For military women, equal opportunity, equal obligation
Defense Secretary Ashton Car- ter’s historic decision this month to throw open all combat jobs to women marked both the fall of a discriminatory barrier and the recognition of reality.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, women have fired rifles, lobbed grenades, faced suicide bombers and defended their country alongside their male counterparts. In those two wars, 88 women have died in combat, and hundreds have been wounded, many grievously.
They have done the jobs from which they were officially barred but have been denied the realworld credit. Without combat service, it is nearly impossible to reach the highest ranks of threeor four-star general. Although women make up nearly 16% of the 1.3 million members of the active duty force, just four women have reached the pinnacle of four stars, none in the Marines.
While Carter considered whether all jobs would be opened, women began to compete for some of the jobs from which they’ve been excluded, with varying degrees of success.
No one said it was going to be easy. Nor are women seeking any guarantees. They simply want, and have earned, the opportunity to compete. Equal opportunity requires more than a formal change in policy, and many challenges remain. Among the most important:
Keeping up standards. If it turns out that many women fail to pass physical tests for combat jobs, as has happened in the Marines, the military will need to guard against any moves to water down standards.
Ensuring equal obliga
tion. Under the Selective Service law, men are required to register at age 18 for any future draft. If there is going to be registration, women should be registered, too.
Changing attitudes. An independent study in 2014 among members of the military’s elite special operations forces, which include Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, found that 85% did not want to let women into their jobs. Members’ concerns ranged from the reasonable, such as how women’s presence would change small all-male units, to the ridiculous, such as whether premenstrual syndrome would make women emotional.
Getting buy-in from the
top. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had sought to keep nearly 49,000 Marine slots closed to women earlier this year when he was commandant of the Marines, was noticeably absent when Carter made his announcement. If the military’s top leaders fail to show real support, officers and enlisted men predisposed against moving women into combat jobs will never give them a chance.
Despite the distinguished service of so many women in Iraq and Afghanistan, critics continue to insist that standards will be lowered, that women will ruin unit cohesion, and that military readiness will suffer.
With variations, the same claims were made when combat units were racially integrated and when the bar on gays serving openly in the military was lifted. The dire predictions never materialized.
Expect the same of allowing women to do the jobs many have already proved they can do.