Fight, Girl, Fight! : The Integration of Women into Combat Arms

Fight, Girl, Fight 1

Fight, Girl, Fight! : The

Integration of Women into Combat

Arms

Scottie Ehrhardt, Ph.D. Candidate

Union Institute and University

October 2013


I hate the jungle and it hates me. Everything in the jungle

is, honestly, trying to kill you, but that's exactly where I

found myself a year after high school. Joining the Army straight

after graduation I went to the U.S. Army infantry school,

followed quickly by airborne training. My first duty station was

Panama, where, after seeing combat action in Operation Just

Cause, I was attended the Jungle Operation Training Center (JOTC)

as an Army mortarman. The culmination, or final test, of JOTC

was a 20 km march through the jungle. Although simple enough on

the surface it was an ‘under fire’ march, meaning that we had to

conduct live fire missions, navigate through the jungle, ford

streams, and avoid any contact. Since I was an Army mortarman

the gear I would be carrying consisted of the following: the

normal 40 pound rucksack, Load Bearing Equipment (LBE) with water


canteens and ammo, M16A2 rifle, the gun tube to a M252 81mm

mortar (35 lbs.), and three rounds of High Explosive mortar

rounds (approximately 10 lbs each). Altogether the equipment

that I was required to carry weighed more than I did (I was a

sparse 135 lbs. in those days). Throughout the entire day of the

march we had to go up and down hills, over streams, through

brush, set up the gun and then tear it down, conduct fire

missions, navigate through triple canopy jungle, all the while

being in 90° plus heat. It was, by far, the most physically

demanding event that I conducted while serving in the military.

It is also the very first thing that comes to mind when the

discussion of women in combat arms comes up.

In a recent decision by the Department of Defense,

“Following a unanimous recommendation by the Joint Chiefs of

Staff, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta today announced the end

of the direct ground combat exclusion rule for female service

members” (Roulo). To provide clarity, combat arms is often

referred to those specialties that focus on the destruction of

the enemy namely, Infantry, Scout, Artillery, and Special Forces,

to name a few specialties. This decision has been eons in the


making for as soon as warfare was invented it became an almost

exclusively (until recent times where some countries have a fully

integrated military), male venue. This has been especially so

within the U.S. military where, until the recent announcement,

women have been banned from combat arms Military Occupational

Specialties (MOSs). When looking at the areas of combat arms

these specialties are the most machoistic and misogynist of all

trades within the military. These are the soldiers that the

general public imagines when you say the word ‘soldier’; namely a

person whose sole occupation is to kill the enemy under arduous

circumstances. The reality is far from that in that combat arms

makes up only 10-20% of the entire military leaving the other 80-

90% to support the ‘ground pounders’ who do the actual dirty

work. Because of their required duties combat arms has carried

with it a special demeanor one of pride and distinction, more

rugged and manly than the other specialties within the military

(these other specialties are often referred to by combat arms

soldiers as REMFs – Rear Echelon Mother F*ckers). To go along

with this demeanor are higher standards for Physical Training,

weapons proficiency, and the ability to operate under stress.


The call for higher standards (due to the obvious impact to life

and limb when not proficient, etc…), creates an environment in

which combat arms soldiers exist where promotions are often

quicker and more readily available, leading to an obvious

advantage for male soldiers over female soldiers.

As a former Airborne Infantry Soldier with the U.S. Army

(1989-2003), the conversation of women within combat arms was

never centered on whether females should be included in combat

arms, but rather can it be done without minimizing the standards

necessary to conduct the job. Being deployed on a number of

occasions I can speak from experience the hardships combat arms

soldiers endure; weather, heavy lifting, manual labor, lack of

sleep and constant danger are just part and parcel of the combat

arms world. Although the battlefield has become more

technologically driven, with drones strikes, etc., and more

females being capable of high levels of athleticism, what must be

remembered is that when it comes to the military we are

discussing the average female recruit not exceptions to the rule.

With that in mind the question must be asked as to whether if

female inclusion in combat arms MOSs has been advantageous to the


military and, expressly, have women shown themselves of being

fully capable of dealing with the physical and psychological

aspects of combat arms, and more specifically, warfare where they

will be viewed as valuable members of the combat arms community?

