Poll: 53% Support Women in Combat Roles

CBS) Women in the U.S. military currently are prohibited from joining combat units and only a slim majority of Americans support their participation in ground fighting, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.

Just 53 percent support women in combat roles, while an overwhelming majority of Americans (83 percent) are in favor of women serving as support for ground troops in such capacities as military police, medics and Humvee drivers.

Views on Women in the Military

Both men (53 percent) and women (53 percent) favor an expanded role for women in the military, but just 44 percent of women age 45 and older support it, compared to 62 percent of younger women.

Most Democrats, independents, liberals and moderates favor military women being directly involved in ground fighting. Republicans and conservatives oppose the idea.

Age matters as well. Just 37 percent of Americans age 65 and older support the idea of women joining combat units - the lowest of any age group.

Also, 60 percent of those living in the northeast favor women being directly involved in combat - the highest of any geographical region.

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This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1050 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone July 24-28, 2009. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.


I have mixed feelings on the issue of woman in a combat role, as much as a woman can pull the trigger of a gun as quickly and as accurate as a man, can she fight a man in hand to hand combat and win? Not that hand to hand combat happens often, but it does exist. So like most men they would surely step in to help...Is that the way it should be? What if he dies trying to save her. Nothing in life is guaranteed and it could be a fluke that a woman could pull 10 men out of a burning building or kill 10 men with her bare hands. Although lets keep it real as long as men have more physical stature the ability to dominate women is always going to exist. Women can go as far as they want, but lets keep it real. I think that I would rather have a group of men rangers coming to rescue me than a group of woman rangers.