Talk:Women in the military

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History of women in combat
I feel like it would be best to take the history part of the combat section and put it into the general history section, so that way the reader can be presented with a more complete picture of the history of women in the military/combat more clearly ~ Gloryjones958 —Preceding undated comment added 23:49, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

World War I and World War II
I plan to add a few paragraphs about women in World War I and World War II. --Kiyonomcdaniel (talk) 23:12, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Thoughts on the article
This article has been fleshed out considerably, but I think it still needs work in thinking about weasel words. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_words Other than that, its pretty good. Asarelah 17:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Brand new article
The articles on the history of women in the military, and of the current debate in thier role in combat units, have been merged into one single new article.

This article will comprise of two sections:

1: The history
 * A brand new section devoted to the history of women in warfare.

2: The current debate
 * A re-written version of the existing debate article.

These changes come after discussion on the peer review page of the original women in combat article, which can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Peer_review/Women_in_combat#.5B.5BUser:oldwindybear.7Coldwindybear.5D.5D --SGGH 19:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II 37.54.230.242 (talk) 23:51, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Treatment of women veterans
I wonder if there are issues relating to the treatment of women veterans that can be explored in thier own section of this article? --SGGH 12:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Women Veterans specially women with PTSD are not being treated equally at the VA Hospitals in Washington DC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.138.70.245 (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

--Guess what? "Unequal" as in not satisfactorily addressed stems from the VA doesn't have much experience with female aspects of PTSD. Truth is as a generic whole women are "slightly" different physiologically and mentally than men. As a trivial example rape issues are more prevalent for women. End result the VA program fo females can only be improved by gaining knowledge and insight on those aspects of treatment which are different for women than men. Time. Pioneers. Sorry help for first in line sucks. Also your ears are clogged if you think there are not lots of men unhappy with VA solutions. 72.182.8.160 (talk) 16:24, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Women on submarines
The statement that Australia was the second nation to permit women on combat submarines is just plain wrong. For example, the Swedish Navy has had women serving on subs since the 1980's. The fact that all countries' navies except for those of Australia, Norway, Canada and Spain ban women on submarines is also plain wrong. Apart from the aforementioned example of Sweden, the German Navy also permits women on submarines. There are probably more countries (I'm pretty sure the Danish navy permitted women onboard when they operated submarines, which they no longer do.), but those two are the ones I'm completely certain about from the top of my head. //83.226.220.153 01:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Cite some references and be bold. Jinian 02:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

While i have sofar been unable to find a source for it i think Sweden got its first female submarine officer sometime during the 2nd half of the 1980s, but it may have been early 90s. Anyone who watched the Discovery channel program that reported from one of the first exercises with Gotland and USN knows Sweden certainly has no ban on women on subs. Also its ridiculous to use the USN excuse about "Social reasons include the need to segregate accommodation and facilities" as something generalised, because the cost for Swedish navy to add women on its submarines(and they´re supertiny compared to USN SSNs, and can still remain at sea on patrol for 6+ weeks) is exactly NIL, ZERO, nothing. And it works fine. Today, its uncommon that a subcrew does not have women in it. DW75 (talk) 01:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

http://skargardsbryggan.com/index.lasso?f=3&s=0&n=20&a=517142369&o=&oo= (article in swedish) This article says that Paula Wallenburg served as a sonaroperator in 1995 and has now become the first female submarine commander 15 years later. While this proves that sweden have not had a female commander on a submarine until recently, it really doesn't tell us when the first woman served in any other capacity. Women where first allowed to serve alongside the conscripted males in 1989 and it wasn't until 1994 that they were allowed to do so without any plans to become an officer but that doesn't mean there were any availible positions on a sub during that time or even if there were any women applying before Paula. 212.27.23.71 (talk) 21:49, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Is there any reason to keep the disputed tag? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've culled some of the editorialising in that section although I'm uncomfortable with the emphasis placed on the those four, it's a little OTT and I'd be quite happy with who was first.
 * The reasoning, hot bunking, was a little trite and tends not to be an official reason, just the usual dinosaurs. The main reasons for both UK and US Nuc operations is physiological, related to working in the vicinity of the kettle and the levels of gases in the atmosphere which have the potential to impact on foetal development before pregnancy is discovered.  There are also operational reasons for both attack boats and bombers which owuld preclude removing a pregnant female.  I'll track down sources for the physiological aspect.
 * ALR (talk) 19:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Not immediately running off for my respiratory physiology or occupational medical textbooks, I'm surprised by there being an atmospheric risk. Years back, I did some work for the U.S. Office of Naval Research that did deal with the atmosphere. There was a very strong reason to ban chloroflurocarbon aerosol propellants, since they poisoned some of the catalysts in the air scrubbers. As far as gender differences, there are very few occupational exposures, such as heavy metals, where the pregnancy issue arose, in which it was soon realized both genders needed protective equipment.


