Women Integrated Into the Military

About 3 pages (954 words)

Women's Army Corps Summary

Women Integrated Into the Military

Some 350,000 women volunteered for military service during World War II, serving as nurses and in noncombat staff positions. When the war ended they were demobilized along with most of the men and received the same veterans benefits. Everyone wanted to keep the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, but some military men wanted to abolish the women's corps WAC, WAVES, SPARS, and Women Marines. Opponents of these organizations thought the servicewomen degraded the heroic male role of soldier, or degraded femininity by being prostitutes or lesbians. This negative attitude toward women in the military drastically reduced the willingness of women to volunteer. But those in positions of high command—generals and admirals—had a very different viewpoint. They were greatly impressed by women's efficiency and military bearing and wanted women's service organizations to remain permanently.

Post-World War II

A compromise was reached in 1947–1948, whereby the services would have permanent women's units, limited to 2 percent of male strength, with guarantees against combat and against women commanding men. The Air Force, however, now independent of the Army and much more progressive on social issues, integrated its women into regular units. The other services used separate organizations. Women were included in reserve, ROTC, and National Guard components, as well as the regular services, but not the service academies. However, not many women volunteered, and the quotas were only half-filled. They existed primarily to provide a structure that could be exponentially expanded in case of a large-scale future war. A major recruiting campaign during the Korean War was a flop—because male soldiers barely tolerated them, few women wanted military careers. By 1960 there were only 31,000 servicewomen, compared to 2.5 million men.

The Military and Women's Rights

In 1951 the Defense Department created DACOWITS (Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services). Although critics sometimes called this group of civilian women advisors a hotbed of feminism, DACOWITS had only weak links to the feminist political movement. Before the three nursing units were opened to men in 1955, all the enlistees who did nursing work (called "medics" in the Army and "pharmacy mates" in the Navy) had been men, and all the officers were women. The national mood in the 1970s called for an end to artificial gender barriers and stereotypes. The Pentagon reflected that mood and began preparing to integrate women, with the Air Force taking the lead by opening its ROTC to women in 1969. Women first reached flag rank of general and admiral in 1970. About 7,500 women served in Vietnam, mostly nurses; eight died as a result of accidents or disease.

Despite the growth of equal rights in America, many military men continued to argue that women did not belong in the military, or at least not in combat. The reasons ranged from concerns about the physical weaknesses of women and their inability to carry their load, to fears of women being wounded, taken prisoner, or raped by the enemy, to worries about the threat to male warrior values and customs. Some conservative women worried that the military would make women less feminine or encourage lesbianism, whereas some feminists feared it would make warfare more acceptable. In 1973 the draft ended. The volunteers who remained were poorly paid and held in low repute; their performance and morale plummeted. In 1975 Congress mandated the admission of women into the federal military academies. The academies complied, although the women reported heavy levels of harassment. It was not a good time for a radical change in gender roles.

The early 1980s, however, brought major changes. The military had been reorganized as an all-professional unit. Salaries were much higher, and every year there was more emphasis on technical skills. Women proved that muscle power was much less decisive for effective performance than teamwork and brain power. The average age of soldiers rose dramatically, and a much higher proportion had spouses and families. The military took pride in successfully developing strong support networks for service families. No easy solution was found for the problem of sexual harassment, caused primarily by the lingering reflex that the military should be a male world. Every couple of years major scandals tarnished the services and ruined the careers of senior male officers.

In 1994 new laws made women, who composed 15 percent of the military, eligible for nine out of ten service positions. Those gains were a recognition of the performance of the 41,000 women deployed to the war zone during the Gulf War of 1991. Despite legal limits on combat participation, thirteen women died in that conflict. In the Iraq War of 2003, women were even more active participants, although still not allowed in combat infantry and tank units. They did fly combat fighters, bombers, and helicopters. Surprisingly, the signature hero of the three-week war was PFC Jessica Lynch, who became the first American POW to be rescued.

The history of women in the military since World War II reflects the dramatic changes in the status of women in American society. The success of women in military roles refuted old stereotypes that had restricted opportunities for females in the military and in civilian life. Thus war and military service advanced the cause of equal rights for women.