Last week the Pentagon announced a decision to allow women to officially fill combat roles. In a wonderful case of euphemism, women were previously allowed to be “attached” to combat units but not “assigned” to them. The upshot was that women could be shot at, but were not officially in small combat units, which affected their career trajectories, but not their safety and responsibility.

I will admit that my joy at this decision was nearly matched by the anticipation that I would get to hear elements of the right screech about it, just as they did with the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal, and to the same effect, proving their own incompetence. To their credit, some Republicans, like Sen. McCain, seemed chastened by their defunct doomsday predictions about DADT, and supported the Joint Chiefs’ unanimous decision. They are still pushing for a slow, unnecessarily deliberative process, which is the best they can get.

The talk radio hosts were not so serene. I had the pleasure of meeting a female combat veteran from the Israeli Defense Force once. She was very nice, but I would pay good money to watch Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity make some of their arguments to her face.

My last two columns have been relatively centrist, but today I intend to be evenhanded only in the sense that I need both of them to type. I think this is worth spilling ink over primarily because the arguments advanced against this rule change are vapid, and some are incredibly sexist.

Let me start with the fitness argument. Now, I do not believe, nor does anyone in the Pentagon or the White House, that female troops on average will have as much muscle mass as male troops. But the average does not define the distribution. There are many women who, especially with hard work, could pass the fitness requirements for combat roles. I admit the Special Forces may be a different story. The requirements are more extreme, but I doubt that any female who wants to be a SEAL is going to fake her way through BUD/S, so let her try.

I heard one particularly misogynistic shortwave yammerer proclaim that women should not be allowed in combat because then there would be the distraction of sex in the military. I can be condescending sometimes, but I have rarely cast such aspersions on anyone as to suggest that the presence of members of the opposite sex would render them unable to do their job.

He also sounds like he just stepped out of Mayberry. How could a grown man be this naïve? There are already women in the military. There are also gay men in the military. Some of these people are even married to those in other troops. My guess is that there is sex.

And that is not new. The military has been giving troops condoms since World War II so they could have a good time with the WACS and the foreign women and still be fit for duty. A common epithet for prostitutes is derived from the name of a Civil War general, because his unit was notoriously undisciplined. If sex is too distracting for our troops, then we will have to start castrating them.

The more general alarmist decree – that the social dynamics of units will change – is puerile. Israel, Australia, Poland, and other U.S. allies allow women in combat. Most of those are fighting few active wars, but I doubt many people will argue with my contention that the IDF is effective.

Women’s “health” and “hygiene”– these euphemisms are theirs, not mine – have been put forward as a reason to maintain the ban. I simply cannot follow this logic, especially when female troops are already attached to combat units and are not exactly domiciled in the Baghdad Hilton.

At every advance in women’s rights, there has been a group of men saying that they couldn’t possibly do men’s work. At every stage, women proved them wrong. So long as the military does not lower its standards any more than it did during our last two major wars, women will prove these buffoons wrong again.

Brad Erthal is a Ph.D student in economics. His column runs weekly on Tuesdays.