T

he Pentagon recently issued a new policy to open combat positions to women. This policy changed a 1994 ban where women were “excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground”.

The policy alteration was made because the US Defense Department found that there was no indication that females had fewer abilities to compete and excel under such assignments. Has Indonesia’s Defense Ministry ever considered such change of policy? Or at least conducted similar research to support women role in the institution?

The new policy will open up around 14,000 combat-related slots for women in the US military, consisting over 13,000 posts in the US Army, over 300 posts in the US Marine Corps and 60 posts in the US Navy. The US Air Force, however, has already opened 99 percent of its positions to women, including the jobs of combat controller, tactical air control party, pararescue jumpers and special operations weather technician.

Women in the US Armed Forces can now become mechanics for tank or rocket units, field artillery radar operators and intelligence front line troops. They will also be placed at the battalion level or at smaller units with high mobility. Before, women could only serve in larger units, such as brigades and corps, which often limited women to administrative and logistical roles.

This policy came as a response to a US Congressional mandate to the Defense Department a year ago to diversify the military’s leadership. It was also a tribute to 255,000 women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, where 144 have lost their lives fighting for the nation’s cause.

Critics have long said that the ban denied women combat jobs that brought more promotions and benefits.

The result of this policy can be seen by the lack of women in high-ranking strategic positions at the Pentagon. Almost 80 percent of senior leaders in US military are officers from combat-related positions that women have no access to.

Yet, the recent policy change has not broken down all barriers. Women still cannot serve in elite units, such as the US Navy SEALs or the Delta Force, units that are physically demanding and lack separate sleeping compartments.

However, the slow progress to empower women in a highly masculine military workplace is taking place in the US. How about Indonesia?

Women in the Indonesian Military (TNI) are barred from serving in the artillery, cavalry, submarine and special forces. This boundary was created not because women could not fulfill the requirements, but due to masculine stereotypes that hold that women are good only in administrative and protocol positions.

For Wanita TNI (women of the Indonesian Armed Forces), promotions also come slowly. There is almost no chance for a woman to become head of a regional military command, unlike the National Police, where a woman was previously appointed to lead a regional provincial police force, i.e., Brig. Gen. Rumiah K SPd, then of the Banten Police.

From the start, women enter the TNI in a different way from their male counterparts. They cannot access the military academy directly after high school because it is men’s-only path, noted as the regular way which brings faster promotions.

Women must enter as noncommissioned officers while men can start as cadets. Women noncoms
receive an education that is 99 percent similar to that received by cadets. They have to pass physical training, military knowledge, shooting tests …. as well as, amazingly, secretarial training and make-up skill.

The motto of the Women’s Army Corps’ (Kowad) underscores their feminine role in the TNI: “Not in the garden decorating roses, but like jasmine railing the nation”. The Air Force and Navy have somewhat more neutral slogans for their women’s corps that still emphasize women’s female destiny (kodrat).

Women in the TNI are supposed to be good mothers and good wives. TNI chief Adm. Agus Suhartono reinforced these sentiments earlier this year when celebrating the Women’s Navy Corps’ 47th anniversary, saying that women had a “double role as Navy members and women”. It is doubtful that men in the TNI are given similar admonitions.

If we want progress, we should not let biology and current conditions dictate women’s future. As a start, the Indonesian Air Force has stated its plan to open its academy to women.

Women should be given equal access to prove themselves. There will be some women that can fulfill combat standards, just like men.

Critics who say that it is not part of Eastern culture to send women into combat should look to South Korea, which allowed women to serve last year.

Hopefully, it will not be long before Indonesia realizes that women also have courage, patriotism and skill to offer on and off the battlefield.

The writer is an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.