Women in Combat: Operational
Capability Must Remain
the Prime Determinant of Employment Policy
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has employed women in
a wide range of ‘frontline’ and combat roles since the mid 1990s. It is particularly
insulting to these women professionally and personally when uninformed public
commentary, or sloppy media reporting, incorrectly state or imply that women in
the ADF supposedly do not serve (or somehow cannot serve) on the ‘frontline’ or
in combat.
It is also factually and conceptually incorrect to claim
that current government policies restricting female personnel from undertaking some
combat employments stem from other than operational capability criteria. Such
criteria (discussed below) primarily address general
trends in physicality levels between and within genders, the combat employment
effects of some gender-specific physiology or bio-mechanical differences
between men and women, and the need to minimise risks of disproportionate
female casualties compared to males undertaking the same combat tasks.
Moreover, these restrictions are set by the government, not the defence force,
and reflect what governments believe are acceptable to the Australian electorate
and society generally.
Debate on further refining these employment criteria is
pointless unless those involved actually understand the detail about what the
government restrictions currently are, and are not, and the reasons for them
― even if some may disagree or mistakenly think they disagree with some
or all of these reasons. To assist informed debate the information below also
includes an analysis of the misconceptions and commonplace
myths for and against employing females in combat that often mar effective
public debate on this issue.
The Australia Defence Association suggests any serious
and objective discussion of this complex subject would benefit greatly by using
the comprehensive information below as a starting point. A telling recent
example of what can happen otherwise is provided by the 49 comments posted on
an ABC Online article by Mark Corcoran.
The article is generally balanced but nearly all the comments posted by readers
reflect a serious lack of knowledge and research, and opinions dependent on
false assumptions, misconceptions and liberal citation of supposed 'facts' that
are in fact not correct or are quoted out of context.
What
complexities and long-term study underlies the Australia Defence Association stance?
For over three decades the ADA has
championed female participation across our defence force and broadening of the
employments in which they can serve. The Association is consequently
acknowledged widely by former and serving women and men in our defence force as
an authorative contributor to informed professional and public debate on this
issue.
As with other defence and national
security issues, the ADA's informed and fact-based stance again occupies the
logical middle ground between the two extremes of public argument on this issue
(in this case largely ideological or single-issue fixation extremes). The ADA’s
considered and holistic observations on the employment of females (and males)
in our defence force are, however, sometimes misunderstood or misrepresented.
Particularly when discussion of the numerous complexities and nuances involved
is dismissed, discounted or even denied by those wedded to simplistic or ideological
approaches. Or where those misunderstanding or misrepresenting the ADA do so
because they have not realised or considered all the operations-analysis,
scientific and medical factors underlying the ADA's research, observations and
consequent holistic policy stance.
Some misquotation has also
unfortunately occurred where media coverage by generalist journalists trying to
cover unfamiliar defence matters has been driven by short deadlines, or other
commercial pressures, and has missed the longstanding professional knowledge
and experience, and overall sense of perspective, we bring to informed public
debate on defence issues. Less often but still far too frequently, actual
misrepresentation has been engineered. Particularly where the "angle"
of a media story has been biased, sensationalist or dependent on setting up
false, exaggerated or out-of-context "confrontations" between the
ADA's informed views and the informed and uninformed comments of others. In
many of these cases those called on for comment on the issue seem unaware of
the situation actually applying to females in the ADF and the consequent
considered detail of the ADA's views. False confrontations then occur when they
unwisely rely instead on what a journalist or other commentator has inaccurately
or simplistically described as the situation or our position.
Informed public debate on the issue of
broadening the employment of female personnel in combat roles cannot actually be
informed unless it addresses the many complexities involved (see below). These include tackling what combat actually
entails (rather than what many wrongly assume it entails); what gender-based
restrictions set by government actually apply currently, how they apply and the
reasons for them; how they might be further refined; what and how various
operational contexts are relevant; what physiological, bio-mechanical,
physicality, equipment procurement and training implications might need
consideration before further changes are possible; what strategic, operational,
professional or technical matters and nuances need discussion; what are the
potential moral dilemmas that need considering; and what risks of equity-intent
versus inequity-result paradoxes need to be avoided or risk-managed when
further refining combat employment policies.
The ADA’s 10-point s
The longstanding ADA position on the gender aspects of
combat employment (based on all the issues discussed in this paper in some
detail) is summarised in the following ten points:
· Helping
to defend Australia is a universal civic responsibility (like jury duty), not
somehow “someone else’s problem” (such as only serving or former members of our
defence force). All Australians have a citizenship responsibility to serve in
our defence force when required or otherwise support the effectiveness of the
force at other times. These responsibilities are shared by all Australians
irrespective of where they live or their family circumstances, age, gender,
occupation, religion, ethnicity, sexuality or political beliefs. Female or male
employment issues in our defence force are therefore part of wider citizenship
responsibilities, not a stand-alone matter that can or should be considered in
isolation from them. Just as importantly, they are not just a gender issue.
· We
should also never forget why we have a defence force in the first place. Nor
that the overall operational capability of our defence force must remain the
prime determinant of employment policy within it. Otherwise we risk failing to
deter wars, risk losing wars and risk the lives of both our male and female
defence force personnel irresponsibly and immorally. This is discussed further below.
· Operational
preparedness standards for physical fitness, strength, endurance, stamina,
load-bearing and marksmanship based on hard-won battle experience over a
century must not be lowered to enable universal or even selective workforce
participation by females. Just as they are not lowered to permit participation
by all males, or indeed by Australians of all age groups, heights, weights,
physiques and states of health generally.
· Similarly,
the operational effectiveness of the weapons and equipment procured for our
defence force by Australian governments must not be reduced or otherwise
diluted to enable universal or even selective female use of them. Just as they
are not reduced or diluted to permit defence force participation by every male,
or indeed by Australians of all age groups, heights, weights, physiques and
states of health generally.
· There
are no psychological or emotional barriers to employing female defence force
personnel in combat. Australia does this now and has done so for many years.
Arguments commonly mounted to oppose female participation on psychological or
emotion grounds are invariably incorrect factually or conceptually. Similarly,
most social and cultural arguments posed against broadening female
participation in combat roles have been disproven by ADF and allied experience
gained in existing mixed-gender units. All these aspects are discussed in commonplace misconceptions and myths (below).
· Once
trained and qualified, female defence force personnel should be allowed to undertake
any military task where the current government policy limitation is due solely
to physicality, rather than physiology or bio-mechanics, and where the
participating female personnel can meet and maintain the physicality standards needed.
