Chalk up another advance for gender equality in the U.S. military. The Marine Corps will open its infantry course to women for the first time in its 236-year history.

Assistant Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford told Marine Corps Times that the Corps is now "soliciting volunteers" amongst women Marines for the Infantry Officers Course, the necessary pathway in the service to becoming a combat leader. Additionally, the Corps is opening up about 400 non-infantry jobs previously reserved for men, including amphibious assault; artillery; and low-altitude air defense.

It also sounds like the Marines won't lower their standards to ensure women Marines can pass the course or get the newly-opened billets. "New functional fitness tests are being developed to help Marine Corps leaders determine how women and men perform in, and cope with, various combat tasks," Marine Corps Times reports, in order to establish "gender-neutral" standards. Dunford said Gen. James Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, would soon elaborate.

Previously, women officers in the Marines were sent into ostensibly non-combat roles, like logistics or maintenance. But the idea that, say, logistics doesn't have a combat role doesn't survive first contact with reality anymore. Marines carting stuff between bases in Iraq or Afghanistan became a combat mission once insurgents decided to target the resupply. In fact, that's the reason the Marines in Helmand went green.

Similarly, the Afghanistan war command touts its "Female Engagement Teams" of women soldiers and Marines who interact with Afghan women, a job off-limits for cultural reasons to male troops. The women troops who participated in that mission learned how rapidly it turned into combat.

Still, it's a big change that's bound to accordingly attract resistance about how the Corps just isn't the Corps anymore. The Marines are less than 10 percent female, so the gender-equality changes probably won't appear outwardly transformative. But it's another recognition that Marines – of all genders – overcome barriers.