The combat exclusion of women in the military: paternalistic protection or military need?
Abstract
While the Australian Defence Force has seen an increasing range of roles become available to women in the recent past, women are still excluded from serving in combat roles. This article discusses the arguments both for and against women serving in combat roles, drawing on both Australian and overseas observations.
Our combat effectiveness and performance in the field relates very much to the competence of our people—that is, their physical competence and their mental competence as well. Those competencies apply not just to men, but to women.1
- Admiral Chris Barrie, RAN
Chief of the Defence Force, 1998-2002
Australia’s military history is relatively short and uneventful given that this is a country that has never been invaded or rent by the agony of civil war. Yet in that brief century since Australia’s soldiers first fought under the flag of their own nation, the inroads that women have made towards full integration in Australia’s military forces have been nothing short of remarkable. Since 1901, women have performed in increasing and ever-widening roles, moving from a purely beneficent capacity towards full integration into mainstream military occupations. Historically, such integration has, at times, resulted from the urgent need to release the nation’s men for combat duties overseas. More modern times, however, have seen servicemen and women competing with a parity reflective of Australia’s latter-day social structure and those contemporary cultural values that espouse gender equality. Yet this integration has stopped short of allowing women to serve in all combat roles. Although the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has made significant progress towards eliminating gender discrimination and acknowledging the rights of women, service in the combat arms remains an exclusively male domain—’the last bastion’. This begs the question of whether such a prohibition is the result of paternalistic protection or military need.
Many advocates for continued exclusion frame their arguments in terms of the need to protect women—to keep them ‘out of harm’s way’. Others argue the case for preserving the military’s combat effectiveness ‘[c]ombat capability is a first concern, and combat effectiveness cannot be compromised if the ADF is to fulfil its role’.2 To this end physiological differences between men and women remain the most often cited justification for continued exclusion. Proponents of full integration, on the other hand, couch their arguments in terms of women’s rights, equality, and the use of integration as a tool to fight discrimination and harassment. Indeed, today’s Australians, as members of a contemporary liberal democratic society, are living in an unprecedented era in terms of winning battles against discrimination and harassment. Thus, the onus of justification for the exclusion of women from combat roles lies fairly and squarely with the Services, whose responsibility it is to advise their political masters, the ultimate arbiters of which employment categories should be open to women.
The first women to serve in the Australian military forces were nurses. Australian forces serving in the Boer War included in 1901 a number of nurses in their ranks who, significantly, were listed on the establishment of the Australian Army. During the First World War, women again saw active service overseas, this time in Australian military hospitals as members of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS).3 In this period ‘at least 2139 Australian Army Nursing Service personnel served overseas; 423 worked in Australian military hospitals and 29 died on active service.’4 Given the social context of the period, women were employed only in what was essentially a non-combatant capacity. Women’s employment in this role coincided with an era in which the ratio of combatant casualties exceeded that of non-combatant casualties, a marked contrast with the circumstances of contemporary warfare.
During the Second World War, the AANS was again prepared for active duty and nurses served overseas as part of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force (AIF).5 The conflict also saw the formation of the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service (AAMWS).6 A shortage of men led to the further recruitment of women to fill crucial military roles with the establishment of the Women’s Services in the 1940s. Over 60 000 women served across the three Services, releasing thousands of men for combat duties overseas.7 Although the Women’s Services were disbanded shortly after the end of the war, they were re-established in the 1950s, again, largely due to manpower shortages.8 However, the recruitment of women was strictly limited and was never permitted to exceed 4 per cent of the total personnel of the mainstream Services. Women were also limited in other ways:
They received different training and could only occupy positions specifically designated for women. They were on a lower pay scale than their male counterparts, were not permitted to serve overseas, and were not permitted to remain in the service when they married.9
With the outbreak of the Vietnam War, Army nurses once again saw active service. It was during this conflict that demands of guerrilla war began to erode the sanctity of non-combatant immunity on a large scale. Against the background of the war and the concurrent era of social turmoil, the military began to confront its most significant period of adjustment. In the following decade, the Sexual Revolution and growth of the women’s rights movement would prove to be powerful agents for change, particularly by destroying gender stereotypes and traditional attitudes to the role of women in society.10 The rationales that women required ‘protection’ and should be kept ‘out of harm’s way’ were branded as elements of patently outdated concepts of femininity, motherhood and women as nurturers. These concepts, grounded in conservative patriarchal notions of stereotypical gender roles, were becoming increasingly less relevant as society modernised and social attitudes continued to advance into the new millennium.11 Additionally, it became increasingly obvious that the ideal that women required protection in time of war had never been applied universally—civilian women were regularly killed and severely injured, targeted or left to fend for themselves in war and had been since time immemorial.