· We
support female defence force personnel also being employed in any situation
where technology, training, the procurement of modern equipment or other means
can effectively neutralise physiological or bio-mechanical differences between
the genders so that the overall operational capability of our defence force is
not affected ― and the female personnel concerned do not end up
inequitably facing a much higher risk of injury, wounds or death than male
personnel undertaking the same tasks.
· In
combat roles that might or do incur additional risks for female personnel
compared to males undertaking the same tasks (such as more disabling injuries
generally, disproportionate casualties or sexual assault if captured), we
support the right of female personnel to choose whether to accept such extra
risks or not. However, we believe that the exercise of such choice needs
careful monitoring to ensure it is truly free and reasonable in the
circumstances ― and that it does not incur unintended, inequitable or
unfair results for such females (and their male comrades) in practice. This is
discussed further below.
· As
allocation of male personnel to combat roles is generally not voluntary,
particularly in the Army, the allocation of female personnel should wherever
possible be the same in order to ensure true gender equality. This is also
discussed further below.
· In both collective and individual terms, operational credibility is vital for operational effectiveness in a defence force. Not just in perception, or for effective teamwork, but because lives are at stake. Any broadening of combat roles must never involve using prescribed or target quotas based on gender, rather than the operational capabilities needed to deter or win wars and the personnel standards necessary to achieve this.
We further suggest that anyone purporting to hold an informed or broad view on this issue who has not also worked through all the complexities and implications outlined above (and discussed below) is deluding themselves about undertaking an objective enquiry ― even if they do not necessarily agree with some or all of our deductions or conclusions.
Why is working through the complexity necessary for an informed stance?
Decisions on the combat employment of
both males and females need to be is based on a holistic approach to
operational capability. Not one that considers gender equality, or any other
single aspect in isolation, or which ignores the many complexities and dilemmas
involved with sending Australians into combat. In particular, technology,
training, equipment procurement or organisational measures can now neutralise
many general physicality and specific physiological and bio-mechanical
differences between male and female personnel in our defence force. But such
measures cannot (yet) neutralise all of them and there are consequent
operational employment ramifications.
Furthermore, physical capacities
differ widely between individual females, as they do between males. Many of the
relevant physiological and bio-mechanical differences between females and males
do not vary much, if at all, across all females (and across all males). Basing
employment policy solely on setting gender-neutral physicality standards is
therefore not the gender-equality panacea some believe. Even the fittest and
strongest females will still face at least some physiological or bio-mechanical
difficulties in undertaking some combat roles. Ignoring or denying such
differences and their implications for combat does not make them somehow go
away. The ramifications must be thought through in detail because lives are at
stake.
Technology in particular can help but not universally. An example is the differently designed G-suits for male and female aircrew in jet aircraft. The different designs neutralise physiological differences between men and women in some different ways when forcing blood back to the brain from the body when experiencing major increases in gravitational stress during aerial combat manoeuvres. A related example where technology (or anything else) has yet to succeed in cancelling out gender-specific risks is if such aircrew have to eject at speed. The females have more physiological risk of serious injury in this particular situation.
Similarly, an
example where equipment procurement measures can neutralise all or most gender-specific
or physicality difficulties would be equipping our field artillery units with
self-propelled (SP) guns with automated loading systems. Such modern weapon systems (which
Australia does not have) mean there would be no insurmountable physicality,
physiological or bio-mechanical reasons for not employing female soldiers in
the gun batteries of such units. But we should note the Canadian experience of
some continuing physicality and bio-mechanical implications when such automated
systems break down, or are unavailable, and manhandling must be used in
mixed-gender teams to load 155mm artillery rounds weighing up to 80kg each.
Moreover, the consequent equipment
capability implications of the intent to achieve complete gender-equality in
our defence force need to be acknowledged and implemented by our government to
ensure the required gender-neutral objectives can be achieved with no loss of
operational capability (or increased casualties). If not, it would mean that
any ostensible government commitment to gender equality in our defence force
would be just a hollow electoral ploy rather than a genuine commitment, good
governance or appropriate downwards loyalty to our defence force. True
gender-neutral equipment procurement would mean, for example, that mainly
self-propelled guns are provided by Australian governments rather than cheaper
and less capable towed artillery being procured (as has occurred since the
1950s). Otherwise the Army might still end up having total or mainly de facto
segregation by gender in field artillery units depending on whether the guns
were mechanised and automated or not. The same logic applies, for example, to
equipping our defence force with more modern armoured vehicles and engineer
plant.
Any continuing or new de facto segregation
caused by equipment procurement that does not support gender-neutral employment
would simply move, and effectively reverse, current
perceived gender inequity problems rather than solve them. It would be clearly
unfair in a supposedly gender-neutral defence force, on both gender equity and
operational risk grounds, if male personnel had to wholly or disproportionately
crew obsolescent or obsolete systems with higher risks of casualties, injuries
or operational exhaustion just because they are men.
It would also be operationally
inexcusable for our defence force and country as a whole, and inequitable in
effect for the survival of our male personnel in battle, if weapons and
equipment of lesser effectiveness were procured by governments purely to overcome
real or perceived general physicality differences between the genders (so they
could be used by all or most women). Such political decisions do not further
real gender-neutrality in a defence force, particularly in one that fights real
wars. They instead weaken true gender equality, and not just through rejection
of tokenism, because they cost lives of both genders and demean the efforts of
professional female personnel. An example is where the US once unsuccessfully
introduced a lighter but less effective rifle universally partly on the grounds
it could be more easily used by all or most female personnel.
Finally, if females are allowed to try out for all (rather than most) combat roles, wider consequent inequity issues will also need to be addressed. Particularly in the Army.
If females are to be considered
eligible for all combat roles is this to be by choice or compulsion (including
conscription of females as well as males when compulsory national service is
required)? Allowing females effectively to choose whether they undertake combat
roles or not also sits uneasily with the fact that most male personnel (either
as volunteers or conscripts) do not have such a choice. In the Army in
particular male personnel are simply allocated to various Corps specialisations
depending on the operational needs of the defence force at the time. With male
personnel it is just expected and assumed that if able to undertake a combat
task they have to do it if required. No other strategic workforce planning policy
is operationally or organisationally feasible in a defence force.
If females are to be deemed eligible
for all combat tasks, but only by their choice, there are likely to be morale
problems at least and perhaps worse if those females actually capable of combat
tasks decline the opportunity to do so. Or deliberately fail when being tested
against the applicable gender-neutral physicality standards. Or
are perceived to have done so either within the defence force, or the wider
Australian community, even if they have not.
