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Turnout gear is pretty heavy, but the main reason it adds to the challenge is that it's fire-resistant gear that is very bulky, cumbersome, and of course provides no ventilation at all. When combined with breathing apparatus, it's pretty close to the amount of exhaustion you'd get doing workouts...

The baseline physical requirements for firefighters are pretty up there as well, the key ones being carrying a 50-pound standpipe pack up a three story rescue tower and then back down, and lifting and carrying a 175-pound rescue mannequin for a distance of 100 feet, all done in full firefighter...

Female EMTs and firefighters make it work. When I trained and certified as an EMT, I was required to meet the same physical qualifications as any other EMT. Yes, you're always going to have a lot fewer women than men in heavily physical professions. That doesn't mean that women should be...

I would point out that a substantial portion of feminists have argued this in good faith from the start, only to be told by an all-male (at the time) Supreme Court that equal rights didn't apply to military service and that the military's assertion that women were categorically unfit for service...