Transformations in Military Standards: The DEI Debate Under Trump’s Orders

So right now, there’s a lot of chatter specifically on Instagram about removing DEI due to Trump’s executive orders. And this past week, I saw not one, but two prominent Instagram influencers, you know, business owners, mentors, etcetera. And it’s laughable to me what’s going on.

So one of them is very much so, like, fear mongering. And from what I’ve seen over the years, you know, hopping on any bandwagon to improve their own engagement, bragging about losing followers. I mean, okay.

But at the end of the day, I know how this business works, and I know the root of it is she’s really trying to improve those Instagram professional dashboard statistics. Right? Like, how how far her reach is, the likes, the the comments.

Because even if it’s negative press, these people, they they thrive off of it that because the algorithm is gonna push them out there even more so. So you got them flipping the scripts, like, doing a one eighty with the things that they talked about. Because this woman, she was all, like, pro Trump.

That’s how I initially have found her. And now she’s black peeling people to be, like, anti Trump. And I’m not saying people can’t change their minds, and I’m not saying that people are perfect.

There are certainly things that Trump does that I don’t personally agree with, but that’s the whole point. Like, you’re never going to have a perfect leader because as humans, we’re imperfect. Right?

There is only one perfect and that’s Jesus Christ. And at the end of the day, like, between this woman, you know, like, who I said is, like, doing this one eighty. And then I saw a popular business mentor. Oh, by the way, this business mentor has never pretended to be anything but liberal.

So kudos to that. I’m at least, you know, happy for her that she likes stands in her values, but doesn’t take away from the fact that I do believe she and this other one are super performative.

Maren Crowley [00:02:52]: And this one was talking about how, like, I’m not gonna stop celebrating Black History Month and Women’s History Month and Pride Month, like, all the months. Right? Diversity and inclusion are so important. Like, I’m not gonna erase them from my calendar.

And I think what irritates me the most the most about her post, and this is why I say it’s so freaking performative and so damn fake, is so she she lists the months, right, on her post that she’s gonna be recognizing.

And it’d be one thing if she put them in order of celebration. Right? So, like, for example, at the time of this recording, it is February, so this is Black History Month. And then March is Women’s History Month. Well, this woman, who, by the way, like, I’m just laughing as I physically look at her Instagram post, because the caption is, you belong here.

The order this is what pisses me off. The order that she put the months in, like, it’s self deprecating. Right? She puts women’s history month last. She puts black history month, which is not black. She puts AAPI, so that’s, that’s, like, Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Right? Then she puts Hispanic Heritage Month, then prime month. She’s none of these things. She’s not black.

She’s not Asian. She’s just not Hispanic. She’s not of the LGBTQ plus community. What she is is a woman, and she puts that last last. Like, and I want you to remember that because as I go through this podcast episode, the whole point is we should be, right, as she’s saying, celebrating everyone.

So why, like, are we walking on freaking egg shells that you literally had to create a post talking about you belong here and you put yourself and the majority of the people who follow you who are women and don’t fall into any of these other categories. You put that one last and it was intentional. Like, she intentionally put that one last.

Maren Crowley [00:05:10]: You know, it’s kinda like when you’re writing down people’s names, like, you don’t wanna upset someone’s feelings by, like, putting them last. What do you do? You put it in alphabetical order, and then it just that let the chips fall where they may. Right?

Like, it’s the same thing. Why didn’t you just put these months in order? No. You didn’t because everyone walks on freaking eggshells when it comes to these select groups, and you don’t wanna, quote unquote, offend anyone. Right?

It’s the whole thing is just a freaking farce, but I digress. Like, anyway, so I’ve got on my freaking soapbox because of these two people. And what really, like, got my gears going was I saw one and I do this too.

Like, I’ll screenshot people’s messages to me, but in an effort to have some sort of, privacy and and anonymous anonymity is the word I was looking for. Not anonymous. Anonymity. It’s early when I’m recording this. The babies are sleeping y’all.

I’ll, like, cut off half of their Instagram profile. And, honestly, like, I’m I’m in the trenches with the people. Like, I’m not I I don’t think there’s really any, especially when I’m cutting off, like, a little circle of half a person’s face, like, that you probably don’t know.