The military profession is necessarily
one particularly dependent on teamwork and mutual trust. Perceptions about fair
play and whether individuals or groups are "pulling their weight" can
also often count as much as reality. Many personnel of both genders are likely
to consider a decision not to opt for combat employments, when someone could,
as deliberately avoiding both a professional duty and a responsibility to their
comrades. They are not likely to regard it as just declining the "opportunity"
as some sort of peacetime, office or factory-equivalent, career choice.
This is not a serious problem in the
defence force at present only because the breadth of combat roles open to females
in the Army has been less than those open to males (although the gap has
continually closed as operational circumstances and community expectations have
changed). There has consequently been an accepted balance in practice in
community and defence force expectations between risks and rewards. The more
limited career choices for females (the potentially lesser reward) has
generally also meant lesser operational burden-sharing by them across the Army
(and generally less exposure to risk), especially concerning many of the
dangers necessarily involved in training for or fighting wars. Whereas the
wider employment open to males (the potentially
greater reward) has necessarily also incurred greater burden-sharing by and
among males and often greater exposure to danger.
Moreover, the other big factor to be
weighed in this balance is that the wider employment and the potential price to
be paid (greater risk) is generally not voluntary but directed in the case of
male personnel. This is why decisions between choice and compulsion when
broadening the combat employment of female personnel are so complex and
nuanced.
A key overall point to be noted here
about all the complexities of broadening female employment in combat roles is
that the quest for absolute gender equality for female personnel in our defence
force is not as simple as many assume. Unintended consequences and further
inequity dilemmas for both women and men are certain when theory meets practice
in society's only "unlimited liability" occupation.
Why do we need to keep in mind what
our defence force is for?
Any serious discussion on the
employment of women in combat needs to based on accepting why we have a defence
force in the first place. Unfortunately consideration of this context rarely occurs
in much public argument about broadening the employment of women in combat.
Instead, argument often occurs in a context-free zone divorced from the
realities of fighting wars and incurring casualties.
Australia has a defence force so we
can deter or win wars by efficiently applied violence.
War necessarily means seeking to
deploy overwhelming force against our enemy to defeat them swiftly and
thoroughly, and minimise casualties to our own forces and non-combatants. War
is quite unlike domestic law enforcement, for example, where the application of
minimal force is necessary and usual.
A large part of the role we assign our
defence force involves a readiness and capacity to engage in actual battle.
Even the most modern battlespace involves abnormal and often prolonged
conditions of physical effort, physical endurance, psychological trauma,
destruction, death, injury and general mayhem.
Battle is unique in our and
international society. While police forces and fire services, for example,
employ women in operational positions the degree of violence or physical effort
involved does not match military combat for the scale, intensity, tempo,
complexity, duration and prolonged repercussions of bloodshed and horror that
can be involved.
Some modern battle involves killing by
the operation of complex technology or the indirect or longer-range application
of force. This is gender-neutral operationally and enables females to join the
fray as fighter pilots or aboard submarines for example. Much battle, however,
particularly in ground combat, still depends on physical, to-the-death,
close-quarter, individual-to-individual confrontations. This type of lethal,
absolute-result, one-on-one, fighting is rarely gender-equal and certainly not
universally for all females when having to fight enemy males.
Finally, no-one we send to fight our
wars can always be shielded from some exposure to all or most forms of combat.
All ADF personnel of both genders may have to fight as at least a secondary
task in their employment. Especially in the case of the Army and particularly
during counter-insurgency campaigns (where warfare is often not linear and the
‘frontline’ as an area can be anywhere).
Why
then is there so much community confusion in Australia on the issue of women in
combat?
Why does confusion arise so readily on
the issue of employing (more) women in combat? A large part of the problem is
the tendency to fixate on the Army, which still has some restrictions on the
employment of females in some combat jobs (but not in them serving in combat
units per se), and ignore the Navy and Air Force which effectively do not.
The biggest general contributor to the
problem, however, is ignorance of detail leading to misunderstandings. Most
Australians now have little personal, close-family or even or extended-family
understandings of their defence force or war through first-hand experience or
knowledge. Ironically, this deficit in grasp of the subject is often
exacerbated when such knowledge is wrongly assumed, for example, through
watching fictional and usually unrealistic depictions of war in television
series and films. Or, conversely, where urban myths about supposed problems or
purported successes with the employment of females in combat are accepted
without checking the facts. As a result, most blog and radio talkback
discussions, and much newspaper coverage, of the topic are so riddled with
misconceptions and factual errors that their value to informed public debate is
negligible or worse.
Much confusion also arises
inadvertently, but deliberately by some, when the relevant professional
views of serving and former ADF personnel are ignored, discounted or even
denied by those with no personal experience or effective knowledge of military
service or war. Confusion can also occur through misunderstanding military
professional terminology, or from mistaken, vague or ambiguous use of concepts
such as what the terms combat, direct combat or the frontline actually involve. Many people do not appear to
realise, for example, that the Army's combat-support arms units are actually
combat units, and that mixed-gender elements of such units often or usually
operate on the ‘frontline’ ― as indeed can many mixed-gender elements
from logistic-support or health-support units.
As noted above, another large and
frequent contributor to public confusion more generally is mindless repetition
of commonplace misconceptions and myths (below) about war,
women or how other countries supposedly employ females in their armed forces.
Often such mythology sustains or disguises commonplace inabilities to
appreciate the complexity of the issue and adequately define or otherwise
understand the contexts, nuances and dilemmas involved.
As a result of all three factors, even
the ABC’s 7:30 Report was forced to apologise formally in late
2009 for (despite advice) basing a subjective and largely flawed program on the
thoroughly incorrect claim that all “women in the ADF are limited to support
roles and do not serve in combat”.
Finally, and sadly too frequently,
popular confusion on the subject of employing women in combat can also be driven by ideological motivations or
other biases not directly connected to the issue itself. Much media, political
and academic commentary, for example, ignores or denies contexts and
complexities because of polemical motivations. Including ‘opinionating’
imperatives or a desire for individual publicity or sensationalist media
splashes, rather than discussion based on the facts, genuine enquiry,
intellectual objectivity, or journalistic or academic professionalism.
What
then really is the current situation with regard to the employment of females
in our defence force?
Navy.
In the Royal Australian Navy women are employed in all roles (including combat
ones) on all ships, submarines and minor war vessels, except as clearance
divers. The limitation on clearance diving (a very small number of positions in
the Navy) is primarily based on physiological differences in blood flows
between men and women breathing compressed gases, and to some extent the
associated physical strength and stamina levels, when performing protracted
tasks underwater at depth. The government is now proposing to remove this
formal restriction but the high physicality standards required for clearance
diving (most male applicants fail the selection course), and some enduring
physiological differences between the genders, mean it is unlikely female
sailors will qualify in any meaningful numbers if at all.
