Jean Yarbrough

About the Author: Jean Yarbrough is a professor of government and legal studies at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. She specializes in political philosophy and American political thought.

The United States is the only major country to consider seriously the question of women in combat. Of the 72 nations that register or conscript citizens for military service, only 10 include women and none places them in combat. Although women are still excluded from combat by law in the Navy and the Air Force, and by policy in the Army, the United States has moved closer to placing women in combat than any other country. Not only have women moved into combat related” tasks, but the distinction between combatants and non-combatants has been blurred by the inclusion of women in “technical” combat...