Transcripts For CSPAN2 Women In The Military Discussion At Sea Service Leadership Association... 20240714

This is two and a half hours. [applause] good morning everybody. Good morning. The all right, well good morning. Maam i am honored moderate with you this morning. As was mentioned we are talking about new book. Its absolutely amazing but i will say to you today thats what we are going to talk about. First and foremost to break the ice what inspired you to tell your story . Throughout my life and as you have heard ive been active in our National Security for actually closer to 40 years. Times go by since the pie was written. I have worked in congress. Ive been to in the pentagon and ive been in private industry always working on defense issues. As i was making my way up and you can figure out my career and the ups and downs of life i would always look up to the people above me and they were very few women at that point to look up to. There were a couple and there were some men and i always wondered to myself wow their lives must be perfect that they were able to attain these great heights and here was my life which had plenty of failures. I felt like a hot mess compared to these role models that route there. If course i found out that wasnt true that everybody has something. I wanted to see the next generation of women who may some way look at me and wow she must have had a perp a career without any problems. It aint so so im trying to share some of those challenges because you learn as much from your failures in life if not more. That was. 1. Ive had a great beneficiary coming up through the ranks of the mentor who help me along the way and i believe very strongly that its incumbent on all of us to reach a point where we need to pay it forward. I do quite a bit of it actually but by writing the book and getting the story out there was a way of mentoring at a higher level. Those were a few reasons and then i had time on my hand. Thank you maam, very good. The first thing i would like to say is those of you who get the book the first part talks about how you navigate your course. In the book id like to ask you what daily insights you developed for your roadmap and charting your course and career . I want to begin by explaining the book is laid out into three main parts and there strategies under each one. Believe me when i was in my 20s and 30s this wasnt some formula that i basically knew about and that i follow. Rather the age and experience i am in looking back and reflecting and trying to put down my Lessons Learned. When it comes to some of those Lessons Learned some of it was just instinctual with me. The other came to me through trial and error of things that either i did ride and they worked or sa said some stories of failure and what ive learned from that failure and its also from being an observer and the careful listener and watcher of others and how others succeeded or failed. I do believe first of all to navigate you have to take control of your own life and everywhere anyone at all times regardless of where they are have to have a plan a lets call it great heres where i want to go and here are my ideas and what are the steps i have to be taking to achieve my goals were the same time be prepared to pivot because you may reach the goal and find out that you dont like it went once you get there. May not give you that the myth will foment you are searching for or you may not reach it would happen to me in my early life. My first three years literally went up in smoke so i had to pivot. Plan b whatever that pivot could be me be even better. Always have a plan a but we prepared for plan b. Hes spoke about their plan a didnt quite work and in the book the secretary recounts working for the state department and not being able to do that. I think you used the term uber rechecked it. How did you move forward and he kind of recount saying something wanting to Say Something to secretary carey that did not and he said that was a big turning point in your career. When i was a young person i had my plan a and i wanted to be a diplomat that i wanted to travel the world and work on for an policy matters at the state department. This was throughout high school, college and graduate school i took all the right courses. Learned a Foreign Language and i lived abroad for a semester. I was even able to attain a highly coveted internship within the state department. When i got out of graduate school and moved to washington and applied i felt i had everything going my way. What more could anyone expect of the young person at that time i was 23 or 24 years old. As you say i applied and i got rejected and it was the first big rejection that i had in life. I just remember crashing through their member of literally going to bed for the better part of a week and crying i was so depressed and dejected and felt my life was flashing before my eyes. Of course one has to get out of bed because i needed a paycheck. We all need a paycheck and life so i started applying elsewhere. I landed a job he only offered or received as a civilian with the department of the army. [applause] that was very exciting except at the time it was an exciting to me because what did i know . Im being truthful here. What did i know about the army or the military at large packs i had no real exposure. I never thought of it before and i was still feeling dejected from this whole state department experience. I took the job and i did my best and after few months the most remarkable thing started happening. There was really interesting work that i was engaged in and i was feeling a sense of purpose. I was working on in my own little blade majors affect teen National Security. I had camaraderie. They cared about me and i learn from them and i had a first rate boss who was my first great mentor. After that one thing led to the next and lead to the next that became what i think was a fantastic and fulfilling career for me and capitol hill the pentagon the Business World and before you know it 35 years has gone by and i get to be the second woman ever to lead the military service. All of this i want to remind you started with a big failure and a plan a that turned into plan b or the john kerry story im hobnobbing with the big people and i got to meet the secretary of state john kerry. It was all i could do to contain myself and not say to this man thank you, thank you, thank you that you rejected me 35 years ago. Life turned out. Doggone well for me. But of course i said none of that. I think we talked about the weather because thats what diplomats do. They talk about the weather. Thank you maam, thank you. As you discussed it briefly highlighted your first year with the army which turned out to be an amazing job and it was also the first time you got a great launch can you articulate how youve paid it forward in your career . Ive done mentoring oneonone. I think thats very important and when i got into a position of authority and business and when i was secretary of the air force i insisted that we launch a mentoring program. I spent a dozen years with the company headquartered locally here and when i had was this meeting of my own i required of my direct report that all of us mentor others and we have a dandified it as being the next Generation Leaders that we wanted to bring up along the way. I did it myself and i raided my people on the requirement to do it and how well they would do it and so on. We set up a program surrounding it. In the air force and i hope it still exists we launch something called my vector. This was in existence that we beefed it up and we enlarged it and made it bigger. If you havent heard of it its a match. Com like approach to people all over the world in the air force. They can go on line and say they like to be mentor don certain subjects and mentors, people like me who were willing to mentor others could go on line. We would give out wearable to give advice on and then there would the matches created. I expect it when i was secretary of the air force trying to encourage others. There are different ways to pay it forward but the most important thing is to do it oneonone. Thank you, thank you. In your book you highlight the importance of having a Diverse Network as well. Talk about the network of those, the community you live in a visio forcht with. Can you expound on it raid network . Absolutely. I know this is obvious but everyone in this room although there are 1000 people and he wont able to get to know everyone in this room but please dont leave here for the next two days without at least 10 new people that you can keep in touch with and become part of your greater network. With the exception of the state department where i was applying to the department of army i can honestly say ive never applied for a job again and its thanks to referrals that i would get and gifts i would receive from someone who i consider to have been my mentor in life. All of my mentors were informal so ive never myself been in one of these programs. I just mentioned mention it to you. Mentored for the network essentially opening a door and of course it was up to me to walk through that door and be able to tell my story, to be able to secure that job but the network i owe a great deal to that in a great deal of continual learning. Thats another important aspect in life. You can never rest on your laurels. Keep learning and your networks and mentors can help you do that. During your tenure as secretary of the air force we have had experienced a nuclear incident. Can you talk about how you rally the Team Together through that incident and then he went on to do an investigation. Can you talk about how you transformed its . Nothing up by the way. Whenever you say nuclear you have to make sure was an incident that nothing skyhigh. Three weeks into my tenure as secretary of the airport, here i am. Im brandnew and i have my plan a. I have six months of the travel schedule all laid out, my mantra as secretary of the air force and boom i get an email informing me and other Senior Leaders that there has been a cheating incident out west at most from air force base which is the site of one of our icbms the young officers who are standing watch and prepared to use these weapons were caught cheating. Some of them were caught cheating on a proficiency exam. Washington anything that we are immediately the word is going to go nuclear. A president has to be informed on the press is all over you about it. Im brandnew and i didnt exactly know what to do at first but i knew was a big deal and i had better get on top of that fast. It took a few days but i got myself prepped up with the team, the air force team surrounding me about the checks and balances and was able to convince myself that the Nuclear Enterprise is safe and secure. Still we have this matter in front of us. Why did happen and what are we going to do bob about . We decided to go public with the information. In Washington State secrets leak anyway and ive learned of my life that it only gets worse with the passage of time. Get out there and tell people and be forthright with the congress. We did with it with their own airmen as well. Heres what we know, heres what we dont yet know but we are going to find out hed stay tuned and well give you periodic updates. After that press conference i remember lifting up the travel schedule and i focused on the Nuclear Enterprise for the next six months. I discovered that it went way way beyond just a handful of airmen cheating. There were issues, cultural issues and there was under manning and the training was encouraging cheating but i hate to say that but they were promoting airmen who got 100 of these tests of the airmen as it turned out cheated to get 100 . There were a lot of changes that came out of that training people for modernization which i think overall were good changes even though it all started with a bad incident. That is how much of the way live is. Have to take the bad and pull from it a Lesson Learned leavitt in a a better position