Air Force. In the Royal Australian Air Force women can fly all
aircraft, and are employed in all roles (including combat ones), except for the
ground-based (infantry) defence of operational airbases in war zones. These
ground-defence jobs involve a very small part of the Air Force numerically and
operationally, and the restriction is based on the same criteria applying to
the Army’s infantry (discussed below). On occupational health and safety
grounds females are also excluded from a very small number of ground-based
support positions involving the frequent use of toxic chemicals known to be
injurious during pregnancy, especially in its early stages where the women
concerned might be unaware they are pregnant.
Army.
In the Australian Army, women can be employed everywhere in the air and on the
ground and in all units, including on the ‘frontline’ and in combat roles, with
only a few exceptions concerning matters of specific individual employment
skills and the required attributes, not geographic area of deployment (ie. the
‘frontline’), combat status or general combat tasking. The exceptions
constitute only seven per cent of the range of employment categories across the
Army, but they are the type of category that involve
large numbers of personnel in any army (principally the combat manouvre units
and some types of combat-support unit).
The best way to understand employment
specialisations in the Army is using the classifications in which the types of
ground-force unit are grouped for organisational and tasking purposes:
·
Broadly
speaking, specialist employment categories and the units they are employed in
(and their fostering Corps trade-streams) are divided into the Arms and the Services.
·
Arms
units are the ones tasked and organised to fight as their principal and core
function and are sub-divided into two types:
§
combat-manouvre
arms units ― infantry (light infantry and mechanised infantry battalions
and commando and special air service regiments) and armour (tank and cavalry
regiments); and
§
combat-support arms units ― artillery (field,
medium or air defence), aviation, signals and engineer (combat or construction)
regiments and intelligence battalions.
· Since 2005 female soldiers can serve in every type of unit in the Army ― including on the ‘frontline’ and during combat ― if they meet the required physicality standards for the type of unit involved. In combat-manouvre arms units and some combat-support arms units, however, females are currently restricted to serving on the unit headquarters or with the unit’s logistic-support sub-unit (as per employment criteria discussed below). Females are not currently posted to the fighting sub-units of combat-manouvre arms units, or the sub-units of two types of combat-support arms unit. The seven types of sub-unit currently restricted to males are the:
§
rifle
companies of light and mechanised infantry battalions;
§
commando
companies of our two commando regiments;
§ sabre (operational) squadrons of the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR);
§
tank
squadrons of our only armoured regiment;
§
reconnaissance
or armoured personnel carrier (APC) squadrons of cavalry regiments;
§
gun
batteries of medium and field artillery regiments; and
§
field squadrons of combat engineer
regiments.
·
Progressively
since the late 1980s females have served in other Arms units, including all
other types of combat-support arms unit. This includes:
§
aviation
regiments and their squadrons (including in attack helicopters);
§
air
defence artillery regiments and their batteries;
§
construction
engineer regiments and their squadrons;
§
electronic
warfare regiments and their squadrons;
§
intelligence
battalions and their companies, and in other liaison teams and staffs; and
§
signals
regiments and their squadrons;
The employment of females in
combat-support units or elements from them necessarily involves them being
extensively co-located and working with combat-manouvre arms sub-units when
supporting them in battle and other ‘frontline’ situations. It is likely with
increasing modernisation, mechanisation and automation (and consequently less
reliance on individual physicality) that female soldiers who are up to it physically
will also eventually serve more widely in field artillery and combat engineer
regiments, and perhaps in our only two mechanised infantry battalions. This is
the most likely shorter-term result of the ostensible government intention to
lift the restriction on females being able to serve (if qualifying) throughout
combat manouvre units and in the last two types of combat-support arms
sub-units (gun batteries and field engineer squadrons) with no female soldiers
at present.
·
In
the Service corps and their constituent units, female soldiers serve in
‘frontline’ service-support units such as transport, supply, maintenance
engineering, medical and military police elements. These are also often
co-located and work with combat-manouvre and combat-support
units in ‘frontline’ situations.
What
are the employment principles, facts and contexts actually involved?
First, Australian governments have always rightly specified that operational capability is the prime determinant of any employment policy in the defence force. The recent announcement aimed at lifting the current restrictions on employing females in the last few combat categories in which they are not already serving reiterated that operational capability would remain the prime determinant. A major concern among serving and former ADF personnel is that future governments (which now have so few members who have had personal war service) might be tempted to direct the defence force to relax combat standards for females so as to increase the numbers of them for partisan purposes. Such a relaxation of combat standards would inevitably result in a loss of defence force combat capability generally and an increase in female and male casualties.
Too many forget this primacy objective
and forget or discount why service in our defence force has to be different in
many regards to other types of employment. In particular, the battlefield is
not just another workplace. Our defence force is an unlimited liability company in terms of the men and women who serve
in it and the risk of death or wounds necessarily involved in such service.
Second, the following facts are
essential to understanding the combat employment issue but are too often
ignored or discounted:
·
Women
have long been employed in combat roles in all three Services where force is
applied from a distance (especially in the Navy and the Air Force).
·
For
even longer, in all three Services, females have undertaken frontline and
combat roles where, occasionally rather than continually, force is not
just applied from a distance but is likely to be applied directly by
having to fight in a physical person-to person sense (and not just in
self-defence). Examples of such jobs include:
§
naval
boarding parties;
§
aircrew
and aircraft ground crew when on the ground defending aircraft and support
facilities in contested areas;
§
working
in the headquarters, or the logistic-support sub-unit, of a frontline
combat-manouvre unit (such as an infantry battalion or a cavalry or tank
regiment);
§
a
combat-support element co-located with a frontline combat manouvre unit (such
as an electronic warfare, signals or air defence artillery detachment directly
supporting an infantry, cavalry or tank unit); and
§
service-support elements of any type (logistic,
maintenance engineering, medical, military police, etc) directly supporting any
frontline combat-manouvre unit.
Third, some combat roles in the Army
in particular involve more than these criteria of applying force from a
distance or fighting person-to-person only occasionally. For
reasons discussed further below, Australian governments have placed some
restrictions on the employment of women in some roles, chiefly (but not wholly)
to avoid the risk of disproportionate female casualties to male ones where
physical, close-in force generally needs to be directly applied much more continually
(rather than only occasionally).
