Women in Defence 200

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ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

WOMEN IN DEFENCE FORCES

How Relevant

By: Moyna Srivastava 3687

Melissa D’souza 3647
Sophia College
2007-08

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Index

1. Introduction
•History
•The race
•The Indian scenario

2. Induction of women in defence

• Entry
• Selection

• Training

• Tasking
• Appraisals
• Leave

3. Research methodology

4. Case studies

5. Questionnaire Analysis

6. Conclusion

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Introduction

The main purpose of defence forces is to the guard the four boundaries of
the nation and protects her citizens and wealth from the enemy at any cost.
And therefore it is important that all the decisions and policies should be
made, keeping this main purpose or objective in mind.

The origin of the Indian Army goes back to the beginning of the British rule
over India. In the World War II, Winston Churchill was amazed by the
strength and the size (two million) of the Indian army. It goes down in the
history as the largest volunteer army. Even today The Indian Army has, total
troop strength of around 2.5 million and is the second largest standing army
in the world.

Earlier, entry of women was limited to the medical corps, dental cops and the
military nursing service. In 1991 the government approved the induction of
women into non-technical billets, such as administration, logistics,
accounting, education, and meteorology. In 1992 opportunities for "pioneer
women officers" were opened in the areas of non-combat areas of the
service. This year was also celebrated by the UN as the “women’s year”. But
the fact remained that they weren’t taken for frontline jobs.

Women in Defence forces: The race with the

Developed nation

United States
The united nation is considered as a pioneer and a trend setter by other
nation for induction of women in the armed forces. There are about 20,000
women in the US armed forces, which comes to about 20% of the total
strength.

Prior to 1973, if the women in the armed forces became pregnant then they
would be given the option to either terminate the pregnancy or seek
discharge. But during Clinton’s tenure, a number of amendments were made.
Women were permitted to join as combat air pilots and could also be
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assigned for prolonged duty on combat naval ships. The scope of combat-risk
assignments for women was redefined to open additional appointments to
them.

Britain
Women’s started to play a very important role in the British armed forces in
early 1990s. A number of new duties were assigned to them.

Today, 71% of all jobs in the Navy, 67% in the Army and 96% in the Air
Force are tenable by women. However Women are primarily excluded from
the duties which require battling enemy at close quarters and they still have
a very high representative percentage in the armed forces. Service-wise,
the women population in the Navy is 9.4%, the Army 7.1% and the Air
Force 11.9%. Out of the total strength of 196,650 of the three services,
women number 17,900.

Canada
Like for Indian women, Canadian women have also been in a long and slow
struggle to be part of the armed forces. For over a hundred years, women
were considered suitable only for nursing duties. However, things changed
rapidly during the recent past and today women account for close to 13
percent of the total strength of the Canadian forces. Women are
permitted in all corps and can rise up to the senior decision-making levels.

Bulgaria
Bulgaria has adopted a highly flexible model. As per the law, women in
Bulgarian Army are appointed to professional military service in the Armed
Forces on appointments proposed by the Chief of the General Staff. They
have equal training standards and equal professional rights as men. Women
constitute about 7 percent of the total force.

Germany
Though established in 1955, the Bundeswehr 1 allowed women to join medical
units and musical bands in 1975. It was only in 2001 that women won the

1
The Bundeswehr (German for "Federal Defence Force) is the name of the unified armed forces of the
Federal Republic of Germany

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right to join the Bundeswehr as soldiers. Today, there are nearly 12,000
German women in uniform on voluntary basis, as compulsory military service
for women is banned by law. Women constitute almost 6 percent of the
total strength.

The Indian scenario……

Women were inducted in the defence in the year 1992. Although the armed
forces maintain the view that there is no gender bias or any other problems
that women face in the forces the ground reality is that, women in the
forces - Army, Navy, Air force confronts, social, behavioural and
psychological problem at all level.

