Abstract
The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has recently said “Roles in our Armed Forces should be determined by ability not gender. I hope that, following further work on our training regimes and equipment, we can open up combat roles to women in 2016.”
At the end of the ’Look at Life’ course the sergeant asked if we think women should be allowed to join the Royal Marines. This is where the basis of my hypothesis first came from, and after research I then decided it would be interesting to investigate this subject further especially as I want to join the Royal Marines and one day it could affect me.
Introduction
Women in combat roles have been quite a debatable topic recently. With the Americans and the Australians recently lifting the ban on women in the military, people are asking why Britain hasn’t lifted the ban yet. But Britain has shown some leeway with this topic by recently allowing women in to submarine warfare roles.
In this research project I will be hoping to prove that women can be allowed in to combat roles in the British army. At the start I will present research on the history of countries experiences with women in combat roles especially during the world wars to give brief background on this subject. After which I will give other countries experiences and research into women in combat roles.
The government has written three reports on women in combat roles and I will give a summary of two of the most recent reports giving a background into why they have chosen not to allow women in combat roles as of yet. Then in the final I will give some of the main concerns with women in combat roles and breaking them down into four categories:
• Physiological
• Psychological
• Tactical
• Gender Equality
This research project will hopefully provide enough evidence to prove that women should be allowed to fight in combat roles in the British army.
Literature review
When writing up this extended project I will be using variety of different sources. This will help me to get a better perspective and an overall view of this topic. I will use these four different types of literature:
• Books
• Internet
• Various Newspaper Articles
• Government Reports/Reviews and Legislation
One of the books I used was the biography by Heloise Goodley, an officer and also a woman. This book was useful to me because it gave me an insight in to life in the British army as a female officer. It describes the transformation of her life from a civilian to an army officer. She is very honest about how she found life in the army as a woman but there was not really anything new that I learnt from it. It did help me to see what it was like as a woman going through the army training though.
Corsets to Camouflage: Women and War by Kate Adie was useful as it gave a brief history of women’s roles in the army over time, it also contained testimonies from women on how their lives had been changed by war and army life showing both positive and negative areas. The book also covered some of the issues and points I wanted to write about like,’ Should women be licensed to kill?’ and ‘Are women different from men, or exactly equal to them?’ It was written in a style that was easy to read and held my attention.
Gender and the Military: Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies (Routledge Military Studies) contained a lot of statistics and useful information from about women’s roles in armies in NATO countries. The book looks at the things that affect women’s roles in armies in different countries, this was helpful to get a big picture of women’s roles worldwide to compare and contrast different countries views. The case studies of Portugal and Netherlands were helpful.
There are a lot of useful websites which I used to back up my main points and research past experiences of women in combat. Newspaper articles gave good summaries of the key points that helped me to get a better idea of the situation. Also they often put in statistics that they have found themselves or gathered from different sources. The articles I used are included in the reference section at the end.
The Government is required to produce reports and reviews on this subject. These provided a good source of research and data for this report. The most helpful ones were ‘Women in ground close combat roles: the experiences of other nations and a review of the academic literature’ in 2009 was very useful for the section on women in the army in other counties although there was a lot of material to read through that was not very readable. The ‘Report on the review of the exclusion of women from ground close-combat roles 2010 was useful as it gave a brief recent history of the governments thinking and laws and summarised the report’s conclusion well which gave helpful views and thoughts about women in combat roles. The ‘Women in ground close combat review paper – 01December 2014’ is the most up to date report and helped me see how the governments views have changed and gave insight into changes in legislation and how they will review things in the future.
History of Women in the Military
Though out history there have been many famous women warriors, such as Boudicca and Joan of Arc. Boudicca was the Queen of the Iceni tribe and after her husband had died her tribe was attacked by the Romans. In retaliation she mustered over 100,000 troops who she lead in to battle and took over the Roman capitol of Colchester and then later going on to conquer London and even caused Emperor Nero to consider withdrawing all Roman forces from Britain.
In more recent history women have been fighting in front line roles since World War 1. Russia was the only country which allowed women to fight. The Russian army have created a Battalion just for the women known as the Women’s Battalion of Death. This battalion was created for propaganda use and was also used to try and shame the weary Russian men in to resuming their combat roles. There was estimated to be 5,000 women serving in the Russian Army during World War 1.
