Military, Women Serving in

This entry focuses on the gradual expansion of women's roles in the regular armed forces of sovereign states since the middle of the 19th century and on the two principal factors that have governed this expansion: national need and, after World War II, national law.

Women have participated in military operations in all eras of history. A list of famous women warriors includes Artemisia, a naval commander who fought for Persia against Greece in the Battle of Salamis (480 BCE); Zenobia of Palmyra (modern Syria); and Boudica, Queen of the Iceni, in Britain, who led the people in uprisings against Roman occupation. Joan of Arc, at the head of the French Army, lifted the English siege of Orleans during the Hundred Years' War; and African warrior Queen Jinga kept the invading Portuguese at bay in the 17th century. Women were not only military commanders but foot soldiers, too. They served in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods and they fought in the Near East, in Europe, in Africa, in North and South America, and in Asia. And wherever there have been guerilla or irregular forces, there have been fighting women. In recent centuries, women's service was mostly informal. They came into camp or aboard ship with their husbands and worked as cooks, laundresses, and nurses. Their formal service in nation-state militaries began in the mid-19th century with an unmet national need.