·
The
longstanding principle involved concerning the potential employment of women in
ground combat-manouvre arms units (including ground-defence units in the Air
Force) is that, because of the physiological and bio-mechanical differences
between men and women, and the general (but not universal) differences in their
physicality, female soldiers should not be unduly risked in battlefield roles
where, most of the time, the core business and prime purpose
of the element concerned is direct combat with the enemy in an
up-close, physical and person-to-person sense.
·
This
operational employment principle therefore includes five distinct but
inter-related criteria ― but with the emphasis on the frequency of
direct, physical, person-to-person fighting rather than on the existence,
purpose and likelihood of such a degree of close combat itself. Moreover, the
criteria are related only to risk stemming from physiological and
bio-mechanical differences between men and women, the generally differing
levels of physicality between the genders, and the risk of disproportionate female
casualties compared to males doing the same job. The risk criteria used also
result from battlefield lessons and other empirical testing over many years,
not mere untested or un-testable beliefs about what female and male soldiers
supposedly can or cannot do.
·
In
2009 the then Minister for Defence Science (Greg Combet) announced moves by the
Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), assisted by the University
of Wollongong, to re-test the environmental conditions involved, the
physicality, physiological and bio-mechanical criteria applying and the risk
judgements arising from them. The report of the DSTO
·
The
ADA believes, however, that the additional scientific analysis and consequent
gender-neutral physicality standards are likely to largely validate not
invalidate the public policy principles concerned. Consequent changes in employment
policy, or in the numbers of females actually employed in combat roles in
practice even if policy changes are theoretically significant, are likely to be
marginal not fundamental even when physicality standards are expressed in
gender-neutral terms. The analysis is also likely to highlight the fact that
more than physicality criteria are involved, particularly the importance and
specific situational applicability of relevant and undeniable physiological or
bio-mechanical differences between men and women undertaking some defence force
tasks.
·
An
objective scientific study is welcome because it will again disprove commonplace misconceptions and myths either for or against
female employment in combat. This will greatly help eradicate the
misunderstandings and profound ignorance that so often complicates or negates
effective public debate on the women-in-combat
issue.
Fourth, and in particular, the
principles concerning female employment in combat-manouvre (infantry, tank and
cavalry), field artillery and combat engineer sub-units are based on experience
and facts. The battlefield continues to be the ultimate unforgiving environment
where the laws of physics, ballistics, bio-mechanics and probability apply without
necessarily respecting gender-equity theory in its ideological or academic
sense or in its civil contexts. Some physiological and bio-mechanical
differences between men and women have significant effects on military service.
Even in carefully planned peacetime
training among fit and healthy individuals in the Army, incapacitating injuries
to backs, pelvises, knees, ankles, etc., run at ratios up to 7:1 between females and
males due to physiological or bio-mechanical differences in load-bearing
abilities between the genders. Proven operational needs mean there is little
scope to lighten basic load-carrying tasks at an individual level, especially
in ground combat.
While the physicality (strength,
stamina, etc) levels required can be gender-neutral to an extent, some
gender-specific bio-mechanical and physiological factors involved in the
capacity to undertake certain types of combat function (such as load-bearing)
remain and cannot always be neutralised by technology, training or tactics.
Similar bio-mechanical or physiological differences apply to upper body
strength in particular, and to a lesser extent lower body strength and
endurance under heavy loads.
Finally, especially in the Army, there
are the social, equity and operational ramifications of the risk of
disproportionate female casualties compared to males undertaking the same tasks.
A key point well worth noting in this regard is that our recent and current
wars have not included either high-intensity operations or large-scale battles.
As our defence force has not had to regularly fight big pitched battles since
the Korean War (with two or three exceptions in Vietnam) there is a great
danger that current combat employment decisions might be made based on only limited
levels of current professional experience ― and with virtually no current
corporate knowledge in our defence force, or living national community memory,
of the effects of higher-intensity and larger wars.
Similarly, as discussed below, the very few modern examples where professionally
comparable foreign armies have employed females in combat manouvre sub-units in
actual war have all been in low-intensity, small-scale, counter-insurgency
operations. The risk is that precipitant decisions may now be made based only
on limited or no empirical testing, but which could seriously backfire
operationally in the next high-intensity, large-scale pitched battle our
defence force has to fight.
For a range of operational
effectiveness, moral equity, practical equity, and occupational health and
safety reasons, particularly in high-intensity and large-scale combat, it would
often not be fair, logical or necessarily operationally effective to expect our
female soldiers to fight enemy male soldiers in a person-to-person physical
context and as a permanent and core part of their job where such a degree of
close-quarter combat was continual rather than occasional. Some would
win such intense, person-to-person physical confrontations to the death. But
the risk is that more, probably many more or most, would lose – even if only
eventually – when such direct forms of combat are prolonged in scale, duration
and/or intensity. Once again, it is the continuous or prolonged nature of such
close-quarter fighting, not the fighting itself, that generates the risk.
·
Female
casualties in such situations are therefore likely to be disproportionate in
numbers to their male team members, chiefly because they would be exposed to
higher risks over time than our men doing the same job under the same
conditions.
·
This
has obvious operational, leadership, practical equity and fairness, moral
responsibility, and (even in war) occupational health and safety implications.
·
It
would, in fact (and with some irony given the gender-equity motivation), be
genuinely discriminatory and tragic in practice to place female ADF personnel
in situations of higher risk purely because of their gender ― and because
of public expectations about gender equality based only on civilian, peacetime,
experiences and objectives. Especially if this decision was based on
ideological beliefs with no regard for ADF operational capability, respect for
the women concerned as individuals, or acknowledgement of the science and other
facts involved. This situation poses a significant equity-intent versus inequity-result
paradox on both an individual and a collective (and community) basis.
·
Community
support for our defence force is also important when we commit them to war. It
is likely that many, probably most, Australians would consider it illogical and
unfair for their daughters, sisters, wives or female friends to be placed in
situations with a risk of disproportionate casualties just because they
are women. Even more to the point, community concern is very likely if women
were placed at such a risk of disproportionate casualties only to satisfy
inapplicable theories that it would supposedly be ‘discriminatory’ not to put
them at much higher risk than men in this regard. This risk of disproportionate
female casualties is undoubtedly a genuine gender equity aspect of the
women-in-combat issue. It is certainly not an inapplicable and old-fashioned
‘chivalry attitude’ as some now out-of-touch feminist theorists mistakenly and
reflexively maintain; often as an apparent diversion from actually addressing
this complex and nuanced aspect of employing all women in all combat as they
demand.
