Fight Like a Girl: Fitness Testing as Gendered Organizational Logic in the U.S. Army

ABSTRACT Organizational logics related to excellence and equity are changing rapidly in contemporary workplaces, yet limited research examines the impacts of specific policy initiatives, including why some fail—or even backfire. This study examines one such recent policy case: a temporary period of gender‐neutral fitness testing in the United States Army. Drawing on 32 in‐depth interviews with U.S. soldiers who served during this failed policy change, I examine how the historic and seemingly gender egalitarian practice of sex‐normed fitness testing may reinforce inequality in this highly male‐dominated organizational context. By comparing soldiers' narratives about what it takes to be fit for service with the new organizational logics about combat readiness, I highlight how a masculine‐typed “ideal soldier” is (a) embedded in the structure of sex‐normed fitness standards, (b) reproduced in interactions among soldiers in the process of “doing gender,” and (c) ultimately internalized in soldiers' evaluations of their own and others' fitness for service. Findings expand our understanding of how interacting gendering processes may influence workers' perceptions of organizational change, potentially producing paradoxical outcomes.