Right: Australian female soldiers; within five years, these women could be fighting beside men - and, of course, against men in any enemy force.
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Arguments against women in front line combat positions
1. No significant number of women would be fit or strong enough for front line combat
It has been argued that front line forces are the fittest of men and that only a very small proportion of women would be able to match these men physically. Physiological reasons have been offered to support these claims. The female skeletal system is less dense and more prone to breakages, while women have a lower muscle to fat ratio than men. Studies of women already in the defence forces have shown that female soldiers are, on average, shorter and smaller than men, with 45-50% less upper body strength and 25-30% less aerobic capacity, which is essential for endurance.
Greg Sheridan, The Australian foreign affairs editor, has stated, 'The men in the army represent probably the fittest, strongest 20 per cent of men in society. Perhaps 10 per cent of those could make Special Forces soldiers. So that's 2 per cent of men. There is no meaningful percentage of women who can match those physical requirements. The talk of defining objective physical criteria for a task, and making those criteria gender neutral, is meaningless.'
Mr Sheridan has further stated, 'Walking all night with a 50kg pack and then being fit to fight all the next day is not an objective standard derived from a study of what you might have to do. It's an objective standard derived just from the experience of what the very strongest, toughest, most durable men can manage.'
It has also been claimed that there is a limit to the extent to which mechanisation can neutralise the strength differences between men and women. Therefore, it is argued, there will always remain some combat situations where women could not be deployed.
The Australian Defence Association has officially stated, 'Technology can provide some solutions to neutralising physicality and bio-mechanical differences between male and female personnel in our defence force but it cannot yet neutralise all of them. An example where technology can succeed is differently designed G-suits for female aircrew in jet fighters. An example where technology has yet to succeed is cancelling out the different risks if such aircrew have to eject (the female has more risk of serious injury).'
2. Very few countries allow women in their frontline combat forces
It has been claimed that only a minority of nations around the world employ women in their frontline forces in all capacities and that those nations that do tend to be countries that are not under serious threat of attack.
Only a minority of Western nations allow women in frontline hand-to-hand combat positions. These are Canada, New Zealand, Denmark and now Australia. They have 'non-discriminatory' policies that allow women to serve in infantry units. Israel restricts women to light infantry roles for 'biomechanical reasons'. Men-only units serve in border protection roles, which are considered by the Israeli Defence Force as more dangerous.
When announcing Australia's decision to allow women in all positions in the armed forces, the Minister for Defence, Stephen Smith, cited New Zealand, Canada and Israel as countries directly comparable to Australia who have included women in their frontline combat forces.
Critics have argued that New Zealand and Canada are not comparable to Australia.
Greg Sheridan, the foreign affairs editor for The Australian, has argued that New Zealand and Canada operate such policies 'because they are not militarily serious nations.'
The point was made more explicitly by former Major General Jim Molan who challenged, during a September 27, 2011 interview with the ABC's PM program, 'Name one big battle that New Zealand has been in in the last 50 years? Name one big battle that Canada has been in in which women have been in the infantry?'
3. Women in combat roles would destroy group cohesion
It has been claimed that incorporating women into combat divisions would undermine group morale and destroy cohesion.
This claim has been made by Greg Sheridan, the foreign affairs editor for The Australian. Mr Sheridan has stated, 'Of course, there would .... be intense disruption to the small group cohesion that a fighting military unit works endlessly to attain and then hold on to, and which is often the difference between life and death in actual combat.'
Some reasons offered for this loss of group cohesion include that male soldiers may doubt the competence of female soldiers to support them in crisis situations. There is also concern that romantic relationships between men and women on the front lines could disrupt a unit's fighting capability and break down the necessary group cohesion.
Concern has been expressed that some male soldiers may make special provisions or allowances for female combat soldiers that would also undermine group morale. In a 1997 United States study it was found that many men felt that there was a double standard in their unit due to 'different physical standards' and 'a perceived unwillingness of male supervisors to demand as much of women as they do of men.'
A 2009 British Ministry of Defence review indicated concern that male soldiers were paying more attention to wounded female soldiers than others and were putting their own lives at risk. It has also been suggested that some male soldiers may seek to defend female soldiers in a way that jeopardises the operation of the group. An ADA spokesman, Neil James, has stated, 'The ADA stands by this, when you get into the increased risk of sexual assault the men will try and defend the women based on the gallantry argument rather than engage the enemy troops.'