Like, there definitely is more anonymity, but the one influencer, she didn’t do that. She fold show showed the full, you know, logo. And this business mentor, it’s her brand. Like, it’s literally the logo of her brand. And I’m like, of course, these two are freaking conspiring with one another in the DMs. Like, I can’t. I just can’t. It it just made me laugh.

I knew exactly who they were. I follow both of them. I’ve engaged with both of them, over the years. And I was just like, of course. Like, this performative nonsense is so gross, and, of course, you two are chatting with one another. And, anyway, so one of them who I do talk to, like, more regularly.

So she was posting how DEI is going to be affecting those with disabilities and veterans. Like, she put down in caps when she was, like, chatting with me in the DMs and women. Okay.

I need, like we’re diving into this because it got my wheels freaking spinning. First of all, if you know, you know, like, going into this whole podcast episode, me as a person, because I’m not a grift to her, like, I just I am who I am.

Like, take it or leave it. You would know that I’m a very merit based person. Like, if you’re competent and the best at what you do, then you deserve the job. You deserve the accolades. You deserve the awards, whatever. Full stop.

If you can pass the same physical test as your male counterpart, plus, if you can ace those, you know, SATs, MCATs, whatever. If you can fly the plane, you know, as safely or as effectively, like, good for you, sis. So when she came at me with a bat, like, this is gonna affect all these people. Like, okay.

First of all and I don’t I’m not gonna talk too much about this because it’s still unfolding, and and it’s a very sensitive issue. But, you know, this was during and and like I said, you have to be very careful about what you talk about because, you know, people would like to jump on whatever’s happening in the world. Right? Like, that’s why, honestly, you haven’t heard me talk a whole ton about, like, the whole Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds and Justin Baldoni saga. This is because it’s like, when it’s in, it’s out for me.

Like, okay. Cool. Like, don’t get it wrong. I listened to Candace Owens’ podcast about it, but, like, there’s so many people talking about it because that’s how podcaster world works. Right?

People are typing in Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds into Spotify, you know, iTunes, whatever, and it’s SEO, search engine optimization, and they’re hoping that, okay, this is really popular and and people are gonna be searching for it.

But, like, my personality is when it’s in, it’s out. And not only that, I don’t like talking about things that I haven’t fully grasped or research or any of that because I honestly don’t like getting caught with my foot in my mouth and having to, like, Monday quarterback my statements.

So when she came at me with this messaging, it was during the tragedy of the Blackhawk helicopter hitting the commercial plane.

And, you know, first of all, it it seems very dark and icky for me to talk about that particular situation. You know, God bless those families who lost their loved ones. But when she was saying that, like, about the disabilities and, like, the veterans and the women, you know, in my head and I’ll say it briefly, like, I’m saying to myself, yeah.

Can we talk about how, like, the FAA created all this DEI and, like, they wanted to make it available to, like, have deaf people and blind people and, you know, literally, like, midgets and dwarfs.

Like, they wanted to open it up to everyone, and I’m saying to myself, like, okay, if you’re flying on a plane, which obviously, like, if you’re in an accident, there’s no coming back from it. Do you want, you know, you know, perhaps someone who’s blind or deaf, like, any part having their hands in any part of that? I’m sorry. Like, no. Sorry.

No. So when she was talking about this, I immediately just went for, like, the physical jobs I could think of, because she was like because I said to her, I said, there’s just some jobs that people can’t do. A la, like I said, you know, if you’re deaf or blind, really don’t want you in charge of my flight patterns or even flying my plane. Right? And she was like, what? Like, what could possibly you know, like, you know that when you’re little and they’re like, you can do anything. No. You can’t. I’m sorry. You can’t.

Like, my husband grew up playing basketball. He was very talented. But at the end of the day, he’s six one, and he’s, you know, not as strong and as athletic as his counterparts that were on his on his team.

And quite frankly, like, you know, god put a golf club in his hand, and that’s where he went from there. Like, there’s just certain things you can’t do. Like, he had all these dreams. They’re like, oh, I wanna play college basketball. No.

