The role of women in the military has evolved from the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948— which afforded women the opportunity to serve in the military services—to January 2013, when the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the services to open closed units and positions to women by January 1, 2016. Figure 1 provides details about changes in military service opportunities for women. In January 1994, the Secretary of Defense issued the Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule, which allowed women to be assigned to almost all positions, but excluded women from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission was to engage in direct ground combat. The memorandum establishing the 1994 rule also permitted restrictions on assignment of women in four other instances where: (1) the service secretary attests that the costs of appropriate berthing and privacy arrangements are prohibitive; (2) the units and positions are doctrinally required to physically collocate and remain with direct ground-combat units that are closed to women; (3) the units are engaged in long-range reconnaissance operations and special operations forces missions; and (4) job-related physical requirements would necessarily exclude the vast majority of women service members. The memorandum also permitted the services to propose further restrictions on the assignment of women, together with justification for those proposed restrictions. In 2012, DOD issued a report to Congress reviewing the laws, policies, and regulations restricting the service of female members in the armed forces. In this report, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rescinded the co-location assignment restriction that had allowed the military services to prohibit the assignment of women to units and positions physically collocated with direct ground-combat units.department’s intent to open positions and occupations that had been closed under this restriction. Specifically, the Army opened 6 enlisted occupations (9,925 positions) and 3,214 positions in 80 units that had been closed to women based on the co-location restriction. Additionally, The report also contained notifications to Congress of the the Army, Marine Corps, and Navy requested exceptions to policy and DOD notified Congress of its intent to open positions and occupations at the battalion level within active-duty direct combat units to inform future recommendations on other positions with the potential to be opened in the future. In its report, DOD explained that the experience gained by assigning women to these positions would help the department assess the suitability and relevance of the direct ground-combat prohibition and inform future policy decisions. In July 2013, DOD issued a subsequent report to Congress that discussed the department’s implementation of these February 2012 policy changes, the services’ progress regarding elimination of gender- restrictive policy, and the rescission of the ground-combat assignment This report also included the total number of positions open and rule.closed to women in each of the military services. At the time, the Navy and the Air Force had the most positions open to women (91 and 99 percent, respectively), while the Army and the Marine Corps had fewer open positions (68 and 69 percent, respectively). SOCOM also stated that in July 2013, around 46 percent of its positions were open to women. Figure 2 generally illustrates the process used to implement the Secretary’s direction to open positions and occupations that have been closed to women. The military services traditionally have established two types of physical performance requirements. First, the military services have established general physical fitness standards to promote overall health and physical fitness among military personnel. These fitness standards apply to active and reserve servicemembers regardless of occupation and are not required by statute to be gender neutral. These standards are not intended to ensure performance in a particular occupation. Second, the services set job-specific physical performance standards to ensure that servicemembers are capable of performing the particular jobs to which they have been assigned. These job-specific standards refer to occupation-specific criteria that applicants must meet to enter or remain in a particular career field or specialty, and by statute these occupational performance standards must be gender neutral. The military services and SOCOM have opened selected positions and occupations to women since January 2013, and are in the process of determining whether to open the remaining direct ground-combat positions and occupations. As an alternative to opening a position or occupation, the Secretary of Defense permitted the services to recommend an exception to policy to keep positions or occupations closed to women; to date, the Navy is the only service to have recommended an exception to policy. The services are also conducting studies to identify integration challenges and ways to mitigate these challenges in areas such as unit cohesion, women’s health, equipment, facilities (e.g., separate restrooms and sleeping quarters), women’s interest in serving in ground-combat positions, and international issues. We also examined the issue of sexual assault and harassment in the integration process. In response to the January 2013 memorandum, most of the services— except for the Air Force—and SOCOM have opened selected positions and occupations, and the openings to date largely involve closed positions in open occupations.departments to submit detailed plans by May 15, 2013, to implement this direction to open closed positions to women, and required the implementation plans to be consistent with a set of guiding principles, goals, and milestones for the integration process. The memorandum also required the military departments to submit quarterly progress reports on The memorandum directed the military implementation.implementation plans, including goals and milestones, which were subsequently reviewed by the Secretary of Defense in May 2013. The services and SOCOM also provided quarterly progress reports on their efforts to open closed positions and occupations to women, starting with the third quarter of fiscal year 2013. In July 2014, OUSD(P&R) granted a request by the Joint Chiefs to change the progress report cycle from quarterly to biannual. However, an OUSD(P&R) official stated that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff continued to receive quarterly updates, and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness continued to provide the Secretary of Defense with verbal quarterly updates. All four services and SOCOM developed As of March 2015, the services have opened positions and occupations to women as shown in table 1. The services are working on integration plans for these positions and occupations that have been opened to women. For example, the Army is actively recruiting women to fill recently opened positions across the force, in order to place the best qualified soldiers, regardless of gender, in positions. Further, the Navy is expanding assignment opportunities for enlisted women to specific submarine classes and is participating in surveys and questionnaires to assess integration success and gather lessons learned. At the time of this report, the services and SOCOM were in the process of determining whether to open the remaining closed positions and occupations, and the timeframe for many of these recommendations was postponed until September 2015. As of March 2015, the positions and occupations that remain closed to women are shown in table 2. As of April 2015, all of the military services and SOCOM were working on efforts, such as the standards validation studies discussed below, to inform their recommendations on whether to open the remaining closed positions and occupations to women. The services’ implementation plans included timelines for making recommendations on whether to open positions and occupations to women or to request exceptions to keep positions or occupations closed. Initially, these timelines were established independently by each service and different services were scheduled to make recommendations about similar occupations at different times. For example, the Army was scheduled to make its recommendation about armor occupations in July 2015, while the Marine Corps was scheduled to make its recommendations about armor occupations in late 2014 and early 2015. Subsequently, service officials have stated that some of those recommendation timeframes have shifted to a later point to synchronize with the Marine Corps recommendations that are now scheduled to occur in late September and early October 2015, as shown in figure 3. One reason provided by Air Force officials to support the timeline shifts was to consider impacts of another services’ recommendation to open a closed occupation or position, such as when there is no viable career path in an occupation because the majority of positions serve with another services’ closed unit. Another reason expressed by Army officials was that the service heads recognize the need for coordination when making recommendations about similar occupations such as infantry. An OUSD(P&R) official explained that there has always been a desire to align the recommendation timelines, and that when service timelines started to shift in 2014, the topic was extensively discussed in various meetings. As an alternative to opening a position or occupation, the Secretary of Defense has permitted the services to recommend that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense approve an exception As of May to policy to keep positions or occupations closed to women.2015, the Secretary of the Navy was the only military department Secretary to have recommended approval of an exception to policy. The Secretary of the Navy has recommended keeping specific positions closed to the assignment of enlisted women on three classes of ships (frigates, mine countermeasure ships, and patrol coastal craft) that are scheduled to be decommissioned. The rationale for keeping these ship platforms closed to women is in part because they do not have appropriate berthing and because planned decommissioning schedules would mean that modifications would not be a judicious use of resources. Navy officials stated that, while these closed platforms would cause some positions to remain closed to enlisted women, it would not close any occupations to women as there are alternative positions within those occupations on different platforms that are open to women and which provide equal professional opportunity. As of May 2015, none of the other services have requested an exception to keep positions or occupations closed to women or have stated that they plan to request an exception, but the services have all retained the right to request an exception later in the process if they believe there are conditions under which it would be warranted. The services and SOCOM are conducting studies focused on identifying potential integration challenges and developing ways to mitigate these challenges, as shown in figure 4.