 * The one bit of comedy, in that study, came when the psychologists reported that the smell of fresh-baked bread had the most positive effect on morale, and the chemists came up with synthetic baking-bread smell. When the ONR admiral presented this to the chief submarine admiral, the latter asked "ummm...why don't we just bake bread?"


 * Other than setting the limit in a volume-cycled ventilator, I've never heard of a gender-related difference in ventilators used in intensive care.


 * For quite a few pharmaceuticals that have very high birth defect risks, such as isoretinoids or thalidomide (it's back for radically different purposes), there's a therapeutic contract requiring the woman use two forms of contraception, which is verified. Such an arrangement would be likely to neutralize any fetal danger. IIRC, it's been mentioned this is done with astronauts on flight duty. While Norplant is no longer marketed in the US, I know woman soldiers that make a point of having an IUD implanted before deployment.


 * In the interest of full disclosure, my mother was a WWII Navy metalsmith, and then a career Army reserve psychiatric social worker and hospital administrator. I sort of grew up with the assumption that any woman who could meet the physical requirements for a job could do it. While she wasn't especially strong, I wouldn't want to have been on the other side were she on sniper duty, with her patience, and just missing the cutoff for the Army Reserve national shooting team. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This is the UK, we aren't quite as draconian with our service personnel as the US. Our application of duty of care and health and safety is somewhat more rigorous as well.  Pregnancy renders one unfit for sea service and the individual is removed shoreside at the earliest opportunity.  HMG got stung quite badly in the early 90s over treatment of pregnant females in the military, mainly over lost earnings but one or two tried it on with respect to the missed chance for parenthood argument.
 * I'm not all that informed on the detail but the RNs position stated on their website is:
 * Service in submarines is closed to women because of medical concerns for the safety of the foetus and hence its mother. This restriction is purely medical and does not relate to combat effectiveness. The potential risks to the foetus do not arise from hazardous radiation, but from contaminants in the submarine's atmosphere.
 * The Institute of Naval Medicine (INM) reviewed the exclusion in 1999, as did subsequently both the Defence Scientific Advisory Council and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Their outcomes supported the conclusions of the INM report, that the exclusion was justified.
 * There are a couple of other documents, but I'll need some time to track them down.
 * ALR (talk) 20:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

new paragraph
I have added the paragraph from the submarine article as it seems to contain well-cited information on this topic. A couple of references were destroyed in the copying process but I'm on that now. SGGH speak! 18:42, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

edit of some unsourced statements, rewording of "Aliens" movie reference
recently removed 2 unsourced statements in this article: 1) that a US soldier was "abused" by her Iraqi captors, citation please 2) the dubious claim that female MP's are known as "lionesses"

also re-worded the final section about Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, as it was poorly organized and seemed to have been edited down from a longer section

sorry forgot to sign comment
Kaiser187 22:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Libya
Col. Kadaffi has what could be a "Amazon" detail serving as his bodyguards. 205.240.144.225 06:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The Lioness Program
"Female Marines Train for Iraq Border Security" by Staff Sgt Raymie G. Cruz, 3dMAW

http://www.usmc.mil Cricket316 02:41, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Added information on Lioness Program to 'Tactical Concerns' section Feb 2011 Kerani (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

protect against constant vandalism
The main page is being continuously vandalized. I recommend blocking editing by all unregistered persons.

Syrenab 15:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:HMCS IROQUOIS.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Lionesses?
OK, seriously, I'm in Iraq right now and I've never heard of anyone call a female MP/SF, detainee handler, medic, driver, translater, or ordinary straight-up shooter a "lioness." This sounds like a word coined by a reporter that was never in common usage. Recommend more specific language. Instead of talking about "lionesses" for examples of female combatants, discuss the policy the Air Force has for females in their Security Forces. Or talk about how there are female MPs in every branch. Or site specific examples of females being attached to combat units (not limited to medics).

John Holden (talk) 16:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Women as noncombatants
This article seems to ignore the traditional view as women as noncombatants. That is how can we discuss the role of women in combat, if we ignore their role as "innocents" How is the role of women different from men? Men were traditionally the warriors. Societies either had an all male army, or a male and female army. I am not aware of any with an all female army, except the Amazons, a mythical all female race. Women as warriors is unusual, may not unheard of, but not the norm. That needs to be explained in the article. Rds865 (talk) 00:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * "Not the norm" in what way?


