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Women in warfare and the military (1945–1999)

This list is about women in warfare and the military from 1945 to 1999, worldwide.

For the United States specifically, see Timeline of women in warfare in the United States from 1950 to 1999. Also see Women in the Vietnam War.

1945–1949

1950s

1960s

  • 1960: Margaret George Shello is commonly believed to have been the first female Peshmerga; she joined the Peshmerga in 1960.
  • 1961: Josephine Okwuekeleke Tolefe was the first female Commissioned Officer in the Nigerian Army; she was granted Short Service Commission on February 7, 1961, in the rank of Second Lieutenant with seniority in the rank with effect from same date.
  • 1961–1964: Phung Le Ly fights for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, an experience she chronicles in her memoir When Heaven and Earth Changed Places.
  • 1963: Josephine Okwuekeleke Tolefe became the first woman to attain the rank of an Army Captain in Nigeria, which she attained on June 1, 1963.
  • 1965: The government decided to let women be employed in the Canadian military with a fixed ceiling of 1,500 (which was 1.5% of the military at that time.)
  • 1967: Dilma Rousseff fights as a guerrilla in Brazil. She later became Brazil's first female president.
  • August 31, 1967: Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, alias Tania the Guerrilla, communist revolutionary, is killed battling Bolivian soldiers.
  • 1969: Annapurna Kunwar became the first female officer in the Nepali Army to para jump.

1970s

1980s

  • 1981: 2nd Lieut. Inge Plug becomes the first female helicopter pilot in the Canadian military.
  • 1981: Lieut. Karen McCrimmon becomes the Canadian Forces' first female air navigator.
  • 1985: Women have been allowed into almost all operational functions of Norway's Armed Forces since 1985. The exceptions are the para-rangers and marine commandos, because as of 2011 no woman has met the entry requirements.
  • 1985: The Women's Royal Australian Naval Service was completely integrated into the Royal Australian Navy.
  • 1986: Rebecca Mpagi joined the National Resistance Army; she was the first Ugandan woman to join the army as a military pilot.
  • 1986–1987: Alice Auma leads a rebellion against Ugandan government forces.
  • 1987: The first two female Royal Australian Air Force pilots enlisted: Robyn Williams and Deborah Hicks.
  • 1988: Col. Sheila A. Hellstrom is the first female graduate of National Defence College in Canada. She becomes the first Canadian Regular Force woman to be promoted to the rank of brigadier-general.
  • 1988: First female gunners in the Canadian Regular Force graduate from qualification 3 training.
  • January 19, 1989: Canadian Forces soldier Heather Erxleben becomes the first female to graduate from a Regular Force infantry trades training course.
  • 1989: Maj. Dee Brasseur became the first Canadian female fighter pilot of a CF-18 Hornet.
  • 1989: The Canadian Human Rights Commission ruled that all obstacles to women's access to any military job must be removed, except for service aboard submarines and Catholic chaplains.
  • 1989: Lorraine Francis Orthlieb became the first woman in the Canadian military to reach Commodore.
  • Late 1980s: Latifa and Lailuma Nabizada become the first female graduates of the Afghan Airforce Academy. Lailuma eventually died in childbirth, making Latifa the first female pilot in Afghan history.

