SINGAPORE: Technology has given women in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) more opportunities to excel in combat positions.
This is one example how the roles of women in the SAF have changed in the past 40 years.
Women were already part of the armed forces in 1967, during the first-ever enlistment exercise.
Back then, they provided administrative support.
By the 1970s, over 80 per cent of the SAF's clerks were women.
But working the typewriter was not what First Warrant Officer Jennifer Tan had in mind, when she enlisted in 1984.
She jumped at the chance to become a combat instructor and became the third batch to graduate from the course in 1988.
"In the combat women trainer then, you can only be instructional. But instructional can allow you to handle the systems, the weapon systems that you like," says Ms Tan.
"Â…I can impart my knowledge that I have, to a group of men which in clerical, [one] doesn't have the opportunity to do so".
The Army started its first combat trainer's course for women in 1986, as a pilot project to expand the roles of servicewomen.
But even before that, women were already moving beyond their traditional clerical positions, albeit slowly.
The Air Force for instance, welcomed its first four women pilots in 1979, and women have since contributed to overseas humanitarian missions as medical and logistics personnel.
And more opportunities for servicewomen opened up in the 1990s, when they were recruited for increasingly challenging combat positions.
But some, like Naval Captain Neo Suyin, will argue that women officers will always face a different set of challenges...or even privileges.
"I think sometimes the woman has to do a lot more to prove her equal worth as a male counterpart," says Captain Neo.
"There are privileges to being a woman in the SAF. I think one of the things you see is that the way people respond to women in the SAF.
"I have been told many a times that the culture on board the ship changes for the better when the woman comes on board. The ship becomes neater, the men are more polite. You know, things like that".
And as the SAF continues its push to use more technology, many expect servicewomen to take up even more challenging roles in the future.
"In line with the 3G SAF, where really it's a lot more about maximising your operational capacity using resources, and less the physical strength and the physical presence of the person in the fieldÂ… Using technology, computersÂ… and maximising your land, air and sea resourcesÂ… then the need for physical strength in the field becomes less and women can perform that role just as well as the men," says Indranee Rajah, Chairman, GPC for Defence.
Members of the public can see how that role has changed for women in the SAF, in an exhibition at Suntec City which is on until Wednesday 6 June. - CNA/yy