 * Feel free to bring in authoratitive references that will add the element you see as missing. Binksternet (talk) 07:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Sense of honor
This article also ignores the argument that some honor codes forbid fighting women. Also, men are often considered duty bound to protect women and children. Examples of such as is letting them evacuate first and the phrase innocent women and children, always excludes men. Rds865 (talk) 00:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * If some codes of honour forbade fighting women, then that would be a great advantage to the side that employed women to fight. Those honour-bound not to fight women could then be killed/captured by women very easily, since they couldn't fight back.  You're welcome to add this argument once you find sources for it. Geoff B (talk) 06:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no honor in modern day war. The laws set up by the Geneva convention are just that. Laws. Not precepts and codes of honor. Richco07 (talk) 00:08, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * What do these comments have to do with the FACT that there are such codes of honour / unwritten rules? I agree that they should be discussed. Ingolfson (talk) 15:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, what a collection of armchair theorists.

The history of societies with such honor codes---and they still exist---shows that they don't react to "violations" like female soldiers by just refusing to fight them. Instead, they consider female soldiers to be an abomination and respond with outrage. No prisoners taken, wounded killed, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.180.83 (talk) 07:15, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Portrayals in popular culture
I think this section needs to either be cleaned up or reduced to just a link to the other page. There aren't many examples, and most of them aren't of military or even paramilitary women. Ripley was, I believe, a civilian (maybe merchant marine equivalent), and I believe Michelle Yeoh's characters in Supercop and Tomorrow Never Dies were in the People's Liberation Army. The others, while clearly "action heroes" of one sort or another, have little or no link to formal military organizations. It might be interesting to list more female characters who fit the category, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Suzanne de nimes (talk • contribs) 15:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. The link is definitely broken, as well. I can think of several examples off the top of my head, none of which are there. --24.69.203.173 (talk) 03:03, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhabs it would be wiser to link the part about females mentioned in videogames to List_of_female_action_heroes? 178.191.179.84 (talk) 14:44, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

List of sources
FYI, a list of sources on this subject can be found here:. Cla68 (talk) 04:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

History of Women in Military
Women have been an integral part of the military since early ages. Women have played all sorts of roles including direct combat. Women have been restricted from having an active role in the military on accounts of "weak physique"; in spite of these restrictions, women have continually shown that they can be able soldiers and fight just as well as any other male soldier. Going back in history some of the notable names that come to mind are Joan of Arc who led the battle against the English to end the siege of the City of Orleans or Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi in India who defended her city against the British East India Company at the age of 20. Some other notable names are Catherine Ségurane, Rani Durgawati, Lizzie Compton and many others. ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ruchiksynjitp (talk • contribs) 13:13, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

'Compatibility concerns' section
I've just re-removed this section from the article. A 33 year old study about the attitudes of soldiers at the time hardly seems likely to still be "perhaps the most effective research in interaction among enlisted men and women" given the social changes and changes to national militaries since then. If this material has any value, its as a snapshot of attitudes at the time. I've posted the material below for discussion. Nick-D (talk) 09:55, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the most effective research in interaction among enlisted men and women was done in 1978 by Michael Rustad, a research assistant in sociology at the Wellesley College Centre for Women. As Rustad sees it, tensions between the sexes have replaced the racial tensions that the army once faced. “Females reported that they were considered freaks by males in their units”, Rustad wrote. “Some complained of male catcalls, lewd jokes, sexual harassment, and loneliness in a male-dominated environment. Males were distressed by feelings that females were not physically prepared to handle masculine jobs, and that they were 'getting over' by offering sexual favours to escape from demanding tasks”.


 * Project Athena is a study of the integration of women into the United States Military Academy at West Point. Some female cadets, the researchers said, felt they had to be “one of the boys” if they wanted to be accepted. Many women elected to shun makeup, wore their hair short, and favored trousers rather than skirts — even though regulations allowed feminine hairdos and makeup at all times and skirts on some occasions. During the women’s first year, the academy actually changed its rule and required women to wear skirts at dances because, the researchers said, “male cadets were applying sanctions to women wearing dresses to these events”. According to the Athena report, male cadets not only had a low opinion of women’s ability to lead but actually “resisted the leadership attempts of the appointed female cadet leaders in their group”. West Point men are not the only males who tend to take a dim view of women’s capacity to lead — or follow.


