The Marine Corps created the Marine Corps Women's Reserve in 1943, during America's involvement in World War II.[15]Ruth Cheney Streeter was its first director.[16] Over 20,000 women Marines served in World War II, in over 225 different specialties, filling 85 percent of the enlisted jobs at Headquarters Marine Corps and comprising one-half to two-thirds of the permanent personnel at major Marine Corps posts.[16][17]
The demobilization plan for the Marine Corps Women's Reserve called for mandatory resignation or discharge of all Reserve members by 1 September 1946.[18] However, by August 1946, some 300 women had been asked by the Marine Corps to stay on, even as the last of the Reserve's barracks was being closed.[19] For the next two years, these women served the Marine Corps in an undetermined status. In 1948, the Women's Armed Services Integration Act gave women permanent status in the Regular and Reserve forces of the Marines.[
There have been women in the United States Marine Corps since 1918, and women continue to serve in the Corps today.[1][2] As of 2020, women make up 8.9% of total active duty Marines.[3] The Marine Corps has the lowest percent of female service members of all of the U.S military branches. Women's presence in the Marine Corps first emerged in 1918 when they were permitted to do administrative work in an attempt to fill the spots of male Marines fighting overseas. It was not until 1948 that women were able to become a permanent part of the Corps with the passing of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act. However, even with the Integration Act, women were still banned from certain military occupation specialties. It was not until 2016 that Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that all military occupations would be open to women without exception. As of 2018, there were 18 women serving in the Marine Corps combat arms. In December 2020, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego agreed to join the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in accepting female recruits,[4] with 60 female recruits starting their boot camp training at the San Diego depot in February 2021.[4][5][6][7] 53 of these recruits would successfully graduate from boot camp in April 2021 and become Marines.[8][9]
Lucy Brewer (or Eliza Bowen, or Louisa Baker) is the pen name of a writer who purported to be the first woman in the United States Marines, serving aboard the USS Constitution as a sharpshooter in the 1800s while pretending to be a man named George Baker.[10][11] Brewer's adventures were probably written by Nathaniel Hill Wright or Wright's publisher, Nathaniel Coverly. No one by the name of Lucy Brewer (or that of her other pseudonyms, or that of her husband) can be found in historical records; in addition, it is highly unlikely a woman could have disguised herself for three years on the Constitution, as the crew had little to no privacy.[12] (For example, no toilet facilities or private quarters existed on the ship, and physical examinations were thorough in the Marines.) In addition, Brewer's book The Female Marine's identifying details of the Constitution's travels and battles are nearly verbatim to accounts published by the ship's commanders in contemporary newspapers.
