From Camp Followers to Leaders: A Historical Evolution of the Role of Women in the Military
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51663/pnz.65.3.13Keywords:
armed forces, women in the armed forces, military history, history of labour, UNSC Resolution 1325Abstract
The article traces the historical development of women’s roles in the armed forces, emphasising their participation in various military tasks throughout human history. Originally, women were attached to armies on the march, accompanying soldiers and mainly performing support roles. In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, women’s roles in the military remained relatively unchanged, despite the occasional emergence of female military leaders. It was only in modern times that this began to shift. Initially, women were assigned formal roles within the military medical system, while later, they also took on support roles in combat. During World Wars I and II, women became an essential part of the military industry and organisation, and they started to participate directly in combat operations. The first exclusively female combat units were established. However, it was not until after World War II that women started to take on leadership roles within the armed forces.
References
Ailes, Mary Elizabeth. “Camp Followers, Sutlers, and Soldiers’ Wives: Women in Early Modern Armies (c. 1450–1650).” In A Companion to Women’s Military History, edited by Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining, 61–71. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004206823_004
Alfonso, Kristal L. M. Femme Fatale: An Examination of the Role of Women in Combat and the Policy Implications for Future American Military Operations. Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2009.
Allison, Penelope M. “Mapping for Gender: Interpreting Artefact Distribution inside 1st- and 2nd-Century A.D. Forts in Roman Germany.” Archaeological Dialogues 13, no. 1 (2006): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.10.17/S1380203806211851. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203806211851
Anderson, Morgan K., et al. “Effect of Mandatory Unit and Individual Physical Training on Fitness in Military Men and Women.” American Journal of Health Promotion 30, no. 2 (2016): 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0890117116666977. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0890117116666977
Baldwin, J. Norman. “Female Promotions in Male-Dominant Organizations: The Case of the United States Military.” Journal of Politics 58, no. 4 (1996): 1184–1197. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2960156
Bastick, Megan, and Claire Duncanson. “Agents of Change? Gender Advisors in NATO Militaries.” International Peacekeeping 25, no. 3 (2018): 345–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2018.1492876. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2018.1492876
Baumann, Julia, Charlotte Williamson, and Dominic Murphy. “Exploring the Impact of Gender-Specific Challenges during and after Military Service on Female UK Veterans.” Journal of Military, Veteran and Family Health 8, no. 2 (2022): 72–81. https://doi.org/10.3138/jmvfh-2021-0065. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3138/jmvfh-2021-0065
Belfiglio, Valentine J. “Women and the Ancient Roman Army.” Journal of Clinical Research and Case Studies 1, no. 1 (2023): 2–5.
Bergman, Beveryl P., and Simon A. St J. Miller. “Equal Opportunities, Equal Risks? Overuse Injuries in Female Military Recruits.” Journal of Public Health Medicine 23, no. 1 (2001): 35–39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/23.1.35
Bernik, Valerija. “Veteranke druge svetovne vojne.” Sodobni vojaški izzivi 19, no. 2 (2017): 71–87. https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.19.2.5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.19.2.5
Bernik, Valerija. “Ženske v slovenski partizanski vojski (1941–1945).” In Seksizem v vojaški uniformi, edited by Ljubica Jelušič and Mojca Pešec, 106–126. Ljubljana: Obramboslovni raziskovalni center, Generalštab Slovenske vojske, 2002.
Bolzenius, Sandra. “Asserting Citizenship: Black Women in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC).” International Journal of Military History and Historiography 39 (2019): 208–231. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/24683302-03902004
Booth, Bradford, and David R. Segal. “Bringing the Soldiers Back In: Implications of Inclusion of Military Personnel Market Research on Race, Class, and Gender.” Race, Gender & Class 12, no. 1 (2005): 34–57.
Booth, Bradford, William W. Falk, David R. Segal, and Mady Wechsler Segal. “The Impact of Military Presence in Local Labor Markets on the Employment of Women.” Gender & Society 14, no. 2 (2000): 318–332. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/089124300014002006
Brown, Melissa T. “‘A Woman in the Army Is Still a Woman’: Representations of Women in US Military Recruiting Advertisements for the All-Volunteer Force.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 33, no. 2 (2012): 151–175. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2012.667737
Brunet, Stephan. “Women with swords: Female gladiators in the Roman world.” In: Paul Cristesen and Donald G. Kyle, eds., A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 478–491. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118609965.ch32
Bruscino, Thomas A. “Palm Sunday Ambush, 20 March 2005.” In In Contact! Case Studies from the Long War: Volume I, edited by William G. Robertson, 59–82. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2003.