 * One of the many documents confirming the prevalence of negative attitudes is the 1977 report, “Evaluation of women in the army” (EWITA). This is a study done by the Army Administration Centre at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. The way American women are brought up simply does not produce good leaders, the report suggested, and the situation is worsened by the fact that there are few women leaders in the army to serve as role models for other women. Asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement “In general women have the necessary leadership skills to perform in any MOS or unit to which they may be assigned”. 28 percent of all males questioned said they disagreed with the statement as it applied to peacetime. For wartime, the disagreement figure was 46 percent. According to EWITA, one of the most frequent complaints about female soldiers is that many of them exploit their sex to win undeserved promotions or desirable jobs. “Although the prevalence of this practice is speculative”, the report said, “it is safe to assume that it does indeed exist”. EWITA did not put all the blame on women, though, but suggested that some men are either inept at managing women or treat them gently in order to win sexual favors. More than 50 percent of males disagreed with the statement that “in general women can avoid the problem of sex fraternization”. Such fraternization, especially between ranks, is usually “prejudicial to good order and discipline”, says the report. Besides it can lead to pregnancy, “perceived by the army in the field as the greatest impediment to the full integration of women in the army”.

I removed the definition you dislike. You are able to provide more recent issues of the problem. -- George Serdechny 10:04, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I actually think that the whole thing is unnecessary, or could be summarised in a few sentences. Given how dated the material is, it's not very useful. Nick-D (talk) 10:19, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's expand the section with governmental and non-governmental issues of 80s, 90s and 2000s. Later we can separate it in a new article, call it Studies on female ability for military service or smth of the sort. -- George Serdechny 11:51, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Physiological concerns section
I've also removed the following section. The citation given for the claim that menstrual periods could cause ineffectiveness for women in ground units is actually about female aircraft ferry pilots in World War II being restricted from flight duties during their periods due to attitudes at the time, and it argues that no accidents were ever actually attributed to the pilot menstruating (it's online here). Nick-D (talk) 10:05, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Women are liable to monthly periods, which, in case if female serviceman is a member of a combat unit involved in ground missions, could affect seriously while proceeding the missions. Mood swings, evoked by monthly periods, could also negatively affect team cohesion, or result in refusal to proceed some orders. Taking into account, that infantry units are quite often deployed on missions for days or weeks out of unit base location, such inadmissible situations could happen quite frequently. The generally held belief was that women were incapacitated for several days each month and that they were accident-prone prior to and during the menses. But those who rebut the woman's body as military liability claims argue that menstruation does not incapacitate or debilitate most women and that "female military nurses have had a long history of functioning in wartime under primitive, unsanitary conditions without questions being raised about menstruation interfering with the performance of their duties.

Now there are only direct quotations in the article. -- George Serdechny 10:09, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * That's an improvement, thanks. I've tweaked the material to make the time and location clear. Nick-D (talk) 10:22, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Trolls
It seems this article has been trolled, as every use of the word combat has been changed to "Kombat" and links to an article on a town in Namibia. Might want to rinse the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.218.201 (talk) 13:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the guy has good intentions while changed "military" to "combat", since the article is mostly about female allowance to serve active duty, and more precisely, to be involved in combat missions. He'd just mistaken "c" for "K", that's not a big "trollism". I also think, it should be considered to split the article into three separate: Women in the military, Women in combat duty and Studies on female ability to serve active duty respectively. – George Serdechny 14:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Possible copyright problem
This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. MER-C 10:03, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Article split
Forty percent of this article is about women in combat. Is that enough to break that section out into a separate article? We could use WP:Summary Style and leave behind a condensed version of the section. That would make it easier for contributors who want to write about non-combat issues and history, like nurses and the WAVES and Women's Army Corps of WWII. Besides, the debate over women is almost exclusively about the US military. --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * No one having objected, I'm going to be WP:BOLD and go ahead now. --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

RS for "permit women to fill active combat roles, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Israel, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland."
Can we get an RS for "permit women to fill active combat roles, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, Norway, Israel, Serbia, Sweden and Switzerland"? --Robapalooza (talk) 16:43, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

NPOV and poor English
permeate the early part of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.155.193.120 (talk) 23:13, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

History of women in combat
"I just added a section to this article on women's role in combat. The content synthesized a number of research articles and current material on this topic.  Please do let me know if you have suggestions or can point to additional material to support this contribution.

