 All right, well, we've set a new standard here as panel seven with a panel cheer. We're sure you can keep the pace up as we move to today. I'm Sean Sullivan, here at the New York College. This is my fourth conference as either a presenter or a moderator. And I want to say thanks to my great friend and golf partner, Mary Rahm. The thing about this is Mary's office of mine. I have close enough proximity. So what you get to see is conference, Mary. What I get to see is planning, Mary. So the two are, they look remarkably the same, but not necessarily so. But one thing I do get to see every year is the amount of energy and commitment that Mary has, not just the topic, but to our program to make it go so well. And she is a force. And so I'm really happy that I can work for her again. Now, this panel, it's actually topic. And then one of the things is these conferences do great at developing for us in women's peace and security issues kind of an understanding of some of the common terminologies. Because we all, whether you're NGO, IGO government, non-government, whether you're military or civilian, we have our own terms. And this panel, when it starts talking about international operations and tactics and the perspectives, is that for centuries. Strategists, policymakers have kind of looked at international politics for relations, military operations, for really three lenses. And the first lens is called the strategic level of warfare. That's what they call it, strategic level of politics. And then for national leaders make decisions and policies. And what they then do is turn to the operational and tactical leaders to then do the difficult part, which is implementation and actually execution, where these operational and tactical leaders and organizations, they pursue and hopefully, with good planning, achieve the strategic objectives of our strategic level leaders. So today I'm joined by four panelists. The first is Commander Suzanne Maynard from the United States Navy. She's currently serving on the US Joint Staff in Washington DC. On her right is Lieutenant Colonel Marie Yves-Venay from the Canadian Forces. On her right, Professor Maria Vilchez-Debanco. And she's from the University of Grenada. And at the far end is Bob. I told her I wouldn't call her Bob. It's just Anna Davis. And what you can tell right now is that that introduction demonstrated my challenge in several languages, one of which is, of course, French, Canadian, Russian, and Spanish. But the big problem is the English part of this. So what we'll do is we'll start with Commander Maynard. Thank you. Thank you, Sean. Hello, everyone. My name is Suzanne Maynard. I first want to thank the Naval War College for holding this important conference series in for Marie for inviting me to sit this panel. I have reservations at first because I've only been on the joint staff since April. And I still feel like I have a lot to learn. But this is an important topic. And it's an honor just to be part of the discussion, which I hope to contribute positively to today. So I come to you as an action officer on the joint staff where I hold the Women, Peace, and Security portfolio among several other portfolios. So my will for this panel is to give you all an overview of the way the US has structured their approach to WPS within DOD. One of the three federal agencies charged with implementing the 1325 UNSCR and its associated resolutions. I also would like to highlight a few operational vignettes that you might have heard of before, but I find them particularly compelling to the WPS agenda, and then leave you with some of our initiatives and challenges for the future. So as we all know, WPS is a portfolio that encompasses the 2000 UNSCR 1325 and its associated resolutions, recognizing the unique and disproportionate impact that armed conflict has on women and girls, and calls on nations to recognize this fact and take certain actions in support of the WPS agenda. At higher headquarters policy level, DOD recognizes WPS by assigning the portfolio to desk officers in both the secretarial office as well as the joint staff. That's me. With the Office of the Secretary of Defense policy as the lead, represented here today by Amanda Vandor, who's hiding in the back. We have her alone from the State Department, but she's been both an ally and a workforce for WPS during the few short months that she's been with us. So she's here representing OSD. Both of us together comprise the higher headquarters end of the spectrum and we're responsible for things like policy development, instructions, policy memos, implementation plans, et cetera, and a coordination of efforts across the DOD domain. We enact the President's National Action Plan for the Department of Defense at the agency level. We also coordinate the DOD portion of the annual WPS report to the President, and finally we're responsible for interagency coordination at our level with the other two government agencies charged with implementing WPS for the National Action Plan. So mainly with the State Department, who's represented here today by my colleague, Lieutenant Commander Kim Jones, also hiding in the back in there, and also USAID represented by Jennifer Hawk. So OSD and I coordinate with, we also coordinate with WPS representatives or leads from each of the combatant commands, the uniform services, the five defense security cooperation agency regional centers or disco regional centers. Those are the Marshall Center, the Perry Center, et cetera, and the educational institutions. We meet once a month to discuss updates between the community of interest across the department and coordinate efforts. Each organization, each of those organizations has their own network of WPS actors and initiatives, depending upon where they lie on the spectrum, and they have their own coordination events further down the chain