About Women in the Armed Forces
♫ Friday, January 14th, 2011The armed forces of any country are a fighting force and even die hard activists of women’s liberation will agree that the going is tough for a soldier fighting in the inhospitable terrain of Afghanistan or the valley of Kashmir. The opponents in these cases are die hard fanatics who profess a religion that gives very few rights to a woman. The question that needs to be answered is, whether women can be active participants as soldiers and warriors in such scenarios.
Historical records of wars are available for 4000 years. That is a pretty long time. However even a cursory reading of the campaigns of Hannibal and Alexander to those of Chengiz khan and Napoleon will show that no women soldiers were used or took part in any operation. There could be exceptions here and there like Joan of Arc or a Rani of Jhansi, but the underlying thread is that women have by and large never been soldiers.
However there are records to show that women did accompany soldiers and armies in a different capacity as ‘camp followers’ or ‘comfort women’. Their job was to comfort the soldier after the heat of battle. Women activists who propagate gender equality, must understand that something not in vogue or practiced for thousands of years cannot be negated at one stroke of a pen.
A deeper study will show that women as soldiers or officers cannot stand up to the rigors of the job due to their God given qualities. Firstly women are not as strong as men and secondly they have inherent biological cycles that cannot be obviated and certainly can be restrictive in the heat of combat. That is the reason even an enlightened nation like the USA does not use women for combat duties.
A few times the women were used as soldiers like during the first Iraq war the results were disastrous as an Iraqi attack took some women recruits as prisoners with disastrous results of sexual assault. Women’s equality with man certainly needs to be supported but women in the armed forces is not the best of things. Perhaps their role as non combatants can have some meaning as they will add a feminine and healing touch in a world that is certainly a mans world.