Women’s Non-existent Role In Combat Up Until 2013
Women have been involved in the military since 1775. But their roles were more involved in the fields of nursing, laundering and mending clothing, and cooking for the troops. In 1917 when Loretta Walsh became the first women to enlist. But it was not until 1948 that a law was finally passed that permanently made women a permanent part of the military services. In 1976, the first group of women is admitted into a U.S military academy. According to statistics only 15.6 percent of its 1.1 million soldiers are female. Women serve in 95 percent of all army occupations, which makes up 15.6 percent of active army. In a one-year span, Some 40,000 American military women are deployed during the Gulf War operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. But not a single woman was able to take on any form of combat. In 1994 a policy prohibits women from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level. A study conducted by (Matthews et al. 2009) to examine the attitudes of West Point cadets, Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets, and non-military-affiliated students from civilian colleges toward a variety of roles that women may serve in the military. The results showed that military cadets were less approving of women being assigned to certain military jobs than non-military students.

New Combat Opportunities For Women
New opportunities are starting to open up for female soldiers. Almost twenty years later, in 2013, an order was passed that allowed women the same opportunities as men in the combat zone. Female U.S Army soldiers are being asked to partake in a new training course. The training course was designed by Combined Joint Task Force Paladin specifically for Female Engagement Team members. The training will help female soldiers in training such as training in unexploded ordnance awareness, biometrics, forensics, evidence collection, tactical questioning, vehicle and personnel searches, instructions on how homemade explosive devices are made and how to recognize if a device is homemade. It is rumored that women may begin Army Ranger training by mid-2015. This change will open up hundreds of thousands front-line positions for women, some positions possibly even leading to elite commando jobs for women. This will end the policy of “no women in units that are tasked with direct combat”. Jobs opportunities will not be available all at once, but with each branch examining the new lift on the ban, jobs will be available as they see fit. The goal is 2016 for all assessments to be complete and have women fully integrated into all roles in the army. In light of recent job opportunities opening up to females, a new movement has been created. The women of the army call it “Sisters in Arms”. This group was developed in hopes of helping the many female soldiers find their individual voice in the army. The program has spread throughout the Army worldwide. Nicolevnguyen (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC) Nicolevnguyen (talk) 22:57, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Good topic and post! Needs some edits here and there.
Nicolevnguyn-

I thought that your section was interesting to read! There were some mistakes I saw as I was reading... My suggestions is that some of the sentences seems a bit choppy and that you should explain more. You should explain alittle more about the order that was passed? I bold the sentence that needs to be change alittle bit since you use the word training 3 times in one sentences. Also, Explain more about the Army Ranger? because I would like to know more about that. Overall, it was nice reading about what is happening in today's world with the Army. :)

In today's world, new opportunities are starting to open up for female soldiers. Almost twenty years later (from what?) in 2013, an order was passed that allowed women the same opportunities as men in the combat zone. Female U.S Army soldiers are being asked to partake in a new training course (what kind of training course?). The training course was designed by Combined Joint Task Force Paladin specifically for Female Engagement Team members. The training will help female soldiers in training such as training in unexploded ordnance awareness, biometrics, forensics, evidence collection, tactical questioning, vehicle and personnel searches, instructions on how homemade explosive devices are made and how to recognize if a device is homemade.( You could maybe place this sentence after you introduce the new training course before this sentence). (Furthermore) It is rumored that women may begin Army Ranger training by mid-2015. This change will open up hundreds of thousands front-line positions for women, some positions possibly even leading to elite commando jobs for women. This will end the policy of “no women in units that are tasked with direct combat”. Jobs opportunities will not be available all at once, but with each branch examining the new lift on the ban, jobs will be available as they see fit. The goal in 2016 is for all assessments to be complete and have women fully integrated into all roles in the army. In light of recent job opportunities opening up to females, a new movement has been created. The women of the army now called it “Sisters in Arms”. This group was developed in hopes of helping the many female soldiers find their individual voice in the army. The program has spread throughout the Army worldwide. Nicolevnguyen (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC) Nicolevnguyen (talk) 22:57, 17 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schhuoy (talk • contribs)

Views of Captain Katie Petronio
I've just re-removed the lengthy material on the views of Captain Katie Petronio. This seems to be giving her views WP:UNDUE emphasis, especially as she's writing only on the basis of her personal experiences. This source also doesn't support the statement attributed to it that "many women in the military have raised objections". The notion that Captain Petronio was "inadvertently was drawn into combat during two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan" also seems dubious - surely people expect to be sent into combat zones as members of the US Marines, and it's unlikely that she would have been surprised by this. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