Combat Arms

From the dawn of history warfare between nations has been a

primarily male activity, even despite modern social acceptance of

seeing women in uniform it has remained mostly so. This image of

the male warrior is so engrained that “the myth of combat as

men's work dies hard; even with today's technologically

sophisticated war weaponry, the ‘presumption that a man is

unproven in his manhood until he has engaged in collective,

violent, and physical struggle against someone categorized as the

enemy’ is widespread” (White 866). The concept of the virile

warrior takes on a tangible quality in combat arms [for the rest

of the paper this phrase will be synonymous with infantry], where

there are often no females causing “the stereotype of the super

macho combat soldier (to perpetuate) hyper masculine attitudes

and values that also work against a male soldier's recognition of

a woman soldier (or any woman) as his equal” (White 865). This


lack of recognition of the other sex is quite distinct in the

combat arms world where dominance, force, and respect are the

hallmarks one strives to adhere to for the “military forces

encourage aggressiveness and competitiveness while censuring

emotional expression and denouncing physically weak soldiers as

effeminate” (White 866). The picture of a soldier, and more

specifically an infantry soldier, is often one of the lone, stoic

warrior who shows little emotion and “indeed, self-control,

assertiveness and determination combine to form a concept of

soldier that is distinctly different from our cultural

understandings of femininity as caring, connection and

compromise” (Silva 941). The striking dichotomy between what is

perceived as male and female in combat arms creates an

overbearing linkage to maleness for “the military has been

defined traditionally as a masculine institution” and “it may be

the most prototypical masculine of all social institutions”

(Segal 758).

The military institution has changed much in recent years

and it must be re-encouraged that the image of all soldiers

taking part in the melee on the battlefield is not accurate, for


“while 93% of Army personnel during the Civil War served in

individual combat skills, this figure decreased to 34% by World

War I and to 22% during the Vietnam War” (Segal 764). So even

though the ‘average’ soldier in today’s military does not engage

in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy there are soldiers who do

train for this, and these soldiers, like myself in Panama, must

endure heavy physical exertion and “since, on the average, men

have greater upper body strength than women, tasks requiring high

levels of this kind of strength will be more likely to be

performed by men” (Segal 762). For the most part “the military

has a special role in the ideological construction of patriarchy

because of the significance of combat in the construction of

masculine identities and in the justification of masculine

superiority. Militaries are perceived as masculine institutions

not only because they are populated mostly with men but also

because they constitute a major arena for the construction of

masculine identities” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 110). The

concept of military organizations, in general, “produce gender

identities consonant with patriarchal ideology and practices”

(White 864), not just because of the environment they exist in


and the requirements this environment levels against the soldier,

but also in their command structure.

The structure of the military, combat arms, and even combat

itself relies on a strict authoritarian system with a well-

defined hierarchical configuration so that alpha males are easily

identifiable. These concepts of “authoritarianism and the notion

of combat as men's work promoted narrow, hyper masculine views of

manhood (e.g. - manhood as aggressive, competitive, stoic, and

the opposite of anything feminine)” (White 865). But within the

situation of combat these thoughts and actions are sometimes

appropriate so as to develop the calm-within-the-chaos for

“authoritarian values are important to military organizations

because war is strategic, aimed at gaining and exercising power.

Combat is the manifestation of power in its most brutal and

uncompromising form” (White 865). Ultimately, what is

accomplished through the authoritarian model is that it “molds a

soldier who will obey orders without thinking and will

internalize unquestioned loyalty to his superiors in ways that

minimize the chance that he will flinch in combat. However, by


fostering blind compliance military values work against the

autonomy of soldiers, regardless of gender” (White 865).

As can be expected the rigid authoritarian structure which

seeks to suppress certain emotional responses for the sake of

better effectiveness in combat does have some psychological

impacts, for example, “Post hoc analysis revealed that combat

units were more concerned with a lack of control as compared to

all other units… This can easily be explained as control

constrains and is highly frustrating when working in the front-

line where they are directly at risk for being confronted with

potentially life threatening situations” (Boermans, Kamhuis and

Delahaij 726). The necessity for control, and the desire to have

it, is an essential need within the combat setting for lack of

personal control puts not only you but your fellow soldiers at

risk and vice versa. The battlefield environment helps to

promote “the combat schema - which includes the masculine strong

and sturdy body, physical and emotional self-control, and a

willingness to risk one's life - is the military’s schema in

general” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 113), continuing the

masculine slant in military organizations.


So with such an obvious overtone within an organization why

would one submit to this restrictive environment? To be honest,

many soldiers, and especially those within combat arms, are not

in it for the college money, but rather there is a sense of duty

and the desire to define one’s self that the military arena

provides, “for instance, recent studies show that military

personnel want the opportunity to do what they have been trained

to do, and many service members find meaning in serving on a

deployment, in which they learned a lot about themselves, made

friends for life, gain new understanding of personal values and

priorities, and provided them with the opportunity to contribute

to peace and violence prevention. And for most soldiers, these

positive effects outweigh the negative” (Boermans, Kamhuis and

Delahaij 727). The desire to define one’s self extends to women

as well, but within the military environment this has proven a

difficult task, for example “in the U.S. military academies

‘women have never constituted more than 15% of the cadets and

still feel like outsiders in these ‘heavily masculinist’

institutions’” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 107). The issue then

is how to acclimate the male-dominated environment of combat arms


to the inclusion of females, which is difficult due to the fact

that “the military allows for women's presence only to the

extent that it can ensure the reproduction of traditional

cultural notions of women as nurturers and men as warriors”

(Silva 940). This will continue to be so for “as long as women

are committed to upholding gender as a system of differentiation

- and the superiority of masculinity therein - their ability to

transform the hierarchical structure of gender and meaningful

ways will remain limited” (Silva 939).

