By: Jen Dimascio

As President-elect Barack Obama mulls the gender balance of his Cabinet and White House staff, some women’s groups are hoping he’ll help put some cracks in one of Washington’s thickest glass ceilings: the Pentagon.

Army Gen. Ann Dunwoody broke through it last week, becoming the military’s first female four-star general. But groups representing women in national security roles want the obstacle to shatter completely.

“Gen. Dunwoody’s promotion is the major advance we’ve been waiting for for 10 years,” said Lory Manning, director of the Women’s Research and Education Institute’s Women in the Military Project.

Women make up about 21 percent of the senior civilian ranks of the Pentagon and about 14 percent of the uniformed military.

But since Obama won, Women in International Security, a group that tracks women in national security and intelligence careers, is seeing about double the number of young women looking for government service careers as after past presidential elections, said Jolynn Shoemaker, the group’s executive director.

The group is collecting résumés to build a Plum Book of top female candidates for the new administration at all levels of government and plans to meet with Obama’s transition team to make recommendations.

And while five of 11 leaders of Obama’s national security transition team are women, names in circulation for Cabinet-level positions have predominantly been those of men.

There are exceptions.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is under serious consideration for secretary of state. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has been mentioned as a possible candidate for attorney general or secretary of homeland security. And Obama adviser Susan Rice’s name has been bandied about as a contender for national security adviser.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) could also be in line for an intelligence post. Illinois Veterans Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in the war in Iraq, is mentioned as a possible secretary of veterans affairs.

In addition to looking toward top nominations, groups tracking women in national security jobs are working to change policies to open more jobs within the military to women.

Dunwoody is now the commander of Army Materiel Command, which runs the service’s multibillion-dollar logistics, supply and contracting efforts.

Still, Dunwoody is not in line for a promotion to the highest ranks of the military, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because she has never commanded a combat unit. The Army and the Marines bar women from serving in direct-combat infantry or armored units.

Officers in the Navy and Air Force may have a better chance, Manning said, because those services have allowed women in some combat roles since the mid-1990s. “The time is not long before we’ll not just see women in a four-star role, but one where she has responsibility for combat troops,” she said.

But groups for women in the military aren’t waiting. They’re putting together position papers for Obama’s transition team on how well women have performed and urging him to take a look at the positions closed to women.

The policy doesn’t make much sense now, women’s groups say, because the front lines in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are ambiguous.

They cite a 2007 Rand Corp. study that pointed out that, although the Army is trying to comply with its policies restricting women from combat, the definitions of combat are blurring.

The Center for Military Readiness, however, denounced the Rand study, saying it “creates needless confusion” and argues that restrictions against women serving in combat should be strengthened. Opening combat roles to women, the center said in a paper, threatens lives because women lack the physical strength to aid men in combat.

But Nancy Duff Campbell, president of the National Women’s Law Center, said she’s hopeful the military will become more open in a new administration. When Obama was asked about the issue during his presidential campaign, he drew a parallel to the barriers that African-Americans have overcome in the military.

“He was making a comparison that we think is very apt,” Campbell said.

The process may take some time, though.

That’s how it works, Dunwoody said after her promotion.

“It’s been my experience, in my 33 years in the military, that the doors have continued to open. And the opportunities have continued to expand,” she said in a news conference. “So I think, as time deems that it’s necessary, that a review be revisited.”

Dunwoody comes from such a strong military family that she jokes she has “olive-­drab blood.”

Her brother and some of her ancestors dating back to the 1860s graduated from West Point, and a member of her family has fought in every war going back to the Revolutionary War, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during her promotion ceremony at a packed Pentagon auditorium.

She entered the Army in 1975, one year before women were admitted to West Point.

In a survey that year, 98 percent of men and 97 percent of women believed the most appropriate role for women in the military was as a cook, said Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey.

Dunwoody never intended to make the Army a career. She intended to stay for only two years, then teach physical education and start a family.

But the military had its charms. It paid her to jump out of airplanes. And she met her husband, now-retired Air Force Col. Craig Brotchie, on the running track at the Command and General Staff College.

After Dunwoody’s 33 years of service, Gates, along with Central Command’s Gen. David Petraeus and past and present members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were ready to welcome Dunwoody into an exclusive club. At the end of September, just 37 four-star generals and admirals were on active duty.

But in a military that’s still less than one-fifth female, women made up close to half of those on hand for Dunwoody’s promotion. Their excitement was palpable.

Amid all the tributes, a Pentagon policewoman, her hair tied back in a bun, wiped tears from her cheek and snapped pictures of Dunwoody with her cell phone.

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