The Female Soldier

ABSTRACT: Since the 1970s, women have been increasingly integrated into the military; in Iraq and Afghanistan many women served on the frontline in combat. This article argues women's integration has been facilitated by the all-volunteer professional forces in which individuals are judged purely by competence. Female soldiers have been accepted in all military roles if they perform competently. There are serious limitations in the infantry, however, as only a small number of women pass the selection tests and it is likely no more than one percent of the infantry could be female at present. Moreover, masculine prejudices abound and women are still the victims of discrimination, harassment, and abuse. ********** The accession of women into the United States arms, announced on 24 January 2013 by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta following a unanimous decision by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been welcomed by many. The decision, however, remains controversial and there are some who oppose it. Indeed, Martin van Creveld, a long-standing opponent of female integration, has anticipated some arguments that opponents of integration may use. Van Creveld claims that not only are male soldiers often obliged to undertake additional hardship in order to compensate women's physical weakness but because women are weaker, for them [men] to undergo military training and serve alongside women represents a humiliation. (1) For van Creveld, the inclusion of women into the armed forces corrodes the bonds among male soldiers, vitiating the honor of service. Indeed, David Frum, a contributing editor of Newsweek recently rejected Panetta's ruling on similar grounds. Citing Kingsley Browne's work Co-ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women Shouldn't Fight the Nation's Wars, Frum argues that women are too weak physically to perform as soldiers and they undermine the cohesiveness of all-male groups. Even women who are strong enough to serve in present a problem because the armed forces, focused on war-winning (not employment equality), are unable to apply gender-blind standards to women; they cannot treat them equally and tend to be too lenient. If van Creveld, Browne, and Frum are right, Leon Panetta and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have made a serious mistake. It is pertinent and perhaps necessary to assess the issue of female accession. Drawing on archival research, and interview and fieldwork research in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and the United States, (2) this article attempts to identify the conditions most likely to expedite the successful integration of women into the arms following Panetta's announcement--and to highlight likely obstacles and problems. (3) Precisely because it represents the most complex example, the question of the possibility of female accession to the infantry, the most demanding military occupation, is the focus of my examination. The Possibility of Integration Van Creveld's objections and the general opposition to women in are based on a presumption that a traditional form of masculinity remains essential to the armed forces as an organization. There is little doubt that masculinity has been central to the performance of armies in the past. Indeed, the social sciences have explored the connection between manhood and performance. In their famous article on the Wehrmacht, Morris Janowitz and Edward Shils ascribed the extraordinary performance of this doomed army to the intense personal male bonds within the primary military group: spatial proximity, capacity intimate communication, the provision of paternal protectiveness by NCOs and junior officers, and the gratification of certain personality needs, e.g., manliness, by the military organization and its activities were critical to performance. (4) Indeed, Sam Stouffer in his study of US soldiers in the Second World War concurred, concluding that combat posed a challenge a man to prove himself to himself and others. …

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