For women, battlefield airmen jobs remain a distant target five years after integration
Rachel Cohen
June 7 at 2:41 AM
More than five years after the Defense Department lifted its ban on women in ground combat roles, the Air Force hasn’t managed to move the needle on female representation in the remaining all-male career fields.
The Pentagon in 2013 began the process of allowing women into ground combat assignments in special operations and long-range reconnaissance units, including nearly 5,000 Air Force positions that had been closed to female airmen. Those jobs spanned special tactics officers, combat rescue officers, enlisted special reconnaissance airmen, combat controllers, enlisted tactical air control party airmen and pararescuemen.
“The Air Force is firm in its belief that removing any remaining restrictions to service will improve its ability to defend the nation and carry out our mission to fly, fight and win,” then-Air Force Secretary Michael Donley wrote in a 2013 memo. “The Air Force will lean forward on this initiative.”
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2021/06/07/for-women-battlefield-airmen-jobs-remain-a-distant-target-five-years-after-integration/