he founded them. Thank you. One of the other things you talked about in your book was about diversity and how to attain a more diverse force. Diversity is a big topic do you think women and minorities in your book are important tool and what can america expect from the military likes there continues to be a lack and we just saw a lot of first. Last year d. O. T. Did a report that talks about female officers i have an africanamerican female and i noticed that we dont have any in the air force and havent sent 75. Can you talk about what you believe are the barriers to women and minority women preaching those heights . We need to fork is on recruiting more in the front door so focused on doing a better job of bringing women and people of color and minorities on board and retaining them. Its better retention and how do you do that, i think there was go back to what i call the three ds develop policies, youve got to look at people programmatic issues so by that i mean for example during the 10 years that i served in some of this was affecting the entire military and some of it was specific leave the air force which was in my control but sometimes policies are outdated. For example the Maternity Leave policy for women during that era. We advocated for tripling it. The navy did it for a few months because everybody had to be the same. An example of Work Life Balance is the key reason why and by the way we extended Maternity Leave as well. We allowed more ban as well. Postpregnancy deployment used to be six months and we extended that in the air force to when youre so no mother would not face the climate for one year out as opposed to what it had been. Issues of flexibility in all of these are examples of policies. Process, we found a process with how we gained exceptions for people of charters thatcher may be frequently when but not always. We expanded the pilot deal and opened up the aperture for more women to be pilots which in the air force as you know is a big deal. Most Senior Leaders are pilots and this is mentoring and focusing on people and their Leadership Development and their professional development. I think these are the three key areas that we need to do more of an imap believer in measuring. One of the things again that i did during my tenure i gave officer sessions. A member of the time we had 25 women entering the air force academy as firstyear students and i said give me 30. I pretty much made that up. It was a stretch. He was give me more, lets do better. That caused the academy and the other officers to go out and search out more qualified women. Youre one of memory serves me we made 28. We might not have even made that if i hadnt sent the goal out some measurement helps and the followup is crucial. As we are about to close i do have one question. If i could take you back to the point in time where you were serving as secretary of the air force what was your ahha moment where you were operating in your zone and you were like wow this is what i do. You were there. I think it may well have been after that Nuclear Matter that we talked about earlier. That was one that was highstakes. Not everybody was in favor for example of making this a public matter. They felt like this was sensitive and could remain private and whatnot so i use my own leadership and i followed my own instincts. Because that at the end of the day was a bad situation but because we are able to make it better and the transparency Congress Gave us kudos for being transparent about it. That made me feel like following my instincts and having the confidence that i was in a good place. The very beginning. Thank you secretary. Ladies and gentlemen if you would like to purchase a copy of the book it is an incredible masterpiece. You can do so by purchasing it at the bookstore and i do know secretary will be around to sign the book as well. Thanks everybody. [applause] sin on behalf of the association of flight to present a token of our appreciation. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. [applause] now i would like to introduce one of my cochairs mr. John bittner who was the only man on our leadership toward and the founding president. John has worked for us for 26 years. Hes an advocate for women in the military and this conference wouldnt be as successful without you john. Im proud to introduce to you john bit her. [applause] bittner. Im Lieutenant Commander john bittner. Im also a founder of ss l. A. And its my 24th year. One time i was in bosnia and at the time i was in cuba. Its really been amazing watching this group of years. I was remarking to one of my friends that rommell 30 years back in the day we were lucky if we could get 100 people in the room and now we have over 1000 so thats just amazing and its part of a lot of hard work dialogue people. Part of todays success belongs to one special person id like to thank Martha Mcphee the direct your events and social products. In addition to being the woman behind the scenes shes also a captain in the marine corps reserves so she is actually one of us. Go martha. Thank you. [applause] next time honored to introduce the panel to you all. On the frontier changing culture is a group of women or the coast guard and marine corps who have been placed and mailed dominated units and just as a personal note i understand because i was a man and a predominately female field so i understand there are certain ways you need to kind of bland and then work effectively in those fields. I have no doubt they will have interesting stories watching the cultures. Please welcome the members of this panel along with their moderator hope hodge seck military. Com. [applause] thank you all for being here this morning. This is an extraordinary privilege for me and i am very excited to hear from this panel and learn their insights as well. As a military journalist and i think im the first email editor of military. Com. Im not supposed to play favorites but ive been covering the marine corps and the coast guard for a long time and you all are my favorite. If you want the full ranking semi in the back later. So both of these services have been on the frontlines of service and ongoing conversation about gender equality and inclusion and representation the military. Albeit in different ways its been an ongoing conversation. Without further ado lets dive into the discussion. Panelists who can take a minute to talk about yourself so we will go ahead and start with chief carter. Its great to be here. This is my second year. I am a reservist and a reservist for 16 years always been a reservist. Ive been stationed to sector and ive did then deployed with the Security Unit which is our to playable unit. And now im the senior enlisted reserve at station dustin in florida so its great to be down there in the winter because i live in buffalo. Good morning commander nan silvermanwise. Im also a career resurface. It was commissioned with noaa so that was the support for our office. I like to go backwards. I am currently the j3 for the Coast Guard Reserve unit at u. S. Southern command. Did i ever think id go there is a coast guardsman . Nova prior to that recommended the port Security Unit and served another command roles and a couple other Security Units around the country. Before that Homeland Security on watch in washington d. C. And had different jobs in the northeast which is where im from. I currently live in d. C. And i support the department of energy and interestingly the administrator of the nsa is a woman and she speaks about many of the same subjects that are last speaker spoke about the thank you for having me. Good morning my name is major Stephanie Defeo and died serving the dci at the pentagon in policy development. Before that, im also a reservist as well. Before that i was stationed as part of the detachment. Before the detachment i was part of battalion active duty and before that i was in okinawa, japan. I was deployed to afghanistan, iraq and western africa for people familiar with the african continent. Communications officer in the second ring position. I was there with division com Company First learning all about my job. After doing an employment in afghanistan, i went to a battalion and i was one of the first women there. One of the battalions the runs are vehicles. And i am here. [laughter]. Thank you so much, i really hope this is a good discussion and any question i throw out anyone can answer. Feel free to go back and forth a little bit as well. I hope to get to all of your questions before the end. Obviously, the cultural changes that are taking place in the military, they are happening in parallel with changes in the cultural large. The military does present the unique scenarios and challenges. Lets set the table for this discussion, could you each talk about the cultural changes or struggles that you observed in your own careers when it comes to gender equality in the military. Being attached to a unit that is predominantly allmale, is tough. You dont have somebody to turn to when you have female issues. Whether it is that time of the month or getting pregnant, none of that, you are kind of alone in that fight. Also there is certain things that you just dont feel a part of the boys club because your different and thats okay. That is wonderful actually because what i realized is i brought something to the table that my mail counterparts didnt. Terrains are known to be rough around the edges marines are. As a woman, i wasnt as rough. In the marines notice that they felt like they could come to me more often than my male peers. What she said was really phenomenal [laughter] so you see another woman out there, introduce yourself and tell her to get coffee with her, it is hard for us. Here it seems like while there is a lot of women in the military. Because we are all here. [laughter] but when you are at your unit, it is different, youre a woman in this amazing and we bring so much more to the table i think with just our femininity and we can be proud of that. We dont have to be one of the boys. If you work hard, and you do your job really well, you are going to stand out because one you are a woman and youre different there, but working hard and just standing above the crowd next to the guys, you will get noticed. [applause] i think one of the things i didnt realize that i really wanted was seeing women to look to and i think thats one of the hardest things without being one of the only ones from a very early aired, i had to be the one. I think that everybody in the military experiences that to a degree did i realize since spending a year on the hill that in the military and other services, we receive a lot of leadership opportunities in a much younger age than other people do. If youre an nco, you are going to be in charge of people a lot earlier than your civilian counterparts probably will be in those fields. Thats normal. But then there is the added pressure on top of that of every single unit i went to, i was the senior woman and i had the good fortune of having several male mentors who are very good to me. They really helped me and push me to grow. But there were never any woman for me to look at and say howdy do this. And to relate to and i always had to be performing from the start. I had to be the one that the junior women could look at. Even as i was trying to figure it out on my own. For me that was one of the chief struggles of being one of the first women in the unit. I ended up going to second track when i first got out of the division it wasnt even open yet. I actually had together and they said no its against the policy. I went to afghanistan and the open it up and i got back and check it out you are going in. I showed up and i was a captain. There were two lieutenants who are just staring at me. They were thinking what are we going to do now. [laughter] we have been here for months and we have been waiting for you. I guess we will figure all this out together. Finally coming here to the pentagon, a little bit by coincidence, i am in the