Why do women not want to join the German army? | DW News

[00:00:00]Germany doesn't have enough soldiers if it wants to keep its promise to NATO and meet its own goals. And there's one group that's overwhelmingly not interested in joining the Bundesphere.

[00:00:11]Women.

[00:00:12]>> No. No way.

[00:00:13]>> I can't imagine joining.

[00:00:14]>> Taking stock. The promise. Germany wants to have 260,000 active soldiers ready by the mid 2030s. The target, 20% of soldiers should be women. It's all part of Germany's big defense drive. With threats from Russia in the east and an increasingly unreliable US and the West, Berlin wants to show it can mount its own defenses and step up for its allies.

[00:00:37]Here's some numbers to compare. The most recent report on NATO gender statistics from 2024 shows the average share of women in the military at 13.9%.

[00:00:47]Germany sits right in the middle.

[00:00:49]Hungary had the highest percentage of women, while Turkey has the least. In Germany, the number of female recruits is rising. But despite Bundes attempts to appeal to young women, it's by no means rising fast enough. So why do so few German women want to sign up? We took to the Berlin streets to ask.

[00:01:09]Anything to do with war or with violence, I don't stand for it.

[00:01:15]>> Because I don't want to go to war for the rich.

[00:01:19]That's one of the main reasons because it doesn't fit into my life plans with studies and work later on.

[00:01:30]I know a couple of people who joined up after school and they said that as a woman you're often confronted with sexist situations.

[00:01:40]I also think that Germany isn't doing much for young people right now. And I think it's weird that we should still go to war for Germany in an emergency.

[00:01:49]>> And some of those reasons are shared by German young men, too, even by those that do sign up. Carrie Hoppin knows firsthand. She's a reserve officer in the German Air Force. When she signed up after finishing high school, she was looking for a challenge. And I always thought it was incredibly fascinating um and uh was looking for a challenge and looking for a way to to challenge myself to kind of get to know my physical and and mental limits um whilst also contributing something to society.

[00:02:18]>> Now she's also got a read on why so many others don't make that same choice.

[00:02:23]>> I think we've become very accustomed to the fact that we live a very safe and comfortable life in Germany. And sometimes if you're very safe and very comfortable, you're not particularly aware of the price that that safety and that comfort and that wealth have.

[00:02:39]>> But women are specifically uninterested and that's a problem for the bundesphere, says Zarani. She's in parliament for the German Greens and their spokesperson for security policy.

[00:02:49]>> If there would be as much women as men who want to join the troops, we would not even talk about having problems with the personnel. One key issue, bundesare culture. In January this year, one case caused outrage in Germany. The parachute regiment in a small town in western Germany Britain. The German army announced it was investigating more than 50 of its soldiers for drug abuse, right-wing extremism, anti-semitism, and sexual abuse. The defense minister called the cases deeply shocking and vowed further investigation, which is still ongoing. The same regiment had already made headlines a few years before when two soldiers were convicted of raping an 18-year-old fellow soldier.

[00:03:33]Britain reveals a deeper problem that the bonuses just can't seem to shake.

[00:03:38]How women are treated in the daily life within the troops. I see that there are a lot of male colleagues who are just respectful and good comrades. But of course, sexual harassment is happening, discrimination is happening, other forms of discriminations are also happening.

[00:03:54]And the ministry took this not serious enough for many years.

[00:03:59]>> The Bundesphere has recently launched a study on sexual harassment in its ranks and it says it's taking any offenses very seriously. Papa says she hasn't personally experienced any sexism in the troops.

[00:04:11]>> For one, I was very lucky to not experience any sort of sexism or um structural discrimination just because I'm a woman. At the end of the day, the bundesphere is a reflection of general society and um you'll find all problems that we see in general society. What I do want to make clear though is that the bonuses is very very keen on handling those kind of instances appropriately and sanctioning them. But the bonus has more catching up to do if it wants to welcome more women into the service, says Nani. In the past, as women have only be allowed to serve in all the branches of the troop for two decades, we still have this tradition to think of military to be something that men do and women don't. And I think that this is a cultural factor built for men. 25 years ago, a woman had to go to court to win the right to serve in combat roles. In 2001, Germany changed its basic law.

[00:05:05]Since then, the number of female soldiers has only risen. But still a vast majority of those women are in support roles mostly medical. That area is about 24.6% women while the combat branch is only at around 10%. And with few women in high ranking positions. While there are more today, there's still not enough role models here. Nani and Hopper agree. If you don't know any women who serve in the bonuses, it's somehow hard or harder to kind of picture yourself doing the same job. So I think if there were more powerful female role models who've gone down that career path um I think we would might or we might see different recruitment um recruitment numbers. They are visible but of course they are not there are not really a lot of them and maybe also if you look at the campaigns even today for the recruitment you see five people on the um billboard and just one of them being women and I think this representation even in the recruitment process is very important. The bundes also struggling to keep women who have joined. We see that there are women coming to the troops but other than men they are leaving earlier and this is also because of family planning. We see this in many businesses in many branches but for the troops is especially difficult to uh align family and uh the service.

[00:06:28]>> The defense ministry says it's expanded options for working parents. Part-time models, flexible hours, childcare spots on some bonuses sites. But by their own admission, service requirements come first. Flexibility only goes as far as operational readiness allows. Getting better. So, how can the bonuses attract more women? The first is representation.

[00:06:52]Uh the second is taking seriously uh harassment uh and discrimination uh complaints. And the third would be to make it easier to be a mom and serve.

[00:07:03]This is also true for dads.

[00:07:05]>> Of course, there's still issues, but I think the bonuses generally doing a good job of addressing those. What's important is that we really make clear that there's the same framework for men and women within the armed forces. You have the same opportunities. It's incredibly empowering to serve within the armed forces. It makes you way more confident, way more aware of your own capability and your own strength. One level to hike troop numbers up would be to go back to a mandatory conscription model. But that debate is primarily circling around men. Why? Because in order to include women, the constitution would need to be changed. That would require an unlikely twothirds majority.

[00:07:43]So the bonuses has to count on voluntary recruits for now. And it has some work ahead if it's trying to seem more welcoming to women, especially if it wants to do so fast enough to still keep up with its targets and promises.