By Sampada Aggarwal

Abstract

This article explores the complex relationship between gender and national services, emphasising the state of Singapore. The main arguments rely upon the nature of the proposed national service for women by Ms Tan, the state’s inability to champion women’s empowerment outside of a tool for nation-building, and whether including women in combat roles in the military helps the cause of gender equality. This article also examines the pattern of women’s inclusion in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and the consequences to analyze whether such inclusion in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) could empower the women of Singapore.

According to Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, entry of women into the workforce in Singapore would be delayed if they were to be enlisted in the National Service.-“I am certain that MINDEF and the SAF will call on the government of that day to enlist not only women but even teenagers and older men into military service…”The categorization of adult, able-bodied, and equally educated women alongside other groups of people who are often considered second-class citizens requires care and protection. This quite appropriately highlights the shortcomings of the discourse surrounding the conscription of women in many countries, and Singapore is one of them. 

Concerning the article, it is unlikely that the inclusion of women in national service in the specific ways proposed by Ms Tan will be effective at addressing gender inequality in Singapore. This is because her proposal includes opening up care-giving vocations in national service to include women, suggesting that their inclusion will not be in the form of serving in the same military roles as their male counterparts. Traditional gender roles assigned to women already require them to undertake a disproportionate amount of care-giving work, especially in the form of taking care of the elderly and children in their household and reinforcing this idea in national service will only widen the gender divide. As discussed by Hewlett in The Cultural Nexus of Aka Father-Infant Bonding, although biology does seem to influence father-infant interactions, cultural constructions of gender are powerful forces that shape the nature of these interactions. Providing sensitive and regular care is not a role that only women are biologically fit to play. Still, the cultural construction of gender significantly contributes to the expectation that women are destined to be primary caregivers in modern society. An article, Gendered State Rule in Singapore by You Yenn Teo appropriately brings to light how in Singapore, “unmarried daughters are especially likely to be channeled into caregiver roles through policies that appear to be gender-neutral”. Women in Singapore are encouraged to be employed full-time, but this does not take away from their expectations as primary caregivers in their households. Involving women in national service will not challenge these expectations, especially if the nature of their service tightly aligns with the same traditional gender roles that continue to contribute to their oppression.

As an extension of these expectations, a prominent pattern emerged from various studies about the nature of women’s empowerment in Singapore suggesting that the central aim of this “empowerment” is to ultimately benefit the nation, and not serve the cause of gender equality itself. The reference article also reflects such a sentiment in multiple contexts.  Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen details how, in the short term, the involvement of women in national service will cause a “decline in the local manpower tool and a reduction of household incomes.” However, his reasoning for the long-term cost of national service is not as concrete, as seen in his declaration that “it will impose a great cost, not only on women themselves, but also their families, children and spouses, and society as a whole” with no mention of what this “great cost” will be. Perhaps there are no tangible “great costs” associated with the compulsory enlistment of women, unless they are, by default, assumed to be primarily responsible for the care of their families, children, and spouses. Through his statements, Ng Eng Hen is implying that women have defined roles as caregivers in Singaporean society, without wanting to state the same explicitly. Later in the article, he questions whether the cost is “justified to send a signal or to reverse stereotypes” which also implies that gender inequality in Singapore is not viewed as a systemic issue that must be dealt with, at its roots. The suggestion that including women in national service will have little benefit, apart from “sending a signal” also trivialises the fight for gender equality, implying that equality is a superficial concept and that systemic women’s oppression does not exist in modern Singaporean society. Another example that supports how women’s empowerment is only seen as beneficial when it contributes to the progress of the nation is Ng Eng Hen’s statement about how the SAF will call upon women to serve in the military when Singapore is “threatened with an existential threat by an aggressor, and there is a sudden and grave need to boost our military.” Otherwise, enlisting women is not viewed very differently from the “extra burden” that it was considered to be in the 1970s.

