Gender, military profession and armed forces: The increase of women's military participation/integration as a trend of emancipation?

The article is addressing multiple issues concerning women's participation/gender integration in contemporary armed forces and its broader social consequences. After a short comment on the complex and perplexing relationship between citizenship/military rights/obligations of women, a brief historical overview of main features of their military participation is given. Attention is then focused on characteristics of post-cold war trends in military gender integration, especially those aspects of the processes revealed in sociological interpretations (I/O model, "postmodern military" hypothesis, the "decline of the mass army theory"). Conflicting arguments of "civil agents" on the topic are also presented and compared to views of military women/men, established by research findings on the issue conducted in military context. Finally, the conducted analysis suggests caution in identifying the undoubtedly reached higher level of gender equality and integration of women in military context with the accomplishment of the project of emancipation In a broader social context.