Women in combat - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Women in the military have a history that extends over 4,000 years into the past, throughout a vast number of cultures and nations

Women in the military by country

-Eritrea:Female soldiers in Eritrea played a large role in both the Eritrean civil war and the border dispute with Ethiopia, because they make up more than 25% of the Eritrean military.-Libya:...

. Women have played many roles in the military, from ancient warrior women, to the women currently serving in conflicts.

Despite various roles in the armies of past societies, the role of women in the military, particularly in combat

Combat

Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....

, is controversial and it is only recently that women have begun to be given a more prominent role in contemporary armed forces. As increasing numbers of countries begin to expand the role of women in their militaries, the debate continues.

Female allowance to serve active duty

From the beginning of the 1970s, most Western armies began to admit women to serve active duty. Only some of them permit women to fill active combat roles, including Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

and Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. Other nations allow female soldiers to serve in certain Combat Arms positions, such as Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, which allows women to serve in Artillery roles, while still excluding them from units with a dedicated Infantry role. The United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

allows women in most combat flying positions. Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

uses female officers in combat flying (bombardment) missions over Northern Iraq and in ISAF patrol missions in Kabul, Afghanistan. Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

employs women in Air Force and has used female fighter pilots in search, monitoring and bombardment operations in her war against militancy.Pakistani female fighter pilots have also participated in international exercises and are currently deployed on supersonic F-7 fighter jets.

The arguments

Several points of argument have been put forward by those in favor of women serving in combat conditions as well as those against the idea.

Physical concerns

The female skeletal system is less dense, and more prone to breakages. There was also concern that, in aviation, the female body is not as adept at handling the increased g-forces experienced by combat pilots; in fact, there is now evidence that the male body is less able to handle the g-forces than the female body: women are less likely to black out due to shorter blood vessel routes in the neck. Furthermore, health issues regarding women are argued as the reason that some submarine services avoid accepting women, although mixed-gender accommodations in a small space is also an issue, as is explained in more depth below. The Center for Military Readiness

Center for Military Readiness

The Center for Military Readiness is 501 non-profit educational organization about policies of the United States military.-Overview:It was established in 1993, in the aftermath of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy enabled under former President Bill Clinton. It is headquartered in Livonia,...

, an organization that seeks to limit women's participation in the military, stated that “Female soldiers [are], on average, shorter and smaller than men, with 45-50% less upper body strength and 25-30% less aerobic capacity, which is essential for endurance”.

However, an article in the Army Times
Army Times
Army Times is a weekly newspaper serving active, reserve, guard and retired United States Army personnel and their families, providing news, information and analysis as well as community and lifestyle features, educational supplements, and resource guides.Army Times is published by the Gannett...

July 29, 1996, states that some women do possess the physical attributes suitable to become combat soldiers.

Psychological concerns

The disruption of a combat unit's esprit de corps is cited as another reason for women to be banned from front-line combat situations. Indeed, many soldiers have stated that they could not trust a woman to perform her duties in a place where trusting their fellow soldier would be critical.

There is a secondary concern that romantic relationships between men and women on the front lines could disrupt a unit's fighting capability and a fear that a high number of women would deliberately become pregnant in order to escape combat duties.

In the British Army, which continues to bar women from serving in infantry-roled units, all recruits joining to fill infantry vacancies partake in a separate training program called the Combat Infantryman's Course.

In the American armed forces, the 1994 rules forbidding female involvement in combat units of brigade size or smaller are being bent. Colonel Cheri Provancha, stationed in Iraq, argues that: "This war has proven that we need to revisit the policy, because they are out there doing it."

A third argument against the inclusion of women in combat units is that placing women in combat where they are at risk of being captured and tortured and possibly sexually assaulted is unacceptable. In a Presidential Commission report it was found that male POWs, while being subject to physical abuse, were never subject to sexual abuse, and women were almost always subject to sexual abuse. Rhonda Cornum

Rhonda Cornum

US Army Brigadier General Rhonda Cornum, Ph.D., M.D. is the Director of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness in the Army G-3/5/7.As a flight surgeon with the 229th Attack Helicopter Regiment, then-Major Cornum was aboard a Black Hawk helicopter on a search and rescue mission, looking for a downed F-16...

, then a major and flight surgeon, and now a Brigadier General and Command Surgeon for United States Army Forces Command

United States Army Forces Command

United States Army Forces Command is the largest Army Command and the preeminent provider of expeditionary, campaign-capable land forces to Combatant Commanders. Headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, FORSCOM consists of more than 750,000 Active Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and Army National...