office that hamza concentration of senior marine women which i have never seen before. It was similarly a breath of fresh air and i didnt realize what i was missing having women to look up to and see them having careers and making it happen and having families are not having families in pursuing their goals and doing different fields and taking opportunities and all of the different ways that they can make happen. You dont get to see that part and experience it when its just you. [applause] i havent actually been the only woman but i have been one of the few women in my entire life. We actually went to the Coast Academy together back in the 80s. [laughter] we have been around the service where there have not been that many women and i am also an engineer i went to Engineering School and they were not many women. I just fields where there were not many women. I am very familiar with it. I definitely saw the things you are talking about. I like to think that it didnt and i know im bucking the whole system here but id like to say it did not hold me back being the woman in the room. That is partly i think from my constitution. In my command, my mother was do the right thing. I think if you do the right thing as people say, you are going to continue to do well and people are going to recognize that either you deserve to be where you are and you shouldnt have to fight to be there. If you are doing the right thing, youre going to get recognized. If youre not getting recognize, then in somebody like me as an zero five it is my job to look to the chief to make sure we are recognizing the right people and we are giving them the right opportunities. Maybe theyre not ready to take their own stands and asked for that job and that Hard Division or that you want to go to. Something that isnt being done. I think for me, thats been my role. Ive always on my job was to remove the roadblocks for people. And as a commander, i have that opportunity so in my unit, thats what i look for. What was in the way. Was it for women or men. There was always a piece of me that wanted to help the ladies in the service. They may not take it the way i did. They might need that knock on the door or to help them open the door so i think thats been my take on it. Its a little bit different. [applause] to me, i am typically i go to deployable units or if i see activate or hurricanes and stuff like that. I am generally one of the older females. I become the mother hen. The guys look at me as the mother hen. Which makes me be able to do my job very well. I am a support role. At the same time, it separates me from being one of the group. And one of the guys. Nobody wants her mother hanging around. [laughter] but i have been a couple of units and i have had some very Strong Female leaders. Captain mark and i we worked together at mobile. Youre my Senior Reserve officer and it was very good to be and be able to work with you and to kind of support and get there. I was still very young at that. I worked in turn come, as a joint command we had quite a few various branches that had Senior Leaders. I had to coast guard leaderships in there. They supported bush and helped and it was good to see their careers go and i could follow their path. Not follow their coattails but watch them go and say you know what, i can kind of do that to in my own as i am listed. Im going to stay in enlisted and be in Senior Leadership. Being in a unit where you are the old lady and you are the mother, its tough. I want to be one of the guys and a kind of precluded me even though i could do what i did well and the guys appreciated it. Can i ask a question [applause] as i am learning more about this network, can you enlighten all of us enlisted and officers, went up being part of the chiefs network. Being part of that network is great, there is always people you can reach out to. They are there, they are there to help you and they are there to help others. Thats also part of how i became a mother hen. But when your unit, i was the only female chief deployed with this group. It was and i had nobody female mice to go to. We had a couple of other chiefs that were male and that they dont get the female problem. They dont get some of the email issues. There were 100 of us and there were five females. Three of them were enlisted. They made it tough. I want to talk about secretary james spoke to very well and something that i am hearing as a team. As a theme and you are talking about the importance of mentorship. I think thats female mentorship and mail mentorship in the military. To be where you want to be and need to know what you need to know. What have you found to be an effective way seeking that out and what advice would you give to women who are maybe more junior in their careers and are looking for that. I would say certainly as a starting. , you have to perform. You have to actively pursue it because you are going to as much as you put in. If you show that you have a thirst for learning and then you want to push yourself and you want to grow, you are going get more of those opportunities. That is going to compound. The more you want to push yourself and the more that your mentor will push you and the more you are going to learn. When i think to my time in division, the two best mentors i had were my bosses at the time. I actually worked directly forum in a professional capacity. Kind of the hallmark of those relationships was that i told them that wanted to push myself and i told them that i wanted to do whatever i could for the team. After i showed that i had my job down cold, then they gave me opportunities that were far outside of kind of the normal career path. What i am forever grateful to is them that they kind of went out on a limb for me. I think sometimes you have to do if you are going to be a really and above and beyond mentor. Sometimes its going to require a little risk on both ends. They both gave me these opportunities that i know some other people were looking at them like they were a little crazy. We had established a trust relationship. Once i had that opportunity that was like everything. I went all in on it. Because we both and it was an active role on both sides, and we have that trust relationship and we both took some risks and went into it, it really was successful in both cases. I really, it wasnt easy but i learned a lot and i like to think that i brought some value to the table as well. It was not an easy thing and it required active anticipation on both sides but it was a few huge value to me. In my career and to me personally. I know you talked about addressing the young women in the room seeking out the mentors. I would like to address some of the midlevel like maybe senior captains general force out there, you may feel like youre not supposed to be a mentor or be that advocate, but you are. You are 100 percent equipped. To go out there and to see that junior enlisted or Junior Officers and take them under your wing and they will be forever grateful. I remember being Second Lieutenant and first lieutenant, you cant go off without your whole team. Right area [laughter]. Which way is up. [laughter] i had leaders who took me under their wings and it wouldve been even greater had they been a woman leader. But we just didnt have any. Those men, identified potential and took me underneath their wings and guided me and i am here today because of them. If you dont think you are a leader, you are. You signed up, to be in the United States military and that makes you a leader. We are like 1 percent of the population. This is a lot of an a great percentage of the military but we are so small compared to the United States. The population of the United States so you are a leader and speak mentors but seek mentees as well. [applause] [laughter] [inaudible conversation] [laughter] so is not always enough and unfortunately to be there. Do you have earned your place in it and it in your unit and where you are. Unfortunately there is this element in some cases where you kind of have to prove yourself. After you get there. The marine corps has grappled with this very publicly, through some social media, scandals over the last few years but it is and i think has held back a corner of a much bigger discussion. This is been going on for a really long time but now it is sort of in the public eye which can be a good thing. It is interesting to be talking about this now for years going on since the marine corps has hired women against the real the leadership. For all panelist, can you talk about the times or anytime you have encountered that mentality. Being los than or whether incapability or technicality and what you found are the most effective ways to challenge that way of thinking. I can touch on that one. Being short in stature, i am wearing heels so i look very tall but i am very just barely. Being older, going to a deployable unit where the pt is a little higher than the standard. They look at me funny. You can do girl pushups, i dont think so. Not going to happen. If i am going to this unit, i am prepared to go in and do what the age Group Ten Years younger than me can do. That is my goal. [applause] it has nothing to do with anything except for me walking in and saying i am not going to just sit here and do the that old female that is barely 5foot. I can do it. And i push myself. [applause] i think i can take your theme and go further into some other Security Units. A little older same thing, we got the same size in my thing is that i always try to do my age like i am 51 i can july 13 pushups. I can only do 13 pushups i shouldnt be leading the coast guard deployable unit. I and my age and part of me doing that is so that everybody in my unit sees the co doing the best of the co can do so if ive got a run, and i gotta get out there and run all yearround so that i can read the test which is what i have to do anyway, i am going to run. If you are 18 and you cant keep up with me, that ought to tell you something. [laughter] so when i got 18 yearolds and 45 yearolds it who cant keep up with the ceo who is twice her age, it inspires them to work harder. I think i have lost a little bit of where youre going. The same kinds of things, give it your all and that inspires other people at least in my experience and maybe i see things like that. I have seen people older than me who have been phenomenal leaders and i want to be like them. I wanted to like they do. Follow their example. Our combat for everybody is not in the coast guard is these Security Units. We are deployable units of the coast guard. We go outside of the us, not typically inside. Patrol forces Southeast Asia i believe is active duty members there that are unfortunate not able to join us today. We need to be having an everybody in our unit ready to go. Area operational components. We have our own operators, weve trained some marine corps standards for our enforcement in our land forces. We basically have where my last unit every single one of my support element people went to basic combat skills and they performed far above the expectations that anybody handed them. Its a good example, if you have to do it, you have to encourage it. Female e6 active duty supporting a reserve unit. She was the number one cheerleader for pushing people to get into the class and you be better than the guy carrying the heavy pack across the lines. She said i am going to do it and so youre you. [applause] i am going to continue the theme of the physical fitness. I think that when we walk into the room, the first thought is, i wonder how close she will be a runner up. I wonder if she is going to be the first to drop out. Not this girl. Nope. Its not going to happen. I am thinking, which one of you guys is going to drop out. Which one of you guys is going to be me. We have to be the meat eaters, we have to go out there and challenge ourselves, but we cant beat ourselves up. Women are notorious for being so catty but being so destructive on ourselves. Its going out there and even if you didnt make any didnt run as