THE number of women in uniform is increasing as females sign up for the traditionally male-dominated military, fire brigades and police service at record rates.
New defence recruitment figures show women made up almost 17 per cent (1547 individuals) of those who signed up for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in the 12 months to June this year. Women now make up 26 per cent of navy and RAAF personnel. Nearly 12 per cent of the army's members are female.
Numbers of women in the NSW Police Service and NSW Fire Brigades have never been stronger.
Teenage girls were even more strongly represented among school-leavers doing their gap year with the armed forces. Of 700 teenagers spending this year with the services, 28 per cent are female. More than half the gap students in the navy are female.
Women now comprise 13 per cent of the 52,000-strong ADF, and recruiters are hoping to attract even more women in the next 12 months.
Commodore Tim Barrett, who took over this month as head of defence recruiting, said the ADF should reflect broader society, but conceded the military would probably never be 50 per cent female.
"There are sections of defence where women cannot serve, such as in direct fighting, so they are barred from being front-line combat soldiers, navy clearance divers and RAAF ground security," Commodore Barrett said, "but we are removing impediments to the number of jobs women can do in the services and there are very few jobs now they cannot do.
"We have two very competent women commanding warships at the moment," he said.
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has ruled out women serving on the front line but he wants more combat roles open to women, such as ground defence officers and combat engineers.
Despite the intensification of the war in Afghanistan and the high level of deployments around the world, the number of recruits rose by more than 1500 in the past 12 months, 500 more than the previous year and 1000 more than the year before that. Improved pay and conditions are helping to keep men and women in the forces.
Some sectors of the ADF, especially the navy, are still struggling to attract enough recruits. Three submarines could not go to war now because of a shortage of submariners.
The rising death toll of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan and in training accidents has not slowed interest in joining up. "We don't see a decline in applications in the week we have a death in the services," Commodore Barrett said. "There are always tragedies, but there are also positive stories to military life that we are trying to get out there.
"We are emphasising the 250 different jobs available in the defence force that are not foot soldiers, pilots or sea-going sailors, such as technicians, mechanics, cooks, clerks and computer operators."
The ADF's $50 million recruiting campaign uses computer war games and interactive internet sites to attract tech savvy Generation Y youngsters.
The NSW Fire Brigades' recruitment campaign in June was a success, with 595 women applying for positions. "We were very pleased about that," NSW Fire Brigades commissioner Greg Mullins said.
"Women still only make up a very small proportion of our entire workforce but the latest recruitment campaign seems to be getting the message across that it's not just a bastion of male domination.
"Women make fantastic firefighters. It's not a question of whether women can do the job or not - they are every bit as good as men."
The ranks of female firefighters has grown significantly over the past decade. In 1998, women made up only 0.73 per cent of full-time firefighters, rising to 1.4 per cent by 2003. Now there are 92 full-time female firefighters.
Women have also boosted police ranks, comprising 26 per cent of officers today compared to 23.8 per cent in 2003. "We are focusing on growing female participation in the NSW Police," a spokesman said. "We don't set targets but our aim each year is to grow the percentage. We continue to attempt to attract women of all ages and different experiences."
Sydney University social anthropologist Dr Stephen Juan said women were now more open to joining traditionally male-dominated services as they felt they could do anything men could do.
"There are plenty of positive role models on TV shows and movies for women in the military and police nowadays. This opens up their thinking to uniformed services as a career," he said.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff