Originally Posted by
VintageEngineer
I roll my eyes as much as any retired serviceman when diversity and all the other woke buzzwords are mentioned. Times change though, as do the attitudes of the people that the services serve and recruit from. The services need to adapt to survive, as they have been doing ever since I joined over 40 years ago. Reviewing service ranks is nothing new, for example the merging of the WRAF in 1994 led to new gender-neutral ranks by dropping the W in women’s ranks.
For those interested, the MoD summary at
https://www.gov.uk/government/statis...s-1-april-2020 gives the state of play on the services’ composition in various identity politics categories. There are some interesting snippets, for example that the proportion of women that are officers is far higher than that for men and that only 20% of servicemen were willing to give a sexual orientation, most either objecting to the idea or thinking it was none of the MoD’s business.
The use of aviator rather than airman or airwoman seems to work well for the Canadians. One of my sons is in the MoD, albeit a civilian, and he tells me the servicemen he knows aren’t that bothered about such changes.
Perhaps it is time for a change. Whilst we’re at it, do we need to review rank titles, for example merging Flt Lt, FG Off and Plt Off into a single rank of lieutenant?
Yes, the Service has survived many changes which were described as 'cataclysmic' at the time, and is generally better for it. My concern about 'Aviator' as a term to replace Airmen is that:
- Airman/men/women is an honourable and historic term for a rank that goes back to 1918, and I am sure that today there is no prejudice or unconscious bias by the interchangeable term Airman or Airwoman, as appropriate.
- It sounds American, and sits up there with my favourite dislike of the use of 'Warrior' to describe soldiers.