fast as you wanted to or didnt do as many pushups that you wanted to. That should be the drive to do one more. That should be the drive to run two seconds faster like every day you have to continue to push yourself, but you cant beat yourself up over it. I remember my first appointment and get a stand, i attached to a team of green berets and from there i also went out on a couple short little attachments to the marine rater teams. I was the only woman. That was the thought like i wonder if shes going to slow us down. I like, nope, not going to happen. I worked so hard and i did not slow them down. There were guys behind me and i was telling them youve got to keep up gp got to keep going. Your marines. So just challenge yourself. If it is hard, it means it is working. It means you are just getting stronger. That burn when youre working out, just do one more. And that might turn your head, just one more. That is going to continue to make you stronger and faster. Again its going to help you stand out. Also if you are that physical fitness female at your unit, and you see other people struggling, say hey, any help and come out work out with me. Be my battle buddy. Especially a young woman. I will help you work your physical fitness plan and whatever. Be a mentor in that sense as well. [applause] but of all of what i am hearing right now is there needs to be a reassurance that we are not going to fold or hold the team back. I think the more that everybody gets used to seeing women in these teams performing, the more that will become nothing default assumption. We will realize that women generally can perform. As we do so, we help break that standard. The great component is also important. Not just that we are not going to hold the team back but also when they see people who are very short. Or a lot smaller than everybody else in the unit working hard and keeping up. They realize that reveals a character trait. And that is very important. Beyond the physical stuff, which i definitely notice. Its talked about a lot for a reason it because it is certainly there and it important. Its important to be a real person. That looks different for everybody. It can be part of leadership is people trusting you. An understanding who you are. If you are not being who you are because you are trying to hit some arbitrary expectation of what a member of the team looks like, people will be able to spell that immediately. Well see right through you and they will trust you. Performance physical job wise is critical and also being who you are even if you might go in thinking like i dont know if i fit in here. Youre not to make it happen by trying not to be you. If you show up and you are you, and you know your job and you do you thing people will come to realize the value that you can bring. [applause] i think also its not always the expectation that the woman and the team is going to bring his back but the success that you are and have all brought when you do the things you demonstrate that there isnt anything keeping you back. The next time that team gets a woman or a man that they are going to question, and say is this person going to hold us back, theyre not going to question it because they dont have the reason to do that anymore. I am circling around in myself but when you do well, when you do well and you perform and do the job you know you can do, you break those barriers that other people had when you came in. Continue to do those things that come back to the ps. If you doing the right thing the people will not have that same question. Those same people will not have the same questions. So keep doing the right thing, keep performing, keep just being the one that is out front that hamza good ideas. Dont stop doing those things. Keep doing them and then the next time there will be a question and the person following you wont have to say do they think im going to make it because there is an expectation that you will make it. I hope that makes sense. Thank you i want to talk a little bit about representation. I think this is something that the military or leadership has keyed into. Especially its integrated previously closed units. The tech out loud having a padre of having some women Staff Members in place to or so that you are not the only one. That has been affected to some extent. Obviously you all have experienced being the only one of you. At some. In your career. So the military do better to make sure that there is that representation so that there is somebody that the unit commander can say, one of my missing here. Or what do i need to make sure this is happening so that the women and the mentor can get with they need to do their job. I think secretary james mentioned this measurement when there was a period of time in the coast guard where the reserves specifically not necessarily women, but the reserve was being put on the side. There was a big change throughout the service where all of the i think at the time it was a Group Commander, all of the commanders, have the responsibility for ensuring that the reserves performed to the same level as the active duty met with evers so the Group Commander was rated on whether or not all of their people could do the job. That was effective for most people. Theres always going to be somebody who box the system, the commander who says that this part of my division doesnt matter. Thats their problem. Thats not our problem is the workers. In the service itself needs to take care of that. When they put that response ability on the commander that all of your people will be able to perform and be up to speed on every thing we need to do, it was very effective in helping the reserves. I think when the mandate comes from the leadership that says you will accept everybody into your unit, the changes that weve made. I think it goes a long way and holding to it. The secretary also mentioned that is not just putting the measurement out there but it is checking on how we are doing. If we have a statement that says we have to have more women in or women in certain jobs, its different roles in our services, we need to check back and see if we are getting there. Thats how we know if we are doing well or not. I think its important that the services actually care. I know that there are a lot of issues on the service logo level leadership that they have to deal with. A lot of which are or can seem extant vintage on a daily basis. When you think about all of the mechanics of equipping everybody and running everything, and doing all of the stuff that we need to do is a lot. Issues that can be seen as womens issues can kind of get pushed off to the side like its not critical. I think as we start to see more people realizing what value women bring and what value diversity brings, it becomes more of an imperative to realize that if were not laying the groundwork now to retain these women, we are going to be facing a hurt in terms of having the leadership that we need. In 2010 to 20 years. So it takes leaders at the senior level youre going to really engage and not just look at what policies we can look at. Really sit down with women and really collect the data to find out where they as she is really hard. Some creative thought into what policies are going to address those actual issues. Addressing causes not just symptoms. That takes personal engagement at the leadership level. That takes measurement and data and real concrete engagement. With Service Members across the component. Its not exactly easy but if people are engaged at the highest level then you can see a turn where its not just its actual concrete shift. [applause] i also think it comes with a personal counters with art we have with the mentorship. If you see a young leader who needs to stay because they are that good, ask forum. Be the person to stand up and say what we need to do to keep you. Youre an effective leader that has unlimited potential and we cant lose you, i know there is a shift to the talent management. I think across the board within the services and that is key. If you see talent, you need to figure out how to keep it. That is the one on one because the pentagon isnt going to see that one marine that should stay. The pentagon does a lot of overseeing a policy and change happens very slowly within bureaucracy so we need to change it one person at a time as well. Its not just over arching. Going back to being the advocate in the mentor, be a leader. Laugh [laughter] [applause] theres a lot of good stuff here so im sure the audience has some questions. I see you got some microphone set up here. If you have a question, prefilled to come to the mic and i will call in you. And we know you are not shy. [laughter] sued back on with the navy. The question that is been that ive seen personally. Other female leader whether enlisted or a senior officer, how do you bridge the gap with personalities. As ive said before, want to be successful and even the best and improve ourselves. I have seen with some leadership with senior women it and it can come across as abrasive if you will. What is your best from your own experience on to how to get your. Across and still be respected but at the same time not be that the word that i am thinking about. [laughter] i can take that one at least a start. I just love my command and nothing can probably tell you more than anybody. I left more than i cry yell or anything else. I certainly could be the be, but that genuine laughter and that genuine attitude of well i am going to succeed, that is my personality. I brought that to my leadership. I think one of you mentioned it before, dont be somebody who you arent, the yeartoyear person. That is really what it is. If you need to be true to yourself and bring that personality. If it means you get angry sometimes, being great but if it also means that you yelled at somebody and you need to apologize afterwards, or perhaps explain. I dont like to hear that i didnt mean to say that all of the time. But if youve really get down and dirty and you are recommending somebody or just having a tough time or tough conversation with appearer or somebody that is close to you, close your level, and you think you are out of line afterwards, go and talk to them. Maybe there was a better way that the two of you can can communicate. I think the basis is that you have to be true to yourself. I would bet that most of the people are nice people. Most everybody in here and i bet everybody in here are really nice people. Dont worry about putting that other face on to do the job you have to do. Be a true self. [applause] thank you and good morning. Martha wilkins i am here as a civilian and i am also a retired reservist. It is more that i just wanted to contribute to the dialogue. I dont have a question so much. On the level of an topic on mentoring, and active mentoring, we also have to realize that as leaders, regardless of gender and specifically because of our gender, we are also role models. The models you mentor through your actions. Whether you are in the pt field or in a meeting or commanding a unit, you are being watched. Whether it is by the most private or the highest senior officer male or female, you are being watched. How you conduct yourself in those moments of stress and doing one more push up, running that much faster, or handing a challenging issue in your unit, you are setting the example in leading and mentoring both men and women, junior and senior years. Its across the board. Just how you handle everything an approach everything, you are mentoring and langtry through that. Thank you. [applause] as a followup into that in a secondary thought i had is on the whole abrasiveness side. If you have somebody you can talk to about how youre going to present something, that can be invaluable. Even if you end up saying the same thing, talk it through and maybe somebody said perhaps you want to tweak it this way. Somebody you trust. Perhaps you want to tweak that part. That could go a long way both to the first question and being a role model. It is important to stop and say what you are are going to say and how it will come across. Dont be afraid to send the message but didnt think about how you are going to say. That also applies to emails. [laughter] the morning. My name is wendy and i am really grateful to be here. Im a civilian working in the air force. So thank you for allowing me take this opportunity. I serve as a first woman supervisor in a wing of 800 engineers. Through my career ive been one of few if not the only senior engineering leader. I live for mentoring and doing personal development. Often its a bit overwhelming to get your regular work done in addition to that. I was wondering how you balance doing the mentorship with getting your technical side completed. 