Women in Combat

Alexandria Taylor Esquivel
Professor E. Perez Romero
Philosophy 8
4 June 2014
Should Women Serve in Combat?
            Whether women should serve in combat has been up for debate for many years.   Feminist and equal rights activists argue that women should be allowed to serve in combat, but there are many military and government officials as well as American citizens who feel differently (America’s Military 1).   Some argue that women should not be allowed to serve in combat, although women have served during wartime in roles that have exposed them to combat, death, and capture since the American Revolution (Women’s Memorial: Casualty 1-3; Women’s Memorial: POW’s 1-2).   Women have been serving in combat for years and are capable of doing so without affecting the cohesiveness or combat readiness of the units in which they serve.
            Women performed duties of nurses, cooks, and even spies on the battlefield during the American Revolution.   They even dressed up like men and served on the front line during the Revolutionary War and Civil War (Adeboyejo 7). Only after Deborah Sampson became ill and became hospitalized was it revealed that she was a woman.   She served for three years as Robert Shutliff with the 4th Massachusetts Regiment before being discovered (Blankenship 12).   Over the years, women’s jobs in the military have changed.   They now serve in more significant roles such as guards, truck drivers, machine gun operators, pilots and crew members of jets and helicopters, all of which put them in combat zones although these jobs are considered combat support (Campbell 44).
            On October 1, 1994, the defense department opened up more jobs for women.   They emphasized that no job will be closed to women just because it is dangerous, but their policy falls short of giving women jobs involving direct ground combat (Women 2).   The definition of combat involves operating offensive, line-of-sight weapons, in addition to all positions involving...