Today there are 18,000 women serving in the British Armed Forces. Some 1,600 of them are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Ministry of Defense in London likes to give the impression that the presence of women in the three armed services is no longer a matter of controversy. The reality is different. While it is entirely accepted that women have an increasingly important part to play within the armed forces, exactly what jobs they should be taking on is still a matter of considerable discussion within each service.

Amazons, a mythical race of female warriors, caught the Greek imagination and appeared in many legends. I remember as a schoolboy being horrified when told they destroyed the right breast so as not to interfere with the use of the bow. As an Englishman, Boadicea who fought the Romans, and Joan of Arc who fought the French, were more to my liking.

During World War II all three services of the British Armed Forces had female branches. Medical work, clerical and communications duties were allocated to them and driving in rear areas. This experience greatly assisted expanding the jobs available to women in the postwar period.

Today an infantry battalion may have at least one female officer attached to it performing an administrative role, but women are not allowed to serve in infantry platoons and armored troops. They can serve in the artillery and fly rocket-armed helicopters. Fewer than half the jobs in the army are available to women.

In April the Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized eight Royal Navy sailors and seven Royal Marines in the Gulf. One of the eight sailors was Leading Seaman Faye Turney, who was in charge of one of the small assault craft. She had a three-year-old daughter in Plymouth. The Iranians treated her differently to the men and paraded her alone on television. They criticized her presence in the Royal Navy.

It was clear the British public were startled to read about her, and her life on board HMS Cornwall patrolling off Iraq. People in civilian life look at servicewomen in a different light to those in the services. The Ministry of Defense tries to stick to the line that women cannot take part in units that are trained “deliberately to close with and kill the enemy.” Many years ago it was decided not to go down the same road as the Israeli Defense Forces which places women in combat units. The Americans have followed the Israelis in this regard.

The official British view remains that while women should be trained in the use of rifles and submachine guns, and employed on guard duties, they should not serve in the front line. It would be argued that hand-to-hand fighting — such as has been taking place in Helmand province in Afghanistan — is not a function that women should be asked to perform. A former Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen. Sir Charles Guthrie, once declared:

“We are not ready for women on the front line and maybe we never will be.”

The Royal Air Force boasts that all but two percent of its posts are open to women. During World War II RAF planes were sometimes flown by women, but only men could fly in the fighter and bomber squadrons. About a decade ago this policy was changed, and there are now a handful of women fighter pilots, who have received considerable publicity. The RAF decided that if women had the necessary qualifications and the determination to become fighter pilots there were no good reasons to prevent them. Some have been flying over Iraq for years.

It is the Royal Navy that has become snarled up most in the controversy over the role of women, even if that is not admitted. The Women’s Royal Naval Service had a fine reputation in World War II; women in those days seldom went to sea. Now women serve in ships as small as frigates. It was proposed they should even go on patrol for three months in the nuclear submarines, but at the last moment there were second thoughts. The Royal Navy admitted in a 1994 report that many of its sailors were “unreconstructed” in their attitudes — which no doubt raised a laugh in some quarters.

The fighting that the British Army has been experiencing in Basra, and the high number of casualties that have resulted, is a reminder that in 2007 there is not normally a front line. Every soldier in Basra is at risk from a rocket-propelled grenade or a roadside explosive device, let alone from small-arms fire. Servicewomen have gone back to Britain in flag-draped coffins.

What duties servicewomen should be asked to perform, in the drive to achieve equality of opportunity, will be a subject for debate for years to come.