Even as the debate rages over the Pentagon’s recent decision to officially allow women to do certain dangerous battalion jobs in combat areas, the truth is that for the most part it’s nothing new. Women have actually already been doing these types of jobs, as well as being in combat on infantry foot patrols, for several years due to necessity in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the new rules open up several jobs that were previously closed to women in the military, it still bans women from combat.
The reality of war vs. what the rules say aside, women in combat is a hot issue at the moment. Women have successfully broken through countless barriers in the past century, now regularly doing what was once considered “men’s work.” The military is one of the last areas where women have been unapologetically shut out of certain positions–positions that are considered necessary for military career advancement.
When considering the issue, it’s important to look not just at the pros and cons of making changes to the rules, but the history of women in the military and how other countries address it as well.
The History
Although women have long been considered the “weaker sex,” in need of protection by men, it wasn’t always this way. It’s only been in the last few centuries that women could afford to avoid violent conflict—certainly in early human history, women had to fight alongside men during conflicts. Nobody could afford to be coddled—it was a matter of survival. Later, women warriors became the stuff of legend: Boadicea, Joan of Arc, and Mulan to name a few. We know for sure that about 400 women fought alongside men during the Civil War, and it’s likely that the practice of passing as a male and going to war to escape an oppressive life at home took place in virtually every war prior to that as well.
The Naysayers
So what is it about women in combat that’s such a problem for people, other than outdated notions? The most obvious is that women are, on average, smaller than men and don’t have the advantage of testosterone that makes it easy for men to put on muscle. Combat is physically demanding, and includes carrying loads of up to 100 lbs. Many women don’t weigh much more than that themselves.
So, perhaps combat isn’t right for all women, but like firefighting or police work, shouldn’t women be given the opportunity to at least try? Some women are strong enough, both physically and mentally, to handle the rigors of combat. If they can pass the same training and testing that men do, why should they be shut out?
Another argument is that men will feel compelled to protect the women soldiers who are fighting alongside them. But, don’t men protect one another in battle anyway, when they aren’t fighting for their own lives? The fact is, more than 255,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps it is the fear of the unknown, more than actual limitations, that keep some male infantry members from supporting the change.
The Sex Thing
Another major concern to women serving in combat is the sex factor. Will men and women serving together be more likely to fraternize? Is the risk of sexual harassment of women particularly high among soldiers? Is segregation by sex reasonable in combat situations, or will men and women in the same unit have to sleep in close proximity—and does it even matter? Certainly, these kinds of social and cultural issues must be considered, but a few other countries seem to have figured it out.
What the Rest of the World Thinks
Most of the world’s militaries do not allow women to serve in combat, but those who do include Israel, France, Germany, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, Canada, Norway, Serbia, Sweden, and Switzerland. In addition, women in the U.K. can serve in artillery, though not infantry.
The changes made by the Pentagon are considered to be baby steps by supporters of women in combat, and will not take effect all at once. Meanwhile, there’s no doubt that at least a few women will continue to serve in combat, albeit under the radar.
2 comments
Publion
I cannot agree with the article.
In the first place, the trope that women have “successfully broken through countless barriers” says both too much and too little. Basically – and it was always bound to be a concern by the very nature of the thing as a political agenda backed by the politicians – the only thing that can be said with accuracy and certainty is that the regulations and/or laws were “successfully broken through”. But whether the women have actually performed in such a way so as not to degrade the necessary standards of combat efficiency is not so clear at all.
Indeed, as relevant books by authors such as Kingsley Browne, Brian Mitchell, and Stephanie Gutmann relate, the early-1990s big push by feminist interests overtly dismissed and were willing to accept degradation of combat-efficiency in order to see their agenda “successful” since, among other things, it would no longer be ‘your father’s’ or ‘your grandfather’s’ war or military. But the brute realities of sustained military combat remain impervious to political agendas and the various spin strategies that lubricate them.
In that regard, examples drawn from history – especially from ‘warrior’ (as opposed to modern military ‘soldier’) scenarios are not completely applicable. Warriors from the pre-historic to the medieval did not fight as ‘soldiers’ in organized military formations as they have for the past few centuries.
Equally so, given the very substantial logistical problems of supporting females in the field, let alone the difficulties of doing so in the sex-assault-sensitive atmosphere that now dominates the US culturally, one has to ask if the game is worth the candle: so much disruption and distraction from the primary and utterly vital combat mission cannot but degrade combat efficiency – which is, or should be, the overriding concern of government policy.
And most of the nations that have embraced this are not widely called upon to deploy sustained and effective combat formations successfully (the Swiss, for example). The nature of Israeli military ops in the past few decades certainly should be considered as similar to sustained organized combat, but more akin to highly fraught occupation activity.
The Germans of the Hitlerite era had female formations, but in purely support roles. The Soviets used female combatants, but not widely – and the Russian women of that era was psychologically and culturally a far far cry from the ‘woman’ of today. The SS used females in its non-military police and Gestapo work, and as camp guards for female-camps, but again, that was not sustained combat in the field.
Nor were ‘partisan’ activities comparable to sustained large-scale combat operations by military formations in the field.
While it is true and logical that there must be some quantum of women who are individually capable of performing – physically and psychologically – like males in such an environment, yet the proportion of such females must be – also as a matter of logic – rather small indeed. And thus the question arises again: is it worth it for a nation and a military to embrace the distractions and derangements necessary to accommodate the desires of that small quantum?
This is not primarily or even largely a matter of ‘rights’; it is a matter – as always – of combat efficiency and success (which the US has not seen much of recently, by curious coincidence).
Clearly, if current reports are to be credited, women returning from combat are reporting far more liability to PTSD from either combat or ‘sexual violence’. In either case, then surely the question of psychological predisposition has to be considered.
None of these issues can be viewed as merely ‘issues’ that need a bit more tweaking. They are, rather, fundamental matters that will affect the military’s ability to successfully complete its missions. (And back in the early 1990s it was considered as a given by feminist advocates that since the USSR had dissolved, the US would not ever again have to engage in sustained combat operations in the field – which presumption has been proven grossly inaccurate.)
Contrary to the early-1990s advocacy assertions, the military exists not as a cultural-change or employment opportunity, but rather to successfully wield lethal violence in sustained field operations in the starkly brutal and lethal environment of combat. And that is not going to change, no matter how much a government tries to make it so or advocates try to spin it as so.
thomasbleser
Gender war dates back to Amazon legends of prehistoric Greece and I suspect that most of the tales of keeping male prisoners alive only for temporary breeding purposes were true. Any way you look at it, people behave differently when gender is factored into the combat equation, no matter what Colonel Brown thinks is politically expedient to claim at the present time. I only wish it would be possible to produce an historically-accurate history of Czarist Russia's "Legion of Death" in World War One. But this would be impossible without producing the most nauseatingly obscene kind of snuff movie.