 * You said 'This source also doesn't support the statement attributed to it that "many women in the military have raised objections" ', but Petronio's article does address that issue by saying that all the military women she knows oppose placing women in combat infantry units.  Other military women, such as Capt. Lauren Serrano, have also written articles criticizing the policy (in the September 2014 issue of the Marine Corps Gazette).
 * I could do a search to see if there are any polls that have been done to indicate what the numbers are. But certainly there seems to be a significant amount of opposition from women in the military.
 * Granted, the current text does place too much emphasis on Katie Petronio's views, but we can solve that by replacing some of the current text with information about Capt. Serrano and any others who have voiced objections. We can also move it to the "Social and cultural issues" section, which is where other criticism is currently (very briefly) covered. Right now the criticism section is so brief and vague that it needs fleshing out.
 * The use of the word "inadvertently" would seem to be valid since it refers to the fact that Petronio was part of an engineering unit that was only accidentally drawn into combat. Since it wasn't deliberate, it was in fact inadvertent. I don't know why you would object to that word.
 * In short, I don't see how we can justify deleting the only paragraph that represents the opposing views of women who are actually in the military. Surely this group needs to be covered. Granted, this paragraph certainly needs improvement, but that means we should improve it rather than deleting it entirely.
 * I'm going to work on a revised version which addresses your criticisms. Will you accept an edited version with improvements?  Ryn78 (talk) 00:13, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Anecdotal evidence from one female soldier and her friends in one country hardly justifies such a strong statement. The USMC has a culture that all Marines are combatants ("every man a rifleman" was the old motto, though obviously no longer appropriate!), so it's most unlikely that any Marine would consider being in combat to be something other than what they signed up for (albeit with a relatively low probability of it occurring in non-combat units). Your assertion that the paragraph "represents the opposing views of women who are actually in the military" is not correct - it represents the views of one woman, and so to refer to her extensively is a clear violation of WP:UNDUE. If you want to write material stating that many women in the military don't want to serve in combat roles, please find references that actually supports this first - I'm sure that I've seen statistics noting that the proportion of women in the Australian Defence Force who have transferred into combat roles since the restrictions on this were lifted is low, for instance. Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I'll look to see if there are any survey results which would indicate some numbers, or (as you suggested) statistics from other militaries which have changed their policy. But even if having an entire paragraph quoting Katie Petronio is undue emphasis, that doesn't mean we should eliminate all mention of her opinion entirely: we can still quote portions of her statements as one example of a dissenting view. And in my experience, it's a common view among military women. As for your objection to the word "inadvertently": my only concern here is that taking it out would lead people to wonder how Petronio saw combat before the policy was changed, whereas the word "inadvertently" at least makes it clear that her combat role was accidental. Regardless of the USMC's slogan, it's still the case that engineering units are not designed to be intentionally sent into combat, and women in these units certainly weren't intentionally sent into combat before the policy was recently altered. Not a huge deal, but I think it clarifies things a bit for the reader. Ryn78 (talk) 00:03, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Does the source article say that she was "unintentionally" in combat or similar? By the time the ban was lifted, it was no longer really being applied: aside from the obvious results of sending non-combat units into active combat zones, female military policewomen were regularly serving in front-line roles in Iraq as part of convoy protection duties, and the USMC was routinely attaching female community liaison officers to infantry patrols in Afghanistan (rather bizarrely, with the women being helicoptered out each evening as separate accommodation couldn't be provided away from the male soldiers...) Nick-D (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

WW2 Soviet Union
Add something? We have the part about WW2 countries inclusion of women and it says "units in Britain and Germany, and front-line units in Russia." But then there are only 2 sections discussing those roles, the ones for Britain and Germany. Should we add another section underneath them for the Soviet Unions part aforementioned? JJ5788 (talk) 01:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