The British army had several auxiliary units which were just for women to help with the war effort. Women were not allowed to fight on the frontline even though some found a way to fight in the war. Flora Sandes was the only British women to fight in World War One officially. She had volunteered for the St. John Ambulance and got sent out to Serbia, but in the confusion of war she managed to get signed up to the Serbian Army. She served nine years in the Serbian army and was the first ever female officer. She was awarded the highest decoration of the Serbian Military, the Order of the Karadorde’s Star for her effort in a hand to hand situation which she got severely injured. The auxiliary units which women served in were mainly nursing units such as Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, the Voluntary Aid Detachment, and Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps. FANY unit was used by the British in both World War One and World War Two.
World War 2 saw more women in combat roles then the previous World War. Britain didn’t use women in combat roles but had several different auxiliary units set up to help the war effort. These were the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In 1941 around 600,000 women were recruited into these three auxiliary units. The closet British women could get too actually combat was helping with the AA (Anti-Air) guns to shoot down the German Luftwaffe and the V1 missiles. They were never officially allowed to pull the trigger, so to speak, as this was considered to “masculine”. The women who manned the AA guns were however given rifle training this was said to be in case of an invasion.
Despite not allowing women in to combat roles Britain did allowed them in to the SOE (Special Operations Executive). The SOE was formed on 22 July 1940 by Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton by instruction of Winston Churchill. It was setup to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in mainly occupied countries against Axis powers. In April 1942 Winston Churchill gave his approval to sending female agents into Europe. In overall there were 46 female agents in the SOE. They operated in most of the occupied European countries as well as in Southeast Asia operating mainly in Japan. They completed a variety of tasks such as espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance. Their work was exceptionally dangerous as just one mistake could lead to life in prison in concentration camps, torture and death.
During World War 2 Germany did something similar to Britain concerning their women. The Germany forces were running out of men to fight so in order to free up more men they created auxiliary units in the navy, army and the air force. By 1945 there was over 500,000 women in auxiliary units within the army navy and air force. Over half of these were volunteers and the others were required to join to help out the war effort. Women were also enlisted into the SS.
The Soviet Union used women as pilots as well in their armed forces. The Soviet Union was the first country to use women as pilots and they served in a military unit which was called Aviation Group 122. This unit was made up of three different regiments, the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment and the 125th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment. The three regiments did fly a combined total of over 30,000 combat sorties, produced at least thirty Heroes of the Soviet Union, and also two fighter aces.
By the end of the war there was around 500,000 women in the Soviet Union Army. They serve as tank crew and machine gunners as well as snipers. Women in the Soviet Union Army were recognised for being excellent snipers. They found that women had the right skills and qualities to be a sniper as they were often patient calm and easy to train in aerobic conditioning. Also snipers often avoid hand to hand combat as they tend to be unseen from the enemy.
All these examples show that women can fight within the military but also in frontline roles. So if women have fought throughout the years in different wars why can’t they fight today in frontline roles? Most of these examples of women in the military come from situation where countries are extremely desperate or where women volunteered to fight for their country.
Countries that Allow Women on the Frontline
Around the world there are currently only a few countries that allow women in frontline roles. The UK has looked into these countries for research on the main concerns.
There are four countries I will be looking at in this section.
• Canada
• America
• Norway
• Israel
Canada
The Canadian Armed Forces are regarded as being at the head of military gender integration with “14.8 per cent” of women in the Canadian Armed Forces, “with more than 9400 women in the Regular Force and more than 4800 women in the Primary Reserve.” Canada first opened all but submarine warfare combat roles to women in 1989, but in 2000 they were allowed to serve in submarine warfare.
When the Canadian Government considering women for combat roles they looked at other countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway for research. But in the late 70s very few women were actively involved in these countries armies. Because of this the Canadian Armed Forces conducted over 10 years’ worth of trials and research. This period of research and trials showed to the Canadians that “there was no reason for excluding women in any role”. These trials showed that sexual harassment and misconduct would be a problem, so during basic training they make sure all personnel within Canadian Armed Forces receive awareness training in Employment Equity and Diversity to try and prevent any misconduct or harassment from developing.
http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=women-in-the-canadian-armed-forces/hie8w7rm
America
Pentagon rules state that women cannot be assigned to ground combat units. This means they are not allowed to serve in the infantry or as special operations commandos. They are however able to serve in support units as truck drivers, gunners, military police, helicopter pilots etc. Legislative changes have led to the expanded role of women in the armed forces. In the 1970s the US army change to an all-volunteer force. There were not enough men volunteering to serve and this gave more opportunities for women to serve in the army in higher numbers as the services need to meet higher personnel goals. In the early 1990s congress lifted the ban on women flying combat aircraft and serving on combat ships. Compared to other countries women in the US military have a more active role in a direct combat role activities after the Iraq war. This is because the unpredictable nature of the attacks blurs the difference between front line and rear areas.
