Of all the visits MCFIO conducted in 2014, Australia was the only country I did not get to visit. I never learned the reason. Perhaps they wanted to give another person the chance at a cool international trip. Perhaps I had made an unknown mistake. Regardless, I stayed home. So everything in this post is based upon my personal research and my colleague’s trip report.

Australia began enlisting women initially in its Nurse Corps with the South African War (1898). Australia did not enlist women into other occupational specialties until WWII. The usual occupations for women – cook, clerk and orderly – quickly expanded to include technical jobs and home front defense. Women’s numbers grew to approximately 40,000. In 1951, with the Korean War beginning, the Australian government reinstated women on a permanent basis.

However, legislation and service-level policies restricted the employment and equal treatment of women. In 1975, the Australian Prime Minister noted certain aspects of the ADF failed to comply with the 1955 Convention on the Political Rights of Women. Therefore, he opened all combat jobs to women in “non-field” units. He removed the requirement for a woman to receive her husband’s consent to join or remain in the military. He removed the prohibition of pregnant women serving, and women began small arms training. However, women remained restricted to different rank and pay categories than men, from attending the service academies, from most non-combat jobs in the “field force” and from all combat jobs, whether land, air or sea. This limited their promotion and career opportunities. 

In 1979, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) became the first service academy to admit female cadets. In 1985 the Army admitted females to its one-year course at the Officer Cadet School (but not its four year course at the Royal Military College).  The conversion to a tri-service Australian Defence Force Academy in 1986 paved the way for women’s full acceptance at the four-year university. According to Smith, “there was no history, no prevailing all-male ethos, no established traditions to be upheld and protected by male cadets”. Media attention on female admittance remained low, and the emphasis on academic education – provided by civilian staff – also tended to reduce any resistance to women at the Academy. 

In 1980, the Australian Government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This ratification enabled the ADF “to refuse to appoint women in any military roles where they are likely to engage the enemy face-to-face”.  The ramifications went far beyond combat roles. For example, the Australian Army did not allow women to carry a rifle until 1988.

Ground Combat

The philosophy around the ground combat arms proved consistent with other Western nations – shaped by “the society, which sustains them and the international environment in which they must function”. This prevented women from serving in ground combat. The next controversy came with the 1984 Sex Discrimination Act. This law specifically exempted the armed services from “the requirement to grant women equal treatment as far as combat and combat related roles are concerned”. Australia’s Defence Executive believed strongly “the vast majority of roles in the ADF should remain the natural preserve of men”. The ADF excluded women from engaging in military occupations where even “armed fighting is a secondary objective”. This kept women barred from logistics and administrative billets in ground combat units. These prohibitions continued despite chronic recruitment and retention problems in the ADF throughout the 1980s. Australia’s Defence Executive:

. . . chose to define the term ‘combat-related’ to include all military support roles where a person might be exposed to danger from long-range weapons such as artillery and missile fire . . . (this) caused the ADF to cease hiring female cooks, medical personnel, logistics personnel and other administrative positions. 

Dr Anne Summers, appointed to chair a Defense Panel as the incumbent Director of the Office for Women believed ADF leaders were determined to keep women banned from combat:

Allowing women to fight in military combat roles threatened to destabilize the patriarchal society whereby Australia’s women were naturally subordinate to men in their nation’s civilian and military work sectors.

Despite these challenges, women made considerable progress during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1986 the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) opened up certain non-combat aircrew positions (pilot, navigator and loadmaster). In 1990, about 95% of RAN jobs were open to women. The Army, despite only opening nineteen percent of jobs to women, did admit women into the military police, intelligence and some engineering jobs. The only jobs remaining closed were those connected directly to aviation and ground combat: “Air Force women were to be barred only from flying combat aircraft and from ground defence tasks”. In the Army, infantry, artillery and armor remained closed, along with combat engineers. Rank also remained a barrier. The highest rank occupied by a woman is colonel (or equivalent). 

On 16 December 1995, the Australian Parliament formally repealed Section 43 (1) (b) of the Sex Discrimination Act in a “compromise gesture to appease the United Nation’s CEDAW Committee”. The Committee had criticized Australia for violating “the spirit and intentions of CEDAW”. Following this, the Australian Chief of the Defense Force considered opening ground combat positions to women in 1999 (the same time which submarines became open to women). However, the ADF determined that women were unable to meet the physical requirements demanded in the ground combat arms (specifically infantry).

