Women in The Military

Women in the military have a history that extends over 4,000 years into the past, throughout a large number of cultures and nations. Women have played many roles in the military, from ancient warrior women, to the women currently serving in conflicts, even though the vast majority of all combatants have been men in every culture.

Even though women in the military is controversial, many women in history have fought alongside men. In the Civil War, there were many women who cross-dressed as men in order to fight. Women such as Jennie Hodgers, who went by Albert D. J. Cashier for most of her life. Fighting on the battle front as men was not the only way women involved themselves in war. Many brave women braved the battlefront as nurses and aids.

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

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, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Israel, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland. In 2011 and 2012, the U.S. Defense Department began looking at loosening its near-universal ban on women serving in direct positions of combat, including ground combat, as opposed to other prominent but non-combat positions (for example, two women second lieutenants were allowed to try, but did not successfully complete, the grueling U.S. Marine Corps ground infantry combat leader officer course).