As
women can and do already serve in the frontline and in combat, is how
they do it really a gender equality matter at all?
Given the complexities and nuances of
this issue, the question really needs to be asked whether government-directed
employment policies that seek to maximise operational outcomes, or prevent
unfairness in the risk of death, wounds or injury for male and female soldiers
serving in combat, are actually even gender equity or improper discrimination
issues at all. This question is frequently ignored on both sides of the debate,
too often either deliberately due to ideology, or through misinformation or
worse about the facts.
On one extreme of the debate are those
who see the employment of women in any form of combat as somehow
inherently destructive of the moral fabric of society, especially the sanctity
of the family, the nurturing instinct typified by motherhood and our future as
a community. Some also argue against the employment of women in any
combat role based on outmoded or disproven views of what women supposedly can
and cannot do physically, psychologically or emotionally. Often these latter
objections simply ignore modern military experiences where women have long
served at sea, in the field and in the air with little or no problems. They
also ignore applicable foreign military experiences, including indications that
female personnel are actually often more suited temperamentally than men in the
operation of automated weapon systems that kill remotely.
On the opposite extreme are those who
see the issue of women in combat only as a gender-equity matter, rather than an
issue that should be primarily focused on operational capability and the
complex environments involved. They view the problems involved in absolute,
abstract or idealistic terms and fear that women are somehow being unlawfully
or unethically discriminated against because governments have not allowed
females to be employed in every combat role all the time in every
situation. Many on this extreme consider the issue only in civil employment
contexts. Many also appear unwilling to accept that there are any, or any
significant or relevant, physiological or bio-mechanical differences between
women and men. In particular, many on this extreme appear unwilling to
acknowledge that fighting wars can be an extreme test of physiological and
bio-mechanical differences between men and women, or of general physicality
trends between the genders, especially where these differences or trends are
not evident or not relevant in office, factory, sporting or other peacetime
civilian environments.
Both these extremes tend to dwell only
on the existence or not of physicality and emotional differences. They tend to
exaggerate, or ignore, the effects of real physiological and bio-mechanical
differences respectively. As but one of many examples, ejection seat
characteristics in fighter and strike aircraft need to cater for the different
effects on human bodies ejected explosively at high speed and under major
stress. In men the major risk is hernias. In women it is prolapsed uteruses.
There are numerous other effects across the Services in how equipment is
operated or carried because women and men tend to have different muscle masses
and different centres of gravity and therefore markedly different injury rates
or different risk factors during military service. Not all these differences
can yet be overcome by technology, training or other means.
Both extremes also avoid the real
question. This is not whether females should or should not be employed in
combat roles because they already are so employed. The real question is how
they can and should be so employed? Between the two extremes described above is
the logical middle ground. This approaches the question of female employment in
combat roles from a strictly utilitarian basis – what is best for Australia’s
defence, and for the men and women directly concerned, based on empirical
analysis of the facts and issues. After all, we invest large sums and
significant personal efforts in our national defence and the operational
requirements of the defence force should primarily influence any decision on
force composition and employment. Demographic pressures and equity principles
(including career experiences needed for promotion) also mean the employment of
women in the ADF, and career opportunities for them, must be maximised not
minimised.
Too many advocates on both extremes of
the debate seem to forget or ignore why we have a defence force and why it is
quite a different organisation to virtually all others in our society. Many of
the comments calling for markedly increasing, or lessening, the involvement of
women in combat come from those pushing political or ideological hobbyhorses,
rather than being based on any real knowledge, experience or appreciation of
what combat actually entails.
Such insular approaches are also
particularly noteworthy for three aspects:
·
First,
it is very rare to meet women with actual experience of service in our defence
force who seriously disagree with the principles and practical approach
underlying combat employment policies. Especially where their ADF service has
involved fighting a war or mounting a peacekeeping operation. This is because
such former and serving female personnel understand what is involved and
consider current employment policies are not discriminatory or otherwise
unethical in the civil-employment gender equity sense. They also appreciate
that training, technology and equipment procurement decisions can work to
neutralise many gender differences in operating weapons and equipment, or
overcoming battlefield conditions, but cannot yet eliminate all of them. See,
for example, this recent Townsville Bulletin article from
its correspondent deployed with the ADF contingent in Afghanistan.
·
Second,
those calling for women to serve in all combat roles all the time
rarely have any military experience themselves and tend to not appreciate, or
unduly discount, the real scientific and battlefield issues involved. In at
least some cases those advocating the employment of women in all combat roles
appear to be doing so for purely ideological purposes essentially unconnected
with the issue itself, and would not serve in the ADF themselves or encourage
their family members of either gender to do so.
·
Third,
many of those who deny there are relevant physiological or bio-mechanical
differences between men and women that can affect combat employment, or that
consequently female personnel might at times face a risk of disproportionate
injuries and casualties to men doing the same job, also maintain the somewhat
contradictory position that females must have the choice to face such risks or
not.
What are commonplace misconceptions, myths and
misunderstandings about employing women in combat?
Commonplace misconceptions, myths and misunderstandings
for and against employing women in combat can be grouped in six categories:
“its just old-fashioned discrimination”; psychology and emotion preclude women
fighting; sexual tension is an insurmountable problem; “its
only physical”; “war is different now”; and what other countries supposedly do.
Misconceptions and myths arising from
pre-conceived ideas about discrimination include:
·
The principles underlying government
policy limiting the employment of women in more combat roles are based simply
on old-fashioned perceptions of gender differences. In fact, employment policies in our
defence force result from decades of warfighting experience, empirical testing
in peacetime trials, experimentation in regular military exercises, regularly
updated scientific and medical advice, and adaptation where technological
change means tasks can now be rendered wholly or partly gender-neutral with no
loss of combat capability. The last few ADF employment categories limited to
males (by government policy) are only those in which the primary and permanent
duties involve frequent, close-quarter, person-to-person
physical combat as a core requirement ― such as the infantry.
As discussed above, the rationale for this is essentially based on
physiological and bio-mechanical differences between men and women, operational
needs for levels of physical strength, physical power and load-carrying stamina
not met by most women (and many men), and the risk of disproportionate female
casualties compared to men when undertaking close-quarter and prolonged
combat on an individual-to-individual basis.
