that they can absorb numbers of less than fully suitable workers.

  • who are those men who do not protest against such practices because they are ‘true’ gentlemen ?
    There is a heavy price to pay to the whole society,if men, on gentlemanly grounds, are reluctant or outright unwilling to confront women and feminists and tell them that women are simply not good enough for many professions. There is a heavy price to pay for the entire country if rules and standards are relaxed so that women can be hired. What kind of self dillusion,cockooland have we ended up living in just because we insist on being gentlemen to the point of ruining everything ?
    There are times when gentlemanly manners are harmfult to the whole society,including children. So please,take a good look at today’s society and start acting in a responsible manner,even if that means stating that women are not good for all professions and need to be held fully accountable for their actions,just like men are.
    After all,we no longer sit on top of an empire.we no longer have huge trade surpluses and we no longer have the sole skills to make advanced products. Please,put the cynderella,barbie type of treatment of our women to the dustbin of history and start treating them like you should in this new reality we live in. That means fairly but according to their genuine abilities (or inabilities).