In 1975 the Chiefs of Staff Committee commissioned a working party to examine and report on the role of women in the ADF. The working party returned the recommendation that women should be permitted on active service, but should not serve in combat roles.12 In a military context this tacitly heralded the end of the era of protectionism, as women could no longer be regarded solely as non-combatants in the purest sense of the word. The ban on women bearing arms remained; however, this clearly denied the reality that women on active service would potentially need to defend themselves at some point.
Australia ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1983—albeit with combat exemptions.13 The ADF then requested, and was granted, an exemption to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 regarding the employment of women in combat or combat-related duties. These duties were defined as those ‘requiring a person to commit, or participate directly in the commission of an act of violence against an armed adversary in time of war, as well as those duties exposing a person to a high probability of direct physical contact with an armed adversary.’ With the application of these definitions of combat and combat-related duties, 17 000 (23 per cent) ADF positions were subsequently identified as being open to both men and women competing on the basis of merit.14 Yet Defence leaders continued to approach the issue of women in the military as a pragmatic initiative, rather than as social policy.
With women now integrated into the mainstream, servicewomen were identified as members of the armed forces according to their functional role; their membership was now based on work rather than on gender. From this time forward, an increasing number and variety of jobs would become available to women competing on equal terms with their male colleagues.15
Over the next few years the ADF conducted further reviews which led to the opening of additional categories to women. By 1989, some 28 562 positions (43 per cent) of all ADF positions were identified as being available to women competing equally with men. However, it was not until the 1990s that the military witnessed its most dramatic changes. In 1990 a review recommended that women be permitted to serve in combat-related positions and that this change be introduced over the next three years. The change was to be overseen by the Combat-Related Employment of Women Evaluation Team, which had a particular mission to monitor the impact of this amendment on the operational effectiveness of the Army. Navy adopted the recommendations with gusto, opening service on all surface ships to women— amounting to 94 per cent of all positions. The Air Force opened all positions except combat aircrew, Ground Defence Officers and Airfield Defence Guards—again, 94 per cent of all positions. The Army, in turn, opened up all positions except those directly involved in combat—only 53 per cent. In the twelve months from June 1989 to June 1990, the number of positions available to women more than doubled, increasing from around 22 000 to almost 53 000.16 In 1992 the government went one step further, announcing that women would be able to serve in all Army, Navy and Air Force positions except direct combat units. This, in effect, allowed women to serve as combat aircrew in the Air Force and submariners in the Navy. In 1995 the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 was amended to reflect this monumental change.
The current Defence position on the employment of women in combat-related roles reflects some degree of progress in the years since the introduction of these far-reaching changes. In 2000, the Howard Government announced that Australia would partially withdraw its reservation to CEDAW concerning combat-related duties, representing a further advance from the 1983 position. The latest development occurred in 2005, when the Minister for Defence advised that:
... suitably qualified women may apply to serve within the headquarters and administrative companies of artillery, armour and infantry units. Such women would undertake support roles only, such as clerical, medical, logistics, signals or transport duties. This opens a previously denied role for women in combat units. 17
As it currently stands, women can be employed in approximately 90 per cent of employment categories across the ADF. Within the individual Services this represents 99 per cent of Navy and Air Force positions and 70 per cent of Army positions.18 The Defence Report of 30 June 2005 stated that women comprised 13.2 per cent of the permanent ADF, occupying 6768 positions.19 Among its international brethren, Australia is currently considered to be near the forefront of women’s participation in the military.20
Although women are now able to serve in combat units in the ADF in a combat support role, current Defence policy nonetheless states that women are excluded from combat roles; that is, employment defined as involving direct combat duties. Specifically, the employment categories that remain denied to women are: Navy clearance diving teams; Airfield Defence Guards and Ground Defence Officers in the Air Force; and armour, artillery, combat engineers and infantry, including special forces, in the Army.21 The crux of the current employment distinction between combat and combat-related roles lies in the purpose of the soldier and the likelihood of direct combat in what may potentially be a hostile environment:
... in the combat zone the prime purpose of combat troops is to engage the enemy in combat i.e. to seek out and destroy. In the communications zone/support area, where the environment is more benign, the prime purpose of troops is to support combatants in the combat zone. That long-range weapons may target a storage site in the ‘non-combat zone’, disrupt the lines of communication and incidentally maim troops at the storage site does not change the purpose of those troops.22
Yet, the distinction between combat and combat-related roles is artificial and denies the reality of contemporary war. The intent of this distinction is twofold: to keep women out of ‘harm’s way’ and to preserve combat effectiveness, neither of which presents a cogent argument for the exclusion of women from combat roles. The argument that women need protection, in particular, has long ceased to retain its validity in Australian society.