·
Women in the ADF feel discriminated
against and are demanding to serve in every combat role. In fact, women do serve in virtually
every combat role in the Navy and the Air Force and many combat roles in the
Army. Moreover, there is little clamour for significant change among female ADF
personnel because the vast majority do not regard this as a gender
discrimination or indeed gender equity issue. This is because they are best
placed to understand the operational logic and context behind current
government policies and have confidence in the principles involved. They also
understand that the implementation of these principles evolves over time as
technological change in particular affects how women can be employed
effectively, fairly and with due regard to their survival in battle ― in
both absolute terms and in comparison to males. Moreover, further broadening of
female employment in combat is likely to be more relevant to officers than
soldiers because of the broader career experiences needed for professional
development and competitive promotion as an officer.
Myths based on groundless beliefs
about psychological or emotional differences between men and women include:
·
Female soldiers are somehow inherently
less willing or less able emotionally to kill than men when the need arises. Both Australian and overseas
military experience does not support this belief. Furthermore, some foreign
military experiences indicate at least some women can be more suited
temperamentally than many men in operating weapon systems that kill (at a
distance) by remote control.
·
Women are always likely to be
emotionally more prone to the shock of battle and its aftermath, and therefore
become ineffective, especially where violent death and horrific wounds are
involved. There is
little modern empirical evidence either way concerning large-scale and
close-quarter infantry combat, but the performance in other combat of existing
mixed-gender units with combat support, logistic support or health support
roles indicates that potential problems, even where they might exist, can be
overcome by leadership, training and battle inoculation.
·
In the extreme conditions of battle,
mixed-gender units might be compromised when the men seek to protect the women,
however subconsciously, rather than concentrate on the priority collective task
at hand. Again the
so-called ‘chivalry problem’ does not appear to have been a significant problem
in existing mixed-gender units with combat support or logistic support roles.
Unfortunately this does not stop its unearned popularity and frequency in
uninformed argument.
A popular myth is that sexual tensions
pose insurmountable problems:
·
Sexual relations or tensions between
men and women in a team will impede morale and operational effectiveness,
especially at small-group level.
Again this has not generally been an unmanageable problem in existing
mixed-gender units with combat support, logistic support or health support
roles, or in the mixed-gender headquarters and logistic support elements of
combat-manouvre arms units. Extensive Canadian and British testing in peacetime
with both all-female and mixed-gender infantry sub-units has shown some
teamwork maintenance, group durability and unit cohesion problems, But whether
these are unmanageable in modern, large-scale, close-quarter infantry combat is
effectively unknown as it is untested. Based on some very limited, small-scale
direct combat experiences in Afghanistan with Canadian and Danish units the
likelihood is that such problems can be prevented or minimised by leadership,
training and battle inoculation.
Another commonplace myth stems from
the incorrect belief that there is a complete absence of relevant physiological
or bio-mechanical differences between women and men:
·
Any differences between men and women
concern only physical strength or stamina. This leads to the belief that some women therefore can
and should be qualified to undertake any battle or related task using tests
based purely on physicality rather than gender. This belief unfortunately
ignores those differences that are physiological or bio-mechanical as well as,
or rather than, physical in cause or effect. The different or more prevalent
injuries under battlefield and training conditions between men and women, such
as lower back, knee and ankle problems indicate otherwise.
Further myths revolve around the
mistaken belief that modern war is somehow now different than in the past and
that this supposedly means it is now easier for women to participate:
·
The nature of war has somehow changed
and changed for the better so it is safer for women to participate. Despite the modernisation of weapon systems
the nature of war itself remains brutal. Modern battle can be just as brutal as
in the past, particularly where ground combat is involved. Hand-to-hand
fighting continues to occur regularly in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan.
·
Modern wars are somehow now fought in
artificial or antiseptic environments with little or no personal inter-action
so women would not have to fight hand-to-hand. The reality is that where human inter-action in battle
does occur, especially in ground combat, it is still a physical fight for
personal and team survival, especially in direct, person-to-person, close
confrontations.
·
The lessons or gender-segregated rules
of physical contact sports are irrelevant because a battlefield is somehow
easier than a sporting field.
In fact, as discussed further below, battle is
obviously far harder than sport because it is lethal not just competitive.
Moreover, teams and competitions in top-tier physical contact sports continue
to be organised along single-gender lines. Combat is also often a top-tier
physical contact activity, not least because it is inherently and unavoidably
life-threatening. Any discussion on employing females widely in combat roles
needs to address the unfounded belief by some that commonsense and
well-accepted approaches to physical contact sports are somehow irrelevant to
actual war.
Finally,
there are widespread myths and misconceptions due to erroneous beliefs about
how other countries supposedly employ females in their military forces compared
to Australia:
·
Other countries are very different to
us in how they employ women in their military forces. Contrary to this particularly
prevalent and recurring myth, the ADF employs female personnel in a far wider
range of roles than most of the world’s armed forces (including Israel, see below, which actually has very strict limits). We have
female sailors on our warships, female aircrew and female diggers can serve, if
meeting the physicality standards, in every unit of our ground forces (but not
in some types of some of their sub-units). Australian employment policies
concerning female personnel do not differ much, if at all, from the most
comparable countries such as the USA, UK, Canada, New
Zealand or indeed from most ‘Western’ countries. Where they do differ, this
tends to be because we employ women more broadly or more flexibly ― or
the other countries (Canada mainly) employ modern automated weapon systems,
such as self-propelled medium artillery that we do not yet have, and such
systems are more gender-neutral in the physicality sense than our older
un-automated systems.
·
Many comparable countries employ women
more broadly than Australia and have tested and proved their policies in combat. Those countries alleged to have
broader employment of women, and to have done so with purported success, are
invariably ‘Western’ countries and ones with little or no modern experience of
combat (especially in comparison to Australia). The US, UK, Canada and Denmark
have all suffered fatal casualties among female personnel in Afghanistan. The
majority from improvised explosive devices, with most also occurring when those
killed were travelling in armoured vehicles. Canada and Denmark are the only
comparable countries to have tested the deployment of female soldiers in combat
manouvre sub-units in recent times. Other examples often cited in public
discussion are simply incorrect and/or compared out of context. Germany
conscripts only men. New Zealand has no women in combat manouvre sub-units in
Afghanistan. Denmark has women in its mechanised infantry unit in Afghanistan
(with one killed in action when an IED hit the Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC)
she was crewing). Canada employs women in their artillery because their modern
guns allow greater gender-neutral employment. A female Canadian artillery
forward observer accompanying a mechanised infantry battlegroup was killed in
action in Afghanistan. As discussed above, if we procure modern self-propelled
guns we can employ females in such units too. Canada also employs females in
APC crews in mechanised battlegroups, with one killed in action in Afghanistan.
Canada has also had one female medic killed in action in Afghanistan (in a
frontline health-support role identical to that undertaken by females in the
ADF).