According to Maj Gen (Retd) Mrinal Suman “the entry of women officers in
the armed forces has been highly ill- informed and subjective in nature. It is
imprudent to consider it as an issue of equality of sexes or gender bias or
even women’s liberation. It is also not a question of conquering the so-called
‘last male bastion’.”2 On the issue of sexual harassment he has bought out
that” The problem with the officer in the Indian military forces is the
attitude of saying that the female officers are over sensitive and dismiss
these complaints on harassment as frivolous. As a result, even serious
accusation on sexual assault is ignored. Moreover many officers tend to hide
under the excuse, ‘boys will be boys’.”

The number of serving women officers in the three Services of Defence

Forces and their percentage to the total strength are
• Army has 945 women, 2.67%
• Air Force has 739 women, 7%
• Navy has 236, 2.94%.
Which are very less when compared to the other nation mentioned above
above.

Induction of women in defence

2
Taken from women in the armed forces by Maj Gen (Retd) Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM, PhD

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There is a Women's Special Entry Scheme (officers) for women between 19-
27 years of age. Women’s entry is only after graduate, post graduate or an
engineering graduate level. A woman officer gets to serve up to seven years
extendable to fourteen years after being trained at respective academies
for basic training. Entry is based on selection by the Army/Navy/Air force
Selection Board. The following are the criteria’s for women to join armed
forces.

Personality traits
Effective intelligence, courage, sense of responsibility, ability to reason,
determination, ability to organize group activity, take the initiative, self-
confidence, alacrity in making balanced decisions, social adaptability; and
excellent powers of expression are useful traits for an aspiring defence
officer

Eligibility
General Eligibility conditions demand that a candidate must be - a citizen of
India (subjects of Bhutan, Nepal, Tibetan refugees or migrants from the
rest of the Indian subcontinent with the intention of settling permanently in
India can also apply). In addition, candidates must be physically fit in
accordance with the prescribed physical standards. They should be
unmarried males or female.

Entry exams
Different defence sector that is army navy and air force have devised
different methods to incorporate women into their sectors.

Selection boards
Candidates, who qualify are called for Selection board. Most of the tests
require an average intelligence. The testing is spread over a period of 3-4
days at least and is a thorough as well as an elaborate process. A three-
pronged approach is followed by the Selection board.

1. Personal interview
2. Outdoor test or group task officer tests
3. Psychological testing apparatus

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In this stage the purely spontaneous and natural responses of the candidate
are sought to be accessed by the Selection board. The tests are
administered on an individual basis and also in groups. During the course of
this subtle testing pattern, candidates are under observation throughout.
Selection board’s primary aim is to select individuals with the potential to be
groomed into, and trained as, officers for the defence services finally.
Motivation for joining the defence forces is an important question to be
prepared for the interview. Everything is assessed while the interview is on –
verbal answers as well as non-verbal attitude, gestures, stance, power of
expression, self confidence, self assurance etc.

The Selection board pattern includes a number of physical tests to evaluate

the candidate’ s stamina, physical fitness, aptitude for physical activity,
flexibility of the body, agility as well as courage for making daring attempts.
The psychological testing apparatus comprises verbal and non – verbal
exercise, word association exercise, thematic apperception, situation
reaction, self appraisal, aptitude for logical reasoning and objectivity.

When are women inducted?

• When there are not enough of men to join the forces.
• When the societal and cultural ethos are matured to the extent
that the barriers of gender prejudices have vanished.
• Where militaries are not deployed on active combat duties and
are generally assigned passive tasks.

Research methodology

When we scanned through the innumerable articles we got on the topic of

“women in defence”, on the Internet, in the magazines, newspapers, books
etc., we came to certain preliminary inferences. These are:

1. Men are not in favour of women joining defence forces.

2. Female officers were under stress and faced a lot of gender
bias in defence forces, specially from lower levels.
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3. There is a scarcity of young men opting for defence forces

To prove the above assumptions wrong or right, we conducted the field

study where several questionnaires were made and given to different sets of
people.

Questionnaires: (the copies are attached for your reference)

The 1stquestinaire was administered to the male officers to see whether

they accepted their female colleagues. These questionnaires were given to
young officers between the age group of 20 to 30 years. These
questionnaires were sent via the e-mail to the officers in New Delhi, Pune,
etc. and few questionnaires were filled through telephonic conversations.