At the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the United States reported a total of thirteen women killed in action, of whom five were termed ‘combat casualties’.23 A number of these casualties resulted from an Iraqi Scud missile that hit a combat service support area far behind the forward edge of the battle area. In the same conflict ‘fourteen female Marines received the Combat Action Ribbon for returning fire against Iraqi troops’.24 The reality is that warfighting today is less discriminate than a hundred years ago and the various combat zones indistinguishable. Likewise, the distinction between combat and combat-related roles is also blurred:
Probably the major argument put forward in favour of removing all barriers to women’s participation is that exempting women from combat duty while accepting them in combat-related positions is somewhat artificial. In war, women flying transport aircraft can be just as much exposed to the decisions of battle as are fighter pilots. Similarly, ships are either in action or they are not.25
No Iraqi insurgent firing a rocket-propelled grenade at a Blackhawk helicopter will consider the gender of its pilot, a point amply demonstrated when US Captain Tammy Duckworth, a Blackhawk co-pilot, lost both legs in 2004.26
The artificial delineation between combat and combat-related roles was a conundrum faced by the United States in the First Gulf War, which it sought to solve through the application of the ‘risk rule’. This rule was developed ‘to standardize the Services’ assignment of women deploying to a hostile area.’27 The purpose of the ‘risk rule’ was to allow the majority of women to volunteer for military service without being forced to serve with units operating in or near the front lines.28 However, applying the methodology of the rule proved no simple task given the threat of long-range chemical weapons and the reality that combat support units, comprising large numbers of female soldiers, were occasionally deployed closer to the front line than actual combat units. The rule proved particularly troublesome in the field:
The principle [sic] source of the confusion within the Army was the Direct Combat Probability Coding (DCPC) system, which unnecessarily complicated the management of military personnel at a time when the Army could least afford it. The system was especially troublesome at the unit level, where commanders struggled to keep pace with the shifting, unpredictable demands of the war by getting the most out of the people they had. Although Army leaders in the Pentagon continued to deny it, numerous reports surfaced through unofficial channels that commanders in the field were regularly ignoring the rules and assigning their people where they were most needed—regardless of gender.29
In the reality of combat the application of the ‘risk rule’ proved cumbersome and almost beyond universal application. It was effectively scrapped in January 1994, underscoring a key principle in the conduct of warfare—keep it simple.30 Unwelcome distractions in the battlefield are quickly discarded or ignored as combat leaders focus solely on achieving their objectives. This is a principle that applies across the spectrum of conflict.
Stabilisation operations are becoming more commonplace as the international (and regional) security environment redefines the requirement for combat troops to one of forces geared more to military peacekeeping, peacemaking or security. This is clearly evident in the range of current operations undertaken by the ADF, from Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Afghanistan, Iraq and the broad range of smaller United Nations and other deployments. This changing military role has, at times, been used to justify opening the remaining combat roles to women as a means of increasing combat effectiveness. It has been argued that, in the case of peacekeeping operations or occupations, ‘women may actually perform combat-related missions as well as, if not better than, their male counterparts’, particularly given the requirement to interact peacefully with the civilian population, to provide aid and to minimise further physical damage and loss of life.31 However, within the Australian context, this rationale, effectively justifying the inclusion of women in combat units as a means of increasing the units’ combat effectiveness, is redundant. The military already holds an exemption under Section 43 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 that permits the employment of a person of a particular sex as required, for example, where the duties of a position involve the searching of women. Regardless of a task force’s order of battle, unit establishments can be modified or supplemented with attachments to suit a particular task or role, a concept analogous to bolt-on armour.
The remaining often-touted argument against women’s full integration into combat roles lies in the need to preserve combat effectiveness. Combat effectiveness is a catch-all term that describes a force’s ability to apply—and sustain the application of—lethal force at a given time and place. It is influenced by a range of factors such as the level of individual and collective training, equipment, resources, and coordination with combat multipliers afforded by use of the combined-arms team. The argument runs that women affect combat effectiveness in that their very presence diminishes unit readiness, cohesion and morale. It is also claimed that the physiological differences between men and women in endurance and strength justify their continued exclusion.
Undeniably, ground combat duties make huge demands on any individual’s strength and stamina. Whether carrying mortars and ammunition, digging weapon pits, pack marching, changing tracks or throwing grenades, the daily demands on a soldier comprise constant physical exertion: ‘Despite the technological advances, ground combat has not become less hazardous and physically demanding.’32 This combat reality results in the claim that the physiological differences between men and women preclude women from combat roles because of the enormous physical demands of combat.
Is this claim justifiable? The argument that women are weaker than men is actually based on a calculated population average. There are significant gaps between the physical capabilities of men and women in general; however, studies have shown that ‘the top 20 per cent of female military personnel can perform to an equivalent standard as the bottom 20 per cent of male military personnel.’33 A further study found that ‘more than 10 percent of the military women have greater lifting capacity than the lowest 10 per cent of men.’34 Finally, ‘there is little doubt that some women could meet the physical standards for ground combat.35 This overlap refutes the argument that physiological differences constitute a sound basis for the exclusion of all women.
