Women from Overseas Are Partial to the Trenches

U.S. experts set out to lift the ban on participation of American women in direct ground combat

The Pentagon is advised to lift the statutory policy barring women from serving in direct combat roles. The recommendation is outlined in the draft report of the commission for ensuring equal rights of military personnel (Military Leadership Diversity Commission or MLDC) that was published on its website in mid-January of this year. The final report is expected to be on Barack Obama’s desk in March, when it will also be presented to military officials and senators for a final decision on the appropriate amendments to federal legislation and to military regulations.

American girls must fight

Currently, U.S. law prohibits participation of American female military personnel in direct combat. They have the right to serve only in combat support positions, such as in medical, logistics and transportation units. The commission of 32 senior retired and active-duty members of the military, senior non-commissioned officers and civilians that was established by Congress in 2009 in accordance with the Defense Appropriations Act recommends lifting the ban.

American women were first allowed to achieve the status of full-fledged military personnel in the U.S. Army during the middle of last century, when the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps was established in 1942. Since then, the right of women to serve in the U.S. military has been officially acknowledged. In 1967, a law was signed removing the limitations on the number of women enlisted in the army and promotion restrictions on women officers.

In 1993, women were granted the right to serve in the Air Force and U.S. Navy. And starting in 2011, in addition to piloting combat aircraft and serving on above-surface ships, they will be included in the compositions of submarine crews, including SSBNs.

According to the official Pentagon data, women now make up about 14 percent of the active-duty Army. They are allowed to be trained in 92 percent of all military occupations. In 2008, a woman became the first full four-star female general in the U.S. military history. Today, 64 women have attained the rank of general or admiral.

Of the 2.2 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 255,000 were women, said Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez. Pentagon figures show that as of the beginning of January 2011, 110 women had been killed in the war in Iraq compared with about 4,300 men. In Afghanistan, 24 women have been killed compared with about 1,400 men.

Opponents and supporters of the reform

Allowing women to take up arms and fight on the front lines alongside men has been long discussed at the Pentagon, in U.S. political circles and among experts. There are numerous supporters and detractors of the idea. Both sides have put forward many arguments for and against the application of this idea in practice and its legal implementation.

Supporters of the ban on women’s participation in direct combat believe that female personnel in the U.S. Armed Forces do not possess the necessary physical fitness and stamina required to take part in combat operations. Besides, they argue that including women in the infantry and other combat units conducting combat operations, as well as permitting gays and lesbians to serve in the army, will cause significant damage to the integrity and cohesion of military units. They also claim that the American public will, without a doubt, react very negatively to a large number of their daughters coming home in body bags.

Supporters of the reform proposed by the commission refute the arguments. Lory Manning, one of the leading experts of the Women’s Research and Education Institute that deals with issues of gender equality in all spheres of American society, said that the implementation of the idea of using women in combat operations is already happening latently. Army and Navy field officers in Iraq and Afghanistan often ignore current Pentagon policy and send women into combat. According to her, military officials use wordplay like “attaching” women to a combat unit as opposed to “assigning” them, so they seem to formally comply with the ban on including the fairer sex in direct combat operations. But in reality women have been fighting alongside men in both of those countries for nine years now.

Anu Bhagwati, a former Marine captain and executive director of the rights group Service Women’s Action Network, said that the Pentagon’s current policy “represents a huge glass ceiling for servicewomen”. “It is archaic, it does not reflect the many sacrifices and contributions that women make in the military, and it ignores the reality of current warfighting doctrine,” said the retired captain. She also noted that since the promotion to higher ranks and selection to many senior positions in the military is dependent on combat experience, changing the current policy is all about doing what is fair.

Experts from the Military Leadership Diversity Commission support her point of view. They state that keeping women out of combat posts restricts them from serving in approximately 10 percent of Marine Corps and Army occupational specialties. And that creates a significant barrier to their career development.