1990s

  • Early 1990s: Jo Salter becomes the Royal Air Force's first female fighter pilot.
  • 1991: becomes the first Canadian mixed-gender warship to participate in exercises with NATO's Standing Naval Forces Atlantic.
  • 1991: Lieut. Anne Reiffenstein (née Proctor), Lieut. Holly Brown and Capt. Linda Shrum graduate from artillery training as the first female officers in the combat arms in Canada.
  • 1992: On July 13, 1992, 22 women began their naval training at INS Mandovi in Goa to become the first commissioned officers in the Indian defence forces. Prior to 1992, the Indian Navy enlisted women only in the role of doctor.
  • 1992: Marlene Shillingford became the first woman to join the Snowbirds team in the Canadian military.
  • 1992: The Australia government declared women could serve in all Army, Navy and Air Force units, except direct combat units.
  • 1993: Lieut. (N) Leanne Crowe is the first woman in Canada to qualify as a clearance diving officer and is subsequently the first woman to become Officer Commanding of the Experimental Diving Unit.
  • January 1, 1994: Comandanta Ramona, an officer of Zapatista Army of National Liberation, takes control of San Cristóbal de las Casas, a Mexican city.
  • 1994: The Military University of Mongolia begins recruiting female cadets in 1994. Bolor Ganbold is the first female cadet to be recruited.
  • 1994: Maj.-Gen. Wendy Clay becomes the first woman in Canada promoted to that rank.
  • 1994: Women officers have been allowed to do Short Service Commission in the Indian Air Force since 1994.
  • 1995: Chief Warrant Officer Linda Smith is the first woman to be named Wing Chief Warrant Officer in the Canadian Forces, at 17 Wing Winnipeg.
  • 1995: Chief Petty Officer, 2nd Class Holly Kisbee becomes the first woman Combat Chief of a major warship in Canada.
  • 1995: Maj. Micky Colton becomes the first female pilot in Canada to complete 10,000 flying hours in a Hercules aircraft.
  • 1995: A Norwegian woman, Solveig Krey, became the first female commanding officer of a submarine in the world when she took command of the first Kobben-class submarine on September 11, 1995.
  • 1995: Lieut. Ruth-Ann Shamuhn of 5 Combat Engineer Regiment becomes the first female combat diver in Canada.
  • 1995: The Royal Norwegian Navy became the first navy in the world to appoint a female submarine captain.
  • 1996: Law 26628 was adopted in 1996 in Peru. This law opened the Armed Forces’ training schools for officers and noncommissioned officers to women.
  • 1996: Wafa Dabbagh became the first Canadian Armed Forces member to wear a hijab.
  • 1997: The first woman officers to be posted on board a warship in the Indian navy were Surgeon Commander Vinita Tomar and Sub Lieutenant Rajeshwari Kori, who in 1997 were posted on INS Jyoti, a fleet support vessel.
  • 1997: Pyeon Bo-ra, Jang Se-jin, and Park Ji-yeon became the first women to enter South Korea's Air Force Academy, and as such were called the "first female red mufflers".
  • 1998: The Australian Navy became the second nation to allow women to serve on combat submarines. Canada and Spain followed in permitting women to serve on military submarines.
  • 1998: A woman became the first female commanding officer of a naval shore establishment in the Australian military.
  • 1998: Brigadier Patricia Purves becomes the first British one-star general selected in open competition across the British Army. (The Women's Royal Army Corps, disbanded in 1992, had a 'tied' brigadier appointment.)
  • 1998: Although women had served as pilots during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and a few years thereafter, the Israel Defense Forces had until 1995 denied women the opportunity to become pilots. After the prohibition was lifted, the first female graduate was F-16 navigator "Shari" in 1998.
  • January 1999: Indonesian woman Cut Syamsurniati successfully leads a group of women to negotiate with the military when her village is attacked.
  • 1999: Arlene dela Cruz became the first woman to graduate at the top of her class at the Philippine Military Academy.
  • 1999: Australia obtained its first female Navy pilot.

See also

References

Further reading

  • Campbell, DAnn, and Karen Hagemann. "Post-1945 Western Militaries, Female Soldiers and Gay and Lesbian Rights" in The Oxford Handbook of Gender, War, and the Western World since 1600 (2020).
  • Carreiras, Helena. Gender and the military: Women in the armed forces of western democracies (Routledge, 2006).
  • Herbert, Melissa S. "Feminism, militarism, and attitudes toward the role of women in the military." Feminist Issues 14.2 (1994): 25–48.
  • Kennedy‐Pipe, Caroline. "Women and the Military." Journal of strategic studies 23.4 (2000): 32–50.

External links