Society

THE
RIGHT
TO FIGHT

We were the
first country in
the world to give
women the vote, in
the name of equal
rights. But if a
military crisis saw
New Zealanders
called up for the
draft, would we be
prepared to send
our daughters
to war alongside
our sons? Joanna
Wane reports.

ho knows if theres even a

name for it, that hard curve
at the top of the foot that the
freckle-faced Preachers Daughter used
like a sledgehammer slam to the neck of
world champion sportsfighter Ronda
Rousey. Call it the Holly Holm special.
Ba-boom! yelled the commentator, as
Rousey hit the canvas. Ronda goes limp,
Holly jumps all over her, hammer fist and
she is out cold.
That brutal mid-November cage fight
has been called one of the biggest upsets
in womens professional sport and played
out to a record crowd at Melbournes
Etihad Stadium, usually reserved for
Aussie Rules. And who says women dont
rate: the pay-per-view revenue alone
brought in $60 million (watch the blow-

GETTY

JOANNA WANE IS NORTH & SOUTHS DEPUTY EDITOR.

Female junior soldiers

from 19 Platoon before
their graduation parade
at the Army Foundation
College in Harrogate,
England, last August.

46 | NORTH & SOUTH | JANUARY 2016

NORTH & SOUTH | JANUARY 2016 | 47

48 | NORTH & SOUTH | JANUARY 2016

It is bad enough
men doing this
kind of organised
thuggery, but
for women it is
shocking.
A letter to the editor published
in the New Zealand Herald

in 2014 found numbers of women in the

force had actually fallen in the previous
five years. Theyre paid less, too.
A recruitment and retention campaign
has begun to reverse that trend and its
just one of many professions where the
gender ratio remains stubbornly skewed
out of balance. (Look up New Zealand
architects on Wikipedia and only one
woman merits a mention on the list and
shes dead.) But while the massive success of The Hunger Games has turned
Katniss Everdeen into a pop-culture
icon, one arrow at a time, in the real
world warrior women are missing in
action across the protective services,
including the police and fire service.
So is that really a womans natural lot
in life to wipe bums, not kick butt?
Or is Ronda Rousey right, that fighting
is a feminist issue, after all?

A combined memorial service at Burnham Military Camp in Christchurch for (from left) Corporal Luke Tamatea, Lance Corporal
JacindaBaker and Private Richard Harris, who died in Afghanistan after their Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb in 2012. Baker,
a 26-year-old medic, was the first New Zealand woman lost in combat since a nurse was killed in the Vietnam War.

MARTIN HUNTER / GETTY

by-blow replay on bloodyelbow.com).

Undefeated until that night, Rousey
was voted the Best Female Athlete Ever
in an ESPN poll in September, nudging
out Serena Williams. A mouthy 60kg
slab of muscle, shes the highest-paid
fighter, male or female, in the full-contact
combat sport of the UFC (Ultimate
Fighting Championship) and a pin-up
for equal rights, if a controversial one.
Fighting is not a mans thing, it is a
human thing, she told Good Morning
America in March. To say that it is antiwoman is an anti-feminist statement.
Im the biggest draw in the sport and
Im a woman.
Rousey may have her fans shes on
the cover of a new Xbox game but
J.Longson, from Kawerau, is not one
of them. It is bad enough men doing
this kind of organised thuggery, but for
women it is shocking, he wrote in a
letter to the editor, published in the
New Zealand Herald after the fight.
Women are mothers and nurses and
things like school teachers, not thugs.
And in a way, hes right: 122 years after
New Zealand became the first country
in the world to give women the vote,
theyre still far more likely than men to
be employed in the caring professions,
such as nursing, teaching and social
work. And despite most combat roles in
the military being open to both sexes
since 2000 years ahead of traditional
allies including the US, the UK and
Australia a Ministry of Defence review

GETTY

World champion sportsfighter Ronda Rousey was undefeated until the Preachers
Daughter Holly Holm (wearing white) knocked her out with a sledgehammer kick to the
head in this mid-November fight.