Change within the military structure is a pivotal step for

women for “military service constitutes a central criterion for

one's loyalty to the state, and it determines access to

differential social, economic, and political resources” (Sasson-

Levy and Amram-Katz 110). The more fully, and completely, women

can serve, equally, as soldiers provides them greater opportunity

in other arenas for “the military is a critical site for research

on gender integration because it is not ‘just another patriarchal

institution’; rather, it is the institution most closely

identified with state, its ideologies, and its policies” (Sasson-

Levy and Amram-Katz 109). Ultimately, the military can be a


proving ground of egalitarianism and despite the terrific

resistance there has been (and will continue to be) for inclusion

into combat arms, this step needs to be undertaken for “the

military context can be viewed as potentially empowering to

women, given that the military demands physically and mentally

tough, goal oriented, aggressive soldiers with skills of

violence, weaponry and, ultimately, death” (Silva 937-8).

History

The perceived notion is that women must enter combat arms to

prove themselves operates under the assumption that women have

never been in combat, or fought equally against men. Despite

what overly-machoistic men might want to believe about women in

combat history tells us otherwise for “their war stories are

rarely read or heard, however, because of prevailing assumptions

that women, African and otherwise, are simply victims of war, not

active agents in war” (White 867). Perhaps the best

illustrations from the past century are the involvement of women

in combat during World War II. For example in Russia, “about

800,000 women served in the Red Army during World War II, and

over half of these were in front-line duty units” (Campbell 318),


where “they serve as partisans, snipers, and tank drivers. After

one woman's tanker husband died, she enlisted herself, served in

a tank she named ‘front-line female comrade’ and perished in

1944. Women constituted three regiments of pilots… The most

famous, the 588th night bombers proved so effective at hitting

their targets that they were named by the Germans the Night

Witches (Nacht Hexen)... In all, Soviet women made up about 8% of

all combatants” (Campbell 319-20). The issue becomes that

despite Soviet women’s experience, most Western nations did not

allow their women to be combatants despite their willingness like

“in the United States, large numbers of women served during World

War II and, in fact, women served in all specialties except

direct combat” (Segal 760).

There is, however, one example that stands out as a possible

prelude to the future of women in combat arms and that is the use

of women in Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AA) Batteries in Great

Britain. During a time where there were not enough men to

support home defenses and overseas operations, women auxiliaries

were moved into more and more dangerous position within war-torn

Britain. Traditionally, auxiliaries were female only units


created to provide notional support, but to undertake new combat

responsibilities male-female units needed to be constructed for

“there was never a question of an all-female unit; the issue at

stake was whether mixed gender units could perform combat roles

effectively” (Campbell 302). The responsibility to develop the

units was given to Colonel Edward Timberlake who stated, “that

all WAAC (Women Auxiliary Army Corps) personnel exhibited

outstanding devotion to duty, willingness and ability to absorb

and grasp technical information concerning the problems,

maintenance and tactical disposition to all types of equipment”

(Campbell 303). Despite heavy resistance to the idea and “in

contradiction to generally existing stereotypes of women being

physically too weak to perform combat jobs, Timberlake concluded

that women met the physical, intellectual, and psychological

standards for this mission” (Campbell 303). The ability of the

women to learn the operation of AA guns was a surprise for many

involved especially Col. Timberlake who “specifically listed

their operation of the director, height finder, radar, and

searchlight stations, and concluded ‘their performance of

repetitious routine duties is considered superior to that of


men’” (Campbell 604). Once the initial novelty of women engaging

the enemy wore off some began to recognize the benefit of female

combatants for “as one British battery commander suggested,

‘loyalty means loyalty in a mixed battery and ‘devotion to duty’

has a more definite meaning than it has had. Isn't a woman's

devotion more sincere and lasting than a man's?” (Campbell 309).

Despite this recognition of capacity on the behalf of women the

reality was that “even uniformed women were defined as

noncombatants. The definition of the line between combatant and

noncombatant involved the firing of weapons. Women performed all

tasks associated with firing of anti-aircraft weapons except the

actual firing: they moved ammunition and even loaded weapons, but

to continue to view them as noncombatants, they were not allowed

to fire the weapons they had loaded” (Segal 760). So the stigma

of war being ‘men’s work’ still was maintained but what came to

pass was the understanding that combat arms is a combination of

responsibilities and not just purely grunt work and that “the

effectiveness of the military unit depends on the team

performance; team members who are better at lugging heavy shells

can be assigned to that task, while those who are better at


reading the dials should be doing that. The effectiveness of a

team is not the average of each person measured as a Jack/Jill of

all trades. Rather it is a composite of how well each specialized

task is performed, plus the synergy that comes from leadership,

morale, and unit cohesion” (Campbell 312). It is impossible to

measure the impact women had on the war effort in Britain, but by

the end of the war “the National Service Act…drafted 125,000

women into the military…while 430,000 more volunteered” (Campbell

306).