On the 24 January 2013 the Pentagon lifted the ban on women being allowed in frontline combat roles. They said the will be allowed in these roles by 2016 in the meantime the military and Congress will discuss the details and find a way to best implement women in to the American military. Juliet Beyler, the Defence Department’s director of officer and enlisted personnel management said “We’re not going to lower standards; it’s not a matter of lowering or raising standards. The key is to validate the standard to make sure it’s the right standard for the occupation.” So by January 2016 American military will have opened 237,000 positions to women.
Norway
From 1985 women have been able to serve in every role in the military as the Norwegian Parliament passed laws allowing women to apply for every role within the Norwegian Armed Forces, and also the equal opportunities legislation was applied to the military. Norwegian women currently serve on a voluntary basis as opposed to a mandatory conscription that some countries have or have had. In an event of a large scale national mobilization of Norwegian forces women are subject to be draft for selection. Norway became the first country to allow women to serve in submarine warfare combat roles in 1995.
In the future Norway has the goal of getting 20 percent women in its armed forces by the year 2020. In October 2014 the Daily Mail said that “Females currently make up about 13% of the Norwegian Armed Forces“. However, according to the Norway Official website in the UK, today women make up 9 percent of the armed forces. This is despite a wide range of measures being taken over the years to increases the number of women in the armed forces. One way they have tried to accomplish this is that the military academies aim to achieve a female proportion of 25 percent but they have not been very successful as these statistics show.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2793994/no-longer-just-job-boys-norway-extends-compulsory-military-service-medically-fit-women-aged-19-44.html#ixzz3X3NEzl1n
According to Col. Ingrid Gjerde, “The few women that are attracted by the infantry and cavalry do a great job in the Norwegian Army.” Colonel Gjerde, who was the commander of Norwegian forces in Afghanistan in 2012 added “I have to be clear: You have to meet the physical standards, because the job is still the same. It works very well as long as women hold the standards. It’s not a big deal because women who go into these fields know the standards, and it’s not that hard for women to train up to the standards if they really want.”
In order to combat sexual harassment with in the armed forces, the Norwegian army has created unisex dorms for soldiers. It was trialled in one military to base, which lead to greater team cohesion as one female solider says “You have to be a team here, and then you have to live together in order to be able to trust in one another.” All this has reduced sexual harassment complaints as this female solider says “They had entered a common mode where gender stereotypes had disappeared or at least they were less obvious.” As you can see this bold experiment has worked out well as some feared the worst when this put in place.
Israel
Israel is the only country in the world with a compulsory military service requirement for women. This makes Israeli society unique and so important to include in this report.
In Israel female enlistment is the law for all women aged 18 – 26. They may be exempted if they are married, pregnant, or are mothers. A woman may also chose not to serve if she feels it conflicts with her religious beliefs. Most women who choose this option spend these years as volunteers in hospitals, old age centres, with needy children or other worthy causes. Everyone serves. Men and women serve for different lengths of time. In 2002, compulsory military service for men was thirty-six months; for women, it was increased from twenty-one to twenty-four months. Men serve in the reserves until the age of forty-five, women until twenty-four.
Women have been part of the Israeli military since before the founding of the State of Israel in May 1948. They proved themselves under fire and were involved in Israel’s 1948 war for independence. At some point during the war it was decided that women would no longer take part in battle but would be involved in other roles.
The Women’s Corps was founded on May 16, 1948. Within a year it was decided that they would serve mostly within male units but would still be part of the Women’s Corps which would act as a professional support system for women in all branches of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
Women make up approximately a third of the recruits and about twenty percent of the standing professional army. In 2003, the military recruited some seventy-seven percent of the cohort of eighteen-year-old Jewish men and fifty-nine percent of the cohort of eighteen-year-old Jewish women.
Women serve in many capacities in the IDF such as intelligence, the Border Police, maintenance, supplies, secretarial duties, as well as serving in a variety of technical and administrative support roles. Over the course of the years, the number of military occupational specialties open to women in the IDF has expanded and today most jobs are open to women.
The Israeli Defence Forces view is that each soldier, male or female, will be given the task where their contribution will be the greatest. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the nation is more important than the preferences of any individual soldier and most are happy knowing that they are contributing their best. The IDF will always try to fit a person to a role based on their ambitions and interests but ultimately the needs of the army take priority.
