Even that wouldn't help. The average infantry soldier in front line combat is about 19 years old. Not so mature, raging testosterone, little experience in romantic relationships or interpersonal relationships in general. I spent 18 months in a combat arms position in an infantry division as a 19 year old, so I'm speaking from experience.
You don't want young soldiers thinking about sex and competing for female attention when they should be totally focused on their mission; it is a biological imperative, so they will. Men will also biologically act to protect women no matter how much they try not to. Women will be attracted to some men, and not others. Even if they don't act on this, they will still behave differently, more favorably towards some while rejecting others; men will pick up on this and it will lead to significant loss of unit cohesion. If there are actual romantic relationships going on, it will cause utter chaos on a small team. If some women with no moral compass are banging multiple guys at the same time, it will completely destroy the entire team. If women use their influence to get special favors from their leaders, or alternately to punish by false claims of harassment/assault, that will destroy cohesiveness as well. During my time in the Army I have seen all of the things I mentioned (and worse) happen in integrated combat support units, but it isn't life or death there. These units can tolerate poor command climates, reduced cohesion, lukewarm morale, and no espirit de corps. In an infantry unit the focus is on a small team performing under very high stress as one entity, like a well oiled machine, with high confidence and energy. They can't tolerate even a small loss of cohesion, lack of confidence in their team and leaders, and need a high state of espirit de corps.
So no, even if women can meet exactly the same minimum physical and psychological standars as men, this will still reduce combat effectiveness. If you search online you can find an article from a female Marine who is a combat vet who substantiates every single point I'm making, if you think I am biased because I am a male.
http://warontherocks.com/2014/11/heres-why-women-in-combat-units-is-a-bad-idea/
“there is a world of difference between women participating on certain missions and women serving alongside men as permanent members of ground combat units.
This difference has everything to do with why combat units exist,they exist to be sent into harms way. Maybe they wont take casualties. But the military can never count on that. The prospect of attrition requires that the military treat individuals not as individuals, but as interchangeable pieces of a complex system. Not only does every combat soldier need to be capable of accomplishing the same essential tasks as every other combat soldier (according to rank, MOS etc.), but every potential replacement has to be able to easily fit into an already-stressed group. This introduces the equivalent of a Goldilocks challenge: Groups must be flexible enough to quickly absorb new members, while new members need to be sufficiently similar to both old members and surviving members that they readily fit.
Unfortunately, proponents of lifting the combat exclusion ban dont seem to get this. So, while it might make academic sense to assume squads, platoons and teams will simply be able to work out their own division of labor (read: task cohesion) under duress, what invariably happens when new members of the opposite sex arrive on the scene? In any setting, group chemistry changes in predictably unpredictable ways.
Unfortunately, the services are not likely to use their sexual assault data to make the case that injecting women into hard-charging, all-male units is not a sound idea. But surely other statistics exist. For instance, how much time do command staffs already spend on boy-girl troubles? Anecdotally, fraternization and related issues eat up way too much time. Is this really what Washington should now saddle combat units and commanders with as they fight ISIS or whomever else in the future?
Or what about combat soldiers spouses, who already have more than enough worries? Why dont their concerns count? This is a question that leads to a cascade of others for anyone who truly cares about equity. Whose equity should most matter? And who should get to determine this?
The irony is that combat units are it when it comes to protecting all the other equities we Americans value. That is inconvenient truth number one. We have no other front-line/behind-the-lines first responders. Why would we want to do anything that jeopardizes their cohesiveness and integrity?
Inconvenient truth number two is that men and women have been each others most consistent distraction since the beginning of time. To pretend that we dont know what will happen when men and women are thrown together for prolonged periods in emotionally intense situations defies common sense. Being overly academic and insufficiently adult about adult behavior is not just irresponsible but imperiling, and belies the deadly seriousness with which we should want combat units to perform.”