Women in the Military Benefits

Women in the Military

Benefits of Women in the Combat Zone

Historically women have not been allowed to serve in military combat situations. This has been due in part to the Aspin Rules. These rules where established by the Defense Secretary, Les Aspin, in 1994. Basically the rules say that women are not allowed to be placed in small direct combat units that take direct offensive action against an enemy. Although there has not been any official change to these rules, there has been some relaxation in the placement of women in combat zones (Eberhart, 2004).

This change has most recently been seen with the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Although women were not official assigned to combat units, they were definitely in the middle of the combat zone. Wars today are not like they used to be and the lines between direct and indirect combat zones are often blurry. Women are being placed into dangerous situations that may unintentionally put them into a direct line of fire. Even though public opinion seems to be split on the issue of women in combat, the Army says that it is now a necessity.

In order to have enough qualified candidates from which to recruit the Army says that changing the rules regarding women in combat is necessary. There are not enough qualified men to fill all the positions that are required (Putko & Johnson, 2008). "According to a Washington Times report, last May the Army told Pentagon officials in a special report that if it was forced to keep the vital FSCs all-male, it would simply not have enough soldiers" (Eberhart, 2004)

Another benefit of allowing women to be part of combat zones is the ability to retain quality soldiers for longer periods of time. Promotion within the military is highly tied to combat service. Since women are not allowed to serve in combat roles, their promotion opportunities are greatly diminished. The military finds it difficult to recruit females into military careers, knowing that their opportunities for advancement are limited. The current belief is that most women do not want to necessarily serve in the infantry; they really just want to have that opportunity if they should so desire it (Putko & Johnson, 2008) third benefit of having female soldiers in a combat zone is one that is two fold. It has been observed that units that have female soldiers in them are better behaved and have less discipline issues than those units that are all male. It is felt that this contributes to the overall readiness of the units, making them more productive and less distracted. Senior leaders feel that this is a win, win situation for everyone involved (Putko & Johnson, 2008).

A fourth benefit is that of having female soldiers in the places where they are needed most. There are times when situations call for things to be done that only a female can do. For example if there is a time when a female prisoner needs to be searched, this is something that should not be done by a male soldier, but is better of done by a female. If there are no female soldiers in the combat zones where the action is happening, who is going to do this? There have been other situations that have arisen that were better handled by females, than by males. One such situation was the guarding of an all girls school in Baghdad. This had been a special request and was thus carried out by female soldiers. Again if there were no female soldiers in the area of the combat zones, then these types of situations would not be able to be handled to the best of our ability (Putko & Johnson, 2008).