Does Raising the Combat Exclusion Lead to Equality? Measuring the recruitment, retention and promotion of women in Canada and New Zealand’s defence forces

Abstract

This article questions the conventional wisdom in several major militaries that removing the combat exclusion will enhance several aspects of the military for women, including their recruitment, retention, and promotion rates. We provide newly collated data from the Canadian and New Zealand Defence Forces, measuring these presumed positive impacts, to show that progress on these fronts has been only incremental despite high expectations. In doing so, we trace the rationale that underpins the policy, arguing that the removal of the exclusion is guided by an already-critiqued strain of critical mass theory which assumes that gendered institutions can be altered and improved through low-intervention reforms. This rationale, we argue, leads to unreasonable policy expectations, a gap between expectation and reality that can only be bridged by paying attention to the empirical data. Not doing so may reduce the motivation for military leaders to pursue rigorous policy solutions to attaining gender equality.