Didn’t happen. Didn’t happen. I’ve talked about that before in previous episodes. Like, pull your kids from these freaking different sports teams. Like, I’m telling you, like, just let them have fun because the cream will rise to the top.

The chances of your child playing collegiate golf or football or soccer or it’s so slim. Anyway, that’s another podcast. You can go look for it in my previous episodes.

So I said to her, I was like, okay. Let’s think about this. How about the firefighters in this country? Also, very hot topic, no pun intended, going on right now with the DEI situation in California. You know, if if you’re in a burning building, wouldn’t you want the strongest and most fit person with the largest and best lung capacity pulling you out of the building?

If you’re drowning in the ocean, wouldn’t you want someone who met the actual physical testing standards and didn’t have a easier route saving you? What about offending our country? Right?

Like, at the end of the day, this is what people need to understand. Most men, like, let’s let’s be real, high 90 percentile are stronger and faster than women. It’s it’s biology. K? Their anatomy is different than ours. Their lung capacity is different than ours.

It’s it’s just different. And so that’s what I really wanna speak about today. Like, I really wanna talk about the military because that’s what the executive order was truly about.

And you have all of these influencers who are acting like, you know, Target’s gonna erase all of these months, you know, to to be on the front and center when you walk into the store. No. No one’s saying that.

And I just can’t handle the ignorance that’s going on. So when it comes to DEI and the DOD, Department of Defense Right? So you have these influencers are all up in arms about removing DEI, but they’re not coming to you with the facts.

Right? And, you know, we talked about those two influencers. And, I mean, even this past week and at the Grammys, I mean, you have these, quite frankly, Baphomet loving artists who are up there just spreading more and more lies besides the fact that they’re, like, trying to make you pretend that they’re praying to God, Jesus Christ. No. Not one of them says that. What do they say? The most high. I mean, Alicia Keys threw up a Baphomet symbol. I can’t. I just can’t with these people.

I can’t. And you wonder why I only listen to Brandon Lake for when it comes to music. But, anyway, you know, these clowns on stage saying things like trans people are not invisible or DEI is the gift.

That was Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys. Both of which who made no mention when they won to Jesus Christ. But, yep, let’s throw up the Baphomet symbol. Okay, people. Like, no one said those were going away.

Okay. And then, specifically, I think it was Lady Gaga. Yeah. When they pressed her, like, about what specific policy because she’s made it her mission. We will not go down without a fight is, like, her quote, you know, about protecting the the letter community from, you know, Donald Trump because apparently, you know, she’s acting as if he hates all of them. That’s not true. Oh my gosh. I can’t even he had the first gay cabinet member in his in his first administration.

I just can’t. Like, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, like, go ask Rick Grenell if Donald Trump hates gay people. Like, let’s get his response. K? I mean, it’s it’s so asinine. So but if you press them about specific policy, though, they’re upset.

Like, they they don’t even know how to answer you because they don’t really know. Like, they know these buzzwords to get on stage and say, but, like, when it comes to actual policy, they don’t know their ass from their elbow. They they don’t know.

And or it’s not relevant to, like, whatever argument they’ve fabricated. Like so they don’t wanna get caught with their foot in their mouth. It’s just this typical perpetual lie that the media spreads, Hollywood spreads.

It’s wildfire, and it’s on social media, and people take it as bible. Like, this is, you know, this is what it is. And then you have influencers who take said information, spread it out to their demographic. It’s awful. Like, you have corrupt MSM.

You have these idiots who are on stage at award shows. Like, you have social media influencers who, quite frankly, in my opinion, have way too much influence. Like, we went from getting all of our news from the corrupt mainstream media, which obviously is bad.

And now, like, where our sources are some random, like, not to knock on because I was a stay at home mom, but, like, a stay at home mom who is really good at marketing and knows how to market themselves.

Like, all of a sudden, like, that’s where we get our information from. Get out of here. So let’s dive in. This past week, president Donald Trump, he implemented an executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion in the military.

K? I just wanna be loud and clear. The military. Okay? So for all those little Lady Gaga little monsters who might be, you know, signing up for the service, this affects you. Please, I can’t.

