California [US], Aug 9 : The United States Marine Corps has considered a plan that would allow women to attend a "male-only combat training" at Southern California, in United States.
The Marine Leaders are to approve the plan after which, a new program would start where female and male marines would have their training together.
Senior Marine officials are also considering allowing women to undergo boot camp training at the combat training in San Diego as well, reports Sputnik.
Men can attend boot camp training in either San Diego or South Carolina, while women recruits all go through boot camp training at Parris Island in South Carolina.
General Glenn Walters, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, suggested that the final decision will depend on multiple factors such as logistics and cost benefits and added that, if they are going to change the "culture" of the Marine Corps, then they are going to change how things are organized there.
The plan has been initiated to change the "gender segregation policies," that has also been repeatedly criticized by Congress.
The Congress has claimed that the change in Marine Corps gender segregation policies would also "contribute to an environment that has allowed the pervasive sexual assault and harassment of female Marines." Women are a minority in the Marines, making up only 8.4 percent of the corps.
Reports say that Marine leaders have also been persistently accused of being hostile to women. Earlier, a huge nude-photo sharing scandal damaged the reputation of the service. Thousands of sexually explicit photos of female marines, often accompanied by violent comments, were shared on various social media platforms and websites.
According to reports, 33 Marines are facing outcomes for the same, although no punishment was taken against 12 other Marines, and two more are still awaiting the repercussion of their cases.
For the past several months, a Marine task force has been reviewing ways to reduce bad behavior problems.
Source: ANI
