Politics

Secretary of Defense Set to Lift Ban on Women in Combat Roles

It’s been a rough week: we have witnessed our nation be torn apart by Beyoncé’s inaugural beytrayal, publishers have turned The Bell Jar into Sylvia Plath Jones’s Diary, and science said that high school left us more ruined than a society gal who gave her delicate maidenhood to a freewheeling townie. Much like Hillary, we were not having it. Yet there appears to be some light at the end of this hellishly cold tunnel — according to NPR, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is lifting the 1994 rule that bars female soldiers from front-line positions. The move was recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and will be the largest expansion yet of women in ground combat roles.

Carey Lohrenz, a former Navy Lieutenant and one of the first women to fly F-14s on air craft carriers, called the news “fantastic.” While women have been serving in combat roles underneath the ban, their efforts were unrecognized and they were passed over for promotions. In a lawsuit against the Pentagon and Panetta over the exclusionary policy, the ACLU reported that the ban kept servicewomen from more than 200,000 positions. Panetta is expected to announce the new policy alongside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today. The military will have until January 2016 to complete their assessments of the change and integrate women as much as possible. Does this mean that we’ll finally get the G.I Jane sequel that we’ve been dreaming of? Man, we hope so.

[Via The Frisky]

TAGS: Leon Panetta | the Pentagon | women in combat

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