as required. So that's sort of that overall structure. DOD has translated the verbiage of the National Action Plan to five objectives, corresponding with the NAP. Institutionalization, participation, protection, conflict prevention, and access. So these can be found outlined in the DOD implementation plan currently being updated to align with the new 2016 NAP. So to transition from strategic discourse to some operational examples, I wanna thank PKSO at PKSO upfront for collecting and processing these particular stories. They're currently working on another WPS lessons learned sampler, the draft of which is where I was able to study these cases. So first one, I love this story from Central Command. It's a great example of integrating a gender perspective. In 2014, the US Military Communications Group developed an extensive radio program for Eastern Afghanistan to consistently communicate the military campaign with the Afghan people. The efforts for the broadcast to be culturally sensitive or exhaustive. However, all the trainings and briefings and mission analyses failed to take into account that the majority of the listeners were women during the days, the men were out and about working, farming, or fighting. So even though Afghan women played key roles in society, usually from behind the scenes, they had been completely omitted from consideration because the planners only interacted with the Afghan men. After a tip from a female engagement team familiar with the local population of women, the program's content was adjusted to account for this missing gender dimension. Many mothers and babies were dying in childbirth as a primary concern of the Afghan women and these communities was healthcare. So for cultural and religious reasons, these Afghan women were not comfortable going to a male doctor and many of the female doctors had either fled or been killed. So based on the needs of the community and the listeners, the communications group commander decided to dedicate two hours a day to female physicians. They saw incidents of death and childbirth and infant mortality decrease by 50% across Eastern and Afghanistan. So tip line calls to the radio also increased indicating a victory within the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. So due to a simple shift in gender consideration, many lives were saved and the overall campaign saw progress. So another positive example from Central Command for the 10 years between 2003 and 2013 involves the National Solidarity Program or NSP, which became the largest development program in Afghanistan and speaks to the participation objective. During the decade, this program was active over 65,000 development projects were financed, reaching 361 districts in Afghanistan's 34 provinces, creating a total of 32,000 community development councils or CDCs within villages. These CDCs were required to have a specific quota of women's participation in local governance decisions in order for block grants to be funded. This ensured women as well as men would have a stay in the development projects and services that would affect their lives. They increased access to drinking water and electricity, improved women's access to education, healthcare, counseling services and increased male acceptance for female participation in public life. Main projects more relevant to the needs of the community and finally improved more effective for achieving overall regional stability. So those are a couple positive examples from the front lines. We've accomplished much in these areas, but we still have a long way to go. This next example that I have is from the African continent. It's a little bit dated, so apologize for that, but I still find it fascinating and I think it speaks boldly to good intentions but the criticality of integrating a gender perspective, specifically in the access to relief and recovery objective. So following the Loan Peace Accord, the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration or DDR program in Sierra Leone lasting from 1999 to 2004 saw over 75,000 adult soldiers and more than 6,800 child soldiers participate in this DDR process. It was administered by UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone and has widely been lauded as a model for DDR success. We've already heard a little bit about women as combatants and why they do it during the medical panel this morning. Women played a significant part in the 11 year civil war in Sierra Leone from 91 to 2002. Some joined voluntarily and many achieved high military ranks, led lethal attacks, fighting and killing in addition to often acting as sex slaves. Even though exact numbers of females involved in the fighting in Sierra Leone remain unknown, estimates range from 10 to 50% of the armed factions. Even so, only 6% of the 75,000 adult soldiers in the DDR program were women. There are several presumed reasons for this because of its narrow definition of women's rules and armed conflict as victims rather than recognizing their gender identity transformation as a result of their rules in the armed conflict. Women largely avoided the DDR process as they didn't address their distinct needs or concerns. Many women were not eligible because they were required to turn in a gun. Many of them had to share weapons during the conflict. They're using alternate weapons such as a machete. Some commanders deliberately took weapons from the women and girls to preclude their eligibility in the DDR process. In other cases, the demarcation between child and adult was based on the international standards and didn't make sense in the local context. Many of the young women had already had children but were not considered adults by the community due to a certain traditional ceremonies not being completed. Yet they didn't consider themselves children either because they had a child of their own. So they