·
Israel has women fighting in its Army
so why not us? Both
the assumptions of this commonplace and pervasive myth are incorrect. First,
the ADF already employs females in numerous roles where they are required to
fight. Second, in
the Israeli Army women do not fight on a wider basis than in the Australian
Army. Moreover, women are employed
more narrowly across the whole Israeli Defence Force than they are in the ADF. In the
Israeli Army, women do not serve in the fighting sub-units of combat-manouvre
arms units (such as infantry rifle companies or tank squadrons) and have not
done so since 1948 when some served in home-guard militias. This is the same as
the Australian Army (where females serve only in the unit headquarters and logistic
sub-unit of combat manouvre units). Even in the Israeli
Army's border patrol units women serve in only one of them, the Caracal
Battalion. This unit is only deployed on the agreed and largely non-hostile
border with peace-treaty partner, Egypt, in the Sinai-Negev Desert. It is not a
combat-manouvre unit in the conventional sense as deployed by Israel or other
armies. What unfortunately seems to confuse even the more diligent researchers
of Israeli policy is that many Israeli women undertake their conscripted national
service in the civil police, including employment on high-visibility
paramilitary tasks such as staffing road and border checkpoints, static guard
forces for installations, etc. Such tasks are internal security roles. They do
not involve close-quarter infantry combat on either a frequent or a continuous
basis ― and are essentially the same anyway as field policing tasks undertaken, for
example, by field elements of the ADF's military police which have also long
included female personnel.
How can some sporting analogies
help us better debate the women-in-combat issue?
Battle means playing for keeps.
Battlefields are much tougher than sporting fields, not least because
deliberately inflicting or resisting immediate death is integrally involved.
But the overall situation of where and how to employ women in combat is in part
analogous to premier-grade and national-level sporting teams in physical
hard-contact sports.
After all, even the most ardent feminist
ideologue does not demand on equity grounds that every first-grade Australian
rules, rugby union and rugby league team must have equal numbers of male and
female players or at least be open to female participation. (Soccer is
different, of course, because it is not really a serious contact sport). The
same contact-sport analogy applies to boxing tournaments. Similarly, no one
appears to seriously question that, even in non-contact sports such as soccer
and netball, when mixed-gender teams can be involved, most competitions have
rules limiting the number of men allowed in each team on general physicality
and gender-specific physiological and bio-mechanical grounds.
Another good sporting analogy
demonstrating bio-mechanical, physiological and general physicality differences
between the genders is the often different recovery rates involved. In top-tier
professional tennis, for example, males play matches of five sets but females
play only three. This is not because females cannot play five-set matches on
physicality grounds at the time. The decision to limit their matches to three
sets is because they tend to take longer to recover from such high-pressure,
hard-endurance, physical contests. Long experience at that level has
shown that the risk of disabling injury is much greater if they play five sets
rather than three. Chiefly due to physiological or bio-mechanical differences
between men and women even when they are top-level athletes.
Furthermore, where hard-contact
physical sports are played by women, such as rugby and boxing, some of the
physical contact rules are modified for safety reasons or to account for
physiological or bio-mechanical differences between men and women (and in some
cases at least, due to generally different standards of physicality). Similarly,
although at first glance non-contact competitive sports such as target pistol
shooting could and should be open to both genders on an equal basis, Olympic
competition in this sport has now been segregated again to offer female contestants
the opportunity to compete at such a high level. Again this distinction is
generally attributed to physiological differences between the genders (females have a faster basal
heart beat which affects steadiness in targeting), rather than just general
physicality standards.
All battlefields are top-tier physical
contests because lives are at stake. All battlefields do not include rules or
other mechanisms that somehow eradicate or mitigate physiological or
bio-mechanical differences between the genders. If we commonly accept why there
are usually gender-based teams on a sporting field based on physiological,
bio-mechanical or physicality requirements, what makes this commonsense
approach somehow inapplicable to the much tougher physical endurance and
physical contact conditions of a battlefield?
Even the most fervent or well-intended
ideals for absolute gender equality (based on peacetime, civil employment
situations) cannot change battle’s complex physical realities and long history.
Why
do we need to face some strategic and cultural realities about who we send our
defence force to fight?
Finally, it is also an unfortunate
fact of history, culture and Australia’s strategic situation that many of our
past, current and potential adversaries do not come from societies and cultures
imbued with our beliefs in the rule of international humanitarian law,
civilised behaviour and modern ideas of gender equality. This aspect was not
discussed in the myths category above because it is not a myth.
The types of people Australia sends
its military to fight are not those who make allowances for our national
sensitivity to gender-equality issues. In many cases they simply do not
understand them or regard them with contempt as a sign of weakness or a vulnerability to be ruthlessly exploited. As an example,
during the UN-endorsed war to liberate Kuwait in 1991, most of the US female
personnel captured in Iraq were sexually assaulted or raped. Our female
soldiers already face this additional danger during combat.
Whether we should necessarily increase
the numbers facing such dangers and risks needs to be carefully considered,
particularly if the reason for doing so depends more on general ideas of gender
equality in a civil environment in Australia rather than operational
effectiveness requirements in a military setting in overseas war zones.
Why do we need to be careful about
community expectations placing female personnel at unfair or inequitable risk?
This said, and once Australian society
as a whole has properly considered this matter, a person’s decision to join our
defence force necessarily involves an individual decision to risk the dangers
of combat ― including any extra risks that might be involved due to
family composition, physique, ethnicity, religion or gender. If, after being properly
appraised of such risks, female ADF personnel are individually willing to face
a greater risk of rape or sexual assault after capture by an enemy, or a
greater risk of death or wounds generally, then this should remain a matter of
individual choice.
The ADA raises one strong caution here. It would not necessarily be fair to leave such decisions about facing greater risks in combat to the females involved without acknowledging that their military professionalism, and their aspirations to live up to community expectations and equity ideals, could mean that they feel unduly pressured to accept such higher risks and therefore cannot really exercise free choice in the matter ― either absolutely or in comparison to their male peers. Whatever the validity of the community expectations, or whatever the degree of increased risk, to put female ADF personnel under such pressure just to meet such expectations would be unfair morally and clearly inequitable in practice.
Why
do we need to pay attention to facts and logic, not irrelevant theorising?
There continue to be sound moral,
operational and equity reasons why Australian Government policy authorises the
employment of females so broadly in our defence force. For the same balance of
reasons such employment, by necessity, is not yet total. Any change to
these policies needs to be carefully debated on the facts and their
implications, not by ignoring or denying them, and especially not decided
arbitrarily by ideology or ministerial whim.