Government Reports/Reviews
The Ministry of Defence carries out periodic review of the policy on the exclusion of women from ground close-combat roles. This is done because the UK is bound by EC (European Commission) law to reassess periodically, but at least every 8 years. They look at occupations from which women are excluded to decide whether there is justification in maintaining the exclusion.
The study looked at literature on the effectiveness of mixed gender teams in close combat roles, the roles that women are doing in current operations, the experiences of both male and female military personnel who have served together on the front line, and evidence from other countries who have used women to close with and kill the enemy.
The report stated that that some women would be able to meet the standard required of personnel performing in close combat roles, both physically and mentally. The main concern is the possible impact of having both men and women serving together in small teams. They decided that there would be no change to the law because of “potential risks of maintaining cohesion in small mixed-gender tactical teams”. In other words they were worried that if both men & women worked together in small teams in combat roles the unity and therefore the effectiveness of the team would be reduced and could possibly lead to avoidable loss of life.
2014
In May 2014 the defence secretary Philip Hammond brought the review of the exclusion of women from close combat roles forward from its original date in 2018. The review was published in December 2014. It was reviewed early due to much debate on either sides – some people claiming that exclusion was gender discrimination that was not acceptable in the 21st Century others argued that inclusion of women would lead to the lowering of standards. So the review’s aims were:
• Assess the current exclusion of women from ground close combat roles
• Identify the benefits and risks of changing this policy
• Make recommendations
The review is to be open and evidence based, building on the considerable work undertaken in support of the 2002 and 2010 reviews.
The report did not make any firm recommendations about women serving alongside men in combat roles but the UK defence secretary Michael Fallon announced that he wants to end the army’s ban on women in frontline infantry roles.
This review makes certain that there’s no question about cohesion of a group with both male and females. As Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said “woman can fight just as effectively as men.” He has hoped to open all combat roles to women by 2016 as in the meantime the government will be reviewing the current physiological demands on women in the infantry. This is because the demands of training on females often cause more injury than to men. They also want to protect women’s health and well-being in the long run.
Different People’s Views
Before I look at the main concerns I will look at two people’s views and experiences on this subject. The two people’s opinions I will be look at are a former major, Judith Webb and Vernon Kearl who I interviewed and was part of the Operational Training and Advisor Group in the army.
Judith Webb
Major Judith Webb, was the first woman to lead an all-male field force in the Army. There are lot of other women who have been in the UK military that share Judith’s view concerning women in the armed forces. She stands very strongly against women in infantry roles. Women are very different from men physically and mentally, because of this very few women manage to meet the standards that men are required to pass to be in infantry combat roles. She has said “We don’t want to reduce standards of fitness for male soldiers, for infantry soldiers, in order to meet what women can do and that is, I am afraid, what is likely to happen, and is already happening.” The British military has one of the best reputations around the world and Judith sees that if the physical test and requirements are lowered then the military’s combat effectiveness and reputation as one of the best will be at risk since the military will not be able to perform as well as the have done before standards were lowered.
Judith believes that “If you are going to have women in direct combat they have got to meet the same physical standards.” She goes on to then say “occasional woman” might do that, but then warned that this may lead to calls for more women to follow which would result in standards being lowered to promote equality.
Vernon Kearl
To get a perspective on what it is really like for women in military I interviewed Vernon Kearl who commanded women. They served as team medics, dog handlers and forward operational advisor on his command.
I asked him what he thinks the advantages and disadvantages are of women being in combat roles.
Disadvantages
Women aren’t as physically abled as men and aren’t able to carry the same amount of weight as men. Also injuries in which they are prone to get consist of shin and ankle injuries.
Advantages
Women are very good at the peace keeping roles, such as talking to afghan people the children and the women find them more approachable and seem not as intimidated as they are with the men. The women performed as well and as professionally as the men.
I asked him if any women got injured and if they did how did the men react? He said that the women did get injured and didn’t act any differently than if it was a man. Because of training they all reacted the way they should have and a lot of the time the men were more concerned about the dog.
Do you think the women’s fitness standards should be the same as men’s fitness standards? They have to be the same if they join the infantry so they can prove that they can work to the same level as the men and won’t be looked down on by the men.
He was also very clear that women would not affect cohesion in a group of soldiers because they have all been through the same training as each other and this bonds them as it would do with just men. The men may kick up a fuss about it at the start but by the end of it they see women are able to do that they can do to the same level and accept them and get on with the job.
