Do women in uniform view the wisdom of this nation’s recent wars differently than their male counterparts? You bet – at least according to a Pew Research Center study released Thursday that slices-and-dices women in uniform every which way.
There’s a lot more of them, too:
From 1973 to 2010 the number of active-duty enlisted women in the military has grown from about 42,000 to 167,000. Over that same period, the enlisted force as a whole has seen a decrease of about 738,000 service members.
“Without the introduction of women in the 1970s,” Richard Kohn, the Air Force’s former top historian, told Battleland recently, “the all-volunteer force never would have made it.” While there’s lot of fascinating insights into women in the military in the report, here are some of the most interesting nuggets:
– 63% of post-9/11 female vets believe the Iraq war was not worth fighting. Only 47% of men felt the same.
– 54% of post-9/11 female vets feel the Afghan war was not worth fighting. Only 39% of men feel that way.
– 30% of women in uniform fill administrative jobs, compared to 12% of men.
– 3% of women in uniform are in “infantry, gun crews and seamanship” billets; 19% of men are.
– 17% of the women in uniform are officers; only 15% of men are.
