Soldiering

Soldiering is a brave but bloody business. In the British army the general female to male ratio is one in ten, but in Iraq and Afghanistan that ratio rises to one in five.

In the last week the first British woman soldier killed in action in the Afghanistan conflict, Corporal Sarah Bryant, was buried as were her two male colleagues. She was killed, alongside three male Territorial Army special forces, in a large roadside explosion east of Lashkar Gah, in the south of Afghanistan. The three men who died were from 23rd Special Air Service Regiment, which is one of two Territorial Army (Reserve) SAS units.

This article is not the personal stories of any of these soldiers. I am not comparing their fate or their bravery but only the consequence of their gender.

It is noticeable that even in these days of legally mandated sexual equality there was a huge, some would say disproportionate reaction to the death of Sarah Bryant. It’s obvious that the first reason for this reaction is that there hadn’t been a previous female soldiering fatality.

However, there is another reason, which, I believe relates to the fact that there is an inbuilt, almost primal fear harbored deep within us for the fate of our women in combat. I use the word “our” specifically because we clearly appear to be identifying with these women in a very personal and emotional way, that we don’t employ when contemplating male combat casualties.

Our unspoken fear includes the very real regarding what an enemy might do to a captured woman. This includes the prospect of sexual attack that no one wishes to contemplate. The truth is that this can and does sometime happen to some captured female combatants as it does to female citizens who just happen to get in the way.

Other countries have long had female soldiers in their ranks, but very few have them in their front lines, undertaking combat roles. Sarah was on an intelligence related mission in a war that knows no front lines or safe areas. The men who died with her were there to guard her.

Another reason for male reticence regarding female combat soldiers is that most women do not have the necessary physical strength. Those that have utilized women in combat under extreme situations have found these women to be as good or better than their male counterparts.

The American military, like the British, have an increasing number of their women in certain types of combat roles, now flying fighter jets and other military aircraft, that were formerly an exclusively male preserve.

It is hard not to feel defensive of our women in these situations but we have to understand that women serving on the front line and suffering the awful consequences is an inevitable consequence of sexual equality.

In an idealized world there would be no need for female combat soldiers, but in that world there would be no war.