Caragea, Marius-Emanuel. “Modern Challenges to Military Management: UN Security Council Resolution 1325 ‘Women, Peace and Security.’” Management & Marketing 21, no. 2 (2023): 312–327. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52846/MNMK.21.2.09
Caroll, Luke. “Raising a Female-Centric Infantry Battalion: Do We Have the Nerve?” Australian Army Journal 11, no. 1 (2014): 40–55.
Chandler, Joan, Lyn Bryant, and Tracey Bunyard. “Women in Military Occupations.” Work, Employment & Society 9, no. 1 (1995): 123–135. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/095001709591005
Connell, Cati. A Few Good Gays: The Gendered Compromises behind Military Inclusion. Oakland: University of California Press, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520382701
Crang, Jeremy A. Sisters in Arms: Women in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139004190
de Groot, Gerard J. “Combatants or Non-Combatants? Women in Mixed Anti-Aircraft Batteries during the Second World War.” RUSI Journal 140, no. 6 (1995): 65–70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071849508445958
Dittmar, Sharon S., et al. “Images and Sensations of War: A Common History of Military Nursing.” Health Care for Women International 17, no. 1 (1996): 69–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/07399339609516221. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07399339609516221
Fieseler, Beate; M. Michaela Hampf; and Jutta Schwarzkopf. “Gendering Combat: Military Women’s Status in Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union during the Second World War.” Women’s Studies International Forum 47 (2014): 115–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2014.06.011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2014.06.011
Friðriksdóttir, Jóhanna Katrín. Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350137110
Fry, Helen. Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World Wars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300274530
Gersdorff, Ursula von. Frauen im Kriegsdienst, 1914–1945. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1969.
Golubović, Vidoje D. Dobrovoljka Milunka Savić: Srpska heroina. Beograd: Udruženje ratnih dobrovoljaca 1912-1918, njihovih potomaka i poštovalaca, 2013.
Hacker, Barton C. “Reformers, Nurses, and Ladies in Uniform: The Changing Status of Military Women (c. 1815–c. 1914).” In A Companion to Women’s Military History, edited by Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining, 137–141. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004206823_006
Hadley, Dawn M., et al. “The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army, AD 872–3, Torksey, Lincolnshire.” The Antiquaries Journal 96 (2016): 23–67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581516000718. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003581516000718
Head, Naomi. “‘Women Helping Women’: Deploying Gender in US Counterinsurgency Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Security Dialogue 55, no. 2 (2024): 153–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/09670106231203839. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/09670106231203839
Hess, Donabelle C. “Military Family Readiness: The Importance of Building Familial Resilience and Increasing Family Well-Being through Military Community Support and Services.” Sodobni vojaški izzivi 22, no. 2 (2020): 89–99. https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.22.2.5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.22.2.5
Ikuhiko, Hata. Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone. Lanham, Boulder, New York, and London: Hamilton Books, 2018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780761875246
Jelušič, Ljubica, Julija Jelušič Južnič, and Jelena Juvan. “The Relevance of Military Families for Military Organizations and Military Sociology.” Sodobni vojaški izzivi 22, no. 2 (2020): 51–67. https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.22.2.3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.22.2.3
Juvan, Jelena. “Usklajevanje delovnih in družinskih obveznosti v vojaški organizaciji.” Socialno delo 48, no. 4 (2009): 227–234.
Karazi-Presler, Tair, Orna Sasson-Levy, and Edna Lomsky-Feder. “Gender, Emotions Management, and Power in Organizations: The Case of Israeli Women Junior Military Officers.” Sex Roles 78, no. 7–8 (2018): 573–586. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0810-7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-017-0810-7
Kasearu, Kairi, et al. “Military Families in Estonia, Slovenia and Sweden: Similarities and Differences.” Sodobni vojaški izzivi 22, no. 2 (2020): 69–87. https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.22.2.4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.22.2.4
Kolbeck, Ben. “A Foot in Both Camps: The Civilian Suppliers of the Army in Roman Britain.” Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal 1, no. 1 (2018): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.16995/traj.355. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/traj.355
Krylova, Anna. Soviet Women in Combat: A History of Violence on the Eastern Front. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511762383
Kusmiyati, Nani, and Hady Efendy. “The Leadership of Women in Military on Military Organization.” International Journal of Human Resource Studies 7, no. 4 (2017): 165–174. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5296/ijhrs.v7i4.11911
Landsend Monsen, Ingunn Helene. Female integration in Jordan’s Special Forces – an empirical analysis of the project’s content and value for Norway and Jordan. Oslo: Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, 2025.