fell into sort of a new man's land because of the same beauty. They also avoided the program altogether. So women were often sidelined out of post-conflict policies. Their training options, post-conflict, were often very gendered and not particularly lucrative. The stark contrast of the active and respective role they played in the rebel forces. There were situations where they were prevented from participating in the DDR program due to eligibility and they also feared community retaliation for participating. The overwhelming message from interviewees from this conflict were that there was no post-conflict for many female soldiers in Sierra Leone. Different forms of violence such as forced marriage, sexual exploitation and isolation continued despite the cessation of formal conflict. The DDR process, although internationally highly praised, primarily benefited men completely ignoring the specific needs of the women to be reintegrated into the community. So those are my examples that I wanted to share with you. Now back to the strategic level a little bit. I believe our ability to be honest with ourselves where you've had successes and where we still have challenges is imperative to making progress in this battle space. It's been said many times already during this conference that awareness is a challenge and it remains so from my perspective. It helps to have WPS champions and we do have a handful, including certain combatant commanders who recognize the value of applying a gender perspective. Internally though, we don't have enough awareness of WPS issues or priorities either in our leadership ranks or even within our action or ranks. There's training that happens but neither its curriculum requirements or funding is fully standardized. Institutionally, we need to recognize WPS as a priority to reach the kind of critical mass needed to affect real awareness across the department. We need to have WPS awareness be integrated into priorities, evolutions, departments, both across organizations and up and down the food chain from the strategic to the tactical levels from training through deeper education, research analysis and probing understanding. For such penetrating concepts to diffusion, I believe it would be ideal to adopt a model like the Navy did with risk assessments. There was a time when we weren't very smart about the risk that we took and we paid for it in blood and money. Now we don't do an evolution or undertake a venture in the Navy without doing a thorough risk assessment and having an educated discussion about the risks and benefits of any activity. Risk assessments are part of our culture now and they've saved many lives, limbs and money. The same concept diffusion should and could and should be done with WPS concepts. We've all heard of Pemissi, right? So imagine for a minute if instead of Pemissi, it was Pemissig, right? And, yeah, so for those of you that don't know, Pemissi is an acronym that is used when you're planning missions and to make sure that you cover all your bases, right? You've considered so Pemissi, political, military, economic, social, informational and infrastructure. So when you're planning strategically, when you're planning operations, you go through that checklist issue and you miss anything, right? Imagine if doctrinally, culturally, we applied gender perspective to everything that we did as well. That would be a mind shift. That would really indicate that we have, that concept diffusion that I was talking about. So there's many other things we could do, of course, institutionally we're considering. Having annual action plans that would require, that would provide structures, annual goals and efforts, developing key leader engagement strategies and holding seminars and conferences. As has already been discussed, we recognize the need to incorporate WPS in P&E as well as formalizing the training and command structure of our gender advisors and gender focal points. Always open to constructive criticism. So please let me know, contact me if you have any suggestions or if you just wanna brainstorm about ways that we can make this more part of our culture. So please give me a call. Always happy to entertain these conversations. It's been a great pleasure and honor participating in this conference with all of you. This is an excellent event that brings together professionals from across the community of interest to discuss successes and challenges in this very important field that is recognized so easily by some and to which some are so resistant. I look forward to continuing the dialogue with all of you. Thank you. Commander, and next we have Lieutenant Colonel Benett. Good afternoon, officer. So I have to stay on the phone. I don't have to start the phone. No, I have to. So good afternoon, everyone. I would like to first thanks the Naval War College and Mary for the invitation. It's very a great honor to be here today. Those platforms, I believe, are crucial to share best practices and challenge our ideas on the topic. I'm an artillery officer. One year ago, I started my journey in the gender world when I was assigned as the strategic gender advisor for the Canadian Armed Forces. I have to say that it's really been eye-opening at the past year for me. So in the next 15 minutes, I will provide you a strategic overview of the Canadian Armed Forces implementation of the WPPS portfolio. I'll try to do that, touching on a 360-degree approach, which may try to touch on the strategic, operational, and tactical level, both also internal tour forces and external to the area of operation. Quite to do so, I will first address in the first place the past 18 months where the chief defense staff, the CES, issues first direction on 13.5. And the second part of my presentation will be more a look at, a look at, based on the newly defense Canadian policy, defense policy that