Due in no small part to the efforts of IWF National Advisory Board members Elaine Donnelly, President of the Center for Military Readiness, and Charmaine Yoest, author of The Women’s Quarterly article “Booby Traps at the Pentagon,” the Department of Defense (DOD) in March did not renew the charter of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS).
Rather than eliminate the committee all together, the DOD plans to rewrite the DACOWITS charter, placing military readiness before social engineering. In addition, the DOD will replace DACOWITS’ current all-female civilian board with a board composed of women (and perhaps even a few men!) who have served in the military or come from a military family.
IWF has long been critical of DACOWITS, asserting that its agenda — which promotes gender quotas, women in combat roles, and gender-integrated basic training — weakens the basic purpose of the military: to fight and win wars.
Debating Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-NM) on MSNBC’s The Abrams Report, Yoest stated: “Putting the focus on combat readiness is a victory for common sense, and we believe that by putting the defense of freedom and the protection of lives first, the Pentagon leadership has demonstrated its true concern for women.”