It's a very good question. The other day I was wearing a T-shirt that said, “You owe me 21 cents”, and it's a T-shirt that is meant to provoke discussions about the disparity between the wages of men and women. A military friend of mine said, “Luckily, we don't have that in the military, because equal ranks have equal pay.” I said that when only 10% of the senior officers are women and when 90% of deployed forces are men, it means that women are losing opportunities. Women are staying back and taking care of loved ones, of family, of the elderly, and that is taking a toll on their careers.
If we wonder why women aren't progressing, we should be looking at the number of men taking parental leave and the number of men helping out with elderly care. Still today, according to statistics, close to 70% of elderly care is being done by women. That means they lose opportunities to deploy on exercises, to punch those leadership tickets that will gain them the personnel evaluation reports to get them promoted, and the courses. I think that's a huge contribution to the reason why women are not progressing in the ranks.