Are Women More Prone To PTSD?

There is reason to believe so:

Female veterans are already more likely than male veterans to be homeless, divorced, or raising children as single parents. Female vets under fifty are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to kill themselves. And a growing body of research suggests that female vets may also be more susceptible than men to psychological disorders, including PTSD.

Those facts and new research—indeed, the very discussion of gender differences in the armed forces—are often incendiary, but they should not be taken as an argument against equality in the armed forces. Instead, they should be the catalyst for a worthwhile discussion. After all, we owe it to our veterans to study how some women experience war and homecoming differently, and to determine what can be done to better support female soldiers—women who are now poised, for the first time in history, to be deployed in large numbers in combat positions overseas.