The Journey of Women Warriors: A Story of Dedication and Triumph
The first woman accepted into an Army combative unit some 22 years ago was removed under suspicious charges of misconduct. Then, because of a deeply rooted organizational culture and misconceptions about women in combat, Army policies and practices continued to restrict women from realizing their full potential to serve their country. Nowhere were these institutional barriers to women's service more pronounced than in Special Operations. By regulation, women were prohibited from serving as members of the Military Services except in special units and positions like Special Forces. Even when assigned to support roles in Special Forces camps, women were subject to stereotypes and social barriers that impeded their ability to perform important and necessary missions that contribute to Special Operations. These stereotypes and misperceptions increased risks to women and decreased Special Operations Forces' combat effectiveness. During the war on terrorism, experiences of Special Operations Command prompted renewed emphasis on Special Operations Forces roles for women. In the Army, the Military Police School study led to changes in Ranger and Special Operations ethics instruction and combat leader training. The removal of the special operations restriction, however, provided the square range of combat training support to women's combat arms research and theoretical living experiments.
Historical Context of Female Warriors
The historical existence of women warriors is no longer in serious dispute as it once was. When the Greeks and Romans wrote of the Amazon tradition, their writings were taken as sheer mythology. A Normandy site excavated in 1970 produced original reports which suggested that the graves were of wealthy women who were warriors. The grave goods included weapons such as a horse-head chape in the form of a woman with a sharp pointed dress and now thought to be Roman cavalry equipment for a dagger hilt, swords, and shield ornaments. The group included a number of Celtic brooches, which interested the reporters more than the evidence on sex and gender. This was almost identical to the pictorial representations of the Amazons, so the age of this tradition was pushed back almost two thousand years. Documented women fighting with or in the male role in the Civil War, in period uniform and in men's garb. Pioneered modern documentation of twentieth-century women in battle with soldiers and sailors of World War I who were women. Spent years searching for women who served in uniform as men in the Revolutionary War. In the late 1970s, mounted writings in the service of the overwhelming response to the question.
Comments
Post a Comment