Even if Ms Tan’s specifically defined roles for women in national service are not taken into account, it is still unlikely that opening up military and combat roles for women in the SAF will significantly address gender inequality. One way of better studying this is to look at case studies on the involvement of women in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Since it was the Israeli military that helped set up much of the SAF as we know it today, studying the workings of the IDF may be able to give us some answers about similar structures in the SAF. At present, Israel is the only country in the world that conscripts women. However, women and men in the IDF still undergo military service quite differently, with women only serving in non-combat roles unless they have opted to do otherwise. The opening up of a selected few combat roles to include women is a recent development that was a consequence of various incidents fighting for women’s equality, such as the case of Alice Miller. Even though more avenues in the IDF are opening up to women, research surrounding their experiences in the armed forces suggests that the conscription of women in Israel had “changed the nature of the subjugation of women but had not eliminated it” since they were not assured the same power, upwards mobility in terms of ranking, and jobs. It is also argued that the hierarchical nature of the military encourages gender differentiation, even more so than the civilian job market.

Another argument against the inclusion of women in the military as a path to gender equality is that militarism itself is a gendered concept. The military glorifies combat masculinity and assigns women secondary roles such that their place in society can only be determined by their association with the men who embody ideal military masculinity.  Dafna N. Izraeli, a prominent anthropologist who extensively studied gendered relationships in Israel, maintains that the military is “one of the main forces in the construction and reproduction of male hegemony in society.” This is also made apparent in the adoption of masculine gender roles by women soldiers to gain respect. A study by Orna Sasson-Levy details how women in the military tend to mimic masculine body practices, distance themselves from conventional femininity, and even trivialise sexual harassment. All of these are tactics that men often adopt, especially in homo-social environments, to reaffirm their masculine identities. By fitting into the androcentric standard set by the military, these women are essentially reinforcing the already prevalent association of masculine ideals with more social power. Perhaps fitting the standard can also be seen as these women bargaining with the patriarchy, because they use conventional patriarchal structures to their benefit without challenging the systemic oppression that is a direct consequence of these structures. Another argument made against the conscription of women is that such conscription would oppress women further since it would turn “the dual burden of career and family into a triple burden: career, family, and military service”. Looking at how the inclusion of women in the formal workforce has not altered the standard of what is expected of them at home, this possible consequence of conscription does not seem unlikely.

Returning to the article, however, a counter-argument could be that enlisting women into national service regardless of the nature of their work would serve to challenge the glorification of male citizenship in Singapore, which is done because the men of the country have sacrificed two years of their life for their nation, and are thus entitled to higher social status and recognition as the “protectors” of the nation. A paper by John Lowe discusses how “the performativity of Singaporean male citizenship is distinguished from female citizenship as being necessarily based on masculinity as self-sacrifice.” Therefore, the enlistment of women, at least on paper,  would no longer give men the power and recognition of having been the only social group responsible for the development of their nation. However, women’s sacrifice to the nation cannot be viewed as existing in a vacuum. The association of hegemonic military masculinity with a higher amount of “cultural capital” will ultimately lead to women’s sacrifices to the nation being viewed as inferior compared to their male counterparts. As long as the state of Singapore protects and encourages the formation of the “heterosexual family unit”, it will implicitly push for the maintenance of current gender roles that enable the formation of hegemonic masculinities and emphasized femininities.

From the arguments made above, it can be concluded that the state of Singapore still has a long way to go in terms of challenging gender roles and eradicating deep-rooted systemic forms of oppression against marginalised genders. The inclusion of women in national service, particularly in strictly defined care-taking roles, will likely do more harm than good, especially considering that the empowerment of women is only encouraged in Singapore as long as it benefits the nation. The inclusion of women in national service in ways that are more similar to their male counterparts is also unlikely to contribute to gender equality, as seen by the case studies on women in the IDF, given the hypermasculine and misogynistic nature of military service itself. To achieve true equality between the genders, Singapore will have to do more than just introduce superficial measures that do not do much to question the fundamental nature of gender disparities.

Author’s Bio

Sampada Aggarwal is a second-year student at JSGP, majoring in economics. Ms Aggarwal is passionate about working towards advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and helping break the stigma around mental health and disability through her work.

Image Source: KEVIN LIM