Newly inaugurated second term President Barack Obama is expected to propose changes to the role women currently play in the U.S. Military as early as Thursday of this week. Coming off a few days of being bashed for appointing too many white men to cabinet positions, the President is expected to announce that military women may be moving from support positions to direct combat positions. Apparently, the changes have been in the works for awhile and could open up 230,000 jobs. And according to a poll conducted by ABC News last year, nearly 3/4 of Americans now support women in direct combat. 

This is fairly radical stuff when you consider that just last year our elected officials were debating our access to birth control.  Access to Afghanistan, well, that’s a whole different story. 

The only other countries in the world that allow women to fight are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Israel. If you’re in Israel or the States, the need is clear. As far as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway, my guess is those women are doing more peacekeeping than fighting. 

Not to be left out of forward movement in female progress, even Syrian women are joining the fight. (Bad pun, i know) I just saw an interesting article on how Syrian women are bolstering the ranks of a depleted civilian volunteer force by taking up kalishnikovs in defense of President Bashar al Assad. Not even the Russians who’ve been selling the Syrians those guns are really behind Al-Assad anymore, according to CNN. But, in this article in the Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/01/25/the-all-female-militias-of-syria/, Liz Sly reports, the fight over Assad has descended to the point where these women are pulling Sunni women out of their cars and tearing off their veils. Regardless of your position on US women serving on the front lines, I think we can all agree American gals would never stoop to this kind of behavior! 

We blogged awhile ago about how it might be time to bring some of our military moms home to help figure out how to avoid another school shooting but this announcement certainly provides an interesting twist in that discussion.