1 percent time. I didnt have that many marines underneath me. I the team of 12. The initial counseling, that i had with them lasted about 45 minutes. So that was on top of the day that we already had. It is 6 00 oclock at night and hey can i just get some time with you to figure out who you are. You know who i am. We can start this off right. 1 percent time, if it takes you to have people a day, for the year, it takes you a year but at least you had that encounter. With the people underneath you. Also and you have to be selective. You dont have unlimited time and your time is incredibly valuable. You should recognize the value of your own time. What does that mean to you. I am here to give basic advice or to answer questions for anyone when i have marines, if one of my marines needed something i drop everything immediately. I answer them on the spot. But when it comes to more intensive mentorship, the kind of thing that is going to be a real time investment, i like to treat my time like my money and i like to put my time towards the things that really matter to me. Its a statement of what i value. If i am taking on a mentorship role that is going to be more time intensive. Its going to be for someone that i feel could really benefit from it and someone who probably doesnt have access to that necessarily. Probably like a young woman who doesnt have as much access as someone else. Its going to be for someone that i can develop that trust relationship with that i mentioned earlier. Frankly im not going to just put a ton of time into someone who has a lot more resources at their disposal because my time is limited and i want to get to someone who doesnt have a much. [applause] i will say that some of the best mentoring both as a mentor and his mentee and then my mentoring people that ive had throughout my career are people that i have helped and again the drop of the hat can you help me with this. Or hey i see this active duty opportunity, will it really work for me how my career was mark being there just to answer those questions whenever. It takes five to ten minutes. They have made a step up in their career, they look back at it and thank you. As a mentor, i did the same thing. I havent captain who i reach out to and he reaches out to me and we bounced career things to all things, work related things all of the time and its the best mentoring is the informal ones. [applause] good morning. Im an analyst on the west coast. I heard you guys talking about in your constitution and my question is when you are finding a lack of that, or something has taken your constitution what are some of the things that you ladies do to bring yourself back up to center . I have two coast guard friends and many others but i have two [laughter] they are my triad. It doesnt matter what the topic or time of day, if i need something, they are there. The second thing for me is that i i strive to be a b instead of in a is that ive really gotten into meditation. My own version of meditation. I take the time every day so that i can do some of that meditation in between those two things, my husband helps was in a while but i would say between those two things, find your resource. We are talking about the mentors. Find what or who can be your resource that you can go to any time of day. I think everybody has that or seek that out. All admit that i am not afraid to go to room and cry. If getting a good cry out or yelling is something or hitting the pillow works to get it out, that i can get back out and focus i will do it. [laughter] [applause] relationships are so important especially i am a hardcore extrovert. I really need to engage with people. It helped me feel lifted up again. In addition to that, i really try to take care of my body. Im not always best about and we can lose track of that and especially in High Sensitivity times when there is a lot of physical requirements. So i tried to get a massage if i can find the time to do it, it helps especially after a hard workout. I get injured if i dont do that. I go to yoga, i try to remember to put my phone down at night and just read a book. A really good book that has nothing to do with work or anything and just let my brain go to a place thats not like the news in the marine corps and the work in all of the stuff. Ready for bed every night. Working to try to squeeze into her three more questions. Good morning. Im a pilot. My question to you guys in the 16 years of service, i got two beautiful kids. Theres always this wonderful balance of getting to the unit and figuring out when youre going to get pregnant how you going to do deployments and wonderful thing of having the burden of a family and having the burden of continuing their career and trying to make rank and trying to do all the things in the military. On multiple occasions, ive been told to do just go home and take care of your children. Ive been told that i am not putting my family and my husband putting everything in that we should be doing and not giving 100 percent and the men are having to pick up the slack for us. So for those who havent heard that before, i would be actually surprised my question to you is how you guys give them advice for people that are coming to the unit that are struggling with that workfamily balance especially when it comes to women. Now youre off for the nine months being pregnant. Now youre not deployable for a year. Coming in being the one that is the slowest in the unit, thats not what i fall into, i fall into zero no theres a female here and when is she going to get pregnant. My question is how do you defeat that cultural change . My level being that midline supervisor, i do get the female coming through. Im just supportive. Its your choice and write so we are here to support you and your family because without that, youre not going to be as good at your job when i need you in the office. I will even fight my supervisor i say look she needs to take your time and be with her kids. Its fine and we have it covered and i try to make the entire office work as a team so that we do have you covered. Because if you feel like youre covered, you feel better about coming in and doing your job. [applause] i think being supportive like that is so important. Ive been pleased to work in an office recently where you never hear any of the negative comments about how we ever going to pick up the slack because this woman is out on Maternity Leave. Thats the kind of positive culture we need to see everywhere. I think if you can be supportive exactly like you said, recognize that its everyday strength and that families are important and that also are into space the military is important. And make sure we are reinforcing that culture everywhere we go. If you see someone who hamza negative attitude about that, and pull them into a room and have a conversation about why it matters and where their biases coming from and trying to counteract that. I think that active participation needs to happen on our part. The coast guard is recently put out there that headquarters now fund reservists to come in and backfill those activeduty folks male or female, that take maternity or paternity leave. The coast guard will bring a reservist and so that you feel once a better about being have someone cover your work for you. As a reservist is used because every set three or four people do a shortterm stint at places to better their career. It makes the unit feel good about letting those females or mail take maternity and paternity leave. And it allows that member to feel good about going and not feeling like the job is going to suffer. [applause] i like to squeeze in one final question, in our lastminute. U. S. Navy. My question also feels a little bit with family. Obviously you are a panel about changing culture. The question i have is have any of you been in a marriage or significant relationship where you have helped change the culture of your significant others mindset of what you should be doing and can you give any specific examples of things that youve said or who shall points turning points in your conversations with that person to help them be more supportive of how culture has changed and how critical your role is. I dont know if this is going to answer it. Communication, be very open and honest. My husband and i, weve talked about what we were going to do for our career paths. He said im going to be the working entity and i was like okay, im okay being a stayathome mom. Im okay transitioning into the reserves. Thats what i was okay with. Thats a hearttoheart the you guys have to sit down and discuss and figure out what the way ahead is. It is different for every relationship. Ours worked out so we are very honest about our plans for our careers. Thank you so much. Please join me in a warm round of applause for this wonderful panel. [applause] [applause] on behalf of them we like to show our appreciation. [applause] [inaudible conversation] again thank you so much for sharing your experience and perspective. [applause] this is where i get to ad lib. Just a little bit. I have some special request from all of you. If you like what you see or you been seeing for these three days, come to our board and there is an easy way to doing. If you see a badge or board member pan or if you see the picture or bios of one of us board members, you can identify us, feel free to approach us. It doesnt matter what your services. We have an air force staff Mark Sergeant she got promoted actually, it doesnt matter what your status is. You could be retired activeduty reservist. We need people to make stuff like this happen. And we have a variety of positions. We need new board ever supporting the services. We need people working this next year to show how services been on these three days. Come free to feel free to ask is how you can help out. If youre interested in starting a chapter, the police of the snow. We are about to start a chapter in hawaii. They have a hard time getting out to events like this. They are organized and they are setting up to do their own. We have been talking about with some of the canadians. So feel free to join us. One littleknown fact about myself, during my time in the navy, i served five years overseas, i was stationed in denmark, italy, cuba, and bosnia. One thing that if you see some of our peoples from our service overseas, engage with them. Learn from them. Especially from the scandinavian countries and the other countries, they are a little bit of head of us when it comes to gender integration so feel free to ask them how they do things. You learn from it. Its okay to respectfully engage and have a sense of humor and were going to get along, its okay. A while back we thought it would be interesting to hear from our International Counterparts and have them share their stories about women and their military. This year we have our first danish representative here. Stationed in denmark for three years. I find that personally satisfying. The numbers keep growing. I like to invite pamela safir but i quickly want to share something about our moderator ms. Davis. Not only does she have p air invents and other areas but shes been putting together things for over nine years. She is the board chair for roslyns foundation, which supports education of 700 girls in