For millenia, war has been a largely male undertaking. Women may have sparked conflict — think of Helen of Troy — or in countless numbers been its victims. They have also conducted daring missions behind enemy lines as spies and saboteurs.
But until recently most Western armies barred women from serving in “ground close combat.”
Over the past decade, in America and Europe, many of those restrictions have been lifted.
Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Defense, believes that was a mistake.
He is wrong.
His effort to import the country’s culture wars into the Pentagon will weaken American military power.
The American and British armed forces opened all combat positions to women a decade ago.
Canada and some European states did so before that.
Many countries had long resisted these steps. They worried that women would not be up to the physical demands of being in the infantry, which is tasked with closing with and killing the enemy; that they would be more susceptible to injuries; and that the presence of women would affect the cohesion of small units, a vital factor in combat.
Some of those concerns were reasonable. Female recruits do tend to be at greater risk of injury. Infantry combat remains physically demanding.
Technology has not entirely changed that — even drone operators in Ukraine still lug heavy equipment over difficult terrain under fire. An experiment by the U.S. Marine Corps showed that all-male crews tended to be faster or better at key tasks, such as loading artillery guns, moving ammunition and evacuating casualties, compared with units that included women.
In practice, only tiny numbers of women will seek out infantry roles. Even fewer will meet the requisite standards. In Canada, which opened infantry roles to women 36 years ago, women make up 4% of that branch. In America it is 1.4%. Even in Ukraine’s war of survival, there are vanishingly few women serving in assault units.
But war is not just about ground close combat.
Women serve daily as fighter pilots and aboard warships. Moreover, the soldiers at the front rely on support from the rear.
That includes logistics, intelligence and engineering. Almost 9% of American field-artillery crews are women.
