ABSTRACT
In January 2016, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter announced that, following three years of study, the Department of Defense was opening all military positions to women. The announcement marked the end of a long, gradual, and halting process of integrating women into the US military. By the early twenty-first century, military policy held that women could serve in all occupational specialties with the exception of units below the brigade level whose primary mission was direct ground combat. Secretary Carter explained the decision to integrate women into all military positions as a matter of national security. The removal of restrictions on women's combat service promises to spark significant cultural change in the armed forces. Scholars' attention to gender has proven especially insightful in illuminating the ways in which notions of martial masculinity have changed over time and been contingent upon a variety of ideological, cultural, social, and military factors.