So what does this truly mean? So going forward, DOD, so Department of Defense components, and military departments, they will not be able to use official resources to include man hours to host celebrations or events related to cultural awareness month.

So that’s National African American Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and National American Indian Heritage Month.

Service members and civilians remain permitted to attend these events in an unofficial capacity outside of duty hours. K.

Are we clear on that? So our new Department of Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, he is quoted as saying, our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the department’s war fighting mission. Efforts to divide the force, to put one group ahead of the other, erode camaraderie, and threaten mission execution.

He said that military installations, units, and offices are still encouraged to, quote, celebrate the valor and success of military heroes of all races, genders, and backgrounds as we restore our warrior culture and ethos.

We are proud of our warriors and their history, but we will focus on the character of their service instead of their immutable characteristics. He said concluding, this guidance is effective immediately. Okay. So, seriously, to all the people whining about this, a, get informed. No one’s taking away your pride month, your parade, your celebrations, you know, yada yada yada.

B, it really shows that you never played on a sports team. Because anyone that has knows how important it is to see one another as equals when you’re on the court, when you’re on the field. K?

Like, why do you think people loved playing with what would be known as the GOAT in both football and in basketball, Tom Brady and Michael Jordan? It’s because those two athletes, their focus was always on winning as a team, and they knew that they couldn’t win championship rings by themselves.

It couldn’t be all about them. They had to work as a team. They wanted the ring, and they both got a ton of them. Right? They knew everyone had to work together in order for that to happen. And I’ve I really recommend you you watch I think it’s on Netflix now.

The whole, the name escapes me right now. It’s Michael Jordan’s whole series about, like, when when he won the the six ranks. And they interview Pippen and Rodman and and all his other teammates, and they talk about what it was like to play with him.

And quite frankly, they say we got those rings because of Michael. Not because he shot every basket, but because he he organized the practices. He helped them, like, figure out how to do better plays. Like, they worked as a team. Didn’t just give him the ball.

Right? Like, they all work together and assisted one another. Now that’s sports. Right? I want you to imagine fighting for your country, like, your life on the front lines. So can you see how clear the importance of brotherhood and working as a unit would be?

I mean, this is, like, life or death. No joke. And I wanted to share some quotes from Pete from the Sean Ryan podcast to put in perspective, especially since, like, this one person in particular was like, is Pete Hegseth the one that doesn’t even know where Singapore is?

And I’m like, you try sitting in front of this committee for six hours getting berated with questions, especially, like, I don’t know if you all saw Pete Hegcess, you know, when they were, like, just hammering him with questions.

And and it was some of the questions were just so inappropriate about, you know, his previous transgressions. I mean, they’re talking about his his blended I mean, here, the irony of it.

Right? DEI, like, they’re they’re hating on him for his blended family. I do he has seven kids. It’s like a camp. So like I said, not everyone’s perfect. Right? But I I believe that we shouldn’t just base our opinions of someone on one clip or one misstep in answering a question or any of that.

Like, we have to look at the bigger picture. And I get so frustrated with people, specifically on the Internet, who they get their information from clickbait, whether it’s reels or posts, and they don’t sit down. Like and I specifically said to this person I think I even sent her the link.

I was like, listen to this podcast episode that he did. Like, listen to the whole I mean, seriously, like, it’s so funny. These committees wanted to pull quotes, whether it was on Cash Patel or RFK, you know, because they did so many podcasts, you know, in the last year.

And the committee members, Democrats, will be like, on such and such podcast, you said blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And then Cash or RFK would be like, yeah. But that wasn’t the context. Like, give the context. Give the full quote.

And they don’t do that. They like to take sound bites. They do it to Trump all the time. And so, you know, it’s very frustrating to me that I do. I I sit and I listen to the live rallies and the live speeches, and I listen to the three hour podcast, like and I I absorb all that information.

And people don’t do that, and it’s so frustrating because then they take the sound bites, they run with it, and then they convince their audience that this is law, this is bible, this is what was said. And it’s like, no, homie. It’s not.