At the individual level, combat capability involves a set of skills and physical conditioning that isolates ineligible individuals in relatively short order. Combat itself is optimally fought in teams against a numerically inferior force. An individual’s performance contributes to the combat effectiveness of the team; however, the team’s combat effectiveness is not solely contingent on any one individual.36 Accepting that some women could perform at least as well as their average male counterparts, and conceding that in most combat situations people tend to perform in groups, the argument that combat effectiveness will be compromised based on the physiological differences between men and women is patently flawed, particularly given that the ADF is theoretically able to employ physically and mentally capable women in ground combat units. Defence leadership has recognised this and recently the ADF moved towards the introduction of competency-based standards for combat roles. Objectors continue to cite the physiological capabilities of the ‘average woman’ as being unable to meet the physical demands of combat. However, once competency standards are formalised, it can be reasonably expected that the ‘average woman’ will not make the grade in any case—only the uppermost percentile will. In fact, there will also be a number of men who prove incapable of meeting these standards, a situation exacerbated by the lowering of ADF entry standards in an effort to increase the size of the Army by 2600 personnel over the coming years.37
In 1998 the CDF directed that work on combat competencies should be completed in priority order of: engineers, artillery, armour and infantry.38 This project was given a two-year time frame with anticipated completion by mid-2001.39 The Navy, for its part, indicated a willingness to seek approval from the government to open employment in the clearance diving team category to women. However, due recognition was also accorded to the fact that the employment of women in combat roles is a polarised debate. Thus, the introduction of competency-based standards for combat roles was quickly linked to the requirement to maintain combat capability. Both of these aspects were addressed in the Ferguson Report, referred to by Admiral Barrie, who described a key finding of this report in a speech to the 12th Women, Management and Employment Relations Conference in Sydney in 2000:
Rather than being seen as a gender issue it was approached as an equity issue focusing on employment competency and the requirement to maintain combat capability—my new words [sic], enhance combat capability. The research found that the arguments against widening women’s employment in the ADF had no empirical evidence to support them—they were simply based on emotion.40
One significant issue for women in combat roles is that of pregnancy. While a female is biologically bound to motherhood, Australian society generally regards responsibility for parenting as ideally shared equally between men and women.41 Further, proponents of the move to exclude women from combat ‘do not seem to acknowledge that women are only pregnant for a short part of their lives, that some women never become pregnant at all, and that readiness procedures and policies could well accommodate the 5-10 percent of military women who are pregnant at any given time.’42 The US Presidential Commission found that, on average, maternity leave reduced the availability of women for duty by a mere one hour per month compared with the availability of their male counterparts.43 Pregnancy certainly presents a genuine problem in terms of readiness for deployment and must, therefore, be carefully managed. The uncertainty of pregnancy presents a legitimate reason to exclude a woman from actually engaging in combat, but it is equally true that not all women are pregnant all of the time and thus pregnancy cannot be used as a justification to exclude all women from combat.44
Rosemary Skaine, commenting on the research of Mady Segal, claims that ‘if there is a need to defend our society, women will not be defined in a societally constructed gender role, and even if they are, that constructed role will be overridden and they will be helping the war or peace effort.45 Regardless of this, the gender assumptions relating to women’s ‘role’ in society as ‘mothers engaged in raising the next generation’ evoke emotive reactions from all corners. An indication of a typical attitude that women pioneers confront is characterised in the words of former Commandant of the US Marine Corps, General Robert Barrow, from his congressional testimony in 1991:
EXPOSURE to danger is not combat. Being shot at, even being killed, is not combat. Combat is finding ... closing with ... and killing or capturing the enemy. It’s KILLING. And it’s done in an environment that is often as difficult as you can possibly imagine. Extremes of climate. Brutality. Death. Dying. It’s ... uncivilized! And women CAN’T DO IT! Nor should they even be thought of as doing it. The requirements for strength and endurance render them UNABLE to do it. And I may be old-fashioned, but I think the very nature of women disqualifies them from doing it. Women give life. Sustain life. Nurture life. They don’t TAKE it.46
In reality, in a potentially deadly environment, little regard will be paid to the gender of a team member. The focus will be fixed firmly on the survival of the team itself. Task cohesion will override socially constructed gender roles.47 It will also contribute to the bonding process and mitigate environmental factors.
