ARMS AND THE WOMAN By Kate Muir (Coronet, $105) WHEN journalist Kate Muir, now a correspondent for The New York Times, began work on Arms and the Woman the world's combat zones were still largely no-go zones for the women of the world's defence forces.
The reasons for their exclusion from the choice to take up arms, engage their skills as fighter pilots or take command of a ship in battle, were transparent, the male military hierarchy believed.
Women were not capable of the aggression needed to fight battles, they said. The themes, as the author repeats in the book, were as old as war itself. ''Men's behaviour is more aggressive. Male monkeys are more violent. Men are hunters, women are nurturers.
''There are far more men in prison for violent crime than women. Males have more testosterone and so on.'' But Ms Muir argues: ''As much as possible, women avoid physical confrontation because they know they will come off worst against a man, but that does not mean as a last resort, when completely cornered, they will not resort to violence, often effective violence.
''Pause to consider the number of battered wives who have one day suddenly had enough and murdered their husbands, often in cold blood or when the husband is drunk or asleep, because that is the only time guile can overcome strength.'' To highlight her case and argue her central thesis - that the defence establishment has excluded women from combat until recent times because of prejudice not biology - the author points to British attitudes about the Gulf War.
At the start of the conflict in 1990, 68 per cent of British men approved of starting a war compared to 41 per cent of women.
