Blake Hall
The Air Force. The Marine Corps. The Army. The Army National Guard.
The military careers and experiences of the seven women in Refinery29‘s interview piece cover the breadth of the United States Armed Forces. Each has a fascinating story to tell about how they ended up serving, what they did when they served, and what civilian life is like for them afterwards.
Here’s a snippet of the introduction that sets up each individual veteran’s tale and talks about the seismic shift within the military that seems to be changing the roles of women service members everyday now:
The military’s own attitudes towards women are undergoing some of the biggest shifts in its history: In 2013, then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rescinded a 1994 rule banning women from serving in combat roles, and since then each branch has begun a slow move to integration. Around 95% of military jobs are now open to women. Just this February, the first group of women graduated from Army Ranger training, a bootcamp notorious for being among the service’s most physically demanding.
Women in uniform still face a unique and harrowing set of challenges: Sexual assault and harassment still occur at epidemic levels, with 20,000 reported incidents of “unwanted sexual contact” in 2014 alone. Moreover, A recent study by The New York Times found two-thirds of women who reported an assault said they’d been retaliated against. When they return home, they face the added difficulties of re-integration: dealing with injuries, trauma, navigating healthcare at the VA, and re-entering the economy.
To read the piece in its entirety, simply click here.
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