WOMEN HAVE been a part of military history since antiquity, but the debate on whether to systematically include them in full combat roles is a modern one. The arguments against inclusion are generally stale and heavily reliant on traditional perceptions of gender roles, and they do a poor job of encapsulating the existing record of women in warfare. That record shows that women are more than capable of performing well in combat duties. Furthermore, new trends and technologies have rendered obsolete some arguments against inclusion that may have been viable before the modern era.
The involvement of women in war is nearly as long as written history. Women have served in positions ranging from battlefield commanders to auxiliary troops in armies throughout the world. In one of the more colorful examples, Roman general Gaius Marius described some encounters with the Cimbrians in the late second century BCE that featured women firing arrows from wagon trains and weilding swords against Roman soldiers. The Cimbrian women would even threaten their own men with death if the men considered retreating.
Other heroic exploits include the "Maid of Saragossa," a Spanish woman who led a legendary defense of the city, along with other women, when it was attacked by the French in 1808. A perplexed Marshal Lannes wrote to Napoleon: "I have seen women come to be killed in the breach. Every house has to be taken by storm." The Saragossa example is not isolated; women have often played a crucial role in sieges, going to great lengths to defend their cities. Famous and historically relevant female commanders include the likes of Joan of Arc, who fought for the French against the English, the Trung Sisters, who fought for the Vietnamese against the Chinese, and Kahina, who fought for the Berbers against the Arabs.
This brief historical background aims to dispel the myth that war is somehow a "male activity.". It would be very difficult to imagine women in combat roles without first eliminating that preconception of war -- that war has a gender. The role of women in military history has been neglected even by feminist historians, who have also made the historically inaccurate assumption that women were not relevant in military activities. Nations such as Norway and Sweden already vanquished that idea, allowing women to serve in all positions and capacities in the military. Others, like the United States, are learning the same thing, albeit slowly.
Some of the most prominent arguments against inclusion relate to physical and psychological strength. A wide variety of military and civilian commentators are worried that women either are not strong enough or would break down emotionally on the battlefield.. These outdated ideas have little basis in fact. Physical strength would have been a priority before the last century, but not necessarily today. In the early nineteenth century, for example, Napoleon's soldiers marched up to 30 miles every day. It may not have been a good idea to include women in combat roles then, but the rise of mechanized warfare and armored divisions in the twentieth century means that tactical and strategic opportunities are no longer tied to physical strength. It doesn't matter that women are not as physically strong as men on average
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