was released earlier. To do that, I will address some things. I will talk about the tool that we use with gender-based analysis clubs. I will talk about the strategic we employ. I will also talk about some outputs and outcomes and the way I do the defense policy. So first, let's talk about gender-based analysis clubs. So before I explain what it is, just buy a show of them who have heard about that before. That's good, thanks a few. Who have done the online course? Anyone? The gender-based analysis clubs, of course. Okay, so in Canada, the incorporation of the gender perspective is carried out through the commitment to gender-based analysis clubs. Gender-based analysis clubs or GBA clubs is an analytical tool used to assess the potential impacts of policy programs, sort of initiatives, and other initiatives on diverse groups of women and men taking into account gender and other identity factors. In 1995, the government of Canada committed to using GBA clubs to advance gender equality in Canada as part of the ratification of the United Nations region platforms for action. The plossing in the GBA plus highlights that gender goes beyond gender and include the examination of a range of other inter-syncing factors, like age, indication, language, geography, culture, income, physical visibility, et cetera. So if you want to know more about GBA plus and that Canadian Government Initiative online, Google GBA plus, and you can also take the course, it's an hour-long course, so I would be curious to see your comments about that course. This is a course that is given to all the government of Canada department that have to be taken, and there's also a couple of very interesting videos online. So if you Google GBA plus, go in the videos that you're using. So now let's talk about the strategy. So in January 2016, Chief of the Defense staff issues first direction on how to implement GBA plus and senior department. And his end state was that gender perspective with GBA plus become incorporated as a routine and common element of GAC activities. To support this, two lines of effort were identified. The first line of effort talks about operational effects. So it really focused on the integration of gender perspective into the planning, execution, and evaluation of the operation. It also include the initial education and training analysis, and the initial establishment of gender advisor. This line of effort has to be achieved by August 2017, so this one. The second line of effort talks about the institutional effects. So I will focus on embedding 1325 requirements into a path approach to leadership, management, command and control, including all the education, the policy, material acquisition, and so on and so forth. And this line of effort has to be achieved by March 2019. At the current stage, the strategic staff, which is myself, is working on a frag order. So supplementary order to the city's direction, to providing more direction, to taking on forces and how to implement the line of effort. Now let's talk about some outputs, or some of the key issues we have seen since the issue of the first directive of the CDS in 2016. And we can group them in four teams. One would be gender capacity, training and education, accountability and mechanism, and international engagement. So in terms of accountability, we obviously have came up forces that establish gender advisor positions. So there's three right now. One at a strategic level, two at the operational level, one for the spatial forces coming in, and one for the operational coming. So those gender advisors are full-time, employed, trained at NCGM in Sweden, and this is New York. We then also have allocated a champion. So she is a general two-star, I'm a general two-star, Tammy Harris, which is the GVA class and WPS champion. The good thing about having a champion is when I first was assigned in my position, I kind of asked her what exactly my role was in relation to her, and what she said is whenever you have a problem pushing your file, even though I report directly to the director of staff, so I have my own chain of command, I know I always had a champion to help me when I have any difficulty or encounter any resistance to pushing files. So it's, for that point of view, it was very helpful. We also established another position. It's a civilian position full-current equivalent with the director of integration agenda perspective, and she oversees the entire gain of forces integration agenda perspective. So she's my boss. And we finally have also included gender focal points, both in the institution, but also into operations from strategic to tactical. So this is the gender capacity we have. In terms of training and education, we included the GVA class as part of the common professional development program, both for non-commissioned members and also officers. We also rely on NCGM in Sweden for gender training, and we're currently looking at developing probably our national forces on gender. Thirdly, in terms of accountability, we are in the process to release our second edition of the National Action Plan. She'll be released in the next weeks or months, soon. Very soon. We also established the UNSCR-1325 implementation working group. So this working group is at a strategic level and the aim is really to collaborate in developing, implementing, monitoring, and reporting on the execution of the plan to integrate the requirement of the 1325. So it's chaired by myself, and we meet quarterly with all the L1 or the company that we can enforce it. We also have other initiatives, like the departmental GVA plus annual survey where we need to report on the progress of the implementation of GVA plus. And we also have some international engagement. One of the big ones recently was the My My Plus Chamber Conference where Canada hosted a three-day conference in Ottawa in May. Over 