Women in combat
In Ancient Persia, Pantea Arteshbod served as Lieutenant Commander in the army of Cyrus the Great and Mania was said to have never been defeated in battle.
In the Medieval era, Joan of Arc became regarded as a national hero of France for her role in the Hundred Years' War.
In the era of colonialism, Queen of Jhansi, Rani Lakshmi Bai, famously led an entire army against the British invaders and fought bravely as per historical texts.
[16] The positions women will now be able to fill are: Navy Ordnance disposal divers, airfield and ground defense guards, infantry, artillery and armored units.
[18] During Australia's participation in World War II, the Australian military created a sub-branch of each of its armed forces specifically for females.
However, it was not until Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedom was enacted in 1982 that the Canadian Armed Forces were required to consider the equality of women in the services and to permit them for all military roles.
[25] Although there were other Canadian female generals in the past, their roles were limited to non-combat disciplines such as intelligence, medicine, combat support or administration.
[citation needed] In 1988, Denmark created a policy of "total inclusion" following combat trials which they explored how women fight on the front lines.
[39] Female infantry combatants are limited to three mixed-gender infantry battalions (the Caracal, Lions of the Jordan, and Bardelas battalions) which are deployed along Israel's border with Egypt, the Jordan Valley, and the Arava region to guard against infiltration and smuggling attempts, the IDF's Oketz K9 unit, the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, and the Search and Rescue Unit of the Home Front Command.
In 1991, the United States Congress removed the longtime ban on women from serving in warplane cockpits, though this new law would not be enforced by the U.S. Department of Defense until April 28, 1993.
[73] In April 2015, a 2+1⁄2-year period in which the tough Marine Corps' Infantry Officer Course became gender-integrated for research ended without a single female graduate.
[81] The decision was not supported by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford of the Marine Corps, who wanted to keep certain direct combat positions such as infantry and machine gunner closed to women.
"[84] For the first time in United States military history women faced no obstacle to contribute to the Department of Defense mission as long as they qualified with the standards allocated.
[85] On October 26, 2016, ten women became the first female graduates from the United States Army's Infantry Basic Officer Leader's Course at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Categorical stereotypes, where women are inherently different and inferior to men, underlie these views, which are supported by an essentialist ideology and a logic of averages.
They argue that integration improves military effectiveness, because it expands the pool of talented people that can make valuable contributions on the battlefield.
It also found that female soldiers had lower performance in basic combat tasks like negotiating obstacles and removing wounded troops from the battlefield.
[115] The claim that men's bodies are more capable of handling the physical hardships that come with being in combat, made by some conservative political circles is wrong and not confirmed by the studies.
[108] In the Austrian Armed Forces and almost all NATO countries, significantly lower physical performance requirements for entrance and subsequent tests apply to female soldiers in determining fitness for service.
[120] A 2014 study in BioMed Research International of a mixed-gender Israeli brigade found that "attrition rates because of medical reasons were the same" between men and women.
[123][124][125] A 2021 Norwegian study, however, found that "contrary to the predictions of many policy makers, we do not find that integrating women into squads hurt male recruits’ performance or satisfaction with service.
[134] One study from Harvard Business School and MIT has claimed that group intelligence of an organization rises when women are on teams.
[135] A 2009 review for the British Ministry of Defence found that "cohesion in mixed gender teams during ground close combat incidents was consistently reported to be high.
"[136] A 2019 study in Military Medicine found that "instructor ratings of recruit performance, including their teamwork, were similar for males and females regardless of the gender composition of platoons.
"[138] Lieutenant colonel Dave Grossman's book On Killing briefly mentions that female soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been officially prohibited from serving in close combat military operations since 1948.
The IDF saw a complete loss of control over soldiers who apparently experienced an instinctual protective aggression that was uncontrollable, severely degrading the unit's combat effectiveness.
However, in 2001, subsequent to the publication of Grossman's book, women did begin serving in IDF combat units on an experimental basis.
"[139] In modern warfare, however, where "winning minds" and gaining intelligence can prove more important at times than enemy casualties, having female soldiers serving alongside a combat unit may have some advantages.
[143] Women made a huge impact in 2010 when the United States Army began utilizing Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan.
In these cases, the US military adheres to local customs for the purposes of counterinsurgency, whereby males are not permitted to talk to women who are not in their family or are not married to them.