ver the coming months, the first

female recruits to be drafted
into the Norwegian army will
go into training. Rights and duties
should be the same for all, MP Laila
Gustavsen told the media, after parliament passed legislation making Norway
the first European or NATO country to
extend military conscription to both
sexes. (Gustavsens teenage daughter,
Marte, was shot during the Utoeya Island
massacre in 2011, but survived).
A champion of gender equality, Norway
also has a quota requiring public companies to fill at least 40 per cent of the
seats on their boards with women. But
the military, in particular, has always
been a symbol of power in society. In
Iraq and Syria, the Kurdish womens
militia has grown into a key strike force
against Isis making up a third of the
resistance movement, as female freedom fighters take up arms to protect not
only their families and land, but also
themselves. Its about the right to democracy, freedom, equality and education, says one, in an interview posted
on a US news website.
It remains to be seen whether Western
democracies have the stomach for female
soldiers coming home in body bags, but
the face of the frontline is already changing. From 2016, the US is lifting its ban
on women serving in close-combat roles,
with the UK expected to follow (trailing
behind New Zealand, as they did with
giving women the vote). Retired navy
captain Rosemary Bryant Mariner, who
flew attack aircraft and was the first
American woman to command a naval
aviation squadron, has described the
British army as anachronistic for sanctioning gender discrimination.
The millennial generation has grown
up in a gender-integrated society, competing as individuals in education and
the workplace, she wrote in an opinion
piece in New Scientist magazine. One
way or the other, British women will
fight as infantry in the next major war.
In New Zealand, the final barriers fell
when the SAS (Special Air Service)
opened to women in 2011; naval women
were unable to go to sea until 1989. The
NZ Defence Force confirmed a number
of female personnel are currently deployed overseas, but wouldnt say how
many or where theyre based, citing operational security reasons. Three years
ago, Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker, a

26-year-old medic from Christchurch,

became the first New Zealand woman
lost in action since a nurse was killed in
Vietnam. Two other Kiwi soldiers travelling with Baker also died when their
Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb in
Afghanistan.
Conscription has been off the table
here since 1972, when Labour (under
Norman Kirk) ended compulsory military training. In a crisis, any decision
to bring back the draft would be made
by the government of the day. However
feminist commentator Deborah Russell,
a senior lecturer in accountancy at
Massey University, sees no reason why
women should get special treatment.
Its a matter of absolute commitment to equality, she says. As a young
person, a free democratic society was
something I believed in deeply and Id
still fight for that today. If were going
to ask men to go and die in wars, we
have to ask women, too.
At 49, Russell is probably too old for
the draft. But as the mother of three
teenage girls, sticking to her guns would

If its my children
or me on the line,
Id have to be sure
its something
worth fighting for.
Feminist commentator
Deborah Russell

not be an easy call. Somehow, women

going into the military offends our notions of them as carers or nurturers who
need protecting. But men get captured
by enemy forces and are raped and tortured; the capacity to be harmed by an
enemy soldier is not gender specific.
If Im going to send my daughters
friends and my nephews to war, I have
to also send my daughters. Then Id have
to think through whether we are really
committed to fighting. If its my children
or me on the line, Id have to be sure its
something worth fighting for.
In World War II, women broke with

convention by wearing trousers and

mobilising into factories. Now, if there
was a full- scale war and New
Zealanders faced the draft, Equal
Employment Opportunities commissioner Jackie Blue believes excluding
women would be illegal.
A former breast cancer specialist and
a mother of two, Blue was a National
MP when an amendment to the Human
Rights Act was passed in 2007, removing
an exemption that allowed women to
be barred from active combat.
You could argue that if women were
not called up, that would be discrimination, she says. Were striving for
gender equality in so many different
areas and this is just another aspect of
achieving it. Lets hope we never get to
that, but it would be hypocritical to say
women shouldnt fight.
Women already serve on the frontline in our prisons, where theres a
roughly even split of male and female
prison officers and an almost zero pay
gap. Thats not only positive role-modelling for prisoners, but reflects the
NORTH & SOUTH | JANUARY 2016 | 49

In terms of
strategy, we could
do with a heck of
a lot more woman
power. Were good
at that shit!