World War II is not the only example where women joined in

combat with male counterparts, for in Africa many nations have

fought to be freed from colonial rule and women became combatants

to gain that independence. The contribution of women was

especially noted by Frantz Fanon, the famed anti-colonialist, who

stated that “the Algerian woman is at the heart of the combat.

Arrested, tortured, raped, shot down, she testifies to the

violence of the occupier and to his inhumanity” (White 857).

Fanon went so far as to “claim that Algerian women's

participation in the armed struggle altered their feminine

colonized identities and family relationships in positive ways


that challenge futile, patriarchal traditions” (White 860). But

war, on any level, no matter how noble the cause, has an impact

on a person for “psychological research conducted in the

aftermath of African wars of national independence suggest that

learning to kill exacts a high psychological toll on soldiers,

their families, and society at large” (White 877). But for some

this impact was taken in stride, and in fact, was seen as a badge

of honor for Paulina Mateos, a former guerrilla commander stated

that, “we suffered hunger and thirst and heat as the men did, and

we learned to handle all kinds of arms… Sometimes we even surpass

the men… So, I no longer feel that differences exist between men

and myself since we fought side-by-side. We marched together,

organized ambushes together, we suffer defeats together as well

as the joys of victory” (White 878). The residual effect of

being a combatant had great effects for those women even after

the fighting had stopped for many “women who achieved leadership

positions during anticolonial wars provide most accounts that

indicate personal empowerment through combat experiences. Many of

these women now hold positions in government” (White 877).


Notwithstanding the success of African women combatants, the

male-focused military structure was maintained and reiterated.

Equality in the military meant equality in other states matters

and “by keeping women out of the top levels of policy- and

decision-making roles and out of most forms of combat, military

forces simply reinscribe and expand traditionally gendered roles

rather than fundamentally challenge patriarchy” (White 869). The

maintenance of patriarchal standards extended to even liberal

states, like Israel, who reinforced “mechanisms of regendering:

married women and mothers were exempted from the draft, women

served in a Women's Corps, and all female soldiers, including

those who had been trained for battle prior to 1948, were

transferred to ‘feminine’ jobs, such as social work, nursing, or

teaching” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 106). What has been

maintained, whether historically, or today in Afghanistan, is

that “in the aftermath of war, women's military activities are

reconstructed as minor… Allowing the culture to maintain the myth

‘of men in arms and women at home’” (Segal 761).

Modern Battlefield


Times have changed, though, and the recent history (within

the last two decades) of women serving in combat has gone a long

way towards changing mindsets about females in combat. Although

early on in the 1990’s the notion of women in the military

centered around “well-publicized incidents of sexual harassment

scandal - public relations disasters for the US military, given

its expressed aims of integration and equality” (Linville 101).

But as the first Gulf War took place, the US could no longer keep

women removed from harm’s way and so “as a result of ‘smart

bombs’ and contemporaneous developments in the weaponry and

culture of the US military, the Gulf War was first to call into

serious question the distinction that had limited women to

noncombat assignments. In the words of Richard Rayner, ‘The Gulf

War demonstrated that the distinction between combat and

noncombat troops is meaningless on the modern technological

battlefield’” (Linville 104). This battlefield, the one of

Afghanistan and Iraq, is the new normal for the US military and

it is the backdrop upon which allowing women to enter combat arms

is drawn upon.


The modern battle space is unique in that it is an

“unconventional, ‘360°’ warfare (where the attack from the enemy

may come from anywhere not just the front lines), personnel and

combat support and combat services support roles (including

women) are increasingly exposed to combat” (Woodhead, Wessely and

Jones 1985), leaving little disparity between support and combat

arms. This battlefield has no front-lines like military

engagements of old, but rather “military personnel are

continuously exposed to a range of stress arousing conditions

such as daily hassles of living in the deployment environment,

ambiguity concerning rules of engagement (ROE), invisible

enemies, or hostile life-threatening situations. These and other

conditions have been linked to such important outcomes as

soldiers’ mental health, physical health, interpersonal

functioning, job performance, and not least important,

operational effectiveness” (Boermans, Kamhuis and Delahaij 722).

