Discussion — Women playing an equal role in the armed forces

Whether women should serve alongside men in every branch of the military, combat units included, remains contested. While I understand the concerns of those who doubt their suitability, I believe the only fair and effective rule is that each role should be open to anyone who meets its standard.

Those who oppose an equal role usually argue from physical difference. An infantry soldier may have to carry thirty kilograms of equipment for days or drag a wounded comrade to safety, and on average men have greater upper-body strength and tend to suffer fewer injuries under such loads. Some commanders also worry that mixed units complicate living arrangements in the field and may weaken unit cohesion. These are not foolish objections, since in battle a single weak link endangers everyone. They describe averages, however, and an average says nothing about the individual woman who passes the same test as the men beside her.

Supporters of equality start from exactly that point. Modern armed forces need far more than muscle: pilots, drone operators, intelligence analysts, engineers and medics decide the outcome of conflicts as much as riflemen do, and none of these tasks favours one sex. Excluding half the population therefore shrinks the talent pool at a time when many armies struggle to recruit. Experience supports this view. Norway extended conscription to women in 2015 and Israel has drafted them for decades, and neither has reversed the policy. Female soldiers can also do what their male colleagues sometimes cannot, such as searching and questioning local women in conservative societies.

In my opinion, then, the question should not be whether women as a group are suitable, but whether a particular recruit is. Role-specific standards, applied identically to both sexes and never lowered to meet quotas, would answer the legitimate fears of the sceptics while giving capable women the equal place they have earned.