LONDON - Maj. Nadine Heron of the Royal Military Police had just fired a group of Iraqi men for stealing from her newly formed police service in Basra.
As the disgruntled men left the room, one commented: We forgot. She's a major
but she's also a woman and they are emotional beings.
Heron, 33, laughed as she told the tale at the launching of a new exhibition on the role of women in war, but it shows how women's role in military conflicts has often been tied up with their image as the fairer sex.
The role of women in combat is now more acknowledged and there have been a handful of famous female warriors, among them Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great and the ancient Celtic queen Boadicea.
In more recent times, from nursing heroine Florence Nightingale to notorious spy Mata Hari, more rigid lines have usually been used to portray women in war: those who kept the home fires burning, nursed in the field or worked as the glamorous secret agent.
But a new exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum portrays women in conflicts in their full range of roles - fighter, worker, entertainer, journalist, traitor, spy, nurse and victim.
It includes body armor worn by Princess Diana in Angola while promoting a ban on land mines, a camera used by American fashion photographer turned war chronicler Lee Miller, the World War II uniform of film star Marlene Dietrich and the gun carried by British spy Violet Szabo.
The collection also tells the stories of hundreds of anonymous women through uniforms, costumes, diaries, letters and other artifacts.
Women's involvement in war is unavoidable said historian Julie Wheelwright. But there's a vast submerged population of women whose stories have not been told. Let's face it most military histories are written by men.
Heron, temporary police chief in Basra after the southern Iraqi city fell to coalition forces in the recent war, said after viewing the collection: There is so much here that even I
in my position
didn't know.
The Women and War exhibition chronicles the often traditional tasks given to women during conflicts. Even those with defined roles, such as nurses, served a dual purpose, providing a morale boost for the men as well medical aid.
I can still remember their faces
said Iris Bower, 89, recalling how she was the first woman to land on the Normandy beaches on D-Day as a senior nurse in the Princess Mary's RAF Nursing Service.
I was in full battle dress with a tin hat and pack on my back
she said. When I landed
all the British Tommys saw me and they shouted
'Watch out Adolf
you've had it now.'
Many women talked about the close relations forged in wartime, an important element for Bower, who enlisted during long-ago World War II after the death of her fighter pilot husband over France, and for Flight Sgt. Ann Carter, who served in recent years in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
We don't tend to think about the danger. We go more for the camaraderie and rapport and supporting each other. It really takes your mind off it
Carter said.
As times have changed, women's roles also have evolved. Dr. Christa Hook, a volunteer with the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said that in Afghanistan it was a clear advantage having women in the field because Afghan women, under the Taliban, could not have contact with male health workers.
We didn't really belong anywhere and as such were in a privileged position - we could work with men and women both in patients and in colleagues
