Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James announced that she hopes to make all of the military branch’s jobs open to women in the next 18 months.
Currently, there are seven jobs in the Air Force that are closed to women, and as of April 2013 there were 4,600 men in those positions, which include combat rescue officer and enlisted combat controller. But James said she is working on gender-neutral standards for all jobs, which will open them to anyone who is qualified.
“That is to say, whatever the standard is, it would be the same for men and women,” she said in Hawaii in the midst of an 11-day tour of Pacific Air Force bases.
