THEN AND NOW: How women's roles have changed in the US military

• Women were confined to working as cooks, seamstresses, and nurses in the US military during the 18th and 19th centuries.
• Their roles expanded with the formation of the Women's Army Corps in 1941.
• Women became integrated into the US military in 1978, except they weren't allowed to serve in combat.
• As of 2015, there are no more restrictions about what positions women can or cannot hold in the army.

During the Revolutionary War, women helped the war effort as cooks and nurses. Some women even disguised themselves as men in order to fight on the front lines, hundreds doing the same during the American Civil War.

Today, 16.9% of the army is female and women continue to climb the ranks and reach historic levels of command (and they're probably not disguised when they do it ...).

Here's how women's roles have changed in the US military over the years.

Women were confined to working as cooks, seamstresses, and nurses in the 18th and 19th centuries — but some women distinguished themselves as heroes off the battlefield.

Women weren't allowed to serve in the armed forces on the battlefield, but they aided the war effort in clerical roles or as cooks, seamstresses, laundresses, or nurses during the Revolutionary War.

There were also heroic women who distinguished themselves during the war such as Nancy Hart, who worked as a spy and is most famous for holding British soldiers at gunpoint in her home after they killed her last turkey.

Some women took drastic measures to join the front lines.

During the Civil War, over 400 women secretly enlisted in the military disguised as men, according to the US Army's official website. Women also worked as spies, sneaking information past unsuspecting British troops.

During World War I, 35,000 women served in the army.

Most of the women worked as nurses or in food preparation, but they also filled roles of telephone operators and architects in addition to secretarial and administrative work.