With such a wide range of stress-inducing influences, not to

mention the primary one of loss of life, “soldiers who have been

involved in close combat ‘suffer higher incidences of divorce,

marital problems, tranquilizer use, alcoholism and other


addictions, joblessness, heart disease, high blood pressure, and

ulcers’” (White 877). The impact of combat does not change much

across the genders for there are “studies that suggest that 98%

of all soldiers involved in close combat become psychiatric

casualties, while the remaining 2% who endure sustained combat

already had a predisposition towards ‘aggressive psychopathic

personalities’” (White 877). Even the British have noticed that

the impression of combat is pretty much linear across the sexes,

for “among both genders, all measures of combat experience were

associated with symptoms of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

and CMD(Common Mental Disorder)…Women reported higher scores on

the PTSD checklist…(and) women reported greater symptoms of CMD

and men reported greater hazardous alcohol use across both levels

of each experience type. Examining men and women separately

suggest similar responses to exposure to adverse combat

experiences” (Woodhead, Wessely and Jones 1985). The commonality

of experience between the sexes extends long term for “although

gender differences in self-reported experiences of combat and

mental health exist among (de)ployed personnel, there was little

evidence of gender differences in the impact of exposure to


combat on mental health” (Woodhead, Wessely and Jones 1994). The

commonality of experience goes to show that women are not

‘weaker’ or more susceptible to combat stress than men, in fact

people, regardless of gender, seem to have the same reaction to

the combat environment.

How war, despite its effects, has changed as well, with

things like robots, drones, and GPS taking over for grunts,

artillery and maps. Even though the requirement for the strong

soldier still exists “technology has diminished the importance of

two types of physically based traits, namely physical strength

and reproduction” (Segal 768), so much so that “weapons of

destruction (and protection) no longer require such strength.

Among the changes that have led to increased ability for women to

participate in the Armed Forces, including in combat, are the

miniaturization of weapons, the development of air power, and

nuclear technology” (Segal 762-3). Warfare technology has led to

military jobs becoming “increasingly specialized over time, with

individual service members performing a relatively narrow range

of tasks, with increasing emphasis on technical skill rather than

physical strength and bravado” (Segal 763). The specialization,


and the intense training that goes with it, has been a boon to

the success on the battlefield by US troops. The connection

between technology and training to deliver an accomplished

military unit can be seen in the first Gulf War where the “Iraqi

Army did not have many opportunities to engage US forces in a

‘fair’ fight. In almost every encounter, superior American

technology had a dramatic effect on the battlefield” (Press 139).

Specifically, at the Battle of al-Burqan where Marine forces

decimated Iraqi forces many times larger than it was showed that

“the extreme one sightedness of the battle at al-Burqan cannot be

attributed to either the absolute level of US technology or the

United States’ relative technological advantages over the Iraqis.

The evidence suggests that the Marines’ superior training bought

them a nearly costless victory” (Press 142). Ultimately, it is

soldiers who engage in combat and the best soldier is the one

that must be sent, not just the appropriate gender for “Israel's

advantages, like the Marines’ at al-Burqan, lay in their

soldiers, not their equipment” (Press 143). The US must keep in

mind that the military shouldn’t be looking for the best men to

send into battle but rather the best soldiers so as to ensure


victory, especially in this day-and-age of limited personnel and

funds. The “US forces will do very well as long as they enjoy

(1) superiority in either (sic) technology or skill, and (2) at

least parity in the other area” (Press 145), so even though, for

example, “the Chinese may invest their growing wealth in a

stockpile of advanced Soviet weapons. In a fight with well-

equipped Chinese forces, the United States’ training advantages

might be decisive” (Press 146).

To ensure quality training one must have quality applicants

to begin with, and the US, with its all-volunteer military,

should be looking for the best candidates which would mean

looking at women as well as men when it comes to filling in the

ranks. For the most part there are many nations who “currently

conscript men, but few require women to serve in the military;

furthermore, where women are drafted, the conditions of their

obligation often differ from those of men” (Segal 760). Even

countries that were known for their equality, like Israel for

instance, are not as liberal as once believed for “as of 1995,

(Israeli) women have been integrated into a few select combat

roles, the Women's Corps has been dismantled, and some training


courses have become gender integrated” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-

Katz 106). So the progress towards true equality in the military

in most instances is still being established. Other countries

like Canada and Sweden “allow women to volunteer for combat jobs.

It may be that the low likelihood of these countries fighting a

war on their own soil enables them to eliminate gender

distinctions in military service” (Segal 762). The low amount of

peril for these countries’ soldiers allows a greater freedom with

job selection, whereas in the US, and especially as of late,

women entering combat arms jobs would most certainly be involved

in combat.

The risk to women combatants is one of the driving forces

behind limiting their exposure to combat arms for the sense of a

patriarchal ‘protection’ of these delicate flowers. But recent

engagements have brought the discussion of women in combat arms

to a new level for “11 American female soldiers who have lost

limbs in the Iraq war… Set the stage for ‘a new generation of

women’. This image of ‘the nation’s first group of female combat

amputees’ brings to the fore the central question concerning

women's positions in the United States Armed Forces” (Silva 937).


