My take on this is experience based. My class was the second though Duntroon to have female Staff Cadets. There was I believe a form of positive discrimination in the selection process - around 120 blokes were initially selected, and 50 women. We graduated 5 women and 92 blokes.
* The vast majority of the women dropped out before the end of third class (within 6 months) in fact a great many dropped out after doing basic training at Majura. The male failure rate was better spread. There will always be failures - people, particularly smaller women were often physically broken by the training regimen, others just couldn't get their heads around tactics or command (no selection process is perfect), but the drop out rate among the women suggested that quotas were being filled - and possibly good male candidates that may have graduated missed a place as a result. Was this fair? No, was it the fault of the women? No.
Of the 5 women who graduated 3 I would have absolutely no hesitation in having them watch my back in an infantry combat situation, the other 2 were satisfactory officers. This is not to damn with faint praise - there were probably 30 odd blokes I would place in that same category - fine counting blankets, not preferred to calling in artillery fire on a danger close mission. The women who graduated did so because they met the physical, intellectual and leadership requirements of a modern Lt. I'm glad they graduated and would have absolutely no reservations in serving beside them in any corps.
All the arguments about strength, effect on morale, protective male syndrome etc is BS - if a woman meets the standard - she's in IMHO.
Where things do fall of the perch is when the system tries to manipulate a result (situating the appreciation was a good TEWT term). To give a little background, the equality commissioner Elizabeth Broderick was tasked to investigate women in the military from an equality perspective. In usual governmental fashion extensive and expensive inquiry's were undertaken and the results were at times worrying. The large numbers of existing military women asked about career progression simply stated all the wanted was an equal crack at progression to their male counterparts - nothing more, nothing less. However, the commissioner (a civilian remember) decided that the subject matter experts (the ADF women interviewed) were wrong, and there needed to be positive discrimination.
This is where I'm sure all will agree that this is a dangerous decision. If you do the same at another government department, say Treasury, and a less experienced or qualified woman is promoted over better qualified men, then at the end of the day, the budget figures may be out by a few billion, do the same in the ADF and people die and there could be operational or even strategic consequences. In short, PC doesn't belong in defence - then again nor does Misogyny IF a female and a male wants a particular job, then you select the best regardless of gender.