< A female sniper takes position in a

building in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Her all-female unit of around 800
volunteer fighters aged between 20
and 24 work alongside the Syrian army
in its battle against the rebels.

Mahala Rose Harwood

Facing and killing a large

and aggressive male enemy
soldier if necessary in hand-tohand combat requires a certain
ferocity, aggression and killer
instinct that is more characteristic
of men than women. [It] is not a
right nor an opportunity... It is a
dreadful, gut-churning, traumatic
and incredibly tough job that must
be done to defend the country.

Colonel Richard Kemp, who led

British troops in Afghanistan,
on women in combat roles.

Women should, in general,

nurture life, not take it.
Irrational, I know, but there it is.

Commentator MelanieMcDonagh,
writing in the Spectator.

Feminisms latest victory:

the right to get your limbs
blown off in war. Congratulations.

US political correspondent Tucker

Carlson tweets in 2013, after the
Pentagon opens the frontline to women.

I dont think its a good idea

to allow women to serve in
combat they are delicate and they
make the world beautiful. Combat,
which is full of blood, should and
must be a war of all men.

Wang Xiao Pang, in a comment posted

on the National Geographic News site.

50 | NORTH & SOUTH | JANUARY 2016

Would that be considered

boobs on the ground?

Fox News presenter Eric Bolling

responds to a report ona female
pilot from the United Arab Emirates
whod taken part in a bombing
mission of Isis targets in Syria.

Shock! Horror! UKs

first female warship
commander accused of acting
just like her male peers

Headline on a news story in the

Telegraph after a Royal Navycaptain,
Commander Sarah West, is removed
from her ship amid claims of an
affair with a male officer.

The women in east

Kurdistan are being stoned,
women are being killed, women
are being hanged. And we are an
armed force for these women.

A female guerrilla from the PJAK

(Party of Free Life for Kurdistan), in a
video interview for a US news site.

Im not going to say I dont

love to punch people in
the face. But thats just part of
the sport. Its like a chess match,
Iknow that I landed a good one.

Combat fighter Holly Holm, after claiming

the womens bantamweight world title.

CORBIS

Aucklander Mahala Rose Harwood in Paris, where she plans to work with refugees. The
outspoken young feminist believes women have as much to offer in a military crisis as men.

LOUISE LUDBROOK, PHOTOGRAPHY INFLUENCES

A NATURE TO NURTURE?

Some views on and from the gentle sex.

world theyll return to back in the community, says Blue, who notes female
officers are expected to hold their own
in a riot situation. And they do.
In reality, she says, civilians in a war
zone are in greater danger than soldiers
on the battlefield. Women have also
been recognised by the United Nations
as having a special role in peacekeeping
and conflict prevention, and the rise of
technological warfare means theres
less reliance on brute physical strength.
Apparently women make excellent
snipers.
The nature of conflict has changed
vastly; a lot of it is very tactical now.
Youve got to throw the book away and
start from scratch with peoples capabilities and potential, and not have any
discrimination over being a woman and
what you can and cant do.
At the age of 25, Auckland University
history and politics graduate Mahala
Rose Harwood would be prime picking
for the draft. Currently living in Paris,
where she plans to do volunteer work
with refugees, shes been an outspoken
feminist since high school and edits an
arts and culture magazine.
Although she opposes military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Harwood supports our peacekeeping
role and is as comfortable with the
thought of women being called up as I
am with the thought of men. However,
she believes mothers with young children, single fathers and caregivers for
the disabled should be exempt.
In terms of strategy, we could do with
a heck of a lot more woman power. Were
good at that shit! she says. And despite
being petite, Harwood reckons shed rock
in the army. My size doesnt negate
whether Id be a good markswoman. In
hand-to-hand combat, I might struggle.
But Ive been in my fair share of fights,
usually sticking up for my little sister,
and I can pack a punch.