In the modern 360 ° battlefield where the enemy is everywhere and

hidden at the same time has exposed many support units to enemy

fire. The ability of women to handle Improvised Explosive

Devices (IEDs), ambushes and snipers has garnered support from

the military’s highest levels for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta

said that, “over more than a decade of war, (women) have

demonstrated courage, skill and patriotism, and 152 women in

uniform have died serving this nation in Iraq and Afghanistan”

(Roulo). What is pivitol is not that women or men are on the

battlefield but rather the best soldier is. It can be reasoned

that “when it comes to soldiering, gender (like race) is

unimportant; what matters is whether you can do the job”

(Linville 106).

Changes in societal views

The recent acceptance of women in combat arms is a direct

result of how the perception of women, and the military, has

changed over time. Slowly, but methodically, people are starting

to view capabilities of person not by what they look like but by

how they perform. When a male ROTC cadet was interviewed, he

described a fellow cadet in the following manner: “She was


everything about the Marines, I was like, wow that is the image

of the Marine I have always had”, but it does not take long for

old prejudices or preconceived notions to set in for the same

cadet later on stated that, “if you actually take the time to get

to know the women in the military I think they retain their

femininity very well” (Silva 948). Thus there continues to exist

the identity of the feminine although the military is skewed

towards the more masculine and the resolution of being both

feminine and militaristic are seen at odds. Another cadet,

Meredith, states that she understands “that the quality

celebrated in men as leaders mark her as a bitch (sic), the

ultimate attack against women who are not feminine. Yet at the

same time, she sees risking this label as essential to a

successful military career” (Silva 950). Maintaining traditional

ideals about being feminine make it a difficult transition to the

male-dominated military world where “84% (of women) stated

explicitly that they did not want a military career because it

would interfere with their plans for marriage and children”

(Silva 950-1). The male soldier has no disparity between having

a family and being a soldier, not having to give up one for the


other. Thus to be a woman and a soldier require a balancing act

of sorts due to the fact that “female soldiers face a double-

blind: ‘held accountable as women and as soldiers,’ they must

prove that they have culturally-defined masculine qualities such

as self-control and stoicism, while also negotiating cultural

definitions of femininity that have provided them with stable

gender identities throughout their lives” (Silva 941)

The enactment of this double-blind can be seen in the ROTC

environment where future officers (read leaders/managers) are

molded and trained. Ideally, the military wishes to be perceived

as a gender-neutral organization and because of that directed,

outward projection many women find a solace within the military

guise in ROTC programs. A ROTC cadet “Britney emphasized… That

because she was held to high expectations as a soldier - not as a

woman - she was able to realize her full potential as an equal

person (sic)” (Silva 944). This is a valid point, to be taken as

an equal instead of an other is important but within the military

regime it is difficult to get away from male constructions

causing women in the ROTC setting to be “hyper-vigilant about

their status as women performing tasks traditionally seen as


men's work and often felt that they had to constantly prove that

they were capable” (Silva 945). Once one can get beyond the male

defined standards of the military, the aspects of being

recognized for achievement and constant competition enables one

to strive to better themselves regardless of gender. An article

written by Jennifer M. Silva, entitled “A New Generation of

Women? How Female ROTC Cadets Negotiate the Tension Between

Masculine Military Culture and Traditional Femininity”, found

“that all of the women in (the) sample endorsed ROTC culture as

an opportunity to be strong, assertive and skillful… They also

defined ROTC as an escape from some of the negative aspects of

traditional femininity, understood mainly as the belief that they

had to compete with each other or act weak or incompetent in

order to attract men” (Silva 943). This freedom to achieve and

be true to themselves is enticing to female cadets who venture

into ROTC programs for they provide “a space where they can be

judged on performance rather than sex… (72%) women said that ROTC

allowed them to worry less about achieving the ideal feminine

body” (Silva 943).


But being seen equally in the military is not equality in

the truest sense for males are not compared to a different social

standard than what they already are while “for women, being a

‘gender-neutral’ soldier requires constant awareness of oneself

as either (sic) a person or a woman, while the men ignored gender

as a category as well as the master-status of maleness in the

military” (Silva 945). This disparity becomes more difficult

once you include women in the he-man world of combat arms for

women’s for, as it stands, their lack of involvement in all

levels of military activities is limited due to the fact that

“women's involvement in military operations is negatively

affected by the proportion of combat jobs. This is because

combat has been viewed as… A man's activity” (Segal 764). The

stigma of the all-male combat soldier, although not historically

accurate, is the primary limiter standing in the way of women

being full-on combatants.

