Essay On Women In Combat

“Assigning women to combat is a radical attack on the natural complementary of the sexes.” (Kirkwood)

We live in a time where women can run for president and leave the house instead of staying home as a housewife. Women are competing in the Olympics and becoming cops. So the question is, “should women be allowed in combat?” Women have been in combat since the late 1700s so why not let it stay that way. Women should be allowed in combat because they are already serving in combat. Research from the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) shows that a positive impact was resulted from women who contributed to combat in Iraq (Women Should be…). However, women shouldn’t be allowed in combat not because of their gender but because they aren’t capable of keeping up with combat tasks. This is shown by the physical traits of an average woman. Women in combat have lower physical strength than the average man (Donelly). In this paper we will find out whether or not women should be allowed to be in combat and how capable they are of being in combat.

Historical Context

Women have been serving in the military since the late 1700s. To be specific, women have been in the military since 1775 during the American Revolution even though they weren’t supposed to. Why werent women allowed to serve in the military? Because they were not equal and did not have enough rights like the men did. But women still managed to serve as nurses, cooks, and other jobs. Women were enrolled as nurses because the Union needed people to aid hurt soldiers (Righthand). The main reason to why women became nurses and cooks were that one of their male family members were sent to war so the women needed a way to support themselves (B...

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...During this war, a British woman named Flora Sandes joined the army and wanted to be treated and called a male while in the army. She wanted to be on the battlefield helping her fellow male soldiers instead of staying in and hospitalizing the injured soldier. She was the first woman to ever be enlisted into the Serbian army (Bourke). The army enlists more than 13,000 women for telephone operating, releasing sailors for sea duty at the stateside, and nurses (“Highlights in the History…”). Even though women weren’t allowed to enroll in combat in the U.S. at the time they were still recognized with awards such as the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest medal in the military and the highest non-combat award (Wilson).

1941, World War II starts and more than 60,000 women are enrolled for sea duty at the stateside and overseas (“Highlights in the History…”).