US centric material
The "Women in combat" section has been tagged as primarily presenting US examples and perspectives since November 2013. Despite this, even further US-specific examples have been added to this section and other parts of the article over the last few weeks (in considerable detail - including several paras on a single small-scale US research study!). Given that we have specific articles on women in the US military now, I think that this should be removed from this article, which should present an international perspective not favouring any one countries views or experiences unnecessarily. I had a go at removing this, but was reverted by Rjensen. I'd appreciate other editors' views, and Rjensen's perspective on why they think this material should be included here. Nick-D (talk) 07:27, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Erasing good info is not useful. the problem is using good material on Europe etc--I have been adding the studies that need summaries. As for studies, I believe the majority of RS deal with the USA, and so the attention is proportionate to the RS.  Not much is available on Russia or China or India, but otherwise most of the women in uniform are Americans> As for "small scale" studies, that is the standard for RS in sociology. Rjensen (talk) 07:33, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * See for Australia: Bassett, Jan. Guns and brooches: Australian Army nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War (Oxford University Press, 1997); Smith, Hugh, and Ian McAllister. "The changing military profession: Integrating women in the Australian Defence Force." Journal of Sociology 27.3 (1991): 369-391; Iskra, Darlene, et al. "Women's participation in Armed Forces cross-nationally: expanding Segal's model." Current Sociology 50.5 (2002): 771-797--covers, Australia, Mexico and Zimbabwe; Smith, Hugh. "Women in the Australian Defence Force: in line for the front line?." The Australian Quarterly (1990): 125-144.  Riseman, Noah. "Escaping Assimilation's Grasp: Aboriginal women in the Australian women's military services." Women's History Review (2014): 1-19.  Rjensen (talk) 07:41, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd be grateful if you could provide some sources to support your assertion that the majority of international coverage on this topic is on the US military as I don't believe it's accurate. I know that there's a large literature on this topic in Australia (so large that one of the chapters in the academic expert-written mythbusting book [ http://www.amazon.com/ANZACs-Dirty-Dozen-Australian-Military/dp/1742232884 ANZAC's Dirty Dozen] argues that service women are significantly over-represented in recent histories given their historically small numbers), and I've seen a lot about Israel, New Zealand and the UK. The specialised sources you've identified here seem much more relevant to the Women in the Australian military article than this article, and their inclusion would lead to similar problems to that with the material you've reverted back in - eg, lots of detail on single countries experience or the views of single sources which best belongs in national/service-specific articles. Nick-D (talk) 09:30, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * US as majority of material-- that's my impression after looking at a few hundred studies. The US has LOTS of sociologists!  Thee is no "world" pattern--what we have are patterns in multiple counties. NATO for example: all the counties closely monitor each other. )likewise USA and Australia, USA and  Israel). The problem is not overrepresentation of USA, it's underrepresentation of other counties. The best solution is to give Europe etc more coverage.  (I have sen near zero on Latin America, by the way.) Rjensen (talk) 18:49, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Given that this article currently features lengthy, and to be frank, rambling accounts of the US military, including 3 paras on a single study of ROTC cadets (who are not even in the military!), I don't think that it's defensible to argue that this material should be retained and the article should then be expanded around it. I'd suggest that this article should provide an international perspective of the topic, and be streamlined considerably as part of it. The rambling stuff on the US marines really belongs in the Women in the United States Marines article, for instance. I don't think that adding comparable material on other countries here would be sensible or helpful for readers. Nick-D (talk) 22:27, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the complaint: the request is to delete US material and NOT add material on other countries. ??? I think all the material in question helps answer the broad question: what happens when various militaries add women? Rjensen (talk) 02:59, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Most the US-centric stuff (and any of the detailed bits for other countries) should be removed and placed in Women in the military by country as this should just be a summary article. MilborneOne (talk) 08:44, 9 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Concur Cinderella157 (talk) 00:36, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * That leaves very little or nothing for this article. Rjensen (talk) 02:09, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I find several sections of this article to be problematic in its US centrism, particularly as its not even clear its about the US only. See in particular the sections "2019" and "Academic studies" how about moving this to the Women in the military by country? Multiplexxxxx (talk) 20:04, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

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Source Doctoring
What's up with one article being used as a citation like 6 times? Saintvlas22 (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Military fact checking
The articles on the topic of the female combatants doesn't have women who received most awards for their service. One such a combatant is from WWI and her name is Milunka Savić.

She doesn't get mentioned not even once in the Wiki page despite receiving - Order of the Star of Karađorđe - Légion d’Honneur (twice) - Russian Cross of St. George - British medal of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael - Miloš Obilić medal - Croix de Guerre with gold palm

Possibly has most decorative military ordeals in the history of females in warfare! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.135.204.54 (talk) 03:15, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Poor article
Arguments only talk about gender equality. But what would happen in war? A man would have a woman right in front of him and he has to kill her. What do men think of this? --2.245.155.13 (talk) 06:57, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

That doesn't matter though? It's an encyclopaedic article, not an opinion piece. "What do men think of this?" does not belong into an article that is there to list and describe facts. 2003:75:2E2D:A325:D442:C53:B74A:B80B (talk) 15:07, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * This has nothing to do with opinions. It's about psychology, morals and possible feminism, which are unexplored here. Wikipedia is not about facts, it's about obsessively collecting sources, what others said. People with wrong interpretations of sources are always taken more seriously than real experts. According to you, every quotation would be unencyclopedic. --2.245.73.195 (talk) 18:57, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Pre table-of-contents text vandalised (9/12/2017)
The initial four paragraphs of this article have been changed to include blatantly false information and nonsense. Examples include; Referencing all women who served in combat as transgendered, talk of "ancient warrior transgender", stating that the 2030's have occurred, and the non-logical statement "For two of years"

Recommend that this page be made protected.