afghanistan. Believe me thats been challenging. She has been a big supportive of women in the military. I like to welcome her up to the stage. [applause] [applause] thank you. Good morning everyone. Thank you john for that plug for our school so its w ww bosnia grave of hope. Org. In case any of you are interested. It is an amazing school. We are worried every day for our girls because so far so good. We have a real treat you this morning. As john said, we have three fabulous women from denmark and sweden and from australia who have great carriers themselves and their forces. And we are going to talk about countries that are in many respects a bit more enlightened than our own in terms of gender diversity. And the policies that support women in the armed forces. I think youre going to find this really fascinating because there are so many interesting stories that ive learned in speaking with them so far. Were only going we are going to leave time for questions for you as well. Let us begin by some introductions. Id like to ask each of you to introduce yourselves. Beyond that ill also say why you chose to join the military in your country. Thank you susan. I am from denmark from the danish army. I am a military linguist. Im a reservist and i have always been a reservist. I joined the army ten years ago. I have gone three times, with the navy, kuwait and iraq. With the air force and i am currently embedded with the us forces. [applause] thank you i am very thrilled to be here and i am honored and im also humble to be here today with all of you talented women and men of course. For starters, i would said do not consider myself a pioneer. Since the first woman of denmark join the armed forces in 1962. Then when i prepared for this symposium. I realize the thing i am today, a female army officer, a capta captain, is something rather new and it is a role which is younger than me. I was born in 1982. Women in denmark werent allowed to join the combat unit until 1988. Each and every day at my job that there is a very firm male masculine culture among my male colleague. That i sort of have to stand up against. And actually that leads me to why i joined the army. I joined the army because i had graduated from university and of course thats a challenge in itself but i really wanted to do something that not many women before me had done. I met a female linguist when i did it internship at the Danish Embassy in ottawa and she was so inspiring to me she was so talented she had such a nice attitude she was a female role model and that was what triggered me, what made me apply. [applause] and captain robin afrom the World Australian Navy currently working at the pentagon at australian Liaison Officer to the joint staff j4 inch u. S. Transform. Ive been in the service for 30 years. It sounds really horrifying to say that. It seems to have gone very quickly. I pretty much part of my time at the Defense Academy when i first joined out of school that was my longest time serving anywhere in my whole career that was three years straight. You keep moving around working with different people experiencing different jobs and that has kept it very fresh for me. During my career ive had about three or four commander appointments and various units. Ive served at sea for different capacities and six years. Ive often worked in maledominated areas and ive enjoyed those challenges that have arisen. And gone toe to toe with a number of abless robust than me. Out doing things a cryptic challenge during the Defense Academy time. I was well performing ahead of my male counterparts because they were quite as robust. In eager to achieve those goals as i was. People talking about leading from the front demonstrating the physical capacity it does come into play in so many ways. I really appreciate those stories. Although im not in one of those combat services environments as as much as you ladies. Im not sure i got any more of my career im certainly happy to take questions later. The reason i joined Defense Force none of my friends were doing it. It sounded interesting. It had a venture attached to it. It gave me a diversity education it gave me guaranteed career got me out of tasmania where i grew up. [laughter] and a lot of my friends were looking to do something going to australian mainland as well. That was the way i sort of chose to forge my path my family were mystified at what i was trying to do and take the career path we were in a military family but very supportive nonetheless. Thats pretty much why i joined. I chose the navy because i honestly thought the uniform looked better and the opportunity to travel the world was much more ready for me in that service than the other two that were on offer at the time. Thats part of the reason i chose probably a little superficial at the time but it worked well for me. [laughter] im so looking forward to the conversation today and im very happy to be here. And talk to you inspirational people in the room. Thank you. [applause] my name is janice, and from the Swedish Armed forces from swedish navy. I joined the navy and 95, 1995, 24 years now. At that time we had only crossed description service in sweden that was male only, females could voluntarily join. I did that in 95 and then Service Officer i specializing awarfare and antisubmarine warfare. Ive been serving on board various ships, mine hunters, a and ive had the privilege to be the Commanding Officer on a mine hunter and quarter and commander for the 42nd embassy quadrant. And with my current sufficient a year ago at head of Recruitment Branch within a Training Department in the Swedish Armed forces headquarters. In that position im there responsible for giving direction on how to do recruitments in the Swedish Armed forces to be conducted, how we are to be prioritized, what we should do etc. One of the biggest focus in sweden right now is growing. We have for the first time in a number of years i think its the same for you guys, got more money, we get more equipment, we need more personnel and 2018 sweden reintroduced the conscript system. This time now its a genderneutral for all men and women. Its a big focus area for us in sweden now. And why did i joined the navy . I was actually engaged to join the youth summer camps in the navy and i thought, this would be exciting. I just continued. [laughter] [applause] jenny, you mentioned conscription. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about how that actually works. At this and we reintroduced this in 2018 and that is of course the security situation involving overseas. And it was a genderneutral, that means but its not everybody. We dont need all the 18yearolds that are born in 2001 for example. But everybody that turns 18 in sweden, male and female, has to fill in a form where they describe themselves, the background they have etc. Then out of those a number is selected to do tests and then we pick out the one that is most suitable. It doesnt have nothing to do with gender. Just the most suitable person that fits requirements that we find. You do your conscription and then its between four and 15 months. From that we recruit the enlisted sailors and soldiers in specialist officer commissioned officers and service. You have to do military service in order to have a career in the armed forces. Can you object to being in the armed forces . [laughter] we do not want to have those. We dont want to force people. We dont need to. But if you have a special skill for example 18 years old in sweden many of them dont take drivers license. If you have a drivers license its very likely you will be called in because we need it. You can say that you dont want to but if we pick you, then you have to do it. Australia doesnt have conscription, we do have what we offer is a gap year opportunity for people to come do a try before you buy. We havent had the need for conscription for many years. I think we did it during vietnam that was probably the only time. I could be slightly off on that fact. I dont see that happening in australia due to our situation and recruitment levels. We are generally quite well supported by the public and recruitment levels are quite good. We are also expanding our recruitment activities over the next few years to support our increased capability requirements. Well see any issues with that. Currently around 58,000 active duty personnel. Relatively small in comparison to the u. S. Military. Our population bases around year 23, 24 million people. Comparatively speaking we are probably not that different per capita. Im really happy we raised this question because its one of in my opinion is one of the great issues within the danish armed forces. The conscription because we do not have genderneutral conscription in denmark. We do have conscription, we cant script a certain proportion of men when they reach the age of majority, which is 18 in denmark. Then women we say we have the right to serve on conscription like terms. At the same time, in my opinion one of the biggest issues with the system is that we do not have the same obligation as men where as the men have to perform the entire or have to go through the entire training period. Females can drop out. What happens i guess we neurostimulator in that room in the first days that many of your male colleagues will look at you and think, who will be the first dropout among the women . Which i think is a very crucial when it comes to the reputation of women but also the support you get from your male surroundings when you are serving. One thing ive noticed is that we have a lot of policies describing how we should support diversity in the armed forces in denmark and how we should develop our recruitment and so on. We never discuss the politicians in denmark to never discuss female conscription. There is no political will to take up that question. Even when we recently got a new female minister of defense it has not been discussed. What percent of the Defense Forces are women in denmark . Another very interesting question. Thank you. [laughter] if you are looking in general at the ministry of defense Resource Area its 16. 1 percent women. If you are looking purely at military personnel its 7. 6 percent. If you are looking at the conscript like soldiers. Last year in 2018 17 percent of them were women. However, if you look at private in the army or in the armed forces in general they are only 8. 5 percent. That supports the idea of female dropouts. We start outside having 17 percent but then all the sudden its down to 8. 5. What is it in australia and sweden . Currently in active duty do 18. 