, was an Iraqi POW in 1991. At the time, she was asked not to mention that she had been molested while in captivity. Cornum subsequently disclosed the attack, but said "A lot of people make a big deal about getting molested," she noted later, adding: "But in the hierarchy of things that were going wrong, that was pretty low on my list".

Finally, there is the argument that by not incorporating women into combat, the American government is failing to tap into another source of soldiers for military combat operations. This argument claims that the government is creating a military that treats women as second-class citizens and not equals of men. Other observers state that without women, the military would have numerous manpower shortfalls they would not be able to fill.

Tactical concerns

In On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society is a book by Lt.Col. Dave Grossman exploring the psychology of the act of killing and the military and law enforcement establishments' attempt to understand and deal with the consequences of killing.The book is heavily based...

, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

Dave Grossman (author)

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is an author who has specialized in the study of the psychology of killing, which has been termed 'killology'.In February 1998 Grossman retired from the military as Professor of Military Science at Arkansas State University...

briefly mentions that female soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces

Israel Defense Forces

The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

have been officially prohibited from serving in close combat military operations since 1948. (However, in 2001, subsequent to publication, women did begin serving in IDF combat units on an experimental basis.) The reason for removing female soldiers from the front lines was due less to the performance of female soldiers, and more due to the behavior of the male infantrymen after witnessing a woman wounded. The IDF saw a complete loss of control over soldiers who apparently experienced an uncontrollable, protective, instinctual aggression, severely degrading the unit's combat effectiveness.

Grossman also notes that Islamic militants rarely, if ever, surrender to female soldiers. In modern warfare where intelligence is perhaps more important than enemy casualties, every factor reducing combatants' willingness to fight is considered. Similarly, Iraqi and Afghan civilians are often not intimidated by female soldiers. However, in such environments, having female soldiers serving within a combat unit does have the advantage of allowing for searches on female civilians, and in some cases the female areas of segregated mosques, while causing less offense amongst the occupied population. A notable example of this would be female US military personnel who are specially selected to participate in patrols and raids for this purpose. One example of this type of unit is the USMC Lioness program, which used female Marines to search females at checkpoints both on the Iraq-Syrian border and inside urban areas. Another example is the US Army Cultural Support Teams (CSTs). These units, designed to accompany special operations teams and work alongside them in deployed environments, are intended to provide access to the information and needs of local community women in communities where contact between male Soldiers and civilian women is culturally fraught.

Melody Kemp mentions that the Australian soldiers have voiced similar concern saying these soldiers "are reluctant to take women on reconnaissance or special operations, as they fear that in the case of combat or discovery, their priority will be to save the women and not to complete the mission. Thus while men might be able to be programmed to kill, it is not as easy to program men to neglect women."

Women on submarines

In 1985, the Royal Norwegian Navy

Royal Norwegian Navy

The Royal Norwegian Navy is the branch of the Norwegian Defence Force responsible for naval operations. , the RNoN consists of approximately 3,700 personnel and 70 vessels, including 5 heavy frigates, 6 submarines, 14 patrol boats, 4 minesweepers, 4 minehunters, 1 mine detection vessel, 4 support...

became the first navy in the world to permit female personnel to serve in submarines, followed by the appointment of a female submarine captain in 1995. The Danish Navy allowed women on submarines in 1988, the Swedish Navy

Swedish Navy

The Royal Swedish Navy is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet – as well as marine units, the so-called Amphibious Corps .In Swedish, vessels of the Swedish Navy are given the prefix "HMS," short for Hans/Hennes...

in 1989, followed by the Royal Australian Navy

Royal Australian Navy

The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...

in 1998 and thereafter Canada and Spain, all operators of conventional submarines.

Social obstacles include the perceived need to segregate accommodation and facilities, with figures from the US Navy highlighting the increased cost, $300,000 per bunk to permit women to serve on submarines versus $4,000 per bunk to allow women to serve on aircraft carriers.

Recent US Navy policy allowed three exceptions for women being on board military submarines: (1) Female civilian technicians for a few days at most; (2) Women midshipmen

Midshipman

A midshipman is an officer cadet, or a commissioned officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Kenya...

on an overnight during summer training for both Navy ROTC and Naval Academy

United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...

; (3) Family members for one-day dependent cruises.

