Why our defence forces will lose to women

The defence services are fighting a losing battle by trying to keep women out of combat

The recent statements by General Bipin Rawat on the issue of women being inducted into combat arms set off a firestorm. The General has one valid point: The Indian defence services would have to reboot their cultural ethos to cope with gender integration.

There would, almost certainly, be a huge number of cases of sexual harassment of women troopers by their comrades and superior officers. The US defence services, which have been gender-integrated for many years, still have numerous episodes of sexual harassment. This happens as well in Israel, Russia and other countries with gender-integrated defence forces. Given that India is,