Women in the military
Women have been serving in the military since the inception of organized warfare, in both combat and non-combat roles. Their inclusion in combat missions has increased in recent decades, often serving as pilots, mechanics, and infantry officers.
Since 1914, women have been conscripted in greater numbers, filling a greater variety of roles in Western militaries. In the 1970s, most Western armies began allowing women to serve on active duty in all military branches.
As of 2025, twelve countries conscript women into military service. Of these countries, only four conscript women and men on the same formal conditions: Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. A few other countries have laws allowing for the conscription of women into their armed forces, though with some differences such as service exemptions, length of service, and more.
History by war
World War I
Russia
is the only nation to deploy female combat troops in substantial numbers. Historically, female recruits either joined the military in disguise or were tacitly accepted by their units. Perhaps the most prominent was a contingent of front-line light cavalry in a Cossack regiment commanded from 1915 to 1917 by a female colonel, Alexandra Kudasheva. This cavalry regiment fought in WWI and also during the Russian Revolution and may have been the first gender-integrated regiment in Russian history. She was also noted for her endurance riding feats.Others included Maria Bochkareva, who was decorated three times and promoted to senior NCO rank, while The New York Times reported that a group of twelve schoolgirls from Moscow had enlisted together disguised as young men. In 1917, the Provisional Government raised a number of "Women's Battalions", with Maria Bochkareva given an officer's commission in command. They were disbanded before the end of the year. In the later Russian Civil War, they fought both for the Bolsheviks and the White Guard. Natalie Tychmini was a Russian woman who disguised herself as a man in order to fight. She received the Cross of St. George for fighting the Austrians in Opatów in 1915. Her sex was discovered when she was wounded, and she was sent back to Kiev.
Others
In Serbia, some women played key military roles. Scottish doctor Elsie Ingles coordinated a retreat of approximately 8,000 Serbian troops through Romania and revolutionary Russia, up to Scandinavia, and finally onto transport ships back to England. Milunka Savić enlisted in the Serbian army in place of her brother. She fought throughout the war, becoming one of the most decorated women in military history.In 1917, Loretta Walsh became the first woman in the United States to enlist openly as a woman. In the 1918 Finnish Civil War, more than 2,000 women fought in the Women's Red Guards.
Spanish Civil War
During the Spanish Civil War, thousands of women fought in mixed-gender combat and rearguard units, or as part of militias.Second Sino-Japanese War
Several women's battalions were established in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. These included the Guangxi Women's Battalion, the Yunnan Women's Battlefield Service Unit, Zhejiang Women's Guerrilla Band, Hunan War Service Corps, and others.World War II
All the major participating nations in World War II enlisted women. The majority served in nursing and clerical or support roles. More than 500,000 women had combat roles in anti-aircraft units in Britain and Germany, as well as front-line units in the Soviet Union.Soviet Union
In most countries during the Second World War women tended to serve mostly in administrative, medical and in auxiliary roles. But in the Soviet Union women fought also in front line roles. More than 800,000 women served in the Soviet armed forces in World War II, mostly as medics and nurses, which is more than 3 percent of total personnel; nearly 200,000 of them were decorated. 89 of them eventually received the Soviet Union’s highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union, they served as pilots, snipers, machine gunners, tank crew members and partisans, as well as in auxiliary roles. Few of these women, however, were promoted to officers.United States
During World War II, more than 350,000 women served in the United States Armed Forces as members of the Army's Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, the Navy's WAVES and the Marine Corps' Women's Reserve. Of these, 432 were killed and 88 were taken prisoner.During the war, many Japanese-American women lost their jobs because they were sent to relocation camps. Despite this, many of them volunteered to serve in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. These women were subject to racism as well as sexism when they joined WAAC; despite this, they made significant contributions to the war effort. Many women were hired as interpreters, translators, and interrogators in the Military Intelligence Service.
India
In 1942, the Indian National Army established Rani of Jhansi Regiment, India's first all-women regiment to fight for Indian independence under the leadership of Subash Chandra Bose, with Japanese assistance. It is estimated that more than 1,000 women served in the regiment.United Kingdom
In 1938, the British established uniformed services for women. In late 1941, Britain began conscripting women, sending most into factories and some into the military, especially the Auxiliary Territorial Service attached to the army. The ATS began as a women's auxiliary in 1938. In 1941, the ATS was granted military status, although women received only two-thirds of male pay. Women had a well-publicized role in handling anti-aircraft guns against German planes and V-1 missiles. Prime Minister Winston Churchill's daughter was there, and he said that any general who saved him 40,000 fighting men had gained the equivalent of a victory. By August 1941, women were operating fire-control instruments; although they were never allowed to pull the trigger, since killing the enemy was considered too masculine. By 1943, 56,000 women were in Anti-Aircraft Command, mostly in units close to London where they faced a risk of death, but not of capture. The first death of a woman in Anti-Aircraft Command occurred in April 1942.Germany
had similar roles for women. The SS-Helferinnen were regarded as part of the SS if they had undergone training at a Reichsschule SS. All other female workers were contracted to the SS and chosen largely from concentration camps. Women served in auxiliary units in the navy, air force and army.File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B22251, DRK-Schwester mit EK II.jpg|thumb|180px|right|Second woman to win the Iron Cross, nurse Elfriede Wnuk
In 1944-45 roughly 500,000 women were volunteer uniformed auxiliaries in the German armed forces. Approximately the same number served in civil aerial defense. 400,000 volunteered as nurses and many more replaced drafted men in the wartime economy. In the Luftwaffe, women served in combat roles helping to operate anti-aircraft systems to shoot down Allied bombers. By 1945, German women held 85% of the billets as clerics, accountants, interpreters, laboratory workers and administrative workers, together with half of the clerical and junior administrative posts in high-level field headquarters.
The German nursing service consisted of four main organizations: one for Catholics, one for Protestants, the secular DRK, and the "Brown Nurses" for committed Nazi women. Military nursing was primarily handled by the DRK, which came under partial Nazi control. Front line medical services were provided by male medics and doctors. Red Cross nurses served widely within the military medical services, staffing the hospitals close to the front lines and at risk of attack. Two dozen nurses were awarded the Iron Cross for heroism under fire. Brown Nurses were forced to look away while their incapacitated patients were murdered by war criminals.
Hundreds of women auxiliaries served in the SS in the camps, the majority of which were at Ravensbrück. Members of the SS-Gefolge were civilians who served the SS but were not formally a part of the SS.
On the home front, women were increasingly mobilized for war production as the war turned against the Nazis. Nazi ideology had sought to exclude women from public life outside of "Kinder, Küche, Kirche", but labour shortages made this untenable, in spite of the widespread use of slave labour. Nazi policies encouraged reproduction by women belonging to the putative "Aryan race", with the goal of producing future workers and soldiers for the Volksgemeinschaft.
Women also fought in the Volkssturm near the end of World War Two. Girls as young as 14 years were trained in the use of small arms, panzerfaust, machine guns, and hand grenades from December 1944 through May 1945.