So I sent her this particular podcast that I’m gonna be quoting from, and I don’t know whether she listened to it or not. But, like, no. Like, why don’t you sit down and listen to this three hour podcast so you have a better idea of who is leading your country? Anyway, so when I listen to this podcast, and I do listen to Sean Ryan’s podcast quite a bit, him, Rogan. And I’m sitting there listening to it, and I’m just nodding my head like, yeah. Mhmm. Yes. Yes. Because it reminded me what Pete was talking about and what Sean, you know, together, they were talking about the military.

The scenario reminded me so much of my time playing collegiate golf. You know, they talk about women in the military, specifically in combat, how there needs to be changes in in regards to DEI.

And Pete says, you’d have to not only change the agencies. Right? So, obviously, you’re talking about the big agencies of your FBI, CIA. You’re talking about the Pentagon. You but it trickles all down into the military academies too.

And he goes on to say that includes admission standards, overall standards, women in combat quotas. Now remember that word quotas because I’m gonna circle back to it later in this episode when it comes time to, like, compare this to my time as a college athlete and coach in Title nine.

Because Pete says, quote, I think the way they push that under Obama in a way that had nothing, zero to do with efficacy, zero to do with lethality and capability. And Sean Ryan pressed him and was like, you know, what do you mean? You don’t like women in combat?

And Pete’s short answer is no. And when asked why not, I loved his response. And, honestly, anyone with a brain and sensibility should too. Because Pete says, quote, I love women’s service members who contribute amazingly because everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated.

And complication in combat means casualties are worse. So he likes having women’s service members, but when it comes to combat, he wants he he does not want them there. I mean, come on, mic drop.

Like, seriously, when it makes everything complicated and your life’s on the line and, quite frankly, like, that’s gonna increase casualties of our American service members, of course, you wouldn’t want that.

And he goes on to say, quote, so the Marine Corps was the only service that actually tried to fight back and say and he says this, like, he’s exempting special operations. So, like, special ops, meaning your your army rangers, your navy seals, like, all those black ops, they do not have any women in combat.

So he was just wanting to clarify that. But the marine corps, they did, they tried pushing back on that. And so they were saying how if you just lower the standards to become, say, a Navy Seal. Right?

Which, like I mean, they have shows about Navy Seals because it is so hard to become a Navy Seal. Right? And you just lower the standards and let women inside, like, you’re changing the capabilities and the ethos of the Navy Seals.

Like, they’re not as strong and capable as they once were. And he says, like, there’s a very, very small number of these female super soldiers who are capable of doing it. But at the end of the day, like, they’re just gonna push for quotas to have women in. And I want you to remember that word, remember, quotas.

And so Pete talked about Millie and how he went down to individual units to make sure they had female company commanders after they graduated from Ranger School. And he’s like, what is the chairman of the joint chiefs doing pushing company command slots, like, into having more women? It’s all an agenda.

Like, who’s gonna be the first to have the first female this or the first, you know, gay that. Right? Like, that’s what it was.

Maren Crowley [00:28:56]: It was just a race to fill those little boxes. And he explains in the podcast that there’s a difference, and this is why he said, like, he likes having women service members. So women who are overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, like, say they are, you know, they’re female truck drivers or fuel or mechanics on the convoys. And then, you know, they happen to end up in combat because they they get attacked or they are on, you know, whatever it may be. Like, their their situation, they’re not actually going into combat, but then the combat comes to them. That’s what I’m trying to say. That’s different than intentionally putting them into combat roles to do the combat jobs of men. Like you can end up in a combat situation unintentionally in those countries.

Maren Crowley [00:29:52]: And so when you put women intentionally into those combat roles, you’re changing the standards and the capability of the unit because at the end of the day, as I’ve said, men can do things that women can’t physically. Different bone density, lung capacity, muscle strength, like men and women are just different. Right? And listen, it goes both ways. I truly believe that’s why women give birth and men don’t. Right? But Pete says he’s perfectly fine with the idea as long as you maintain the standards where they’re at for so that they’re the same for everybody. And if there happens to be this, like, supercharged female that meets the standards of the infantry battalion, then great. But that’s not what’s happening. The standards have been lowered because a general happens to stop by a unit and says, well, where are all the women? Which AKA means get more women in your unit.

