Warfighters, Mothers, Liabilities: The Military’s Silent War Against Women

They’ll let women serve, but only if we sacrifice more, ask for less, and disappear when it’s convenient—how the fuck did we get here?

I loved Dizzy, but I became Carmen…

I grew up in a post-9/11 world where service above self wasn’t just a phrase—it was a promise. Even as a middle schooler, I believed in it. Believed that duty and sacrifice meant something, that strength could be earned, that if you gave enough of yourself, you could belong.

I grew up idolizing characters like Ripley from Alien, Dizzy from Starship Troopers and GI Jane. By 17, I took the oath—not just to serve, but to become something bigger than myself. To prove that I was strong enough. To belong.

I ran hard—7:30-mile pace, 20 pull-ups—hitting a male first-class PFT standard before women were even required to. Before gender-neutral fitness benchmarks were introduced in 2020. I wasn’t the fastest or the strongest, but I was damn qualified.

I commissioned in 2010, when most combat roles were still closed to women. I studied industrial and systems engineering, determined to become a combat engineer. But the women I admired—women still fighting for careers that wouldn’t fully open until 2015—warned me of the hostility, the gatekeeping, the cost.

I chose aviation instead, thinking if I succeeded in a space where we were still seen as interlopers, I could prove my worth—to the service, and to myself.

But no matter how hard I worked, no matter how much I proved myself, there was always a man ready to remind me that my success wasn’t mine. That I was a gender quota. That my NROTC scholarship, my aviation contract—every milestone I earned—wasn’t earned at all.

I was only here because of DEI.

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Motherhood in the Military: A Battle of Its Own

I chose logistical aircraft because they allowed me to fly longer into pregnancy—one of the few career choices where motherhood wasn’t an automatic career-stopper. Motherhood was always in my plan, but I knew that as a woman in uniform, I had to plan it carefully. I tracked conception windows in an Excel spreadsheet, mapping my pregnancies like an operational mission, balancing deployments, training cycles, and my husband's career as another service member.

Because in the military, you don’t just have a family—you strategize it.

I became pregnant twice while serving, and both experiences nearly broke me.

When I joined, women in the military received just six weeks of maternity leave—barely enough time for a body to heal, let alone adjust to motherhood. Then, in July 2015, maternity leave was tripled to 18 weeks for women in the Navy and Marine Corps. It was a revolutionary change, the first time it felt like military leadership saw women not just as warfighters, but as whole human beings.

That policy gave me the confidence to move forward with having children.

But that progress was short-lived.

In 2016, the Trump administration rolled back military maternity leave to 12 weeks, standardizing it across all branches. What was framed as “equal treatment” felt like a deliberate rollback of progress, a gut punch to the women who had finally been given time to recover, bond with their children, and return to work without breaking.

I felt the difference in my bones.

With my first daughter, I had 18 weeks—and even then, I barely held on. The sleepless nights, the physical recovery, the shift in identity—it was overwhelming. But I had time. Time to heal. Time to process. Time to adapt.

With my second daughter, I had 12 weeks. And I wasn’t ready.

But my readiness didn’t matter.

I suffered in silence, battling postpartum depression, but seeking help meant risking my flight status. And in the military, being grounded wasn’t just a medical condition—it was a liability to the command. So I swallowed it down. Put my uniform back on. Pretended I was still the naive 17-year-old who believed service would make me stronger.

I showed up exhausted, planning mission briefs while quietly excusing myself to pump breastmilk in supply closets and bathrooms—because my building, like so many others, still didn’t have a lactation room.

It had been mandated in 2015 by DEI initiatives, but policy and practice were two very different things—just like how maternity leave could be given, then just as easily taken away.

This is the reality of being a woman in uniform.

They will let you serve. But only if you sacrifice more than your male counterparts.

They will give you “equal” opportunities. But only if you don’t ask for more.

They will say women weaken the force, but never acknowledge how much we give just to stay in the fight.

Because for women in the military, sacrifice isn’t just expected—it’s demanded.

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A War on Inclusion, A War on Readiness

We live in an era where known abusers hold positions of power, where chants of "Your body, my choice" are no longer satire, and where leaders seek to dismantle hard-won rights under the guise of “readiness.”

But readiness has never been the real concern.

Control has.

At the center of this effort are decision-makers who frame diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as a threat, not because it weakens the military, but because it challenges who holds power.

The same people who now blame DEI for deadly aviation mishaps and natural disasters—from the midair collision over the Potomac River to the Los Angeles wildfires—are the ones responsible for:

• Gutting safety regulations

• Slashing federal oversight

• Dismantling programs designed to prevent these very failures

Instead of taking responsibility, they’ve incited a federal witch hunt.

Mass emails have gone out calling for resignations of those who support DEI—not just in the military, but in government agencies, federal workplaces, and the very institutions that keep the country running.

Overnight, qualified professionals have become political targets, their careers suddenly hinging on whether their names appear in the wrong inbox.

And now, leaders who gutted readiness are blaming DEI for their own failures.

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Readiness Isn’t About Numbers. It’s About Trust.

This isn’t just about recruitment.

It’s about morale, trust, and the ability to believe that your leadership values your sacrifice.

When leaders scapegoat DEI for their incompetence, they don’t just weaken the force—they destroy trust. And a military that doesn’t trust its leadership is already on the brink of failure.

I learned that the hard way, flying over Saudi Arabia. When an air traffic controller ignored my voice because I was a woman and would only respond to my male co-pilot, I waited for my aircraft commander to back me up. Instead, he laughed. “This country has it right when it comes to women.”

I never felt safe flying with him, when every time he’d remind me, he didn’t respect me because of my gender. Readiness isn’t just about numbers—it’s about knowing the person next to you has your back. When that’s gone, everything is compromised.

The biggest threat to readiness isn’t women. It isn’t diversity. It isn’t DEI.

It’s the people who keep telling us it is.

So how the fuck did we get here?

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About the Author

Alisa Sieber is a Marine Corps veteran, writer, and relentless truth-seeker exposing the systems that betray us. She writes How the Fuck Did We Get Here? to cut through the noise and hold power accountable.

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