The female members of the General Staff and of the other commands and units of the Army of the Republic of Macedonia this year, traditionally, marked the International Women’s Day, 8th of March.
Symbolically, by giving flowers, in the commands and units of the ARM, to the female members of the ARM they were given recognition for the professionalism in fulfilling their tasks, and at the same time respect was paid to the role they also have outside of the military organization.
Female officers from the ARM General Staff followed the special programme for the celebration of the International Women’s Day at the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, with the title ‘Woman Freedom Fighter and Macedonian Statehood’, followed by socializing at the military barracks ‘Ilinden’.
In the past years the ARM has given special attention to the integration of the principles for gender equality, at the same time slowly shifting the position of the army from an institution which is primarily concerned with warfare into a structure oriented towards building peace and security.
Contrary to the stereotypes that the military profession is ‘a man’s thing’, and that women cannot always carry out their tasks equally as well as men, the statistics show that 9.20 % of the entire military personnel of the ARM are women, of which 11.48 % are Cos, 12.34 % are NCOs, and 3.49 % are professional soldiers.
Presented with numbers, 99 female members of the ARM are officers, 184 are non-commissioned officers and 128 are professional soldiers, of which the highest rank a woman holds in the ARM is that of a Colonel, and there is a large number of Lieutenant Colonels, Majors and Captains.
With these numbers the ARM is following the trends of the modern armies around the world, which give a lot of attention to the increase in the representation of the female gender in the army structures (In the NATO member armies women participate with 10.5 %).
