Military Positions in United States

 Since America became a country, it has been a patriarchy, which means it is a country run predominantly by men with little to no equality for women. This makes it difficult for women to be treated with respect, especially when it comes to defending our country. Women are not treated as equals to men and are mostly expected to take care of men and their children. It has long been expected of women to be nothing more than housewives and child bearers. In most major wars, women were not allowed to engage in combat and could only serve as nurses or desk clerks. Due to this history, we still practice some of the same values; however, women are trying to break these expectations and are trying to gain the same respect that is freely given to men. Another reason this is considered a social problem is because women are judged more harshly than men for leaving their children behind when they get deployed. This alludes to the ideal that children cannot survive without their mothers; because of this, women are expected to devote their lives to motherhood as opposed to serving their country.

There are many solutions to this problem, starting with creating more military positions specific to women, since there are already jobs that only men are allowed to do. Another solution would be to make the requirements for men and women to join equal. For the height and weight ranges, women have much easier physical requirements than men to get into the first stages. For example, a man may have to do 56 sit ups to join the Army while a woman of the same height and weight would only have to do 43 sit ups. Women would have the opportunity to easily participate in combat if they were provided with easier access to vital medications (for example, birth control to correct hormonal imbalances or stop menstrual cycles) in war zones, similar to how men are sent pain killers. According to Leslie Nemo from the New York Times, recent studies indicate that some active-duty women struggle to receive birth control pills and [long acting reversible contraceptives].

In order to fix this problem, sociologists believe that military positions need to be made more equal all around. Sociologist Orna Sasson-Levy suggests that, For the army to be equal, we need to see more men as clerks and teachers, and more women as combatants. This would create equality across the spectrum instead of just finding new jobs for women and it would level the playing field. It would also help to neutralize the idea of gender-specific jobs.

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