US defence secretary Leon Panetta has with one flourish of the pen given a mighty boost to true gender equality. In permitting women to serve in infantry and commando units, the Pentagon is acknowledging that women are not inferior to men in any way and the path-breaking move could pave the way for a quarter million frontline positions being opened up to women. Of course, women have been serving as Air Force pilots and military intelligence officers in Afghanistan and Iraq for some time now, and 130 American women are believed to have lost their lives so far in war.
Canada is said to have shown the way nearly 25 years ago, but then the question arises as to how many close-combat situations do the Canadian armed forces find themselves in. It’s different in the UK where it was ruled, even as late as 2010, that although women were physically and psychologically as capable as men, the impact of fielding mixed teams in combat zones could not be predicted.
Women face similar hurdles in the Indian armed forces where they have access to almost all roles save the close-combat ones in frontline postings. Our thinking has not been gender-neutral on this since the fear of women being ill-treated on the frontier, as some of our jawans were on the Indo-Pak border, has tended to haunt our military top brass and defence policy makers. There are huge cultural factors to consider too, but the fact remains that right thinking people must support the quest for true equality among the sexes.