While, indisputably, ‘male bonding’ is a critical aspect of teamwork and performance on the battlefield, the group dynamics concept should not be limited by gender. Devilbiss found evidence to support the hypothesis that ‘cohesion is based on commonality of experience, shared risk and mutual experiences of hardship, not on gender distinction.’48 The bonding processes of men and women are not mutually exclusive; they are not restricted along gender lines. Hence, from this perspective the contention that readiness and cohesion are contingent on gender appears flawed. Group dynamics can be managed in such a way as to avoid perceptions of unfairness or favouritism, just as the impact of pregnancy can be managed. The same rationale could be applied to environmental factors such as hygiene, menstruation, forced intimacy in communal living areas, or lack of privacy on the battlefield; none of these issues is insurmountable with a little prior preparation, ingenuity and resolvetraits for which Australian Diggers are renowned. After all, Australian military nurses have endured such difficulties without a reduction in their ability to perform their wartime duties since 1901.49
It is often claimed that task cohesion would suffer in an operational environment as men revert to their natural instinct to protect women in combat situations, that ‘male soldiers will be psychologically unable to cope with seeing female compatriots maimed, killed, or sexually assaulted has negative implications for military readiness and effectiveness.’50 While this may be a widely held opinion, it is highly likely to be a generational attitude rooted in the social assumptions of a traditional feminine role—that women require protection.51 One anecdotal example of this, both culturally and temporally bound to conservative attitudes and occurring at a time preceding the Sexual Revolution relates:
... in 1948 a handful of women did see combat [in Israel] with the Hagana’s fighting arm, the Polmach, but their presence resulted in both sides suffering higher casualties. Israeli men risked their lives and missions to protect their women, and Arab troops fought more fiercely to avoid the humiliation of being defeated by women.52
I would argue that a situation such as this is not relevant to Australian soldiers typical of the X and Y generations. In addition, apart from this lone example, because women do not serve in combat, there is little evidence to support the claim. Field and Nagl support this view, claiming, ‘the operational capabilities of a unit are not weakened by the presence of women.’53 Perhaps of greater import is the impact of potential harassment concomitant with introducing women into a previously all-male military culture.
Harassment is a facet of military culture that women may face in combat units. Its elimination and the acceptance of women in combat units are tied to cultural change. The reality is that attitudinal change—leading to cultural change—is a slow process, perhaps slowest in the military.54 These are among the issues causing greatest concern to the ADF in terms of undermining combat effectiveness. Yet, questions remain over the validity of these concerns.
There is a direct correlation between the existence of a strong military culture and a high level of combat effectiveness. Military culture provides the foundation for essential standards of behaviour—discipline, teamwork, loyalty, selfless duty—from which success in battle results.55 Discipline engenders resolve and creates a semblance of order in battle. Western military culture embodies the professional ethos of service, a shared identity, guides the conduct of its members and establishes a respect for civilian control of military forces. However, creating this military culture during the training process requires definition of what precisely it means to be in the military. This definition is almost always characteristically male and this masculinity may be reinforced at the expense of women:
Denigrating femininity is one common way of bolstering masculinity that is used during training.... A man’s masculinity, his self-identity, is called into question when he is accused of having female traits.56
This aspect of military culture fosters an atmosphere of sexism, discrimination and harassment built on the perception of male superiority. It became clearly manifest in the ADF in the 1990s with reported incidents of alleged sexual harassment and assault.57 Incidents such as these, in an era of everincreasing female participation in the military, became a catalyst for expanding the number of employment categories open to women as well as imposing cultural change.58 Further incidents of harassment led to the establishment of a review into policies and practices to deal with sexual harassment and sexual offences at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), with a report published in 1998.5.59 A submission to the inquiry by Dr Graham Cheeseman, an academic at the University College at ADFA, suggested that one step in ‘eradicating the root causes of sexual harassment at ADFA would be to begin to reconstruct the notion of the armed forces and military service in Australia in non-gendered (and even non-militarised) terms.’60 The notion of reconstructing military service in non-military terms would perhaps be regarded by many as extreme; yet it bore witness to the fact that the increasing presence of women in the military was disruptive of, or at least worked to modify military culture to the extent that the validity of male superiority was open to question, particularly if women were competent at performing those tasks traditionally performed by men.61
By far the biggest obstacle in the fight to open combat roles to women remains the entrenched attitudes of many of the ADF’s combat soldiers. Surveys canvassing military attitudes towards the combat-related employment of women conclude that the most negative attitudes can be attributed to male soldiers and officers serving in all-male units.62 Managing hostility towards female ‘trailblazers’ in the combat arms and breaking down preexisting, negative, sexist attitudes of the ‘old and bold’ requires a measured approach. Canada has travelled this path and can offer some important lessons:
A 1989 decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal opened all combat positions in the Canadian Forces (CF) except submarines to women. Based on this decision, the CF invited women from both inside and outside the military to join the infantry: 103 women responded to the offer.63
