Women in the Military

We have all learned about first- and second-wave feminism, and the hard-fought struggle for women's suffrage as well as social rights in terms of abortion and birth control. This idea of equal social standing brings up the question of women in the military. The role of women in the military has always been controversial, and only recently have women begun to have more importance in armed combat. In this blog post, I attempt to trace generally how the role of women in the military has evolved over time in our country.

In World War I, many women served in the army. However, armed combat for them was unheard of. Instead, they worked as nurses and other supportive jobs, such as motor ambulance drivers (as in the above photograph). In fact, the only country to deploy females in combat was Russia (surprised?), where females either disguised themselves as women or were simply accepted by their superiors.

World War II saw a more expanded, yet still limited, role for women in the army. The vast majority of women at the time were either clerks, nurses, or performed some other supportive role. There were in fact over 500,000 combat roles for women, but they were mainly in anti-aircraft units in Britain. And even then, they were not allowed to pull the actual triggers on anti-aircraft guns because that was thought to be "too masculine". Instead, they operated control instruments, in places like London where there was only a slim chance that they would be captured instead of killed. The first "kill" did not come until 1942.

Today, the United States military has most of its positions available to women; however, stringent physical requirements for some positions such as those in the special forces make it demanding and difficult for women to join. Interestingly, around 16% of the West Point graduating class is comprised of women. Similarly, 15.6% of the U.S. Army's soldiers, of which there are 1.1 million, are women. This shows that men still vastly outnumber women, as is expected. Furthermore, it has actually been found that having women in combat units disrupts the unity of the group, making operations that require some team effort substantially more difficult for whatever reason. That being said, their role in the army is not to be underestimated, and the number of women serving in combat roles is only increasing over the years.

One last note: the controversy surrounding this issue has been due to the fact that some say that women are less fit to join the Army due to natural physical inclinations. The fight for recognition of equal social standing ties into the second wave of feminism, where women were more worried about social than political rights. The desire to be seen as the equals of men typifies and connects back to earlier struggles for greater social standing that women experienced.


Sources:
http://www.womensmemorial.org/Education/timeline.html
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/12/03/carter-telling-military-open-all-combat-jobs-women/76720656/