But this view, like all culturally manifested ideals, are

constructions of a given group so that even “women's military

roles are socially constructed: public policy, norms, and women's

behavior are shaped, at least in part, by public discourse”


(Segal 761). So to be able to fully accept women in combat arms

and “for women to participate, either the military has to be

perceived… As transformed to make it more compatible with how

women are… Or women have to be perceived as changing in ways that

make them more seemingly suited to military service” (Segal 758).

How society and the institutions-at-large discuss the topic of

women on the battlefield, and the prejudices that lie within

them, will be the key indicator of the progress that will be

gained for “gender beliefs and social relational contexts help

maintain the gender system by modestly, but systematically and

repeatedly, biasing men's and women's behaviors and evaluations

in ways that reenacting confirm beliefs about men's greater

status and competence” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 112-3). But

these are constructions and so “the discourse on the issues,

indeed the salience given to specific arguments about women's

military roles, is not based on object reality, but rather are

cultural values” (Segal 758). Cultural beliefs are malleable and

can be re-engineered for sake of something greater so what is

seen is “a common bifurcation has occurred in history between the

military’s need for people… And cultural values limiting women's


roles” (Segal 759). Modern feminists are quick to point out that

in the US “the exclusion of women from certain military roles…is

discriminatory because it treats all women as if they compose an

undifferentiated inferior category and limits the number of jobs

for women in the military” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 110). But

not all cultures have the same belief systems and so nations like

Israel can be seen as more progressive than the US due to their

acceptance of women in combat roles.

The wide recognition of women as combatants in Israel was a

process and, in fact, only within the last two decades has Israel

had mixed-sex training for its soldiers. For the record, “Israel

is the only Western state with compulsory conscription for both

men and women” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 106). That being

said, when exposed to women in the training environment and what

differences that brought with it a male Israeli officer

exclaimed, “We've already gotten used to the (women's) crying,

and we've understood that it's okay, like when men clear their

throat. The (female) company commander cried, and the (female)

team commanders cried; that's more noticeable, and it bothers the

(male) cadets. And everything that goes with it - the hysterics,


the outburst” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 105). On the one level

differences between the genders is mitigated but on another

level, when they do not match masculine patterns (outbursts) they

are seen negatively. But the involvement of women in Israel’s

military is crucial since military service is seen “as a sine qua

non of full citizenship in Israel, the simultaneous processes of

degendering and regendering expose the countless barricades that

Israeli women have to overcome in order to be considered full

citizens” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 106). The actions

necessary to degender a particular belief or social norm requires

attacking “the structure(s) and process(es) of gender by

recognizing that the two genders are not homogeneous groups…And

by recognizing gender similarities in behavior, thinking, and

emotions” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 106-7). This creates a

norm which can be readily understood, but following in the

footsteps of the degendering process one must also regender into

a new understanding which occurs “mostly through the ways in

which cultural codes, stereotypical schemas, and hegemonic gender

beliefs were reenacted and performed in daily interactions”

(Sasson-Levy and Amram-Katz 107). By using this process of


deconstruction and rebuilding it can be recognized, and

especially in Israel who is constantly under duress, that women

“have proven that they ‘deserved’ the ‘right to contribute’ to

the collective and to become soldiers” (Sasson-Levy and Amram-

Katz 106).

The right of women to pursue being ‘full’ citizens (itself a

male dominated concept) faces not the issue of a citizen having

the right but rather the imagery that goes with certain ideals

for young men see “military service as a validation of their own

virility and as a certificate of manhood. If women could do it,

then it (is) not very manly” (Campbell 321). In the modern era

it is possible to see that progress is being made on gender

labels (although at a small, incremental pace) and that inclusion

in the military can help establish “a more gender-integrated (sic)

occupational structure (that) is indicative of more gender

equality in the culture, which in turn leads to greater

acceptance of women in military roles” (Segal 767). What can be

seen in today’s society, at least in some aspects, is that for

the most part “the woman-for-marriage progressively (has)

disappeared, and (gives) way to the woman-for-action. The young


girl (is) replaced by the militant… The woman cease(s) to be a

complement for man. She literally forge(s) a new place for

herself by her sheer strength” (White 860). There is no better

place for this paradigm shift to be established than within the

military, who has a long record in the US of accepting, and

processing, changes in society like racial boundaries, de-

segregation, and equal pay for equal work, well before the rest

of society. It can be thought of that the acceptance of women in

combat arms and “making women soldiers was the most dramatic

government experiment in changing traditional sex roles ever

attempted. Putting these women soldiers into combat constituted a

radical inversion of the traditional roles of women as the

passive sweetheart/wife/sex object whose ultimate mission was to

wait for their virile menfolk to return from their masculine

mission of fighting and dying for ‘apple pie and motherhood’”

(Campbell 302). By re-imagining the constructs that we use to

label and restrict women perhaps the focus for the military will

turn from male-female to putting the best qualified, best trained

soldier on the battlefield regardless of gender. But this cannot

be kept within house but rather “the social construction of


women's military roles needs to be analyzed at the following

levels: global, societal, institutional, organizational,

interpersonal, and individual” (Segal 772).