For future reference vandalized sections re-posted below in italics.

''For two of years in a substantial number of cultures and nations, transgenders have served in various roles in the military, from ancient warrior transgender to those currently serving in current armed conflicts.

While the majority of combatants in most cultures have been men, a number of transgender in history have fought alongside them. In the American Civil War, there were women who sometimes even fought cross-dressed as men. Fighting on the battlefront was not the only way women involved themselves in war. Some also served as nurses and aides.

Despite various roles in the armies of past societies, the role of transgenders in the military, particularly in combat, is controversial and it is only recently that transgender have begun to be given a more prominent role in contemporary armed forces. As increasing numbers of county begin to expand the role of transgender in their militaries, the debate continues.

More recently, from the beginning of the 2030s, most Western armies have begun to admit women to serve active duty in all of military branches.[1] In nine countries women are conscripted into military.[2][3]'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.15.8.2 (talk) 00:17, 13 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, it was obvious vandalism that should have been reverted by someone before now. Not sure how it slipped through. I'm also wondering whether there's a connection between this incident and this article suddenly being used for assignments for a "Gendered Techno Culture" class. The students who take these classes often add nonsense, and it needs to stop. Why are students being told to write material for these articles in the first place?  GBRV (talk) 13:56, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Evaluation
After looking at the talk page on the article I discovered that many people found that the article need a bit of work, although there have been some modifications I think there is still room for some improvement. There are also things that could be described with a but more detail, and most importantly brought up to date. 19lunaa (talk) 06:49, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

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Why the prominently placed Hanna Reitsch photo ?
o. k., she was a tough nazi german female test pilot. And got military decorations and rewards for her achievements (not really welcomed by quite a number of german military men, then !). - But, what at all, has she to do with this article ? --2001:A61:2B09:B901:F94C:A916:26E6:394F (talk) 18:59, 20 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Perhaps because she is a well known. "Women in the military". MilborneOne (talk) 21:45, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure for that ? Where is the source for Hanna Reitsch being a Wehrmacht member ("female soldier" ? btw, on photos she wore no uniform - military decorations notwithstanding) --129.187.244.19 (talk) 07:59, 21 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Good point, although she worked for the Luftwaffe test centre she doesnt actually appear to have been in the "Military" so was really a Civilian test pilot, she used "Flukkapitan" as a title but that was honorary rather than anything official. She needs to be removed. MilborneOne (talk) 10:12, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * right, finally she held no military rank at all (and "Flukkapitan", corr. "Flugkapitaen", fits not for that, it is no military rank) --129.187.244.19 (talk) 08:02, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:38, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Roza Shanina.jpg

Academic Studies, biased
The selection of those studies for the article is highly biased by ideology, and also americocentric. There are studies about the physical performance and abilities of females in the military compared to males in the military which show clear differences: https://osha.europa.eu/en/themes/musculoskeletal-disorders - https://books.google.de/books?id=i42vPG_iXRgC&pg=PA9%E2%80%9327#v=onepage&q&f=false - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512412/Female-RAF-recruits-100-000-compensation--march-like-men.html - https://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-boland/female-marines-not-required-do-1-pull - http://web.archive.org/web/20160128224252/http://www.vtg.admin.ch/internet/vtg/de/tools/webarchiv/archiv_2007/fda_-_newsletter/newsletter_1_07/gleiche_fitness-beurteilung.html - et al. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.63.106 (talk) 08:56, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Issues of conflicting information and rape talk
This article has a section for academic work regarding studies about women integration in military units ,but in its main part it references a different study in america that women disrupt military units. No discussion of whether the studies are biased or not, and by separating them in two different sections despite being conflicting, they present two different views on the topic. They both should be under the academic section, reflecting each other, or else removed entirely.

Secondly, the part about combat manuals talking about women participation and how women need to prevent rape is badly worded and doesn't seem to add anything ? I don't understand how any of this is written... 154.73.217.42 (talk) 03:01, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: CMN2160A
— Assignment last updated by Zariagibson (talk) 20:13, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:11, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Pakistan Army Women soldiers.jpg

Wiki Education assignment: Gender, Race and Computing
— Assignment last updated by Racoon dolphin (talk) 06:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)