ight now, the New Zealand

Defence Force has feet on
the ground in 10 countries
for security and peacekeeping missions, including troops deployed to Iraq
in April as part of a coalition force
training local soldiers.
But with Europe under strain from the
refugee crisis and a deteriorating situation in the Middle East, military historian
Chris Pugsley doesnt rule out the possibility of New Zealand being drawn into
an international conflict on a much larger
scale. Throw in some bad famines and
global warming and it may not be a war
as such, but a collapse of administration
and order that sees a requirement for
mobilisation, he says.
A retired lieutenant colonel, Pugsley
was a senior lecturer in war studies at

the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

in the UK for 13 years (he now lives in
Waikanae and has several publishing
projects on the go). Despite occasional
friction with our trans-Tasman neighbour, he says were lucky to have
Australia as a buffer to our north.
Look at the problems Australia is
facing and the opprobrium theyre gathering. Theyre closing their eyes to
terrible injustices in Nauru and Papua
New Guinea simply to keep them out.
And we havent addressed the impact
of rising sea levels in the Pacific yet.
The fact that you can finish a jail
term and immediately be put in detention without any rights at all There
are all the signs of a society adjusting
to new realities and we dont know
where that will take us.

In the 1970s, Pugsley set up and commanded the first Commissioning Course
in New Zealand, which later grew into
the Officer Cadet School (until then,
candidates were sent to officer training
schools in England). His first intake was
dominated by women, who quickly
proved their worth. On one occasion he
recalls, members of a regular platoon
were brought in and each officer cadet
was put in charge of a four-man group
for a challenge that pushed them to their
physical and psychological limits.
Towards the end of the exercise, this
young sylph-like female who looked as
though she could blow away in the wind
came in leading a group of soldiers who
were ashen; they were absolutely buggered. But they wouldnt give up because
she was in front of them. She was so
exhausted she was almost whimpering,
yet she was determined to get her group
to the finish line. Her tendons were so
swollen, says Pugsley, shed cut her boots
with a bayonet to relieve the pressure.
Unable to be placed in a combat role
after graduating, she was posted to a
general transport platoon with the
roughest pack of bastards where
everyone thought shed be eaten alive.
Within the first couple of months, shed
sacked her sergeant, who bullied the
men, and had the platoon eating out of
her hand. They realised anything they
could do, she could do better.
When it comes to strategy, leadership
skills and mental strength, Pugsley has
no doubt women can foot it in the military on equal terms with men. Often,
theyre better at clearing out the emotional clutter when tough decisions
need to be made, he says, and female
soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq
have performed well. But he believes
women are at a biological disadvantage
because they lack the physical endurance
required for long stints in a constant
state of semi-exhaustion on the frontNORTH & SOUTH | JANUARY 2016 | 51

many ways I imagine is more demanding morally and long-term, in terms of

PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].
We can send women to kill in many,
many ways providing we are then prepared as a country and as a society to
meet the cost of us making that choice.
It shouldnt be done out of ignorance or
a blind belief in equality, but because
we recognise exactly what were doing.
And we dont. We dont have a clue.
Hes talking not just of the physical
cost but also the long-lasting psychological damage including whats been
called moral injury. Even if killing
seems justified by the demands and duties of war, it sends our moral compasses spinning, writes US war correspondent Kevin Sites.
In 2012, the number of suicides among
US soldiers on active duty was higher
than the number of combat deaths.
Ninety per cent of the homeless in
London are ex-military, says Pugsley, and
the old rules of how prisoners should be
treated have gone by the board. If youre
captured today, male or female, youll be
raped or sodomised. Thats part of the
pre-deployment briefing not to see it
as sexual, but a control mechanism.
Every person who goes to war is
scarred, man or woman. Theres no
difference. War destroys. Send someone to war and they have to live with
the consequences.

