Several active-duty women who spoke to CNN said they fear that the current culture shift and rhetoric could have an outsized impact on the recruitment of young women to the military well into the future.
“Women are going to feel that they don’t have a place in the military anymore,” Hunter said.
The messaging is “causing people to have question marks around women in the Army” and this could start to show up in declining recruitment numbers in the next six to 12 months, said former Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, the first woman to hold the title.
Purely by the numbers, both Hunter and Wormuth said, the military needs women to function, particularly as the US braces for potential future conflicts and combat roles change with the rise of technological warfare.