Maren Crowley [00:30:44]: And piggybacking off of that, I I wanna share some information because, like, you hear these things. And like I said, like, it’s not just you take things by law, by bible. Like, as I always say, you wanna really get in the trenches and and find out. And so I, you know, I listened to this episode, and I I thought, okay. Like, let me share some information from one of my oldest and dearest friends who happens to be in the United States Coast Guard Reserves. And she was in the Coast Guard for years and years, and she’s been in the reserves for a long time now. And I wanted to pick her brain about how the standards have changed with DEI. And she was telling me that back in 2010, her standards to pass the physical test were the same as her male counterpart.

Maren Crowley [00:31:31]: So that’s like what Pete was talking about. Like, listen, if you can pass the same per you know, physical tasks, like, plus up, like, fantastic. You know, think about, like, in GI Jane, how hard Demi Moore’s character had to work to pass those, like, chin ups. Right? Those are extremely difficult, especially for women who do not have the same upper body strength as men. And so now I was asking her, like, okay. What’s the difference now? Here we are, you know, fifteen years later. Like I said, she’s been a part of the military for a long time. And she said, now not so much.

Maren Crowley [00:32:03]: Not only do the females have a different amount of push ups and sit ups, but they actually get more time on the mile run. And that’s happened in the last few years. Like, they changed their PT standards, and they’re also giving lots of options to pass. So, for example, like, if you can’t pass the run standards, they’re like, well, you can swim instead. You know, you can go, like, what? I’m sorry. Running and swimming while they’re both, you know, aerobic activities. I’m sorry. They’re night and day.

Maren Crowley [00:32:38]: And when you’re in Afghanistan and Iraq, you’re not swimming away from your enemies. Okay? You’re running. And she was also telling me that they have this ridiculous standard for, quote, unquote, making weight, and that hasn’t changed since the nineteen fifties. So, like, listen, not everything’s perfect. Right? Like, there there needs to be changes and needs to be an just a overall redo of the whole thing. So I asked her what that entailed, and she was like, well, basically, they take your hip circumference plus your weight circumference, and then subtract your neck circumference, and you have to fall below a certain number on this chart, which hasn’t been updated since the fifties. So my friend, for example, she has a waist bigger than thirty six inches, so she doesn’t pass what is called taping. Now before you think she doesn’t fit, she is.

Maren Crowley [00:33:35]: K. She’s an athlete through and through, and fit looks different on everyone. My girlfriend is she’s five eleven, and she’s broad. Like, her shoulders are broad. She’s an athlete. And in order for her to pass this ridiculous standard, she has to drop weight every six months before weighing, and, like, she has to do it in a very unhealthy way. Like, think about wrestlers and and all the crazy stuff they have to do before they weigh in for a fight. You know, they they don’t eat.

Maren Crowley [00:34:07]: They’re they’re trying to, like, dehydrate their body. Right? I mean, she has she’s done, like, some crazy stuff. Trust me. And I asked her why she thought these types of initiatives were being put in place, and she believes they were added to help support DEI because basically dudes that wanna be females, you know, they need to be passing the female weight standards. It’s it’s wild. So, anyway, so when I was having the conversation with that influencer I was telling you about earlier, I said to her, like, there are certain jobs where people straight up can’t do the job at hand. And when she said some, like, that was quote, which I responded with, think anything physical. Right? So we already talked about defending our country and implications that that can have.

Maren Crowley [00:34:54]: We talked about firefighters, right, and being pulled out of the ocean by a lifeguard. Now, think about some of the most dangerous jobs, which are extremely laborious. Iron and steel workers, miners, truck and delivery drivers, construction trade workers, like line workers. Not that I think that many women are knocking down the door for these jobs, but you never know. You know, I do believe that the DEI tends to apply to more cushy jobs. And like I said, the government wanting to check those box, the military, you know, they wanna put them in there. But it it definitely applies to more of these cushy jobs, which is why they’re all freaking out that Doge and Elon and all his boys are coming in because they know their heads are on the chopping block for their jobs. Because, a, they’re not needed, and b, they certainly aren’t needed because they only got the job because they match the DEI criteria.