5 percent. Different services are slightly different. The army is the lower of the group at about 14 percent. But the navy and air force are around 20 , just over 20 . We actually have a goal of reaching 24 percent for air force and navy by 2023 and army at 15 percent by 2023. We are actually doing really well against that in the last five or six years increased four percent participation. I think we are getting there. Senior leadership not quite as high proportionately but that has improved over the last 10 or years as well. Some of the policies are in place to encourage women and support them getting to the higher ranks. Obviously the numbers coming through to make it much more available with an option when you see the difference layers of the organization coming through the system. Sweden in total is 17 percent within the military personnel its 11. In different categories you could say in the conscript area last year it was 16 percent but that was the first year of the genderneutral we are aiming for 20 and up to 30 within a couple years from now. I would say its quite low but were getting there in the numbers are increasing. Its the same as it australia, the navy and air force has the highest numbers than the navy and the lowest in the army. He made the transition from submarines to recruitment, which is a pretty big transition. What kinds of tactics are you finding are really successful for you in your new role . What i find successful is that i have been very out there in the operational field. I know what is needed out there and what we need to do and ive been working with the young people because when you come to the headquarters the middleage gets a little bit higher and people tend to forget when you sit in the ahow hot it is outside. Its very important that you keep it. Thats something i bring with me. What about recruiting women . You had some interesting comments earlier. I think what we have found out through surveys and everything is that women tend and demand dont make the same advertisement. Females want to know things. Females want to go through everything. They want to know whats in it for me. What do i contribute with . What can i contribute with . And men, they can see machine guns going off and say i want to join. But a little bit like that the men, we already we get them. Thats not a problem. The problem is to address the young female to make them understand they have a place in the armed forces. In the service weve done they have very little knowledge about the armed forces. If you dont have knowledge you dont understand whats in it for me. We need to get out the message about what is the armed forces but everybody has a place. This year we had a big campaign that we called come as you are. And showed different persons in the armed forces right now. Not only females but females and others. After this guide may be the typical that you think in the armed forces. This is very positive among the target work. The young female. Is that similar in australia . Weve done a lot of Media Campaign in recent years to try and encourage a broader section of the community to join the armed forces. Our women recruitment activity as part of the broader inclusion campaign. To recruit people with different cultural backgrounds because we generally been stereotyped in an organization that has slowly decreased over the years and become more inclusive and Advertising Campaigns are very much giving the visuals of people from different cultural backgrounds, more women, we have specific campaigns targeted at women to try to encourage participation. We also have a number of programs that are trying to support Women Participation things like leadership camps, work experience, leadership and men touring activities that are going on regularly. We have specific female recruiting teams in some areas. We also have increased recruiting targets in some cases for different services. We have all the jobs open to women now all the combat activities and army open to women. Only a small portion have taken that out because the jobs have been open up until around 2017. Having women in submarines now thats been the case for many years. Weve had a lot of success but we continue to build on that and reinforce what weve done in the past. Can you talk a little bit more about your leader caps for ableader camps for women. It has students coming in who are navy bases and military bases and spending time with military members on the base and understanding what the military is all about. Talking about leadership, personal Development Just exposing them to some of the opportunities and demystifying the organization to them because often women do not consider it a viable career path. Men dont seem to have that quite as much but we think the apercent of the oh basome of our services are a lot lower in the army. Why is that . Were not going to attract women easily to a number of those jobs but what we can do is show them whats going on and increase parental understanding of what the service is all about because if you dont have your family or peer support for you joining that you really dont have much of a chance of getting through the practice. Its tough, its not easy to go through the recruitment activities. Its a long process. Its confronting when you are not used to being tested and prodded and assessed physically. Understanding those processes also a part of that engagement. We get out there into the schools we go to seminars and we are exposed. We go out and bang the drums as much as we can to give people the opportunity to understand us and ive done recruiting for about four years of my career ive been lucky to select our future generation servicemen and women from joint perspective. And ive lost that abive loved that opportunity. Its been inspirational to have the exposure to the community and try to promote my service in my Defense Force in that capacity. What about denmark . Im guessing based on the lack of policy toward conscription is probably less than the leadership side to recruit women. Actually we have this type of policy which is similar to australia we call it the policy of diversity. This effort to recruit more women is part of a broader strategy to recruit other groups from society which are not prone to join the armed forces. However, we didnt succeed in achieving our goals. Some of the things we are working with like australia, is to make female role models in the armed forces small visible by simply making posters. With short statements on them. We are trying to promote the idea of female values going hand in hand with service in the armed forces. Like you can be the mother of two as myself and still be deployed with the armed forces. We are trying to do that and various recruitment events but we also have q a sessions on our webpages where female officers answer questions of potential recruits. We tend to ask female officers to do the briefings during their treatment. We call them recruitment seminars. Its where we invite him potential cadets in for briefing and testing. Thats just some of the things we do. Are all jobs open to women in the danish forces . Yes they are. And with regards to testing and demands, women and men, we put the same demands for women it and women, however, as i said before, theres a various firm of masculine culture in the danish armed forces. For some reason there are more women in the air force and the Danish Emergency Management Agency then in the army and the navy. Ive been wondering why is that so because we do more or less the same recruitment campaigns. We have to meet more or less the same standards and demands. And a lot of the jobs are the same. I think its a question about culture. The Danish Air Force is only 70 years old. The Danish Emergency Management Agency didnt exist until 1992. Whereas the army was formed in 1614 and the navy was formed in 15 10. Theyve spent decades nurturing this very firm masculine culture where as these efforts to recruit more women into the armed forces existed. When the Danish Air Force and Emergency Management agency were formed. Speaking of culture, do you want to mention the issue that exists . I think all of you have it to one extent or the other in terms of language. Right. [laughter] its somehow anecdotal. In the danish armed forces, danish in general you cannot say maam to a female officer. He can only say sir. When im commanding one of the units at home and i say good morning unit, they will answer me back good morning sir. You two both have similar situations or examples. Had been a little taken aback when im deployed with other International Navy or military a number of those cultures did not recognize the female man and also mistakenly called sir because people get flustered and then they revert to what they are used to saying. But one of the things i find quite interesting is how if im walking along a pathway and i with a male counterpart whose junior to me, that person will get paid respects and saluted before myself because they will defer to the male counterparts that im with. And not recognize the rank situation between us. Its really interesting and i understand theres some cultural similarities and cultural differences where people in company with other people if im with a white male that person will get saluted before me even though im the same. Its an interesting thing that people defer to when they see a couple of people in uniform its one of those funny things. Have been addressed as that also that was in sweden but in another country and they said i said you can call me maam. We dont do that here. Another conversation we have earlier this morning before the session started kind of relates to the b word that was brought up. In the question before it really relates to how women are perceived whether its in your disciplinary action or your management style, how would you deal with that . How do each of you deal with that . [laughter] it has been interesting to see how ive been received in different capacities. I was explaining to the Group Earlier that we have a situation we have a 360 reporting that happens every couple years. With the Navy Leadership and development activities. This is trying to sort of break down some of the cultural issues we had over the years with his gender and Workplace Behavior in more general terms as well. One of those things that ive always felt was, im a pretty personable person. I support people, not dictatorial, i dont direct and play the power game. Emma Team Oriented leader. However, when im in certain jobs and not perceived that way. Maybe i have to come across a little differently because its the group im working in or the command im a part of. Its interesting how the perception of me i thought was so markedly different in a couple different jobs ive had over the last 10 years or so. I know i can be the b word on a number of occasions is not the best way to lead your people and he seen as a role model we talked about earlier. I tried to be genuine i tried to be myself but also understand the group im dealing with and try to play to that in some respects as well. Sometimes it takes you out of your comfort zone and sometimes being that hard yes you will do it that way we will go that way across this issue. Sometimes you can be called a b word but if thats the only way they can describe it, thats fine. [laughter] [applause] i agree, i recognize what you are saying and what i think also is if a male commander commands in this way and then if i do it as a female then i will be judged in another way harder. But that is also i think if you are a minority you are always seen. You can never hide. If you do something good, thats a good thing. Then everybody will know that. If you do some mistake everybody will also know that. Male counterparts can do more mistakes i would say then i can do. The private sector is no different. I would say to me its like this, if you confirm a prejudiced view you will sort of, its harder, if a woman gets kind of sensitive or aggressive in a female way, we are contrary to what men always thought our weak side. Its kind of not fair. They can act differently without meeting the same resistance. I have no further comment. [laughter] i know that in my last job i had command aunit and my command was a female, my Operations Officer was a female, i had a boss who is a female, that was the most female Oriented Team in my whole career. It was the first time i ever had a boss is a female. I never had a female boss i guess thats probably similar to a lot of your experiences as well. That it was quite interesting to work with that dynamic and there was no difference from what i could tell to working with the male dominated command team. I think everybody appreciated the different approaches we all brought to the table. I remember one of them telling me, we had a particular personnel issue which is very farreaching around the unit but how i dealt with that i remember my asaying i didnt realize you could be such a hard off abwith people who were really expecting me to roll over and not take it as a serious as we think. It was interesting to see people always expect if you are a female, you are softer approach. A soft touch. [laughter] at times, sure when the situation calls for it but we dont get to these positions without doing the hard jobs and actually putting in the effort to make sure we actually perform to the level our service expects us to perform at. [applause] i think sometimes in