http://women.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17909-1536288,00.html

            By Michael Evans, Defence Editor

            YOUNG female recruits to the Armed Forces are not tough enough
to be treated on a par with their male colleagues, a report claimed
yesterday.
            Too many young women were being injured in training, the
independent Adult Learning Inspectorate said, and called for a rethink of
the "gender-free" policy. The previous "gender-fair"
policy, which took
account of the "weaker sex", was reckoned to be contrary to equal
opportunities legislation.

In a report that criticised much of the culture behind Armed Forces'
training, the inspectorate, which carried out checks on all the training
establishments, said that the military's interpretation was to treat
everyone the same. In the case of female recruits, the gender-free approach
had led to record levels of injuries.
It recommended reverting to gender-fair training. The injuries had also
coincided with the fact that recruits often joined the Armed Forces "unfit,
overweight or poorly nourished".

In women, fractures of the tibia (shin bone) had risen over a five-year
period from 12.6 per 10,000 personnel to 231.2. Stress fractures of the feet
also increased significantly among female recruits.

During the gender-fair period of training, which ended in 1998, female
trainees suffered 467 injuries per 10,000, compared with 118 among their
male colleagues. After gender-free training was introduced, men's injuries
rose to 147, but women's injuries went up to 1,113 per 10,000.

After the publication of the inspectorate's report, which was commissioned
by the Ministry of Defence to examine training across the Services,
Lieutenant-General Anthony Palmer, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff
(personnel), said that the issue of gender-free training was being reviewed.

The report said that the problem of injuries in the Services had been
"exacerbated by change from a gender-fair policy, in which women were set
training goals appropriate to their physique, to a gender-free approach,
prompted erroneously by a conviction that equality of opportunity demands
 it".

When gender-free training was introduced in 1998, the Government declared
that it was another step in efforts to provide equality of opportunity for
all. The old system, which required men to run 1.5 miles in 13min 15sec but
allowed women 15min 15sec, was perceived to be no longer legally defensible
on the grounds of discrimination.

General Palmer said that it was the Services' responsibility to ensure
proper duty of care for all trainees, including "protecting them from
 injury".

Military sources said that a reversal to the gender-fair approach was
unlikely to affect the promotion prospects for female officers, because they
required "more brain than brawn". For non-commissioned officers,
there might
be fewer openings for jobs that needed physical strength. Seventy per cent
of jobs in the Army are open currently to women.

Last week the Commons Defence Committee issued a critical report into the
duty of care after four young recruits died at the Deepcut barracks.

ON REPORT: HOW ARMY TRAINING CAMPS FAILED

a.. Stereotyping of gender, nationality and race, inappropriate language and
too lax an attitude towards harassment and bullying were "still too widely
accepted". Pin-ups were still displayed
a.. At some training centres poor work was punished by locker-trashing. At
the Royal Marines' establishment at Lympstone, Devon, trivial offences were
punished with "tanking" - being forced to jump into an outdoor
tank of murky
water
a.. Significantly more army personnel under 20 committed suicide than in the
Royal Navy and the RAF. General Palmer said it was due to higher numbers of
less well-educated recruits
a.. Decisions at the top about bullying and harassment were "too loosely
connected to what happens on the ground"
a.. Some barracks were "little better than slums"
a.. At Catterick, North Yorkshire, inspectors found unguarded weapons in
recruits' sleeping quarters during meals and live rounds routinely discarded
in undergrowth in exercise areas
a.. Fewer than half of instructors received training; some saw the job as no
more than "baby-sitting"

--
Men are everywhere that matters!
--
Andre




--
" I'm a man... But, I can change... If I have to... I guess. "
                                    The Man Prayer, Red Green.


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