Maren Crowley [00:35:57]: And we know firsthand that the government has been pumping positions with DEI candidates. In fact, there were 1,200 DEI hires put in place by the Biden administration. Some of them, 303 of them, ten days before Trump came into office. And these are 6 figure salaries, and some pay $310,000 per year. That’s a hundred and 60,000,000 in new salaries per year for these new DEI hires that are being paid for by you. Hello. Hello, the taxpayer. This was all reported by the Daily Wire, by the way.

Maren Crowley [00:36:37]: And once these people are hired, they’re virtually untouchable. But, I mean, I can just visualize Trump saying, you’re fired. So, hopefully, that comes to fruition. But for the most part, it won’t matter that they’re political appointees because they don’t leave with the next administration. Like, they are permanent federal employees. So I’m sure if they do get fired, there’s gonna be some kind of paid leave for them. They’ll they’ll milk it for what it’s worth. And the article from the Daily Wire quotes that the Pentagon’s Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute is seeking a social media specialist telework, so that’s virtual y’all, for a hundred and $13,800 a year.

Maren Crowley [00:37:27]: The new social media specialists are set to make 6 figures for one post per day. Don’t tell my marketing team this. They might they might expect to quite the raise. I’m just kidding. But, like, think about the median household income in America is $80,000, And the Pentagon wants to hire a freaking social media expert to do one post per day virtually and be making 6 figures. I also believe that this DEI stuff, it it applies to college acceptances. Like, I don’t know about you, but, like, why can’t the best scores and the most robust resumes equate to the actual acceptances into the universities? Do I personally believe that we need to provide opportunities for the less fortunate? Yes. You know? Obviously, you can’t make any kind of change if you keep doing the same thing and you’re not providing opportunities in education.

Maren Crowley [00:38:25]: But as we see, that’s going back to The States. So, hopefully, there will be some changes there. But at the end of the day, let the best of the best do what they do. Like, how does it make you feel that your doctor perhaps didn’t have the same standards to get into their university and they’re operating on you? I mean, seriously? So this whole conversation, okay, got me thinking about how DEI and and title nine are actually related. So I’ve talked about before how I am in major support of title nine both as a professional athlete and a mom of two little girls. Title nine is a landmark federal civil rights law in The United States. It was enacted as part of the education amendments of 1972, and it prohibits sex based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. But I wanted to shed a little light about how there are some negatives to Title nine, and I wanted to use my personal experience with collegiate sports.

Maren Crowley [00:39:31]: So do I personally believe that I have the opportunity to play d one collegiate golf because of title nine and, you know, get my scholarship? Yes. So I’m I’m not upset about that. But did I also see the underbelly of title nine and how it can be kind of a joke when I became the head coach? Also, yes. You know, I can’t tell you how many times I was forced to put players on my roster just to meet the number. Remember that term I was saying earlier in the podcast quotas? Right? Like, where all the women, you know, when Millie’s going down to the the bases, they just wanted to check a box, and it was the same thing at university. I mean, golf of all sports, like, I’m just gonna randomly find someone who has, like, $1,300 worth of equipment sitting in their dorm room and, like, hey, you wanna join the team as a walk on? I mean, come on. There’s just tons of those people sitting at a school, right, just just waiting. And it was brutal, and my administration was constantly hounding me about it.

Maren Crowley [00:40:34]: And in the beginning, I definitely complied because I didn’t know any better, and I was like, okay. You know? And I would add girls to the team who, quite frankly, I knew they were never gonna compete, and it frustrated me to know him because we had a very small budget. And I had to you know, I liked if I’m gonna put you on the team, I wanted to do right by you. Right? Like, I didn’t want you to feel less than because, you know, that’s not what it means to be a part of a team. So, like, I had to outfit those girls in the same way. So golf bags, clothing for practice, you know, I mean, even some coming to practice, hitting balls, you know, scheduling tee times at private clubs. Like, my budget was so minuscule to begin with. And now, like, quite frankly, I’m wasting what little money I have on bodies that were never gonna travel.