The authors of the report disagree with the statements of their opponents that allowing women in direct combat roles would have a negative impact on the integrity and cohesion of military units. They say that little evidence has been found that integrating women into previously closed units or military occupations has had any ill effects on important mission-related performance factors, like unit cohesion. They also point out that a previous report, independent of their study, found that women serving in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan “had a positive impact on mission accomplished.”

Senior Pentagon officials also have repeatedly talked about the upcoming changes to the current practice of utilizing women in the military. For example, in September last year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Reserve Officer Training Corps students at Duke University, North Carolina, that he expects women to start serving in special operations units, the kind of commando teams known for stealth missions. Gates said he expects women eventually will be allowed into all special operations forces in a careful, deliberate manner.

The members of the commission recommend a phased approach to allowing women into combat units. The first phase could be assigning more women to positions in career fields currently open to them. After that, the leaders of the Pentagon and the field commanders could gradually expand the range of positions involved in direct ground combat that are open to qualified women.

Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez told reporters that the recommendations of the commission will be reviewed once the report is delivered but acknowledged that regardless of the decisions made at the legislative and administrative levels, women will continue to take part in combat action in the current conflicts.

“Women in the military continue to make tremendous contributions and profound sacrifices,” Lainez said. “Women will continue to be assigned to units and positions that may necessitate combat actions (even within the current restrictions) — situations for which they are fully trained and equipped to respond.”

Female soldiers in other countries

England was the country of origin for army feminization. The first female military hospitals consisting of soldiers’ wives first emerged there in 1653. And in 1917–1919, Women’s Royal Air Force, Women’s Royal Navy Auxiliary Corps and Women’s Motor Transport Section Legion totaling 100,000 people were formed within the British Armed Forces.

In 1885, the Canadian Army was the first army in the world to allow women to become full-fledged military personnel on par with men without any professional restrictions. During peacetime, they would be recruited not only for the support and maintenance units but also for combat divisions. The Canadian Army still adheres to that tradition.

World War II caused an increase in the number of women in the armed forces. Two hundred twenty-five thousand women served in the British Army, 450,000–500,000 in the U.S. Army, about 500,000 in Germany and more than 800,000 in the Soviet army, 80,000 of which had officer ranks.

In 1975, Germany granted women the right to serve in sanitary troops. A little later the field was expanded to include military bands. In 2001, following a court ruling by the European Court of Justice, German women gained access to all military specialties and all kinds of troops, including the ground combat forces, the submarine fleet and air force. In 2010, there were 169,000 women serving in the Bundeswehr (8.9 percent of the total number of military personnel), of which 26,000 had officer ranking.

A law allowing women to join the armed forces in Italy was adopted in late 1999. Italian women can serve in all divisions of the national armed forces except submarines and special forces. Today, more than 10,000 female citizens of Italy serve in the army. They constitute 6.3 percent of the total personnel in the land forces, 3.8 percent in the navy and more than 1.6 percent in the air force.

Israel Defense Forces Women’s Corps was created in 1948. Since 1959, in accordance with the law, all Israeli women are conscripted for military service. In 1995, after a landmark high court appeal, the country’s women won the right to serve in the air force. In 2000, a law was passed that allowed them to serve in combat units. Currently, 90 percent of all military specialties are available to the female citizens of the Promised Land. About 33 percent of the Israel Defense Forces are female. The infantry battalion Caracal guarding the southern borders of the country is 70 percent female.

Turkish military academies started accepting women in 1955. Since 1957, women were eligible for officer ranks. Currently about 16,000 women serve in the armed forces of Turkey.

Since the early 1990s, women have been allowed to serve in non-combat units in India. According to 2010 data, 1,012 officers in the Indian Army are female.

In South Korea, women gained the right to join military academies in 1998. Currently, 29,000 women hold officer positions in the country’s military.

Data on the number of women in the North Korean Army are not available. However, according to the estimates of international military experts, their number in the people’s army could be up to 10 percent.

All the armies of the world utilize women, and experts believe that in the future the ratio of men and women on the battlefields will be the same as their ratio in the population of the planet.