Statistics tell one story. Women remain a small minority in all U.S. military service branches. According to the latest data compiled by the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs in 2012, the highest percentage of women on active duty is 19 percent in the Air Force, compared to less than 7 percent in the Marine Corps. The average for all service branches, including the Coast Guard, is only 14.6 percent.

Except in the Marines, reserve force percentages for women are higher, headed again by Air Force reserves at nearly 30 percent, followed by Army reserves at 21.6 percent. The average percentage in all state reserve forces for women is 19.5 percent; the National Guard holds steady at 15.5 percent.

The Vermont National Guard has an approximate force of 3500, with females numbering about 500, or 14 percent, according to Lt. Dyana K. Allen, a deputy in the State Public Affairs Office.

For the majority of us, who are not statisticians, what do these numbers mean?

How do we hear the story they tell? One open-ended question is what do we want the numbers to be? If the goal is gender equality in the armed forces of the United States, we need to be clear on how we define the term "equality." A large disparity exists between interpretations of the numbers and the quality of women's service.

Courageous, in General

Visible Standards

Lt. Lisa Blachford, a surface warfare officer in the United States Navy, recently told Vermont Woman that women are an extremely visible minority in the military. From her perspective, this status results in an unspoken higher level of expectation that women will achieve excellence.

"Men can drift off into mediocrity," Blachford said. "It is harder to be invisible as a female. This breeds natural competitiveness between women."

Blachford is in the last few months of teaching in the Naval ROTC program at Norwich University in Northfield, Vt., from which she also earned an MBA in 2011. Norwich is the nation's oldest private military college; it voluntarily began admitting women into its Corps of Cadets in 1974, the first in the nation to do so.

After more than two years at Norwich, Blachford maintains an open door policy, and women in the Corps of Cadets often seek her out for advice. She is quick to point out that her expectations for how students carry themselves are high.
She has asked both male and female cadets to come back to see her. "As you move up in rank in the military, as a woman, there are fewer and fewer other women of higher rank," Blachford said. "It can be hard to find a mentor."

Personality, Not Gender

Tracey Poirier was once one of those young cadets. A 1996 graduate of Norwich University and its only Rhodes Scholar, she is an 8-year veteran of the Marine Corps. Poirier retired with the rank of captain, and is now a major in Vermont's Army Reserve National Guard and director of the International Student Center at Norwich.

Poirier is emphatic that she has never felt discriminated against in the military because she is female. She had to navigate a multitude of personality differences and leadership styles with colleagues, but attributes those to natural differences in people--not gender. Poirier admitted that she is more comfortable among men than women, and that women serving in the military together find themselves naturally pitted against each other. "It's a fine line," she said. "Do we stick together to be better, or are we doing ourselves a disservice?"

"There is a big difference between actual equality versus forced equality," Poirier said. "Being in the military gives women something they can't get anywhere else," including survival techniques, learning to navigate being female in a male world, and learning various leadership techniques. Officer trainings have taught her how to motivate teams, and education about leadership styles focuses on personality, not gender, she says.

Tougher on Women

Elizabeth Fraser, a Norwich graduate from the class of 2007, is a member of the Vermont Army National Guard. Fraser, who now manages Norwich's new Shaw Outdoor Center, enlisted in the Guard with no prior military experience. She is now going through Officer Candidate School, which she will complete in August 2013. She will then be commissioned as a second lieutenant, receive her first work assignment, and commit to the guard for eight years.

Fraser's experience in the Norwich Corps of Cadets helped her adjust to training in the Guard. For Fraser, the greatest challenge is physical. Even though women are built differently from men, she is expected to keep up with them on a 7-mile ruck march with 40 pounds on her back.

Fraser has also observed that it is hard for females to lead other females, and says they tend to be more critical of each other. "Women usually hope that another woman will not be hard on them," she said. "Often, though, they are tougher on other women." Fraser is very comfortable in the largely male guard because of her experience in the Corps.

An Inconvenient History

A Department of Defense chart shows a total of more than 1.8 million women veterans of the United States military. Vermont has officially sent 3,660 women, although the exact numbers of Vermont women who have participated in conflicts dating back to the Revolutionary and Civil Wars is unknown.

Invisible War Prompts DoD and Norwich Response

At the end of September, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called unprosecuted rape cases on military bases "an outrage." His comments came, the United Press International reported, after six basic training instructors at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, were sentenced on sexual misconduct charges involving at least 38 women.

In 2011 alone, says the Defense Department, more than 3,000 service members reported they were sexually assaulted; 240 of the cases were prosecuted. Panetta acknowledged that record may stop many victims from coming forward. The actual number of assaults, estimates the Pentagon, is closer to 19,000.

Panetta called for improved investigations. He said the Lackland situation was isolated, adding "but the reality is, when you've got 19,000 sexual assaults taking place, this is something that's happening elsewhere, as well."

Panetta has changed military policy, which had allowed unit commanders to oversee sexual assault investigations and prosecutions, sometimes creating a conflict of interest when the accused is a co-worker or friends with investigators. The responsibility was moved higher up the chain of command, which may remove some conflict of interest, but not enough, in the eyes of advocacy organizations like Service Women's Action Network (SWAN).

Several legislative measures are under consideration, according to SWAN. Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, plans to introduce the Sexual Assault Training Oversight and Prevention Act, which would put decision-making power to investigate and prosecute such cases under civilian control, out of the military's jurisdiction.

Separate but Equal?

Navy Lt. Blachford told Vermont Woman that the military is one place you know for sure that you are paid equally to your male colleagues. There is no negotiating a pay grade; they are what they are and, therefore, pay is equal for women and men of the same rank.