Conclusion

As a former infantry soldier I operate by a simple

understanding: that when I go out to the battlefield, whether

that is on patrol in Kabul, or taking on separatists in Baghdad,

I must whole-heartily rely on the person to my left and right,

and they must be able to rely on me. When engaging the enemy I

need to know that, regardless of circumstances, you must be able

to perform your job. In short, I want, I need the best qualified

person next to me to survive regardless of gender, race,

religious preference, or sexual orientation. In reflection

“women's participation in the US military (can be) seen as an

explosive social issue because commentators, media and the public

assume it involves a fundamental transformation of gender” (Silva

954). What is seen as a transformation I see as evolutionary

steps for female ROTC cadets “justified their career aspirations

by linking the qualities required in combat to femininity, not by

rejecting traditional notions of femininity or emphasizing their


own ‘masculine’ attributes” (Silva 952). There are a number of

things that must be worked out for the Defense Department’s goals

of women in combat to be met and “paramount among these is…the

context that encompasses (1) sexual harassment and scandal, (2)

the interplay of race and gender, and (3) the interplay of gender

and technology, especially the machinery of war and

representation” (Linville 101).

As a constructivist I assume that change is always possible

due to the world being a reality of our construction, therefore,

“transformation, although rare, is possible through the

‘transposition’ of schemas to new contexts, which in turn

modifies existing resources” (Silva 939). As the military

downsizes (or ‘right sizes’ - if that is your preference) it is

imperative that appropriate guidelines and processes are

established so that “the changes intended to ensure that the best

qualified and most capable service members, regardless of gender,

are available to carry out the mission” (Roulo). As this

develops it can be seen that women's military participation is

“essential to achieving full equality with men, noting that the

military is a core institution in the United States and that only


by participating in it can women ‘realize the full rights and

responsibilities of citizenship’” (Silva 940).

Defense Secretary Panetta said, “if members of our military

can meet qualifications for a job, then they should have the

right to serve, regardless of creed, color, gender or sexual

orientation” (Roulo), and despite my experience as a male in the

patriarchic-dominated combat arms arena I must agree. Being

still intimately attached to the military as a civilian, and

assisting our women and men to go into harm’s way, I must refer

back to my more simplistic, survivalist instinct, that of wanting

the best qualified person to my right and left. This decision is

a boon to women for it “opens up about 237,000 positions to women

- 184,000 in combat arms professions and 53,000 assignments that

were close based on unit type” (Roulo). But here is where I must

make my stand regarding this issue: the best qualified must be allowed

to perform these duties and not just anyone who feels they are

being slighted an opportunity but whether they can perform the

tasks or not. This demand is leveled against men and women

equally, for if you can do the jobs then go for it, but if you

cannot then do something else. Not everyone is in combat arms.


In closing, Panetta went on to say that, “in life, as we all

know, there are no guarantees of success… Not everyone is going

to be able to be a combat soldier. But everyone is entitled to a

chance. By committing ourselves to that principle, we are

renewing our commitment to the American values of service members

fight and die to defend” (Roulo).

Works CitedBoermans, Sylvie M., et al. "Perceived Demands During Modern Military

Operations." Military Medicine (2013): 722-728.

Campbell, D'Ann. "Women in Combat: The World War II Experience in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union." The Journal of Military History (1993): 301-323.

Linville, Susan E. "The 'Mother' of All Battles: 'Courage Under Fire' and the Gender-Integrated Military." Cinema Journal (2000): 100-120.

Press, Daryl G. "Lessons from Ground Combat in the Gulf: The Impact ofTraining and Technology." International Security (1997): 137-146.

Roulo, Claudette. Department of Defense News. 24 January 2013. 25 October 2013. <http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=119098>.

Sasson-Levy, Orna and Sarit Amram-Katz. "Gender Integration in IsraeliOfficer Training: Degendering and Regendering the Military." Signs(2007): 105-133.

Segal, Mady Wechsler. "Women's Military Roles Cross-Nationally: Past, Present, and Future." Gender and Society (1995): 757-775.


Silva, Jennifer M. "A New Generation of Women? How Female ROTC Cadets Negotiate the Tension Between Masculine Military Culture and Traditional Femininity." Social Forces (2008): 937-960.

White, Aaronette M. "All the Men Are Fighting for Freedom, All the Women Are Mourning Their Men, but Some of Us Carried Guns: A Race-Gendered Analysis of Fanon's Psychological Perspectives on War." Signs (2007): 857-884.

Woodhead, C., et al. "Impact of Exposure to Combat During Deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan on Mental Health by Gender ." Psychological Medicine (2012): 1985-1996.

Fight, Girl, Fight! : The Integration of Women into Combat Arms

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