Gender equality in the military and diplomacy is about society achieving its full potentials

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The goal of the lecture “Not just a number games, a personal perspective on women, peace and security” was not to talk about the policies that have been adopted in Australia and to compare them with the situation in Serbia, but to demonstrate in the practical examples how these policies affect the daily lives of people they refer.

“It is not all about quotas and numbers of women in institutions or adoption of new policies and institutional mechanisms. It is also about how this topic changes lives and careers of women and men”, pointed out the BCSP Director Sonja Stojanovic Gajic, while opening a series of lectures on the leaders in the fight for equality.

Women in the Australian military were present starting from 1899, but until the seventies they were engaged only in special female branches. It was only after this period, they were integrated into the Australian Army. Ambassador Studdert, who was employed in the army in that period (1978-1987) pointed out the challenges that were faced by women then.

“The political imperative at that point was the increase of numbers, but it did not matter because no one questioned which were the challenges that women were facing in the military. At that moment we did not have adequate training or equipment adapted to women in order to face the challenges that were waiting for us. Also, there was no minimum balance between private life and career in the military”, said Studdert.

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Australian Ambassador pointed out that a large number of adopted documents related to the improving position of women in the Australian military led to the fact that the discrimination in employment in any position is no longer present. But, as she said, the problem is still a large number of men who do not accept women at managerial positions.

“Attitudes are most difficult to change. We expect a long way to educate men about the benefits of having women in the military. But this is not only a problem in Australia. Many states are still patriarchal and it will take a long time to change attitudes of the whole society”.

The Ambassador stressed that Australia adopted the National Action Plan for the implementation of Resolution 1325 in order to ensure that everything that is written on paper is implemented in practice. She added that in the creation of the NAP was very significant participation of NGOs which were consulted during the two-month consultation.