In October 2009, the U. S. Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus

Ray Mabus

Raymond Edwin "Ray" Mabus, Jr. is the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy. Mabus served as the 60th Governor of the U.S...

announced that he and the Chief of Naval Operations

Chief of Naval Operations

The Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...

were moving aggressively to change the policy. Reasons included the fact that larger SSGN and SSBN submarines now in the Fleet had more available space and could accommodate female Officers with little or no modification. Also, the availability of qualified female candidates with the desire to serve in this capacity was cited. It was noted that women now represented 15% of the Active Duty Navy and that women today earn about half of all science and engineering bachelor’s degrees. A policy change was deemed to serve the aspirations of women, the mission of the Navy and the strength of its submarine force.

In February 2010, the Secretary of Defense approved the proposed policy and signed letters formally notifying Congress of the intended change. After receiving no objection, the Department of the Navy officially announced on April 29, 2010, that it had authorized women to serve onboard submarines.

Portrayals in popular culture

In the late 20th century and early 21st century, there have been a significant representations of "women warriors" in popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

, occasionally including women in the military, such as the films G. I. Jane and Down Periscope
Down Periscope
Down Periscope is a 1996 comedy film starring Kelsey Grammer as the captain of a rust-bucket Navy submarine, the USS Stingray, who is fighting for his career....

.

Non-fiction

In 2007, author Kirsten Holmstedt released Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq
Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq
Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq is a 2007 book by Kirsten Holmstedt about the Iraq War and women in the military with a foreword by Tammy Duckworth. Band of Sisters presents twelve amazing and often heart-wrenching stories of American women on the frontlines including America's first...

. The book presents twelve stories of American women on the frontlines including America's first female pilot to be shot down and survive, the U.S. military's first black female combat pilot, a 21-year-old turret gunner defending a convoy, two military policewomen in a firefight and a nurse struggling to save lives, including her own. Her second book, The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from Iraq details the lives of women who served in combat after they come home.

A television movie about Margarethe Cammermeyer

Margarethe Cammermeyer

Margarethe "Grethe" Cammermeyer is a former colonel in the Washington National Guard and a gay rights activist. Born in Oslo, Norway, she became a United States citizen in 1960. In 1961 she joined the Army Student Nurse Program. She received a B.S. in Nursing in 1963 from the University of...

called Serving in Silence, was made in 1995, with Glenn Close

Glenn Close

Glenn Close is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and singer of theatre and film, known for her roles as a femme fatale Glenn Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress and...

starring as Cammermeyer. Cammermeyer, a retired colonel in the Washington National Guard, disclosed in 1989 that she was a lesbian. The movie's content was largely taken from Cammermeyer's autobiography of the same name.

Fiction

In the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

, one of the Eight Model Plays

Revolutionary opera

Revolutionary opera refers to the model operas planned and engineered during the Cultural Revolution by Jiang Qing, the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong...

was Red Detachment of Women, which concerns female units in the Maoist military.

Science fiction

A notable tendency of science fiction since the 1940s is to place women in dominant military roles. These are often command positions, in some cases for the express purpose of having a woman in command (as was the case for Captain Kathryn Janeway, where the ship having a female captain was used as a selling point). In some cases, this is accompanied by a complete desegregation of the sexes, such as in Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first published as a serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published hardcover in December, 1959.The first-person narrative is about a young soldier from the Philippines named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his...

, where no one showed any compunctions about undressing, showering, etc. in front of the other gender.

Another example, from the Stargate
Stargate
Stargate is a adventure military science fiction franchise, initially conceived by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. The first film in the franchise was simply titled Stargate. It was originally released on October 28, 1994, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco, and became a hit, grossing nearly...

franchise, is Major (later Colonel) Samantha Carter

Samantha Carter

Samantha "Sam" Carter is a fictional character in the Canadian-American military science fiction Stargate franchise, appearing in television series Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Stargate Universe. SG-1 and Atlantis are both about a military team exploring the galaxy via a network of alien...

, an air force officer who was placed in command of a front-line unit.

Women openly serve in both frontline infantry and special operations units in the game series Mass Effect
Mass Effect
Mass Effect is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows by Demiurge Studios. The Xbox 360 version was released worldwide in November 2007 published by Microsoft Game Studios...

and Gears of War
Gears of War
Gears of War is a military science fiction third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Game Studios...

.

In numerous games, such as Starcraft, women appear as fierce warriors.