The 2nd questionnaire was aimed at senior officers who control and direct
manpower under them. The 3rd questionnaire was administered to female
officers to find out how well they had adapted themselves to the way of life
in defense.

The 4th questionnaire was given out to the common youth, between the age
group of 18 to 25 years, to see whether they preferred careers in defense
and whether they would accept females as their colleagues. The 5th
questionnaire was administered for the internal population to see what they
thought about women in defence and whether they would send their
daughters to be a part of the defense as well as accept lady officers as
their daughters-in-law.

Sample size:
The sample for the male officers was 40 questionnaires but the female were
20 as we could not find many female officers in Mumbai. The rest of the
questionnaires (i.e. the one for youth and married ladies) had a sample size
of 20 respondents each.

Method:
We personally distributed the questionnaire to male and female officers,
who were posted in Mumbai, and to those who weren’t posted in Mumbai we

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had given them the questions through e-mail or we had telephone interviews
with them.

The senior officers were interviewed. A set of question were especially

prepared for them and on the basis of there preference they had either
oral or recorded interview.

For the internal population, [which forms the informal culture in an

organization] we went door to door distributing questionnaires and later
collecting their responses. Even for the youth we had spot interviews and
filling up of questionnaire.

To get a better insight we had informal conversations with male and female
officers and seniors.

Limitations:

1. Time limit:
Since it is an academic project, we had been given a deadline. Hence
we feel that in the limited time given to us we weren’t able to collect
enough information on this topic.

2. Area limit:
The defence organization is spread in the length and breaths of the
country. Being students, it is not possible to collect samples from
various unit set up in the country. Therefore our sample is not a
representative sample.

3. Nature of the topic:

Since it’s a controversial issue, the defence officers’ were not ready
to speak to us and openly give us asks. So we have taken the officers’
interviews and the questionnaires filled, on the basis of anonymity.

4. Organizational hierarchy
Due to organizational hierarchy, it took time for us to seek permission
to conduct the survey. Even at the end of the project we haven’t

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managed to get permission, as a result this research is unauthentic.

5. Scattered sample
The army and the air force unit in Mumbai are very small. Therefore
we had problem is giving our questionnaire to our target audience. We
had distributed our questionnaire to our audience by email, telephonic-
interviews and letters.

Questionnaire analysis
In the male questionnaire we had included a question asking whether they
would send there daughter or female relatives in defence to which majority
said no and few said they are not sure and handful said that they wouldn’t
mind if their daughter or relative want to join the forces.

When asked what were the strong points of a lady officer? Most of them
said that ladies were very hard working and efficient in handling desk jobs;
but were very emotional and they won’t speak out there problem if they had
any. Most of them did no prefer working under a lady officer (80%) and few
said that they weren’t sure.

According to the officers most of the women were very efficient in

shouldering responsibility, but when compared to men, they did not share
the same responsibility (99%). When asked the reason for there inefficiency
the officer blamed the insufficient training period training and the society
for this. Most of them felt that the senior are partial towards the lady in
matters of leave, posting, tasking (operations & patrolling). The officers felt
that few women do manipulate their way to get a work done, but added that
it’s an individual character and can not be generalized. They also added that
even male officers manipulate a particular situation to suit them. They also
said that women can handle stress but not of all kinds. They said that it’s
difficult for women to handle emotional stress and composite stress.
Although few of them felt that again it differs from individual to another
individual.

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When we asked them to comment on the statement “defence can do away

with lady officers”, we found that there was a pattern in the army male
agreed that yes defence can do away with lady officers where as in air-
force and navy the officers said no they don’t agree with it. But when we
asked few sailors this question they agreed saying the women can not handle
men.

In the female officers questionnaire we found that they had high self
efficacy and self esteem which constantly motivated them to fight and
improve. Another string point was that very few women joined forces for
the love of their nation, most of them joined because they wanted to do
something different, from their peers. Most of them agreed that they would
want permanent commission, as that would bestow them with full time duty
and benefits.

Although unlike male, women felt the authorities were not at all partial to
them. The authorities were as stern to them as to male officers. The lady
officers found themselves handicapped in taking frontline jobs as they had
family commitments, obligations, child rearing responsibility etc. they even
said that the society itself was not ready to accept women in frontline jobs,
adding further one lady officers said that their father’s still get worried if
their daughter aren’t married off at the right age, 21-24. It’s a source of
constant worry and gossip for the neighbours.

