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The Marine Corps will rename 19 job titles to make them gender neutral, as the military works to integrate women into more combat roles.
The word “man” will be cut from many of the titles and replaced with the word “Marine,” a Marine Corps spokeswoman confirmed to Mother Jones, adding that an official announcement would be made Friday. Jobs like “basic infantryman” will now be called “basic infantry Marine.”
Some names will remain the same, a Marine official told the Marine Corps Times, which first reported the title changes Monday. “Names that were not changed, like rifleman, are steeped in Marine Corps history and ethos,” the official said.
But that hasn’t appeased some male soldiers. “On one hand, the name changes from ‘man’ to ‘person’ or whatever they want to call it doesn’t really matter. They could call mortarmen bakers for all I care,” Marine rifleman Sgt. Geoff Heath told the Washington Post. “But on the other, it’s a direct reflection on society’s crybaby political correctness.”
The title changes come after the Pentagon last year announced that the military would open all its combat jobs, including in special operations, to women for the first time. Of all the services, the Marine Corps has been the most resistant to integration, releasing a study that found all-male units performed better than mixed-gender units. But Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the study was “not definitive,” and in January this year Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told the Marine Corps and Navy to review its job titles and descriptions.
Other military branches may not make similar changes. The Air Force and Army do not plan to revise their gender-specific job titles, officials from both branches confirmed to Mother Jones. “It is important to note the suffix ‘man’ itself is really derived from the word ‘human,'” Army spokesman Wayne V. Hall said. “This is why you still see the Air Force use ‘airman’ for all their personnel, or ‘policeman’ or ‘Congressman’ and even ‘woman.'”
Here’s a list of the Marine Corps title changes, via Stars and Stripes.
| Old | New |
| Basic infantryman | Basic infantry Marine |
| Riverine assault craft crewman | Riverine assault craft Marine |
| Light-armor vehicle crewman | Light-armor vehicle Marine |
| Reconnaissance man | Reconnaissance Marine (to include three other recon-related jobs that include the word “man”) |
| Infantry assaultman | Infantry assault Marine |
| Basic field artillery man |
Basic field artillery Marine |
| Field artillery fire control man | Field artillery fire control Marine |
| Field artillery sensor support man | Field artillery sensor support Marine |
| Fire support Marine | Fire support Marine |
| Basic engineer, construction and equipment man | Basic engineer, construction and equipment Marine |
| Basic tank and assault amphibious vehicle crewman | Basic tank and assault amphibious vehicle Marine |
| M1A1 tank crewman | Armor Marine |
| Amphibious assault vehicle crewman | Amphibious assault vehicle Marine |
| Amphibious combat vehicle crewman | Amphibious combat vehicle Marine |
| Antitank missileman | Antitank missile gunner |
| Field artillery operations man | Field artillery operations chief |