Lee, Janet. “Sisterhood at the Front: Friendship, Comradeship, and the Feminine Appropriation of Military Heroism among World War I First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY).” Women’s Studies International Forum 31, no. 1 (2008): 16–29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2007.11.005
Leonheart, Jamie. “Gender Perspectives for Operational Effectiveness: An Opportunity for U.S. Forces Japan and the Japan Self Defense Forces.” NIDS Commentary, no. 333 (2024).
Markwick, Roger D., and Euridice Charon Cardona. Soviet Women on the Frontline in the Second World War. Houndmills and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230362543
Martsenyuk, Tamara. “Women’s Participation in Defending Ukraine in Russia’s War.” Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal 8 (2022): 43–59.
Morden, Bettie J. The Women’s Army Corps, 1945–1978. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 1990.
Nowaki, Rochelle. “Nachthexen: Soviet Female Pilots in WWII.” Hohonu 13 (2015): 56–62.
Pryor, John B. “The Psychological Impact of Sexual Harassment on Women in the U.S. Military.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 17, no. 4 (1995): 581–603. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1704_9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1704_9
Raffield, Ben, Neil Price, and Mark Collard. “Polygyny, Concubinage, and the Social Lives of Women in Viking-Age Scandinavia.” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 13 (2017): 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.5.114355. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1484/J.VMS.5.114355
Roche, Rosellen, et al. “The Unseen Patriot: Female Cultural Support Team Members and Combat Definition.” Journal of Veterans Studies 7, no. 1 (2021): 271–279. https://doi.org/10.21061/jvs.v7i1.285.
Skylitzes, John. A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511779657
Sorokina, T. S. “Russian Nursing in the Crimean War.” Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London 29, no. 1 (1995): 57–63. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0035-8819(25)00662-2
Strobl, Ingrid. Partisanas: Women in the Armed Resistance to Fascism and German Occupation (1936–1945). Edinburgh and Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2008.
Tkavc, Suzana. “Some of the Best Practices in Gender Perspective and the Implementation of UNSCR 1325 in the 25 Years of Slovenian Armed Forces.” Sodobni vojaški izzivi 18, no. 3 (2016): 45–63. https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.18.3.5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.18.3.5
Tunc, Ugurgul. “Lessons from the Crimean War: How Hospitals Were Transformed by Florence Nightingale and Others.” Infectious Diseases & Clinical Microbiology 1, no. 2 (2019): 110–118. https://doi.org/10.36519/idcm.2019.19020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36519/idcm.2019.19020
Valetina Dean, “Kurdish Female Fighters: The Western Depiction of YPJ Combatants in Rojava,” Globalism, Nr. 1 (2019): 1-29, DOI: 10.12893/gjcpi.2019.1.7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12893/gjcpi.2019.1.7
Vining, Margaret, and Barton C. Hacker. “From Camp Follower to Lady in Uniform: Women, Social Class and Military Institutions before 1920.” Contemporary European History 10, no. 3 (2001): 353–373. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777301003022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777301003022
Vuk, Pavel, and Saša Galičič. “Socialna diverziteta v luči inkluzivnosti istospolno usmerjenih pripadnic in pripadnikov v slovenski vojski.” Teorija in praksa 59, no. 2 (2022): 568–588. DOI: https://doi.org/10.51936/tip.59.2.568-588
Vuk, Pavel. “The Slovenian Armed Forces Faces the Challenge of Inclusion of Their Homosexual Members.” Journal of Homosexuality 71, no. 5 (2024): 1231–1252. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2023.2169088. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2023.2169088
Webster, Graham. Boudica: The British Revolt against Rome AD 60. London: B. T. Batsford, 1993.
Wintjes, Jorit. “’Keep the Women Out of the Camp!’ Women and Military Institutions in the Classical World.” In A Companion to Women’s Military History, edited by Barton C. Hacker and Margaret Vining, 21–30. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004206823_003
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Klemen Kocjančič
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