Yet, in 2002, ‘Canada, a nation with an armed force of about 65,000, [had] six women infantry soldiers.’64 The Canadian experience was replete with issues such as perceptions that women were recruited simply to fill quotas and reports of the harassment and the isolation of women warriors. ‘This would help explain when [sic], in 12 years, women have made very little inroad into the combat arms in Canada.’65
One means for Australia to avoid issues such as these is for the military to achieve critical mass in combat units. Critical mass encompasses the requirement to both establish a proportion of women within a combat unit and also to sustain that number. It is generally accepted that this figure should be around 20 per cent.66
The Army’s Combat Related Employment of Women Team worked on a figure of 10 per cent.67 The Office of the Status of Women believes that a figure of between 20 and 30 per cent is more realistic.68 However, a numerical solution is somewhat simplistic at best. Critical mass limits were also identified as important in establishing how the presence of women in combat units will create a situation that actually contributes to combat effectiveness.69 Achieving critical mass would also address the concerns of tokenism and contribute to minority acceptance. Blalock describes the phenomenon of minority-proportion discrimination, the theory that discrimination occurs against minorities in the workplace because of their lack of numerical representation. The corollary to this occurs when the specialised skills of the minority are valued by the majority, leading to decreased discrimination. Conversely again, where the minority is without specialised skills, the majority perceives an erosion of team skills, leading to increased discrimination. Minority-proportion discrimination also implies that the larger the relative size of the minority, the greater the discrimination because of the increased competitive threat to the majority.70 Thus, in real terms, the application of this theory dictates that for women to successfully integrate into the combat arms, those already serving in those corps need to be convinced that women possess, or have the potential to gain, skills that are desirable.71
The practicality of achieving critical mass is complicated by the obstacles posed by women’s availability or willingness to serve in combat roles. A survey of 250 women, approximately 10 per cent of the female Army population, was conducted in 2001. They were asked, firstly, which combat arms employment categories they thought should be opened to women and, secondly, in which of these categories they would be prepared to serve. ‘They appeared to have a clear idea of what was required and this became more evident to them the longer they served and as a result of seeing first hand the role of soldiers in the Combat Arms on deployment.’72 Fewer that 50 per cent thought that combat arms employment categories should be available to women (particularly infantry), and even fewer of this group expressed a willingness to serve personally (about one in four). While these results indicate that few women wish to serve in the combat arms, this does not justify their exclusion per se.
In the face of current research and modern societal attitudes, the primary arguments that seek to preclude women from combat roles appear flawed. The protectionist arguments fail from the pragmatic perspective of selecting the best qualified person for the position, regardless of gender. Keeping women ‘out of harm’s way’ denies the reality of modern warfare and is grounded in conservative and outdated notions of assumed and ascribed gender stereotypes. The claim that employing women in combat roles will reduce combat effectiveness is also unproven. The smokescreen that physiological differences justify exclusion employs critically pejorative language such as ‘fairness to our troops’ and ‘on average women just don’t cut it.’ This claim fails to recognise that there will be a small proportion of women who will be able to meet the physical demands of combat. Certainly it would appear ‘unfair’ to expect the average woman to fight in hand-to-hand combat with a man; however, the average woman is not at issue. The injustice, in fact, lies in paternalistically denying women this opportunity. Achieving gender equality is not about destroying barriers simply because they exist. Of greater import is the right to be treated as an individual, not as a member of a group, and this is a notion wholly supported by the liberal democratic society that is Australia. Discordantly, women are not similarly situated in the ADF—yet.
A more pertinent problem is the attendant cultural change required to support the presence of women in combat units. The future employment of women in combat roles is simply inevitable. However, socialisation and acceptance of the concept of women serving in combat roles will be a slow process given the military’s resistance to change. Regardless of the difficulties ahead, the justification for the continued exclusion of women from combat roles lies with the Services—the fact that the process will be difficult does not mean that it should not proceed. The ADF has already come part of the way by allowing suitably qualified women to serve on the headquarters of combat units in combat support and combat service support roles. The ADF is bound to implement gender neutral competency standards for combat roles at some as-yet-undetermined time in the future.
Yet gender equality carries with it the burden of implication, including the fact that equal rights entail equal responsibilities—they are two sides of the same coin. Women are not currently compelled to serve in a combat capacity following basic training. When women metaphorically ‘storm the last bastion’, those who are suitably qualified may be assigned to direct combat roles—as men are today—to meet current operational requirements. The simplicity of implementation is of paramount importance. The US ‘risk rule’ obfuscated the employment of women in the First Gulf War, and the artificial distinctions between combat and combat-related roles continue to deny the reality of warfare. Distractions such as these present the greatest potential to negatively influence combat effectiveness— and have no place on the battlefield. There is no need to further encumber combat leaders already heavily burdened in discharging their operational missions. Keep it simple—and allow the team to do its job.
Endnotes
1 C A Barrie, quoted in ‘Two main factors in whether women may join combat units’, Australian Defence Report, 18 February 1999, p. 5.
2 D Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service: Defence personnel conditions in a changing social context, Parliament of Australia (online), Background Paper No. 6 1997-98, Chapter 12, <http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb//view_document.aspx?TABLE=PRSPUB&ID…;, accessed 20 August 2006.
