If your image of the VFW matches mine, you imagine a bunch of older men sitting in a hall somewhere or marching in a war memorial day parade in their suits and little caps with medalions.
According to a story in USA Today you would not be far off. And before, say, the 60's the number of women who served in a foreign war (that's the FW) was pretty small so a Post (that's what a local chapter is called) wouldn't necessarily expect to have women as members nor be tuned-in to the needs of former military women.
That number has changed, over the last 5 years in particular, with women "accounting for roughly 208,000 of the 1.4 million active duty personnel" and 260,000 women "who have been deployed in support of the Afghanistan and Iraqi operations".
So what's the VFW to do if it want's to be responsive to what proves to be different needs by women and more importantly recognize that part of its future actually does rely on recruiting women to its ranks (given the average age (60+) and gender (male)? One answer: start Posts that are for women, which it has done now in upstate New York.
This solution will certainly work in the short-run but I'm thinking that this solution does not actually affect the current 7,500 posts. Seems to me like a major cultural competency training of the volunteer leadership in these posts might be another solution to how to think about and be inclusive of women. Clearly, the National Board must step-up to the plate and make this a priority.
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