Yet, gender roles are being broken every day: women work in factories, in medicine, and they have run for president and have become CEOs. In our Latter-Day Saint community, we have watched as an equal number of females as males have flocked to the Missionary Training Centers worldwide, dissolving the stereotype that only men serve missions.
However, when Congress allowed women into direct combat, they received a great negative backlash against the idea. Why is this stereotype so hard to break? Shouldn't females have the same chance to obtain leadership roles and have the same positions and oportunities as men in the military?
We are a group of curious and concerned BYU students, looking to research and enlighten ourselves about women in combat and other subfields that deal with the controversies within the topic.
Being informed about current controversial issues is very important. As young adults we are the future of this nation, and if we chose to be ignorant about the world around us then we will subsequently bring our country to its downfall.
Eliza Westergard, a freshman from Massachusetts, focused on the chemical and physical differences between male and female brains in her article "Do the Chemicals Make a Difference?", and how these differences in mindset could affect military strategy.
Katie Slinn, a freshman with a brother currently serving in the U.S. Air Force in Dubai, explored if women should be added to the draft and how this reflects gender equality in the post "Supporting Selective Service".
Nathaniel Norman, a Californian freshman, wrote "Women may be a Potential Hazard", and reflected on the problems that could arise - for individual women and the military unit as a whole - from women being allowed in combat.