these situations where it comes to confrontations i sometimes have success with asking questions. Just being polite asking questions applying a bit of sense of humor to the situation. An example was when i went to kuwait last year 2018 the first thing my commander said to me was, right, so you have two small children and now you are here. I was like, what am i supposed to say to him . I asked him, would you ask the same question if my husband was here . Then he was like, no. Actually i wouldnt. He got so embarrassed. Because he actually is one of the men promoting female officers in the armed forces. Good for you. [laughter] [applause] the me too movement caught on fire here in the u. S. And i know that it reached far beyond the u. S. Can you talk a little bit about how it may or may not have affected your country and your Defense Forces. In sweden there was a huge me too. Also within the armed forces. The female armed forces raised up and talked and this was like up plug that was released. Actually it was really hard when it came out a couple years ago but it has changed. It has made us call attention to this and not leaning back to think that we have reached this we are finished with it. If it is out in society if you have problems in a society you will have them in your armed forces of course. Whos responsible for fixing it . We all are. But at the command problem. Its not the females who are going to fix it. But im in the double role so its my problem as a commander but not as a female. That is something that weve had a lot of discussions and it has changed. Its been a cultural barrier that has changed. In what way . Because we are open about it. We are talking about it and discussing we have been discussing it in the working places all over the armed forces. Not just the females. Everybody. Our higher commanders have put attention to it. And you cannot hide. He probably didnt have such a wave of me too responsiveness in the australian Defense Force. Weve had a lot of activity over the last 20 years or so which is focused on sexual abuse inappropriate behavior in the workplace. Trying to make it pretty much very clear that its not acceptable in any of our workplaces. In the cultural training some annual manual training training within recruitment processes has made it pretty well understood situation where its not tolerated. Weve also had a number of commissions in the child sex abuse and issues where we had junior recruits a lot of those cases have come out in the media weve also had another investigation and responses into other abuse in the military with people making claims about abuse through the service environment. All of those have really put it on the table of the general population to understand that its not tolerated. We will deal with it we apologize the service and the organization has apologized for that culture that was rampant. Not to say we are not having issues still. Its just not as widespread but it is dealt with at the best way we possibly can and hits all during the Education Programs and information that its not to be tolerated. And we called out all these activities and these campaigns support our organizational community to respond to it. We are a reflection of society. We have things happening our services that happen in society more broadly. Its something we will continue to tackle and be very open and forthright about as well. In denmark we have recently our veterans sender has done a survey among veterans female veterans and what came as a shock to not only me but most of my colleagues is that most female veterans have in some way or another in denmark experienced some kind of genderbased abusive behavior or some kind of genderbased harassment. I dont believe we have yet implemented any measures against this kind of behavior but its definitely something that we have to work on. I think from my perspective its a dilemma because if you want to include women on equal terms with men, what does it mean in denmark the way we have tried to include women in the armed forces has also been by letting men and women live in the same barracks when we are deployed. Having men and women sleep in the same tent when we are doing exercises and so on. On my own account when i started 10 years ago we only had one shower. If you females we were we had to shower together with the men. Which was a must say that was odd. I would say we are fully integrated. We live together in the barracks and quarters and we lived together we share cabins on board the ships. There is no difference if you are male or female and i understand this is maybe nothing that you can do but in sweden that is okay. Its not a problem. When i get the question, how do you deal with it . Isnt that a problem . No, its a matter of respect for each other. It has nothing to do with gender. Its a matter of respect. You have to be able to fight together, to be in combat together, of course you have to be able to, to live together. I think submarines would probably be the only place where male and female crewmembers actually leave the same mass text with each other and was driven by the fact that we could never get six females to stay at the one time so we be missing opportunities to send submarines to stay with qualified personnel. And restricting womens opportunities in that capacity. Apart from that we all have pretty much segregated accommodations and we have designated facilities for males and females in most areas where its possible sometimes its not quite so great but we have common shower facilities where males and females go naked together. Im not sure if that was where. I thought thats what you are referring to. We havent gone that far. [laughter] neither have we. Actually whats interesting is that its not like that anymore. Now they put showers up but that wasnt like that when i started 10 years ago. Something has changed obviously. [laughter] must take time for a few questions or we will just continue this conversation. Are there any questions in the audience . Go right ahead. And the United States marine corps. A quick note on maam i have and counter that with other forces. It seems a lot of ladies together because abgetting to good morning ladies instead of good morning maam, still a work in progress. There was a lot of discussion about your recruiting efforts. I was wondering if you could speak to some of the family leave policies. In sweden maybe some of you guys were here two years ago i sat at the International Panel and told you guys about the swedish system we have a very good parental system in sweden and both women or mothers and fathers stay home with the children up to 1. 5 years. He get paid for it. Its not just a female problem, if you are getting family and have children there was a discussion earlier you get a female and then when is she going to get pregnant . If i got a young person i said one of the going to have parental leave. [laughter] that has nothing to do with in sweden actually men and women they tend to stay home longer. Mothers tend to stay home longer but its getting there. Me and my husband we split set so i stayed home nine months, he stayed home nine months. [applause] in australia the last 10 years would increase what we call our Flexible Work arrangements. Thats been a really Good Opportunity for women to be retained in our services. Once they come back off Maternity Leave they can work part time, they can job share, they can work remotely from home. Thats encouraged quite a bit now to experience personnel because we have a situation where they would leave us to having children or not undertake the service or operational duties. Now we try and create a buffer opportunity for them and we also provide that to the males. The women who are trying to do some of the career milestone postings have the opportunity to do those jobs as they take the Flexible Work arrangement opportunities and its becoming much more culturally acceptable for the mail to take over those opportunities. And provide the family Domestic Support requirement in the family unit. Around six percent of our personnel are currently undertaking Flexible Work arrangements in the navy and the air force. In one percent and the army just a bit behind the other two services when it comes to personnel. At its been a really positive thing for australia and our Defense Force. What ive seen is Senior Leadership has been very supportive of this and its because of that number of women coming through the ranks and they are getting to the senior ranks and they say why cant we do this . Why cant we be a bit more flexible. We can come in and out of the service during reserve time. Come back to permanent reserve time. Thats really helping our service. In denmark we have a very nice system as well. We are paid for 13 months of parental leave and we can share it between the father and the mother. However, often the woman takes more parental leave than the father. Then in australia we have taxable Work Arrangements we can work at home some days a week and we have Flexible Working hours. An issue i would like to raise him, its anecdotal, is that an example when i left for my second parental leave someone else took over my portfolio. It was an older man he was higher ranking. When i got back i had nothing to do. He had taken over all my assignments so i had to fight to get back my assignments. I would have wished that my commander would have been more aware of this issue because he wasnt aware when i talked to him i finally put myself together after half a year being very depressed and almost stressedout. I told him i have nothing to do you put me into car and he said really . Did i do that . You always work so hard and you are so talented. I wasnt aware. I think i would have wanted him to be more aware from the beginning and having helped me more it would have been nice with a female role model as well but she wasnt there. That part of it supporting those opportunities and understanding what people are going through when they return to the Work Environment where you been dislodged and then displaced. For those people in those command jobs to recognize that and take interest its really important. I think we have time for one more question. Thank you ladies. Thank you so much for coming. I want to circle back to the conscription and being genderneutral and tied into the me too movement. When lisa bc people gender integrated and fully integrated do you think that helps with the me too movement and providing the Mutual Respect. Now everyone is required to do the same in sweden. You think moving to denmark and australia . They provide a Mutual Respect because of the conscription policies now . I think so. In sweden it will help because then everybody is there on equal terms. There is no difference it has nothing to do with your gender issue. Because you are the most fitted person to do this service. I think it will help. I think so. If that was the answer to the question. Essentially with integrating gender and making it to where everyone is equal, is that helping with Sexual Assault . If we have problems . Correct. Rather than going down has it been going up . Did you ask if we have problems with it . She is saying, as the gender neutrality policy helped reduce Sexual Assaults . I dont know if it has to do with the gender neutrality or the conscription but we are working with it. Its more open now i would say, the discussions about it. I think we were in, sweden was like you are describing with thought of ourselves being in that situation. We have very clear regulations. We have everything. We have the policies, we have everything. But then suddenly we noticed things happened that we didnt know as Commanding Officers. In the me too has helped open our eyes and realize that things are happening. I wish we could continue this conversation but please join me in thanking these Inspiring Women leaders. [applause] on behalf of ss 08 we would like to thank you for your participation and sharing your experiences and perspectives. [applause]