Women in combat

Women are often absent from traditional historic accounts of warfare. However, women have historically participated in all aspects of war, in roles that cover the spectrum from espionage, planning, leading, and fighting in battles, to their roles as caregivers, support personnel, activists, peacemakers, and even as sex workers, refugees, and slaves. From legends and oral histories, to archaeological finds and archival evidence, there is ample historical documentation of the participation of women in wars, from ancient history to the twenty-first century. For example, archaeological sites have uncovered ample evidence of women buried with their armor and weaponry in the Iron Age. Women have been formally active in the military during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, even though their participation in combat has been a hotly debated issue. Most experts contend, however, that the ability for all citizens to share in all national duties and opportunities is a necessary element for true democracies. By 2019, six countries were drafting women into military service and five other countries were requiring women to register for the draft.

Background

Despite the prominent role in history and legend of women warriors such as the Amazons, Queen Boadicea, and Joan of Arc, women’s participation in warfare and combat has been largely absent from mainstream historical accounts. Archaeological finds in Eurasia dating to around 600 BCE have uncovered the remains of women killed in battle and buried with weaponry. There were troops of trained female forces in the West African kingdom of Dahomey in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, and women were war combatants in the Middle Ages up to the Hundred Years’ War in Europe. Historical records abound of the role women have played in the defense of communities under siege.

Women have also often fought unofficially in revolutionary wars. For example, women fought during wars of independence in the Americas and in other revolutionary wars in Africa, Europe, and South America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reportedly, women comprised about 40 percent of the fighting force in the Maoist People’s Liberation Army in the Nepalese Civil War (1996–2006). During World Wars I and II, the Soviets sent women into combat. In most Western militaries, however, women were officially active in only administrative and support roles until later in the twentieth century, when they started to be sent into combat by some state governments.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) was a crucial point in the history of women in the military. The resolution states that women and men are inherently equal in international peacekeeping and security activities. The resolution urges the increase in participation of women in peace and security efforts, such as conflict resolution, peace negotiations, peace-building and peace-keeping, humanitarian response, and postconflict reconstruction. This opened the door for the integration of women more equitably in military action. Also in the 2000s, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) assigned women to military missions in Muslim countries. By the time the UN resolution was adopted, women had been serving for decades in elite and special operations intelligence groups such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Joint Special Operations Command, and prior to that, the Office of Strategic Services (1942–45), which was the precursor to the CIA during World War II.

Women in Combat Today

Military service in the United States today is voluntary. In countries with mandatory military service, a small number—including Bolivia, Cuba, Israel, North Korea, Tunisia, and a few others—draft women as well as men and train them for combat. Women were not allowed to participate in formal combat training in the United States until 2013. The physical and biological differences between women and men have long been a key point of debate. Much of the conflict has concentrated on the physical security of women and the strength differences between men and women. Infantry forces, for example, must be able to engage in combat at close quarters, where height and arm length can be an advantage. Nevertheless, the successful integration of women in elite special operation forces such as the Green Berets and Navy SEALs demonstrated that women are able to sustain the rigors of combat training. In 2013, the Pentagon lifted its ban on women serving in frontline combat and mandated that such roles be open to both sexes by 2016. To comply with that mandate, the US Marine Corps instituted a series of physical and tactical challenges for prospective service members of both sexes and partnered with the University of Pennsylvania to analyze data compiled through those exercises in order to determine who could best serve in which specialty combat functions. In 2015, women were allowed to participate in the US Army's notoriously difficult Ranger School, though they were required to pass a seventeen-day preliminary assessment course, which male enrollees did not have to do. Just over half of the female participants dropped out of the initial phase, numbers comparable to those of their male counterparts. The first women to graduate from the Ranger School, First Lieutenants Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver, did so in August of that year, after which the Army lifted all restrictions on women enrolling in the school. However, at that time women still could not be assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment. The first female officer to complete the Army's selection process for the 75th Ranger Regiment joined the regiment in 2017.

In January 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened all combat positions, without exception, to qualified women, over the objections of the Marine Corps, which argued that all-male units performed better. This decision affected approximately 220,000 jobs which had previously excluded women. The Republican chair of the armed services committees of the Senate and House of Representatives criticized the decision, but many politicians across the political spectrum, including President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, supported it.

One ongoing concern has been that most women cannot reach the level of physical strength of average men, raising questions about the possible contributions of women in situations where substantial strength is required, such as the recovery of a casualty. During the 2015 Marine Corps exercises, a significant number of women trainees were forced to drop out due to stress fractures to their hips or legs sustained from hauling heavy packs, a requirement for infantry troops. Some experts argue, however, that sheer strength is becoming significantly less necessary in an increasingly technological military.

Another point of conflict is the issue of sexual attraction. Romantic relationships are discouraged in the US military. Consensual romantic and marital relationships in the armed forces pose a logistics dilemma for many military couples, as they may be deployed to different places at different periods of time. In the United States, reports of sexual assault and harassment in the military have been increasing in the last decade. This is not a problem of the United States alone, as other nations have also reported an increase in complaints from women in the military due to sexual harassment, discrimination, and abuse. Experts point out that increased education and appropriate legal redress in such cases should decrease sexual harassment and abuse.

Motherhood also poses a challenge to women in the US military. Women have traditionally borne most of the burden of childcare. Many women feel they must choose between family life and their military career. According to some estimates, approximately 100,000 women soldiers who have served in the US military are mothers, about 50 percent of whom have been deployed to combat zones. Since the beginning of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, the armed forces have changed some long-held policies to better recruit and retain women. The Navy increased maternity leave to eighteen weeks in 2015, and the Air Force planned to implement a sabbatical program that would allow members to take extended time off after three years in the service. In 2016, the Department of Defense implemented a twelve-week maternity leave policy across all service members. New forms of family structures and gender roles, and modern family-friendly policies, have also helped women hold on to military jobs.

The issue of whether American women should be included in the draft gained traction after a lawsuit was filed in 2013 claiming that the current male-only draft was discriminatory against men based on sex. In 2019, a US district court judge ruled that the male-only draft was unconstitutional, and in 2020 the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service recommended that women be included in the draft. In 2021, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by the National Coalition for Men that challenged the men-only draft, but three justices wrote that excluding women from the draft did not make sense, given their participation in the military.

From 2016 to 2020, the percentage of women serving in the armed services increased as more women entered combat arms positions—often exceeding the expectations of military officials. Some branches had better success at integrating women than others. The Army, for instance, completed its first gender-integrated basic training cycle in 2017, and by October 2019 more than one thousand women had started combat specialities and over 650 women were serving in combat roles. On the other hand, the Marine Corps was less successful in integrating women and the branch overall significantly pushed back against the 2016 changes, requesting an exception to the policy which was later denied. Likewise, Special Operations forces have also been largely unsuccessful in integrating women. By 2023, there were 2,300 uniformed women were serving in Army Special Operations Services, but some elite components, including the Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders, had not been integrated by 2024. Other Special Forces components, such as the Green Berets, had very few women serving. Critics have contended that all branches of the armed services should do more to recruit and retain women.

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