3 First established as the Australian Army Nursing Reserve (AANR) in 1902 to provide trained nurses in the event of war. See Department of Defence, ‘Chronology of Women in the Australian Military’, (online), 1999. <http://www.defence.gov.au/fr/publications/chronology.pdf>, accessed 7 July 2007.
4 Ibid.
5 During the Second World War, a total of seventy-one nurses died on active service. The AANS was designated ‘Royal’ (RAANS) and became part of the Australian Regular Army in 1949. Ibid.
6 The AAMWS was disbanded in 1951 and its functions incorporated into the new Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps (RAANC). Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 The Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) was disbanded at the end of the Second World War. The Women’s Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF) was disbanded in 1947 and re-formed as the Women’s Royal Australian Air Force (WRAAF). The Women’s Australian Army Corps (WAAC) was granted the ‘Royal’ prefix in June 1951 and became the WRAAC. Ibid.
9 The Hon. Bruce Scott, MP, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, ‘Women in Uniform: Pathways and Perceptions’, address to conference entitled ‘Australian Women and Defence: A Century of Service’, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, 13 May 1999, <http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/view_document.aspx?ID=29702&TABLE=P…;, accessed on 20 August 2006.
10 In 1969, regulations were amended to allow married women to remain in the Service. In 1974, these amendments went further, determining that pregnancy did not automatically mean discharge from the Service. Department of Defence, ‘Chronology of Women in the Australian Military’.
11 A Newspoll survey conducted by The Weekend Australian on 9-10 June 2001 indicated that the majority (63 per cent) of those polled were in favour of allowing women to serve in combat roles. <http://www.anzacday.org.au>, accessed on 21 September 2006.
12 Department of Defence, ‘Chronology of Women in the Australian Military’
13 These reservations supported the exclusion of women from combat and combat-related duties.
14 Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service’.
15 Women were awarded equal pay with their male counterparts in 1979.
16 Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service’
17 The Hon. De-Anne Kelly, MP, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence, media release 015/2005 ‘Women in the Army’, dated 22 August 2005, <http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2005/01505.doc>, accessed on 11 September 2006.
18 Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service’
19 Department of Defence, Defence Annual Report 2004-2005, Canberra, 2005, p. 98.
20 M Doherty, ‘Willing to be warriors’, The Canberra Times, 7 May 2000.
21 Women are also excluded from the employment categories of Surface Finishers and Electroplaters in the Air Force for health reasons, given their potential exposure to embryo-toxic substances. The employment of women in Navy clearance diving teams is currently under review.
22 Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service’
23 S L Zeigler and G G Gunderson, Moving Beyond G.I. Jane: Women and the U.S. Military, University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland, 2005, p. 42.
24 C Donegan, ‘The New Military Culture’, The CQ Researcher, Vol. 6, No. 16, April 1996, pp. 362-83.
25 Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service’
26 ‘Female roles in the military’, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_roles_in_the_military>, accessed on 11 September 2006.
27 Brasseys, Women in Combat: Report to the President / Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, a Maxwell Macmillan Company, New York, 1992, p. 93.
28 Center for Military Readiness Policy Analysis, ‘Why Women Servicemen are Serving at Greater Risk: Women in Land Combat, No. 16, April 2003, p. 2, <http://www.cmrlink.org/CMRNotes/M38V8CCMRRPT16.pdf#search=%22DoD%20Risk…;, accessed on 17 September 2006.
29 J Holm, ‘The Persian Gulf War’, in E A Blacksmith, (ed.), Women in the Military, The W.H. Wilson Company, 1992, pp. 65-6.
30 J Willens, ‘Women in the Military: Combat Roles Considered’, Center for Defense Information, 1996, <http://www.cdi.org/issues/women/combat.html>, accessed on 11 September 2006.
31 Zeigler and Gunderson, Moving Beyond G.I. Jane, p. 135.
32 Brasseys, Women in Combat, p. 24.
33 Evidence presented to the US Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces in 1992. Cited in Zeigler and Gunderson, Moving Beyond G.I. Jane, p. 54.
34 Ibid, p. 76.
35 Brasseys, Women in Combat, p. 24.
36 M J Eitelberg, quoted in C W Kristen, ‘The Decision to Allow Military Women into Combat Positions: A Study in Policy and Politics’, thesis submitted to Naval Postgraduate School, 2000, <http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA379603>‘ accessed on 6 October 2006.
37 To attract extra recruits, the ADF has relaxed bans on people with weight problems, tattoos, on former drug users and on asthmatics. The Sydney Morning Herald (online), ‘Army gets 2,600 extra troops’ 24 August 2006. <http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Howard-to-increase-size-of-army/200…;, accessed on 06 October 2006. See also: NEWS.com.au, ‘Army may recruit ex-drug users’ 24 August 2006 <http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20238590-1702,00.html>, accessed on 6 October 2006.
