#CCLKOW: The Conversation We Need to Have on Gender Integration
Greetings, dear readers. This week’s piece is intended to frame a larger discussion in addition to the usual twitter exchanges. Over the coming months I will be curating pieces which broadly address the theme explored below to encourage an honest, pragmatic, and constructive exchange that will enhance the integration of women into the once all-male provinces of the armed forces. Following my own advice, that the ‘military decision’ is rarely sufficient for victory, the success of this endeavor will not be defined by the downfall of the barriers, but rather by the creation of a model of service that is as effective as it is inclusive, and the path there is lit in part through dialogue. Enjoy the piece and follow this space and on Twitter at #CCLKOW for future installments.
Just over twenty years after I first became interested in the subject of women serving freely across the military, the American armed forces have taken the decision to integrate occupation specialties and remove barriers to unit assignments — with the British decision to do so as well not far behind. In the end it came down to what I might call pragmatic idealism: gender integration was the right thing to do in both material and philosophical terms. But while the decisions themselves certainly form the watershed moment, they will be for naught if the process itself is not handled with thoughtful self-awareness for both the men and women embarking on a journey into largely untrodden territory and the institutions which must maintain effectiveness against revolutionary change.
The path through this transformation will rely upon many efforts across the forces and at institutional, leadership, unit, and individual levels. Within this universe of activity, this blog carves out a single dialogue along the theme of ‘understanding’ to pursue as its small part in the process. A small but mighty guiding concept, understanding — wisdom of some other person, group, or thing for practical purpose — is at the root of military activity. Whether it is applied to the enemy, the terrain, the weather, the socio-fill in the blank context, or so on, this wisdom enhances the effectiveness of resources and capabilities applied against an objective.
To aid its creation, understanding is best served by frankness and vulnerability. The first term, the more obvious, is in sharing the benefit of knowledge and experience. Most simply, against the objective of successful gender integration, it is providing a thoughtful discourse on ‘here is what you need to know about ___.’ Counter-intuitively perhaps, the second requirement is about curiosity, about accepting the limits of one’s knowledge. It is no more or less than the willingness to ask questions. Furthermore, this model of understanding highlights the importance of its interactive character, of its necessary creation through dialogue.
Against a long career studying the contemporary armed forces historically, these traits are singled out because the current state of situational ignorance of too many actors in these events can too easily derail the effort. There is as much to learn as to teach for all those involved as we are most assuredly stepping into uncharted territory. Opening historically male provinces to gender integration creates unknown terrain for all those involved. For the men, it will be about learning how to do the same things according to changed terms. In some respects this is the more difficult, because it is about breaking habits before new ones can develop. The women, on the other hand, have the simple but no less monumental requirement to embrace an entirely new environment. Overcoming both of these challenges will be served by the understanding that veterans and military personnel can create in dialogue about the myriad issues gender integration touches.
Against the objective of building an understanding that will aid the integration of women across all military activity, this week’s questions are simple:
What would you share?
What would you want to know?