52 | NORTH & SOUTH | JANUARY 2016

NICOLA EDMONDS

line. Studies have also shown women are

more likely to suffer from hip and leg
fractures from carrying heavy loads.
If New Zealand was drawn into a
large-scale conflict, the government
would determine how to deploy its human resources, he says. The question
is whether sending women into combat
is the best use of the skills they have.
Ive seen perhaps four women whod
make superb infantry officers and a
lot of others who would [if they had the
right physical attributes]. But to get
those four, wed waste a hundred.
Woman can be great fighter pilots.
They could be excellent intelligence
officers or drone operators, which in

olonel Karyn Thompson was

12 years old when she heard
the military calling. The oldest
of five children, she grew up on a farm
in the Manawatu and was head prefect
at Palmerston North Girls High.
Joining the army was her ticket to an
outdoors lifestyle and the chance to
serve New Zealand in a leadership
role, she says. Her parents were less
keen. In their words, they wanted me
to go to university and do something
important with my life.
Now one of the most senior women
in the NZ Defence Force, Thompson has
three qualifications, including a masters
degree all paid for by the military
and has been deployed to the Sinai, East
Timor (now Timor-Leste) and Bosnia.
In November, she won the diversity
category at the Women of Influence
Awards, for breaking down barriers to
women in the military, with initiatives
to attract and retain female recruits and

KEN DOWNIE

Evolutionary psychologist Quentin Atkinson says its possible the male warrior psychology
may not be well adapted to modern warfare, which is conducted at the press of a button.

track them into senior ranks a career

path that was blocked when women
were shut out of combat trades.
Nowadays any part of the battlefield
can be classed as the frontline, she says.
Its not like [the trenches] in World
War I and II. On any part, theres risk.
At 45 and a mother of three, she maintains the highest fitness grade in the
military. And although women often
struggle to make it through the demanding selection process, she makes it clear
those standards wont be lowered. Shes
not a fan of quota systems, either.
Aspirational targets are good, because
thats something to aim for, she says.
With quotas, youre after numbers, not
necessarily the best person for the job.
We cant afford any backlash, so we
wouldnt put ourselves in a position
where that might occur.
Thompson says womens strengths in
collaboration and relationship-building
help make soldiering more effective,
especially in Muslim countries where
all-male patrols cant talk freely with
the local women. Her husband is an
army engineer and the family is about
to move from Wellington to Waiouru,
where Thompson has been appointed
commander of army training and doctrine command.
Her dream job? Id love to be the
Chief of Army one day.
o, what of the male killer instinct? Surveys of infantrymen
in World War II found only 1520 per cent had fired their weapons in
combat, even when ordered to do so,
while one of our most decorated service-women, Nancy Wake, was a femme
fatale who spied for the French resistance and made the Gestapos most
wanted list once killing an SS sentry
with her bare hands.
Nicknamed the White Mouse because
she was so elusive, Wake was described
as a flower that bloomed in wartime.
She made the best of war, says her
biographer Peter FitzSimons, and war
made the best of her.
Evolutionary psychologist Quentin
Atkinson, an associate professor at
Auckland University, believes its a spurious claim that women should be kept
out of combat because theyre less likely
than men to be temperamentally suited
to war. That logic gets you into all sorts
of other trouble in terms of equality,

Colonel Karyn Thompson says the military reflects New Zealanders belief in a society where
people are treated as equals. Compared to what I call our sister nations, were way ahead.

he says. We all know men and women

who are meek and mild, and men and
women who are very aggressive and
violent. Differences in the average are
no reason to judge people on the group
they happen to be a member of. The
whole point of sex not mattering is that
its an irrelevant variable.
Theres a strong argument that with
equal rights come equal responsibilities,
says Atkinson, and stepping up to those
responsibilities carries a lot of moral
weight. Equality in the military has been
a goal for many marginalised groups,
from gays to black Americans to our own
Maori Battalion (in World War II, Maori
werent conscripted). Its much harder

to justify treating your fellow man or

woman as a second-class citizen when
theyre prepared to defend and die
alongside you for their country.
Yet for others, theres irony that becoming cannon fodder may be the price that
has to be paid. The feminists of the past
did not want equal rights in a mans
world, they wanted a new world entirely, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett writes, in the
Guardian. On one level, yes, women on
the frontline is a victory for equality.
But those of us who still hope for
peace and justice should not lose sight
of that vision. The men who have long
been sacrificed to further the aims of the
powerful might just thank us too. +
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