Combat, Women in

Historical Review

Historically, women have played an active part in military forces during wars and battles. Many historians, anthropologists, and researchers, both feminist and nonfeminist, have in recent years dedicated their time to trying to establish the extent of women's involvement in wars and combat. While many of the stories about women warriors tended to be interpreted as fictional myths, some of the findings differ. Using the archaeological evidence from the excavation site for Iron Age in the Eurasian steppes and analyzing remains of female warriors and their association with weaponry in graves, Davis-Kimball corroborated Herodotus's accounts of the existence of female warriors among Eurasian nomadic tribes and the myth of the Amazon. The second documented site concerning women warriors relates to the historical sources pointing to professional women soldiers of the Kingdom of Dahomey in Benin, West Africa, who became the elite force of Dahomey's professional standing army during the 18th and 19th centuries. Furthermore, the documents show that in 19th-century China during the Taiping Rebellion, women served and fought in the rebels’ Taiping Heavenly Army. Also reported are all-women fighting units that protected the kings in ancient Persia, India, and several south Asian countries and that fought in the Danish army against Spain in the 16th century and in the Congolese army in the 17th century.

Moreover, throughout history, women joined armies as individual fighters. The most known women individual fighters are women military leaders such as Joan of Arc, who in the 15th century led the French army into several significant victories against English; the Vietnamese Trung sisters, who led the first national uprising against the Chinese in 40 C.E.; and African warrior queen Nzinga of Matamba, who ruled Angola [Page 311]in the 17th century and led the male army in the wars against the Portuguese. Also, women joined the battles, often disguised as men. As pointed out by Goldstein, while the history books only document women whose gender was discovered, this number is significant and indicates that this occurrence was not so rare. Thanks to Disney's film adaptation in 1998, probably the best-known story about the woman who disguised herself as man to join the battle is the Chinese story of Mulan. Moreover, historical documents from the U.S. Civil War list a significant number of women who fought disguised as men.

Women were excluded from combat and prevented from voluntarily handling lethal weapons in the Western militaries for a significant part of the 20th century.

In more recent history women, were excluded from combat and prevented from voluntarily handling lethal weapons in the Western militaries for a significant part of the 20th century (i.e., in the British army in World War II, women were allowed to join the Home Guard or Auxiliary Territorial Services but were not allowed to learn how to fire weapons or anti-aircraft guns). However, women have participated in combat in armies in other parts of the world. In World War I in Russia, the “Battalion of Death” composed of several hundred women was led by Maria Botchkareva against the Germans. In Poland, on the eastern front, the Women's Volunteer League engaged in combat after receiving official approval by the high command of the Polish military desperate for army personnel. During the Spanish Civil War, women were actively engaged in resistance against Franco. In World War II, the Soviet Union started recruiting women in 1942 when it faced manpower shortages. However, women participated mainly as medical staff in anti-aircraft units and air forces and were engaged in ground combat only when they were caught in the fire. During World War II, the partisan formations of many countries included women in their units, and in some, women participated in combat, primarily in Italy, France, and Greece. Probably the most represented [Page 312]among women partisans were women in the National Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, a country where tradition allowed women some fighting roles. While many were involved in combat support, especially as medical staff, a significant number engaged in direct combat. Also, in China, women fought in the 1930s and 1940s against the Japanese army in the Sino-Japanese War and in both nationalist and communist formations during the Chinese Civil War.

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