It has further been suggested that problems associated with a lack of privacy, communal bathing and no segregated toilet facilities may heighten tensions between male and female soldiers and interfere with the proper functioning of a combat unit.
4. Most women are less psychologically and socially suited to hand-to-hand combat
It has been claimed that most women are psychologically less suited to frontline combat than most men.
Studies among civilian populations have consistently shown that when compared with men, women have significantly higher prevalence rates of depression and anxiety disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Studies of general military populations in garrison have paralleled findings from civilian studies. This has led to concern that women may not hold up as well as men under the strain of frontline combat.
It has also been argued that women's socialisation makes them less suited to hand to hand combat. Retired Major General Jim Molan has stated, 'We've had 10,000 years of socialising young men in killing at close quarters and we do it relatively well. It's very hard to do it but we do it relatively well.
We have only a few examples of socialising women to kill at close quarters. All those have failed so far. No real defence force in the world has ever tried this before.'
It has further been claimed that allowing women in frontline combat positions denies the unique contribution that women's different attitudes and psychology makes to political and social life.
Clive Hamilton, a professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, has stated, 'Women's morality differs from that of men. Feminist philosopher Carol Gilligan says women are more motivated by care than duty, and more inclined to emphasise responsibilities than rights. They seek reconciliation through compassion and negotiation rather than demanding "justice", through force if necessary.'
Professor Hamilton argues that these female qualities make women less suited to war but give them a valuable social role in negotiating and maintaining peace. Professor Hamilton argues that by encouraging women into frontline combat we are 'compromising a subtle, civilising power that has always worked to restrain the violent tendencies of men.'
5. Australia does not have men and women compete against each other in contact sports
It has been argued that although individual women can be extremely fit and stronger than the majority of men, Australia does not pit elite sportsmen against elite sports women because the competition would be unequal.
The conclusion critics of women in frontline combat draw from this is that it is even less appropriate to pit women directly against men in battle.
Greg Sheridan, the foreign affairs editor for The Australian has raised this anomaly. 'Do we want women to participate in unisex, professional boxing matches with men? If not, why not? Professional boxing is much less demanding, and much less violent, than fighting the Taliban.
Do we want women to play in this weekend's National Rugby League grand final and to be tackled at full strength by Brent Kite or Manu Vatuvei? If not, why not? The NRL is a stroll in the park compared with combat missions for the SAS.'
The same point has been made by Ted Lapin, a ministerial advisor to the federal Coalition and communications director to a senior member the Republican Congressional leadership in Washington.
Mr Lapin has stated, 'Females are excluded from our most violent full contact sports because we know they won't be able to survive on the footy oval or rugby pitch. In track & field, swimming and basketball, we recognise the inherent physical superiority of men over women through gender-specific categories and leagues. After all, it's not called the WNBA for nothing.
The military feminists assure us there are Australian Amazons out there just waiting for the opportunity to prove themselves in the infantry. Perhaps, but let's first test this thesis on the footy and rugby fields, where the worst thing that thrown is the occasional elbow rather than a fragmentation grenade.'
6. A disproportionate number of women would be killed or sexually assaulted
It has been claimed that in a hand-to-hand combat situation women fighting men are more likely to be killed, thus their inclusion in front line forces both discriminates against them and weakens those forces.
Neil James, an Australian Defence Association (ADA) spokesperson has stated, 'Simple commonsense tells you that if you put women in some jobs where you directly fight men, enemy men, one-on-one in a physical confrontation for continuous periods, then we are likely to suffer more female casualties than male casualties.'
Mr James further stated, 'The other thing the feminists never justify in their arguments is would they be prepared to have women suffer disproportionate casualties compared to men just to satisfy their whims.'
The ADA has recognised the potential for higher numbers of female casualties with its official statement, 'In combat roles that incur additional risks for female personnel due to their gender (such as disproportionate casualties, more disabling injuries generally 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 in practice.'
The ADA had further officially stated, 'Care must be exercised that females are not placed under undue pressure to volunteer for roles that will unduly risk their health through greater risk of injury in training or operations, or unduly risk disproportionate rates of death or wounding in combat, compared to their male comrades.'
Critics maintain that irrespective of the 'care' taken, in hand-to-hand combat with men, greater numbers of women would be killed.
It has also been argued that female frontline combat soldiers would be at greater risk of sexual assault. This would be especially the case if they were captured by the enemy. A United States Presidential Commission report found that male prisoners of war, while being subject to physical abuse, were rarely subject to sexual abuse, while female prisoners were almost always subject to sexual abuse.