Main Concerns
In this section I will be presenting the main concerns with women in combat roles within the British Army that I have identified through research in this project. There are many issues but the main ones are summarised below.
Physiology
A female’s skeletal and muscular system is very different from that of men’s. Generally, females have smaller hearts, about 30% less muscle, smaller and less dense skeletal structure and wider pelvic bones. This results in less explosive power and upper body strength and makes women more prone to injury to the muscular and skeletal system both long term and short term.
The physical differences between the male and female disadvantage females in strength-based and aerobic fitness tests in that for the same output women have to work 20 to 40% harder than men. Despite the differences between them there will be some females, who will be able achieve the entry tests for infantry roles, but these females will be more vulnerable to acute short term injury than males. On average according to the research women have 45-50% less upper body strength and 25-30% less aerobic capacity, which is essential for endurance.
Psychological
There are a few concerns when it comes to psychological welfare of women. Many people see women in combat roles as a bad idea because of the threat of relationships forming between males and females. This could disrupt a groups fighting ability, the Israel Defence Forces and Australian Army found this. After witnessing a woman wounded male soldiers in the Israeli defence force were seen to have an uncontrolled, instinctual, protective aggression. The Australian Army also came up with a similar case when soldiers were reluctant to take women on to the frontline, because if they were engaged in combat, their priority could be to save the women and not to complete the mission.
Another concern was that male soldiers would not trust women to perform their duties in a critical situation. This would be the case if the entry test levels for women are lower than men’s. Men may see this in a way that women would not be able to do same job and to the same standard as they could do it, therefore treating them unfairly. If men and women have the same fitness and entry test then men would respect women in the army more and trust them to do their jobs.
According to an American website for PTSD, “Women are more than twice as likely to develop PTSD as men (10% for women and 4% for men)”. This is a cause for concern as PTSD can lead to long term serious mental health issues and in extreme cases suicide.
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/PTSD-overview/women/women-trauma-and-ptsd.asp
Inclusion of women in combat roles would also place women at greater risk of them being captured, tortured, and sexually assaulted. People see these risks as unacceptable. There are cases where this has actually happened to women. For example it has happened to Rhonda Cornum. In February 1991 Rhonda Cornum was captured and made an Iraqi POW. Whilst in prison she was sexually assaulted by one of her Iraqi captors but said “A lot of people make a big deal about getting molested . . . in the hierarchy of things that were going wrong, that was pretty low on my list”.
Tactical
There is evidence to show that a lot of Islamic militants rarely surrender to female soldiers. There is evidence that Iraqi and Afghani civilians are not intimidated by women.
There is also evidence showing women in both Iraq and Afghanistan have had considerable success in acquiring intelligence from children and women. In these cases the US military observes local customs for the purposes of counterinsurgency, as their customs do not allow males to talk to women who are not in their family or are not married to them.
Gender Equality
There are two important legislations that allow the British Army to exclude women from combat roles. These are the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equality Act 2010. These laws mean that if a person would affect combat effectiveness they cannot be allowed in to a combat role within the armed forces.
The EU Equal Treatment directive also allows the British Army to exclude women from combat roles as long as they give justification for not allowing women in these roles. It does however require that a reassessment at least every 8 years is done. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon brought forward the most recent report which was not required until 2018 because he is supportive of women in combat roles and in 2016 hopes that women can be integrated in to combat roles.
Conclusion
The main area of investigation will be looking at the physical demands combat roles place on women. In my opinion the concern about cohesion has proved to be invalid, this can be seen from Vernon’s experience which is typical of others experience. Also the 2010 report talked a lot about cohesion as an obstacle but this was not a main concern by the time of the 2014 review. The other concerns outlined above are all valid but I don’t think they will be strong enough for the government to justify not allowing women in combat roles. I conclude that women eventually will be allowed in combat roles even if in small numbers but not in the elite forces such as the Parachute regiment and the Royal Marine commandos due to the weight they are required to carry and the intensity of the training for their specialists roles. Throughout history and in other countries right now women have shown their ability to fight in combat roles and have been good at it. It may not be 2016 when they are allowed in but I believe it will be in the near future and it will be mainly due to pressure from many directions. When this happens I also think that women who join the army to go into combat roles their training should be adapted but not lowered to maintain the same level of combat effectiveness that the British army is known for.
This study could still be further improved by more detailed study of the government reports. I would interview greater number of people with a military background especially if their roles involved working with women in the army to get an even better perspective on how women are integrated in the army now.
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