38 The employment category of Airfield Defence Guard was equated to infantry.
39 Barrie, ‘Women in the Military’.
40 Ibid.
41 R Skaine, Women at War: Gender Issues of Americans in Combat, McFarland & Company Inc. Jefferson, North Carolina, 1999, p. 138.
42 J W DeCew, ‘The combat exclusion and the role of women in the military’ Hypatia, Vol. 10, Issue 1, Winter 1995, p. 56.
43 Skaine, Women at War, p. 162.
44 Captain C M Beentjes, ‘The Employment of Women in Combat Areas’ Royal New Zealand Navy, Seaford House Papers, n.d.
45 Skaine, Women at War, p. 154.
46 D G McNeil, ‘Ideas and Trends: Should Women Be Sent Into Combat?’, The New York Times, July 21, 1991, <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/m/military…;, accessed on 20 August 2007. See also J Wheelwright, ‘It Was Exactly Like the Movies! The Media’s Use of the Feminine During the Gulf War’ in Women Soldiers, E Addis, V E Russo and L Sebesta (eds), St Martin’s Press, New York, 1994, p. 112.
47 Margaret C Harrell and Laura L Miller, New Opportunities for Military Women: Effects Upon Readiness, Cohesion, and Morale, RAND, Santa Monica, CA, for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1997, p. 54
48 M C Devilbiss, ‘Gender Integration and Unit Deployment: A Study of GI Jo’ Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1985, pp. 523-52, quoted in Beentjes, ‘The Employment of Women in Combat Areas’
49 Ibid., p. 177.
50 Zeigler and Gunderson, Moving Beyond G.I. Jane, p. 46.
51 I R Feinman, Citizenship Rites: Feminist Soldiers and Feminist Antimilitarists, New York University Press, New York, 2000, p. 175.
52 Zeigler and Gunderson, Moving Beyond G.I. Jane, p. 46.
53 K Field and J Nagl, ‘Combat Roles for Women: A Modest Proposal’, Parameters, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2001, pp. 74-88.
54 C Burton, ‘Women in the Australian Defence Force: The reasons why more women are not making the Australian Defence Force a long-term career’, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 1996.
55 Zeigler and Gunderson, Moving Beyond G.I. Jane, p. 9.
56 Ibid., pp. 47-8.
57 During a deployment of HMAS SWAN in 1992, such behaviour led to an inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. The report, ‘Sexual harassment in the Australian Defence Force,’ tabled in 1994, made recommendations aimed at raising gender awareness and preventing unacceptable sexual behaviour. This led to the introduction of policies addressing sexual harassment in the military. Department of Defence, ‘Report to the Senate on the Elimination of Sexual Harassment in the Australian Defence Force’, December 1995, cited by Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service’.
58 Following the 1992 HMAS SWAN incident, an extensive employment review was undertaken resulting in the further expansion of employment options for women to include a number of combat positions. For Navy this review effectively opened submarine service to women and for Air Force combat aircrew positions were opened to women. In both the Navy and the Air Force, the proportion of positions open to women rose from 94 per cent to 99 per cent. In 1993 it was claimed the new policy would allow women to serve in 83 per cent of Army employment categories; however, cutbacks in non-combat areas since then have reduced the proportion of positions open to women to nearer 70 per cent. Ibid.
59 Department of Defence, Report of the review into policies and practices to deal with sexual harassment and sexual offences at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), Canberra, 1998.
60 Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Group, ‘Women in the armed forces: the role of women in the Australian Defence Force’ (Online), 2000, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/fad/women_armed.htm, accessed on 20 August 2006.
61 Anderson, ‘The challenge of military service’
62 S E Hodson and J S Salter, ‘Attitudes towards the combat related employment of women’, 1st Psychological Research Unit, Department of Defence, October 1995.
63 Brasseys, Women in Combat, p. C-23.
64 A N Wojack, ‘Integrating Women into the Infantry’, Military Review, Vol. 82, No. 6, Nov/Dec 2002, p. 71.
65 K D Davis, Chief Land Staff Gender Integrations Study: The Experience of Women who have served in the Combat Arms, Personnel Research Team Report 97-2, National Defense Headquarters, Ottawa, Canada, 1997, quoted in ADF study, ‘The Employment of Women in Combat: An Issue of Critical Mass?’, n.d.
66 Ibid.
67 Department of Defence, ‘The Employment of Women in Combat: An Issue of Critical Mass?’.
68 Ibid.
69 R M Kanter, ‘Some effects of proportions on group life: Skewed sex ratios and responses to token women’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 82, 1977, pp. 965-90.
70 H M Blalock, Towards a Theory of Minority Group Relations, Capricorn, New York, 1970, chapter 5.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.