Most of the women felt they could handle physical and emotional stress and
felt were effective enough in handling men under them. When asked whether
they agreed with the statement “….allowing women in combat roles means to
make army lesser efficient” (made by Ex major general H.S. Gill) 70% said
yes, to a certain extend. They blamed the biological differences and the
protective attitude of the male towards the female. They
said that this isn’t bad, but facing the fact they said that
women do need separate bathrooms for themselves.
also added that during war time, it become even
They C
more difficult for them.

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We interviewed the ‘internal’ population (which includes officer’s daughters,
sons and wives) of the organization, to know, their views on this issue.
Through our survey we found that women (wives) were more willing to send
their son to defence than daughters. On being questioned further they said,
“It’s not a career for women”. We also asked them if they would accept
women officers as there daughter-in-laws, for which there was an equal
reply of 40% and 20% said that its depend on other factors. For this we
interpret that the ‘internal’ society is in a phase of transition and it will take
time for the ‘internal’ population to totally accept women in defence.

On finding that, there is a deficiency of officers in the forces; we devised a

questionnaire to see the job preference of the youth. We analyzed that
most of the people (male) felt that private jobs were much better than
defence. Another unique analysis was that young boys that are between the
age group of 17 to 19 were more enthusiastic about joining the forces to
serve their nations, where as older male’s preferred private jobs for the
money. We also asked them, whether they would want female in forces, and
64% said yes.

We administered 40 questionnaires to male officers to evaluate their view

point on the topic “women in defence”. More that half of the sample size
(65%) thought that women shouldn’t be part of the defence forces as they
might not be able to handle and cop up with stress. They also made
reference to the past suicide cases where lady officers had killed
themselves as they couldn’t handle stress. The rest (35%) felt that women
should be there to lessen the burden of the officers in non combat role. Like
education, law, information warfare, electronic intelligence gathering etc.
The whole sample size including male and female felt that there can not be
equality among the gender.

The big question, WHY?

After talking to some of the junior and senior officers, both male and
female with the defence background, we found that following were some of
the major reasons for such low percentage of women in armed force.

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Low acceptance
In a country like India where males have dominated the society since times
immemorial, it becomes very difficult for both, men to accept women in
position of authority and for women to break these stereotypes. Thus there
is very low acceptance of women officers in defence forces.

Different sexes:
It has been proven that casual interaction is more open and frank with other
member of the same sex. As a result, the environment become more ‘stiff
and formal’ in the armed forces in the presence of a female officers. The
male officers consider women to be intruding in their domain and hence the
comfort level between man and women collogues is low.

Formal vs. informal culture

Formal culture comprises of the formal goals, resources, rules, regulation
and physical environment which bind the employee together, where as the
informal culture is the covert behaviour of the employees. Both the formal
and the informal culture form the backbone on any organization. And the
same implies to the armed forces. Though the formal culture, in defence
forces gives equal weight age to women; the informal culture, impresses low
acceptance of lady officers.

Image of the armed forces

The profession of arms is all about violence and brutality. To kill another
human is not moral, but soldiers are trained to kill. As a result they become
ruthless; and women, in general, are confused about the way they should
conduct themselves. If they behave lady-like, their acceptance amongst male
colleagues is low. On the other hand, their active participation in exercises
carries the danger of their losing colleagues’ respect.

Indian society:
In Indian society there is a very clear demarcation of jobs division between
men and women. Though the armed forces is strictly bound by rules,
regulations and stringent laws, however we forget that all member of the
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defence community belong to the Indian-cultural, traditional and orthodox,
society; where by and large women are not expected to go work shoulder to
shoulder with males in the male dominated profession or place of authority.
So further analyzing it, the Indian society has a long way to evolve and
accept ideals such as ‘kandhe se kandha mila kar chalna’ when it comes to
gender equality.

Sexual harassment
A few cases of sexual intimidation/harassment of lady officer both by
superior and juniors have been indicated.

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