Maren Crowley [00:41:28]: They were never gonna be part of my competitive roster. They weren’t recruited by me. They were simply walk ons bodies, quite frankly, added to the roster so I could meet the Title nine numbers and have the balance. Because how it works is in college sports, say say 52% of your student body population is female, well, then you’re gonna need to have 52% of your student athletes be female. And so, anyway, like, that was my experience, like, as a as a head coach. And then not only that, but, like, when I played on the team, my head coach so I became the head coach of my alma mater. But my head coach, he was coaching both teams, and that was a recipe for disaster. K? And it’s funny how I can see the similarities, and that’s why I was saying when I listened to that Sean Ryan and Pete Hegseth podcast, I was just like, uh-huh.

Maren Crowley [00:42:22]: Yep. Mhmm. When they were talking about women in the military, it definitely related to what I experienced as a student athlete. Now when I graduated and then became a coach, one of the first things that changed was my AD, my my athletic director. He he split it up. Like, he split up the program, and that was literally the best thing to do. So we were two separate teams. There was a men’s coach.

Maren Crowley [00:42:51]: I was obviously the female coach, and everything began to move in the right direction. You know, obviously, the responsibility was less, which made you able to coach better. But beyond that, like, we didn’t really we didn’t travel anymore together. We were our own entities. You know, I ran my team how I wanted. Joe ran his how he wanted. It it was a stark contrast for from when I was a student athlete. Like, we did everything together, y’all.

Maren Crowley [00:43:23]: Like, from travel, I mean, living in the same dorms. We worked out with the same strength team. We would go on spring break trips together. There was a lot of drama within our two small teams. Now mind you, it’s not like we had, you know, 30 bodies on each team. It would be, like, eight and eight. Okay? I mean, people hooking up with one another. It was a major issue.

Maren Crowley [00:43:47]: And, you know, it’s funny because a lot of the problems that I experienced with that dynamic are why Hegsa says he doesn’t like having women in combat. He says, quote, it hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting complicated. And so you remember I said the Marine Corps, they were the ones that pushed back on this. They actually did a study, and they looked at integrated units with both male and female versus the units that were males only. And the integrated ones did much worse than the male only units. But meanwhile, in 2015, Ray Mabus, who was the secretary of the Navy at the time, was like, f this. Like, screw your study. We’re doing it anyway because that’s what Obama wants.

Maren Crowley [00:44:35]: And I can tell you that both my women’s golf team and the men’s golf team, they we were just so much more effective being separate entities. And, obviously, I do believe a change in leadership was necessary. It removed a lot of the muddy water. And like Sean and Pete talked about in their podcast, like, when you have both teams playing together, there’s a lot of sexual tension and relationships that happen. It creates drama, and therefore, it really breaks up the team dynamics, which is one thing when you’re on, you know, a golf team. Right? You know, getting drunk at happy hour and making out with one of your teammates. Right? It’s totally another thing when you’re going into combat with people who are upset with one another, have, like, this love triangle going on, and yours and others lives are on the line. I mean, that’s how the casualties happen.

Maren Crowley [00:45:28]: And I don’t know how many times we have to go over the fact that men and women are just built different. If it’s a job where strength is a differentiator, then women shouldn’t be part of the equation. You know, I talk about some of these issues and more in my podcast about men playing in women’s sports. I give a breakdown of my personal situation in the golf industry versus my husband’s, the schooling that and the certification that he and I have gone through, and I encourage you to check out that episode too. I know there’s gonna be so much more to unpack in the next four years. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but still, I’m excited to use this platform, my podcast, to chat with you about it. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve kinda taken a bit of a back seat on social media. First and foremost, time is limited with both being in the height of my golf season right now and giving lessons.

Maren Crowley [00:46:20]: And then anytime I do have off the golf course, it is dedicated to my two little girls, my husband and my family, the most important people to me. And then whatever tiny little bit of time I have beyond that, it’s been focused on my UGC and Amazon jobs, plus the two workshops that I’ve put together for you.