Women in close combat for and against

Defence Secretary may allow women in roles where they engage with and kill the enemy.

Last week the Ministry of Defence announced that it was bringing forward a review into whether women in the Armed Forces should be allowed to serve in close combat roles.

The review will look at whether women can serve in the infantry or in the Royal Armoured Corps in the army, roles where they would be required 'to close with' - and kill  - the enemy.

The Ministry now expects to reach a decision on the matter by the end of the year.

The Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Peter Wall, said: “Our experience in Afghanistan has highlighted the increasingly important contribution women are making to operations.

“It is now sensible to review the army’s approach to the employment of female soldiers in the combat arms of the army: the Royal Armoured Corps and the infantry.

“The key factor informing this judgement,” he said, “will be the delivery of operational effectiveness.”

The Ministry of Defence last reviewed this policy in 2010 and concluded that there was ‘no evidence to show that a change in current policy would be beneficial or risk-free.’  A decision was made to maintain the then current position.

“There is no question that some women would be able to meet the standard required of personnel performing in close combat roles, both physically and psychologically.

“The key issue is the potential impact of having both men and women serving together in small teams.

“Under the conditions of high-intensity, close-quarter battle, team cohesion becomes of much greater importance; its failure having potentially grave and far-reaching consequences.

“None of the research that has been done has been able to conclusively answer the key question of the impact that gender mixing would have on the combat team in close combat conditions,” an MOD statement said.

The UK's Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, said last week that he had brought the review forward from 2018 “not because there are thousands of women desperate to join the combat arms, but because of the message that the Army is not fully open to women who can meet the fitness and other requirements - the message that sends to women who might be looking to join other parts of our military.

“We won't compromise on the fitness that we require for people to be able to keep themselves safe and to do their job effectively.

“That will obviously mean that some roles will have limited numbers of women,” he added.

Which means women will be required to carry 63 kilos of kit into a combat zone.

The announcement has received mixed reactions from women.

Barbara Ellen, writing in the Observer, said: “It seems to me that Hammond should be less concerned with the message being sent out, and more about addressing the key issues surrounding women in direct combat, some of which cannot be dismissed as mere chauvinism.

“For a start, Hammond needs to be more specific about these "fitness levels", currently reputed to be so punishingly high as to be out of the reach of most men.

“Does the fact that so few women could realistically acquire this ultra-alpha "male" brand of fitness mean that their combat numbers would end up being tokenistic?

The training, she remarked, would be “offered to deter outside criticism regarding sexism, but would women who didn't succeed at the male-oriented tests be dismissed as failures who couldn't hack it?

“Conversely, if standards were altered to accommodate female difference (please note, not 'inferiority' but 'difference'), would this result in placing effectively under-trained women and their colleagues at even greater risk?”

She is also concerned that women in close combat roles would still be unusual and represent a ‘warped kind of trophy’ - and be exposed to rape.

Perhaps the MOD would be better spending its time looking at the criteria it uses to select people for close combat roles and the Special Forces and their relevance to the job, instead of worrying that women will upset the ‘cohesion’ of team engaged in combat.

And women would undoubtedly be at risk of rape in the field of battle.

But women who take on these roles would be fully aware of the risks and would eventually play a part in challenging them.

Excluding women is not the answer.

Story published in Women's Views on News,  15 May 2014.