Are Women Breaking Barriers and Ascending Ranks in the U.S. Military?

Women in the military have made news lately, from the first women to graduate from Army Ranger school to the first women infantry Marines. While it appears that barriers are being broken, I decided to examine whether these newsworthy stories were anomalies or if they truly represented a major institutional shift on gender in the military.

photo credit: Fort George G. Meade Public Affairs Office [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr

I’ve always hoped that the military’s evolution of strategy from traditional warfare to modern tactics, like counterinsurgency, would be accompanied by a recognition of the value women can add in this context. After all, counterinsurgency is about connecting and cooperating with local populations to address the root causes of conflict, relying on military might as a last resort. The end goal of our military is peace and security, and we know from UNWomen that when women are equals at the negotiating table, “the quality and durability of peace agreements increases.”

At the same time, the very notion of the military evokes traditional images of masculinity that have been ingrained in society: valor, violence, absolutism, etc. Has the military as an institution changed in an era where diplomacy is just as important as brute force? Has it really made room for women?

A Brief History of Women in Conflict

photo credit: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph [public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. military first opened to women officially during World War I, though they had been serving in support roles since the American Revolution, and it saw 30,000 women join. During World War II, the ranks of women swelled to half a million, leading President Truman to champion the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, which provided military career pathways and benefits for women; however, women were restricted to 2% of the military population until the 1970s, when recruitment efforts were falling flat and women were needed to fill the gap. They were not yet sanctioned for combat roles.

In 2010, US Special Operations Command came up against a huge barrier in Afghanistan, which ultimately opened the way for women in combat. Soldiers on the ground could not gather intelligence from or build relationships with a population critical to their mission: Afghan women. Cultural norms precluded men from interacting with women who were not family, so that ruled out every member of the Special Operations teams on the ground. They needed women, and so “cultural support teams” were born. These teams of highly trained women were attached to elite Ranger and SEAL units to gather intelligence in combat situations, where they fought and died alongside men with little to no recognition.

In 2015 — almost 100 years after the first women were permitted to join active service and a few years after the success of cultural support teams was proven — the military finally opened up all combat roles to women.

This last fact is important: according to the Army War College, “access to leadership positions in the military… is directly linked to combat specialties,” which women have been largely excluded from until just a few years ago. While that may not seem like a huge deal, it is: “Research found that a group’s collective intelligence tends to increase as the percentage of women in the group increases… The ability to perceive and sense emotional changes leads to more collaborative patterns of behavior and women tend to score higher than men in this category.”

The Numbers Today

Data from the Department of Defense shows that women currently represent 20 percent of the Air Force, 19 percent of the Navy, 15 percent of the Army, and almost 9 percent of the Marine Corps.

When it comes to leadership, according to the Service Women’s Action Network, “about 19 percent of military women are officers while about 17.3 percent of military men are officers.” The organization offers encouraging data when it comes to leadership trends.

Source: Service Women’s Action Network

Though the Marine Corps has some serious work to do in catching up to its peers in representation, there is one data point unique to this branch that is worth mentioning. A gender promotion gap exists, but probably not the kind you’re expecting: women are ascending the ranks of the Marine Corps faster than men.

Lawmakers and military leadership are recognizing that they are missing out on a huge pool of talent by not actively recruiting women, and they have begun to adapt their efforts.

Along with recruitment, there must also be equal focus on retention to make the work environment comfortable for women and to provide care tailored to the quickly growing population of women veterans. 

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When I started this research, I was prepared to be sorely disappointed. While the numbers themselves are not even close to GenderAvenger’s threshold of at least 40 percent women, they are trending in the right direction and have exceeded my expectations for a mammoth institution mired in tradition. We will be watching for active service and veteran women to be represented during public discussions involving our nation's security – whether in front of Congress, on conference stages, or in the media.