Yawn! A simple mistake. No big deal. How many USAF vets are working in editorial positions these days. An easy gaffe and hardly "political correctness."

Be thnkful they wrote the article.

Don't you have more important things to worry about as a field grade???

Maybe they wanted to emphasize that the evil Bushco has placed women in combat zones.

Or else they feel that "airmen" is sexist, so they added "and women" to make it more PC. Similarly, expect the MSM to push for some new rank titles. "Sergeants First Class", for example, can easily cause other sergeants to feel inferior... or else the term is just confusing to MSM types because they can't figure out where the "Sergeants Coach" and "Sergeants Business Class" are.

I doubt the person who wrote it gave it a second thought and it *could* have been a slip of the tongue by Jean Schaefer. She may have been thinking "21,000 men and women" or "airmen, men and women" and it came out "airmen and women".

It *is* of course, incorrect.

I recall a discussion, once, where I was explaining that within the Air Force there is not an assumption of gender associated with "Airman." People did find it very hard to believe because to their ears it says "man". Yet if I went to see someone who did not know I was female there would be no moment of surprise when Senior Airman Pascal turned out to be female.

Which seems beyond obvious, but only if you spent a couple months at basic training having it drilled into your head that your first name was Airman and so was her first name Airman and him and her and him. You all have the first name Airman. (Or maybe that was special for me, having goofed and accidentally called an Airman by her former first name, Cheryl.)

I speculated (during this conversation) that perhaps when the Army Air Corp became the Air Force that they could have used Aviator instead of Airman but on further thought, that would have been considered just as gendered at the time because female Aviators were Aviatrix's.

;-)

I should mention that "women" is also incorrect, for what it is worth.

I've yet to meet a female Airman who is ashamed of the honor of being called "Airman". But that is just me.

I am fomer AF and see no reason not to use the term "airman" to refer to all pesonnel. Heck, the women should see it as a compliment, It puts them on equal terms with men.

A compliment?

So basically you're saying that it *is* gendered as used but females (not women) should be pleased to be refered to in male terms?

Chip, why not call them ALL "Airwomen" to put the men equal to the women? The men should be pleased to be refered to in female terms.