Introduction

     Over the last year, I have been following the political and cultural discussions surrounding the decision to allow women into combat positions.  By the time Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter announced his decision to allow women into all combat positions in the military with no exceptions, I gathered over one hundred articles with opinions from all sides of the debate.  Initially, I was interested in this topic because of my background in the Army, but over time I began to take interest in the way the our politicians were influenced by social pressures from both advocacy groups and  journalists. Susan Douglas illustrates how the media affected the feminist movement of the 1960's by giving it momentum through its condescension of the ideology.  Are our military and political leaders influenced in their decision-making by both professional journalists and anonymous/editorialized social media commentators?

     While I collected digital clippings on this issue, I noticed that somewhere along the way I stopped trying to form my own opinion.  I can see validity in opening combat positions to women, especially when you consider the fact that women leave the service mid-career at twice the rate as men (Shalal, 2015).  Supporters like Major General Marcia Anderson attribute this to the lack of upward mobility for women in the military (McGregor, 2014). Major General Anderson and others believe that combat positions in the military are parallel to profit and sales positions in corporations that quickly promote workers to senior leadership positions.  Integrating women into these positions will give them the opportunity compete for a larger presence in military leadership than the current 14.6% of field grade officers and 7% of general grade officers.

     Conversely, I know how difficult it was to prove myself in the military to some of my male peers.No matter how much experience I racked up walking the streets of Baghdad, some of the less tactful young men in the infantry would suggest that as a woman, I was out of place in a deployment zone. Critics of integration, like Marine Corps Captain Lauren F. Serrano, believe that this patronizing behavior will be the least of a woman's worries should integration be forced onto an infantry filled with young men fresh out of high school.  This is a genuine problem facing our military as we move forward with this historical decision.

I am interested in continuing to examine this from an international perspective as I seek answers on how to integrate women into our military in a way that will allow them to flourish.

References:

"Women Do Not Belong in the Military" - Capt. Lauren F. Serrano, (2014).  https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/2014/09/why-women-do-not-belong-us-infantry

"Pentagon Promotes 'Lean In' Groups to Boost Women Leadership in the Military" - Andrea Shalal,  (2015). http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-military-leanin-idUSKCN0RL18M20150921

"Getting More Women into Army Leadership" - Jena McGregor, (2014). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2014/06/03/getting-more-women-into-army-leadership/