Yet, except for The Coast Guard, the only service branch without restrictions by sex, women are still barred from serving in key positions. In the Army, they cannot serve in the infantry, armor, special forces, combat engineer companies, ground surveillance radar platoons and air defense artillery batteries. In the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, the list of exclusions is as long, and generally linked to warfare and physical threat.

Major Poirier understands the reason that women are not allowed in actual combat. "It's not that we are not capable; we are," she said. "It is that society as a whole is simply not ready to see women in combat—especially men." In the most recent Memorial Day news stories, 6,400 deaths of U.S. service members were reported from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of these, 143 were U.S. women.

The U.S. Army's website recently published an article describing a prototype body armor that has been developed at the Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center in Natick, Mass. A group of female soldiers from Fort Campbell, Ky., are testing it, as they get ready to deploy to Afghanistan.

Seventeen Fight Back

The attention given to this issue has followed on a class action suit against the DoD, brought by 17 plaintiffs, including two men. Their case focuses on retaliations and harassment against those who report sexual assault, as well as on the military's failure to investigate and prosecute.

A high-profile film on the subject, The Invisible War, released at the Sundance Film Festival in June, features some of those who brought the case forward. Filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick say they have made a sustained effort to show the film to congressional members and leaders in the DoD.

The Wrap, a film magazine, reported, "Major General Mary Kay Hertog, who headed the military's sexual assault prevention and response office (SAPRO), and whose comments in the film position her as a defender of the status quo, has been removed from her position. 'I'm not going to gloat about it," producer Amy Ziering said. "But the timing is interesting.'"

The article argues for thinking about women's bodies differently, not simply as a small version of men's, and describes the advantages of the Army's investment in new technology. Lynn Hennessey, the designer of the new body armor, stated that it will ultimately make female soldiers "a lot more comfortable—but even more important, safer and more effective."

Soldier Issues

Major Kate Irish, a full-time soldier in the Vermont Air Guard, like the other women interviewed, feels that there are good resources in the Guard for women.

As issues come to light, she notes there is a concerted effort to address them. Inevitably it also comes to light that childcare, once considered a women's issue, is really a family issue.

"Women's issues equal soldiers' issues equal Guard issues," Irish said simply. "If a family has two military spouses, the impact is greater and, therefore, it is the Guard's business." She explained that a simple reaction can matter: "If a father comes to me and says he is taking some time off because of his kids, that's not as radical or odd as it once might have been. That can make a difference." In other words, the family responsibilities of both women and men in the service are acknowledged; the Guard's support of those responsibilities stems from its being a readiness issue, not exclusively a women's issue.

When Prof. Lea Williams leads a discussion of gender in her classes at Norwich, students often first treat it as a "been there, done that" topic. Williams, an associate professor of English at Norwich, specializes in War Literature and Gender Studies. She said that while students would initially shrug it off, and not think there was anything to discuss, "Once they get into the heart of the question, they realize it is still an issue for everyone. Not just women."

Williams is teaching a new literature class this semester entitled "Women and War," a course she designed specifically to address the issue. She said she has had little trouble finding enough materials to teach. "Enormous amounts of research and literature have been produced since the 1980s on the subject of gender studies," she said. Williams' "Women and War" class, includes students of both sexes and with interdisciplinary majors, who are highly engaged with the coursework. The texts—all written by women about war—focus on the themes of traumatic experience and gender's role in traumatic memory and the "remembering process."

Self-Definitions

Navy Lt. Blachford, who teaches ROTC students at Norwich, will leave the university in early winter for the next part of her career: training specifically to become a department head. Her next assignment will take her back to sea, training as a weapons officer. In December 2013, she will report to the cruiser, U.S.S. Leyte Gulf, where she will become a combat systems officer.

Blachford is part of that small minority of women, just 16 in every 100, on active duty in the Navy.  Ultimately, though, she realizes that her reason for joining the military has nothing to do with being a woman.

"The motivation is from my upbringing. I was a tomboy, raised by my father to believe that I was no different than males. I lived in a small town where daily life was an example of "service above self'" she said. "Coming from that background fits perfectly with being in the military."

Learn more

www.womensmemorial.org/Education/timeline.html

www.womensmemorial.org/PDFs/StatsonWIM.pdf

www.norwich.edu/about/history.html

Bringing It Home

In October, Norwich University sponsored a showing of the film, and director Kirby Dick was on campus for the screening. A professor with the Norwich School of Justice Studies and Sociology, Dr. Wendy Fuller, told Vermont Woman in an email that Dick had dinner with several students, staff and faculty, and stayed after the viewing to discuss the film and answer student questions.

He emailed Fuller afterward, "to say that it was the first time that he'd been in a room after a screening to talk, and there were more men than women listening and joining the conversation," said Fuller.  Dick felt this said a lot about Norwich and the caliber of our student body." To Fuller's knowledge, this was the first time the film has been shown at a military university.

Vivian Luna, equal opportunity and employee relations officer, and her assistant Caitlin Lundy, worked with Fuller and the administration to purchase the film, and support the director's visit to Norwich University. Fuller also said, "An underlying issue of sexual assault and gender discrimination remains the underrepresentation of women in our military and other arenas as well.

Consider the number of females in political positions, for example. Tokenism is problematic in general, and while the number of women serving is increasing, they still remain in the minority. 

"However, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that there is one, and this film, the work the DoD is beginning to do, and the way that our students have reacted to the material show that, once made aware of an issue, there is room for all kinds of positive change, both on the cultural as well as the structural level….Equality and respect aren't just issues for women, they are issues for everybody, and this seems to be a view that is thankfully becoming more widespread."