The debate remained closed until 2009, when Defence Minister Stephen Smith and the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel Greg Combat announced their intention to dismantle the ADF’s ground combat policy (GCP). Australia’s Defence Minister Stephen Smith instructed the ADF to review its “biophysical entry standards for admission into Direct Combat roles and revise these criteria is appropriate”.  The focus of debate had shifted dramatically from the 1980s argument – as ground combat as “the natural preserve of men” – to “the need to maximize the ADF’s “operational effectiveness” through establishment and maintenance of rigorous physical standards. (italics added)

On 11 April 2011, the Australian Defense Minister announced the removal of remaining gender restrictions on ground combat roles. Actual transfers into the ground combat arms began in January 2013. The development and implementation of Physical Employment Standards (PES) as the basis for recruiting, qualifying, and continuing within ground combat arms provided the means to maintain gender-neutral standards.

The objective of Physical Employment Standards (PESs) was to mitigate the perceived risk to combat effectiveness of including women.

Much like in the US Marine Corps, the ADF assumed that any man, simply because he was a biological male, could succeed in ground combat specialities. Therefore, the assumption foremost in the minds of many men was that any female (because she was not a biological male) would struggle or fail in those same specialties. Before women’s entrance, there were zero or very few physical standards in ground combat specialties, such as the infantry. This surprised and amazed me. It also surprised some senior leaders. I wondered if their surprise was that not all men were capable, or if their surprise was that some women were capable. Because they assumed women were incapable, they assumed any woman would be detrimental to ground combat effectiveness.

This may sound ridiculous, but it was the most common assumption I encountered.

Digging further, I discovered possible origins of this assumption – that any male could serve in ground combat specialties. Prior to the All Volunteer Force (AVF), the US had a mostly conscripted military. Men registered and the military called them to serve. They had no choice. They could volunteer early and thus gain some choice, but they would serve.

Physical standards in a conscripted military seemed different than a volunteer military. During the world wars, Korea and Vietnam, the focus seemed on numbers. The military needed certain numbers of men. The standards seemed medical, not physical. At least, for the most basic infantry soldier or Marine, the standard seemed to be a medical readiness evaluation. More stringent physical standards might have existed in more elite units, but in the basic infantry units, the military seemed to have assumed that they could train any male to be combat ready.*

Of course, this assumption proved false. During the course of its research, the Marine Corps discovered that it had “long relied heavily on the fundamental assumption that simply because a Marine . . . is a male . . . he should be capable of performing all of the physical tasks associated with the regular duties”. Senior male leaders acknowledged that as much as 10% of Marines (at the time) who graduated from entry-level infantry training were not capable of meeting infantry physical requirements. This resulted in “wastage . . . due to Marines being physically incapable of meeting the demands of service in those occupations”.

In Australia, the need for volunteers drove change. Despite resistance from ADF leadership, the military needed women. Briefings to U.S. Marine Corps leadership in January 2015 indicated that recruiting and retention remained a persistent issue. As the Australian white male population aged and decreased in size, the ADF – as a largely white male force – faced a significant demographic shortfall. The ADF had repeatedly missed accessions goals and experienced quality challenges. Over 16% of Australian Army Recruits failed the Pre-entry Fitness Assessment (PFA) upon reporting to the Army Recruit Training Center, indicating recruits in poor physical condition. 

Physical Employment Standards (PESs) proved valuable both as scientifically-rigorous, occupation-specific physical requirements and as drivers for improvements in the entry-level training continuum, physical conditioning programs, and combat equipment procurement. DSTO conducted observation and assessment of PES screening mechanisms using the incumbent – all male – population. This added one more way in which women would be held to a male standard.

In September 2011, the Chief of Army tasked Director General Personnel Army to develop a plan to increase women’s participation. A 2012 “Chief of Army’s Women’s Workshop” recommended set targets for women for both retention (from 10% to 14% by 2014) and recruiting (from 10% to 12% by 2014). It also established a goal of “10% proportional representation of females at the rank of Colonel, Brigadier, Major General”. The institution of a Gender Equality Advisory Board in 2014 also demonstrated the Australian government’s commitment to military diversity. Australia has focused on supporting diversity, and placing the responsibility on leadership to make inclusion work. 

We learned many lessons from the Australians. Since they had just begun integration, their experience was the most current. They were pragmatically focused on physical standards, despite their resistance to women’s inclusion. They had laid the path before us, and we would more or less follow their example.

FOOTNOTE

*If any of my readers has more information regarding physical standards during any war in the 20th century involving conscripted military, please let me know.