Although women are still technically barred from the front line, the distinction means little in the all-consuming combat environment of Afghanistan. The Intelligence Corps, of which the dead female soldier was a member, do one of the most delicate and dangerous jobs in Afghanistan, collecting precious information, making local contacts and trying to win over the Afghan population to British counter-insurgency efforts.

But while the British Armed Forces may strive for equal opportunities, the same can hardly be said of traditional Afghan communities. This presents obvious problems – a female soldier might struggle to be taken seriously, for example, at a loya jirga, a meeting of tribal chiefs.

Despite this, defence experts say, there are distinct operational advantages of having women in the Intel Corps. Particularly when it comes to winning the trust of Afghan women, female soldiers can succeed where their male colleagues cannot.

“It works very well to have women when you have to deal with women in the communities,” says the defence analyst Paul Beaver. “There’s a bond of trust with mothers and daughters.” Places like schools also often react better to being approached by female soldiers, he says.

While commentators are already speculating about the public reaction to the death of a female soldier, and whether it could mark a turning point in attitudes to the conflict in Afghanistan, in the Army the death is likely to be seen like any other. “A man or a woman dying is of concern to everyone,” Mr Beaver says, “but you get on with the job and grieve later”.

Jo Salter, the RAF’s first female fighter pilot, agrees. “It’s always so sad when there’s any death at all. Gender isn’t the issue.” She says attitudes towards women in the forces have changed a lot since she began her career in the early 1990s. “The culture has evolved over time,” she says, with new recruits accepting female colleagues as a given. “When it first happened there was more discussion, but as society shifts everyone who joins understands that’s now how it is."

There are now 17,820 women soldiers in the Armed Forces, about 9 per cent of the total. Most of these are in the Army, but the RAF has a higher proportion of female soldiers – and almost a fifth of its officers are women. It is thought that about 1,600 women are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although they are still barred from the infantry and in other roles where their duty would be “deliberately to close with and kill the enemy”, the distinction is being quickly eroded.

Five British servicewomen have so far died in Iraq. When the first of them, Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill, was killed in May 2006, the debate about female soldiers was reignited. But when Joanna Yorke Dyer and Private Eleanor Dlugosz were killed by a roadside bomb in April last year, public attention focused instead on the fact that Second Lieutenant Dyer had been in the same company as Prince William at Sandhurst. She too was with the Intelligence Corps, and was killed while on night time operations against Shia militia in Basra – a reminder of the dangers faced even by those not in so-called “front line” units.

Iraq and Afghanistan have also proved, if proof were needed, the compelling bravery of female soldiers. In March Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman, a helicopter pilot, became the first woman to be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, for rescuing a wounded comrade under heavy fire in one of the most dangerous parts of Basra last year.

And in 2006 Private Michelle Norris, a 19-year-old army medic, became the first woman to be awarded the Military Cross, Britain’s top medal for gallantry, for braving sniper fire to give first aid to her seriously wounded commander during a firefight in al-Amarah, southern Iraq.

The medals, like the deaths, are another sign that women are becoming just as much a part of the horror and glory of war as men have always been.

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