Today, there are over 350,000 service women and 2 million women veterans in the United States – the highest number ever in history. Their voices must be heard. Women have served and fought in every conflict since the American Revolution. Despite their critical contributions to our national security, women continue to face barriers. These barriers exist both in the military and when they leave military service when accessing the VA benefits and services they have earned.

The Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) is the voice of all military women – past, present, and future. We are a member-driven community network advocating for the individual and collective needs of service women. SWAN’s priorities are guided by our members, who include thousands of women and men, service members, and civilians alike.

We are committed to seeing that all service women receive the opportunities, protections, benefits, and respect they deserve. Our goal is to ensure all service women and women veterans have access to the information, tools, and support they need to reach their personal and professional goals. 

Since our founding in 2007, SWAN has been the only organization that advocates for and supports the needs of both service women and women veterans, regardless of rank, military branch, or years of experience. With over 40,000 nonprofits in America working to serve the needs of veterans and military personnel, this is an important distinction. While women service members and veterans have benefited from many support programs, the majority of them are still designed, by default, to meet the needs of men. We’re making sure that changes.

SWAN has played a significant role in shaping the outcome of many important issues affecting military women. Our efforts include opening all military jobs to service women, expanding access to services for a broad range of reproductive healthcare services, working to hold sex offenders accountable in the military justice system and eliminating barriers to disability claims for those who have experienced military sexual trauma. But our work is not done.

Our History

In 2007, a group of women veterans who were having trouble getting their VA claims approved decided to organize and do something about the VA claims process.  They were also troubled by the way they were treated when they went to VA clinics and offices. Initially, they worked under another VSO but in 2009 they left and formed their own organization which they named the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN). They established SWAN as a 501c3 in New York City and selected Anu Baghwati as their first executive director.

Although their initial focus was on VA claims, they quickly found that many of the problems that women veterans were facing stemmed from harassment and assault that they had experienced while on active duty.  The VA did not recognize sexual assault as a potential source of post-traumatic stress (PTS) the way it recognized combat stress. SWAN decided that they needed to spotlight the problem of military sexual assault in order to get the post-traumatic stress support that resulted from an assault recognized by the VA. SWAN spent the next several years making military sexual assault visible in and outside of the military. SWAN collaborated closely with the producers of the widely viewed documentary The Invisible War which brought the topic of military sexual assault into the national dialogue. SWAN worked with law and policy makers to changes laws to better support victims of military sexual assault, to hold perpetrators accountable and to have PTS that results from sexual assault recognized by the VA.

Realizing that the problems women veterans were facing stemmed in large part from active duty experiences, SWAN began to focus on active duty policies, practices and culture.  In 2012, SWAN filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense over its policy of excluding women from accessing a quarter of a million ground combat jobs. SWAN believed that the policy of excluding women from key jobs and assignments contributed to making women a less-respected and therefore more-vulnerable minority population in the military. In 2013, that policy was eliminated and in 2016 the military services began integrating women into previously closed occupations and units.

Anu served as the executive director until 2014 when Judy Patterson took over and moved the organization from New York City to Washington, D.C. where it was better positioned to engage directly with law and policy makers. Judy Patterson served as the CEO for 2 years from 2015 to 2017. In 2017 Lydia Watts became the third CEO. She left in 2018 and Ellen Haring served as CEO through January 2020. In January 2020, Deshauna Barber was selected as the CEO and served through May 2023. May 2023 Jennifer Ross was named CEO and has been serving in that role since.