Women With More Military Experience Than Pete Hegseth | Devil's Cut
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
22 senior military appointments and zero women. That is not a talking point. That is data. Today, I'm joined by the researcher who's been tracking all of this and all of the changes affecting women in the United States military right now, Jessica Rutenberg, whose work has been cited in the New York Times. She's a former United States Air Force pilot. Jessica, thanks for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Amy.
Who is Jessica Ruttenberg and what military experience does she bring to this conversation?
Before we dive in, both of us are more qualified than Pete Hegseth to do just about anything, okay? I want people to know, tell us about your background. You served in the Air Force. What did you do?
I did. I served in the Air Force for a little over 20 years. My last job was in the Pentagon. I had multiple jobs, but I primarily was an Air Force pilot. Most of my flight time is in the KC-135. I had over 3,000 hours in that as an instructor evaluator pilot. I served countless deployments to OIF. OEF, and other theaters around the world. And at the end of my career, I worked in the Pentagon, and I worked on the National Defense Authorization Act. I coordinate with Congress to develop the budget for what some people call the POM, the five-year budget that we talk about. And at the end of my career, I found myself in an interesting space where I could help others serve to the fullest potential. And I started volunteering on stuff such as the Women's Initiative Team and removing barriers so that we could serve to our fullest potential.
For me, that was like flying pregnant. I flew through three pregnancies and I was able to influence and change some policy within the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and ultimately had to go to Congress and change some laws. So that's me in a nutshell.
And for people that don't know, 3,000 hours in the KC-135, which we in the fighter community and the Marine Corps affectionately called the Iron Maiden That's a lot. That's a lot of hours. That's a lot of flight time. That's a lot of experience. So you bring a lot. And then your Pentagon experience as well. Again, Pete Hanks had never even been in the Pentagon before he was in charge of the Pentagon, which is quite a problem for us today. But you've been tracking the issues of women in the military almost real time. And before we dive into kind of the individual policies, I want folks to understand the big picture, OK? Women have been in the military for a long time. I'm not going to go through the whole progression from the Revolutionary War.
But basically, in the last half century, the progress for women in America's military has been somewhat slow but real. There was a time when the numbers of women were actually capped. that you couldn't have more than 1% or 2% of our military being women. There was a time when women could not be generals or admirals. Their rank was capped. Women could not be in combat positions. When I was a young girl, women could not do things like drive tanks or fly jets or any of that stuff. So the positions that mattered For promotion in the military, we're not able to be filled by women at those times. We've had times of change. In the 1980s, we opened the academies up. I'm wearing a Navy sweater right now for the Naval Academy, where I graduated in 1997.
By the time I graduated, the Academy has had women by that point for 15 years. But we had a major giant leap. We had two major giant leaps, I'd say, in the last 40 years. The first one was in the early 1990s under President Clinton when ships and combat aircraft were open to some ships, not all, but many combat ships in the Navy were open to women. And then another leap in the Obama years, right around 2010 and 2015, and that is when submarines were open in the Navy and what they call ground combat positions, which was kind of the last bastion of all male units. And what am I talking about there? I'm talking about infantry, artillery, tanks, special operations. Those were kind of the last. And that brings us to today.
And really, I When I left the military, all the positions were open to women. And that was just a huge success story from my perspective, that that's all I ever wanted.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:27
2
Who is Jessica Ruttenberg and what military experience does she bring to this conversation?
0:27–12:40
3
How has the role of women in the U.S. military evolved over the last 40 years?
12:40–25:23
4
What barriers did pregnant service members face and how did policy change?
25:23–47:16