The Toronto Film Festival included a documentary about the first all women Peace Keeping Unit. Called Journey of A Thousand Miles, the film tells the story of a unit of United Nations Peacekeepers comprised entirely of Muslim women from Bangladesh. Currently, there are just three all female units in the UN's 100,000 person peacekeeping force.
In contrast, the USA armed services’ decision to widen access to direct combat roles for women, is causing controversy and debate as all branches of the military have until 2016 to decide which positions, if any, they want to keep off-limits for women. A much sited study indicated women suffer greater i juries than men and if the idea is to build the most lethal and effective units, it is in the best interest of everybody to keep women out of combat roles. Most of those arguments fail to mention findings that women display more mental fitness than men, a critical component of effectiveness in combat.
The Peacekeeper documentary highlights the all-women unit's tendency to focus on community policing instead of zero tolerance policy or aggressive forced compliance. While not in combat, the all-female peace keeping unit demonstrates that women bring unique skills to the situations. As they will in combat roles. Excuses for keeping the military segregated sexual dynamics in co-ed units, inferior physical capabilities and "complications" such as pregnancy. These are all excuses and no different than the manufactured reasons used to maintain racial segregation many years before.