Throughout our nations history, women have fought in each American battle that American men have participated. Though they did not wear uniforms, women were hired to fill multiple positions during the American Revolution, yet received little acknowledgement for their services in the history books. While it has been a slow process, there are now more opportunities than ever for women to serve in our nation’s military; however there are still positions women cannot legally hold. It is baffling that today’s military would still restrict positions to one gender, deeming women ineligible to fight with men in direct combat.
Though all military branches are working toward dropping the segregation tactics, the Marine Corps gained a strong lead in equality by utilizing women in ground combat missions in Iraqi during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Women have fought and died alongside men during war for centuries and should be granted the opportunity to serve in all military occupations, including those serving on the front lines in combat. The role of women in the military has been a controversial issue due to the perception that front line combat should be a male domain.
Since the Revolutionary War, women have served mainly as nurses, cooks, and support staff. It was not until 1901 that women were able to formally serve in the U. S. military under the Army Reorganization Act. Under this act, Congress established the Army Nurse Corps and in 1908 the Navy Nurse Corps, both of which fell under the Medical Department (James, James, & Boyer, 1971). During World War II, more than 400,000 women served at home and abroad as mechanics, ambulance drivers, pilots, administrators, nurses, and in other non-combat roles (“Women in the military,” 2008).
In 1943, Congress signed off on he Marine Corps Women’s Reserve and made the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) temporarily apart of the regular Army. By the end of World War II, approximately 543 women died in the line of duty, and another 84 others were captured and held as prisoners of war (POW) (Kamarck, 2015). According to Janowitz and Moskos (1979), there were two major factors throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s that led to the expansion of the role of women in the U. S. military. The first came after the end of the draft and beginning of the All-Volunteer Force in December of 1973.
The military had a difficult time recruiting and retaining ualified males, leaving them no option but to begin recruiting women. Second, the women’s equal rights movement led to demands for equal opportunities in all career fields, to include national defense. Over the last 15 years, more savvy combat techniques and nonlinear battle fields have changed the way a war is fought, intensifying the debate over a more modern day democratic society that ensures equal opportunity for men and women. This sort of equal opportunity would mean opening all military occupational specialties (MOS), including combat positions, to women.
According to Fantz (2015), at least 16 ndustrialized countries around the world, mostly U. S. allies, already allow women to serve in combat positions and have been doing so for more than a decade. There is no law prohibiting women from serving in particular military units or MOS’s, but instead a 1994 Department of Defense (DOD) policy. The Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Exclusion Rule prohibited women from serving in ground combat units like infantry, artillery, armor, combat engineers, and in special operations units.
On November 27, 2012, four female veterans who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan filed a lawsuit against the DOD, challenging the 1994 policy. A Marine Corps Captain, U. S. Air National Guard Major, and two Reservists, all represented by the ACLU, argued that the 1994 policy was unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment because it violated rights to equal protection. This lawsuit against the DOD came only a few months after a similar lawsuit had been filed against the Pentagon (Raphel, 2014).
In January 2013, former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced the end of the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Exclusion Rule for female service members (Roulo, 2013). Secretary Panetta announced that all service branches would conduct evaluations hat would work to eliminate unnecessary gender-based barriers to military service to ensure that the best-qualified and most capable service members, regardless of gender, can carry out the mission. These evaluations are to be completed by 1 January 2016.
Once the results are in, and the ban fully lifted, all military occupations will be open to women. Those who believe they should be exempt would have to get approval from the defense secretary. One major issue to be considered by Congress in opening combat positions to women is how gender- neutral standards will be defined and applied, as well as how hose standards will be validated. The military branches will conduct branch specific research in physical standards for all of their career fields, not just those currently closed to women.
Congress will have the authority to review any proposed changes, provide necessary oversight for implementation, and amend the definition of gender-neutral standards on a case-by- case basis (Kamarck, 2015). The first decade of the 21st century highlighted the disparity between the old policy that forbade women from direct ground combat units and the new roles women were being assigned. Operation Enduring Freedom in 001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 were the first large- scale troop mobilizations since the early 1990’s. The nonlinear nature of battles in Iraq and Afghanistan challenged the “front- lines” notion of combat.
The Marine Corps, in particular, reported that Iraqis would subvert checkpoints by sending female suicide bombers and smugglers, exploiting Americans compassion to Iraqi cultural norms. In order to counteract the exploitation and still preserve the cultural ideas that prohibit Iraqi women from being touched by men, the Marines took a bold step and began attaching female volunteers to their round combat units. This would come to be known as the Marine Corps “Lioness Program,” where female volunteers would conduct outreach operations with Iraqi women (Gallucci, 2010).
A similar program was developed in Afghanistan. Females volunteered to search Afghan women for weapons and to conduct door-to-door foot patrols alongside ground combat units. These military females were referred to as members of the Female Engagement Team (FET). FETS were increasingly involved in convoy escorts and assisted units in dealing with local Afghani females while operating in Afghani villages (Cronk, 015). The Lioness Program and FET, though not officially considered “combat” roles, were some of the first allowing female personnel to serve in the same capacity as their male infantry counterparts.
As of January 2015, among the nearly 2. 7 million service members who have been deployed to combat operations in support of OIF and OEF, more than half of them deploying more than once, over 280,000 have been women – and more than 800 have been wounded (Cronk, 2015). Defense officials have stated that since the three-year transition began, approximately 91,000 previously male-only MOS’s have een opened to women, however across the active and reserve force nearly 240,000 have remained closed, mainly in infantry, artillery, and armor units (Tilghman, 2015).
The Marine Corps and Army have a lower percentage of women serving amongst their ranks than does the Navy or Air Force, but also have a larger number of combat positions that have only been open to men. The Air Force, however, reported less than 5,000 positions that are closed to women (Roulo, 2013), and is reported to be the most gender neutral service that has no constraints to assigning women to various units and positions (Rabkin, 1999).