10 countries were present, and we really focused on the integration of gender perspective at the operational level in operation, and that was a platform really to share best practices at the working level and learning. So quickly, and one of the outcomes, so we've seen already some impact in the application of gender perspective in operation, and one of the great example was during the, in May 2017, during the Great Promise flooding, so they came in armed forces, were called to assist the civil, to call it the provincial government. And so one of the key steps to the success of implementation of gender perspective during this domestic operation was that from the start, the division commander in charge of the troops made it very clear in his mandate, and it is ordered to his troop that GVA plus will be applied into the planning and execution of this operation. But then they deployed gender focal point with civil and military cooperation, or SIMIT, on the ground so they could find in their, part of their gender street patrol, not only people who might be affected differently by the disaster, but who might access relief efforts differently as well. Then the division staff also used open sources to tool, to identify neighborhoods in the area of operation where high numbers of elderly residents with low income or single parents also, or linguistic minority were exactly located. And the SIMIT training, coupled with the GVA plus consideration, out there to identify those segments of the population, especially vulnerable to the flooding situation, who might be uniquely affected or have little access to support network. So by better understanding the difference of those, all those intersecting factor in the area of operation, like age, language, physical disability, familial situation, and all those factor were intersecting with the conduct of the operation, including the allocation of resources. The division were able to have a more comprehensive assessment of the problem and that their action plan to increase the effectiveness of the operation. It was observed that not all the local population in Quebec needed the same resources at the same time, at the same location, or delivered the same way. And this is why when we applied gender perspective, it enabled us to understand. Finally, if we look ahead and look at the Canadian, the Canada defense policy was released in May, if you wanna have a look at it, if you can Google, it's called strong, secure, and engage, Canada defense policy. And if you just Google control, F search, woman, peace, and security, it's very optimistic because there's a lot of mention in it. The defense policy really offered clear direction in Canadian defense priorities over a two year horizon. The policy is really ambitious and focuses first and foremost on the heart of the cat, the woman and the man who are the uniform. Policy says, well, working to implement and advance the WPS agenda will be an important aspect of Canada's international and very engagement in peace operation and in building the capacity of others, and quote. I just, I want to finish by, I like three of the main teams that are in defense policy and touch on the living piece. So one of them is, it talks about diversity. And it says that the policy says to promote diversity and inclusion as a core institutional value across the defense. The second one talks about increasing the percentage of women in the forces. Currently, Canadian armed forces have 15% of women. The NATO average of women is 11% of the military's other than a person. The CAF is now committed to increase the representation of women by 1% annually for a goal of 25% in the 10 years. This will not only contribute to a positive CAF culture change, but will also increase overall operational effectiveness. It will also directly address one of the key provisions of UNCR-1855 to increase the representation of women at all decision-making levels. And finally, it talks about integrating gender-based analysis plus that will allow to better understand the global security environment while achieving a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the root causes of conflict with a view of playing greater role in conflict prevention and minimizing the effect on prolonged conflict. GBA plus analysis is a key tool in the analysis of the security environment of an ongoing basis. So I guess in conclusion, the past 18 months and the key initiative that I've mentioned earlier were where I see the key enabler in this past 18 months and the success we had with it was directly linked to the enablers, was really linked to the buy-in and the engagement of the leadership from our prime minister to our minister of national defense to our chief of defense staff, sorry, and also to the involvement of our WPPS champion. If you look ahead, what my personal think and what team that we need to address is training. So that's basically it. I hope it really gave you a quick overview of what we've been doing the past 18 months and where we want to go in the next decade or so in terms of the WPPS curriculum. Thank you, Colonel. And next, we'll have Professor Villiches. Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the opportunity by the woman to be able to present this is that I hope I do feel very interesting in this exhibition. I will address two issues of the image of woman who the woman minister of defense in Spain. I analyzed the main newspaper and the graphic material to know the relevance of woman presence in high position of responsibility on security models. What is the ministry of defense in Spain? Spain is a democracy science 1977 after the dictatorship in our country. From this moment, a democratic model is a strongly held in which the sovereignty, sorry for my English, reside in the city center. Like any other democracy from its beginning, this one has been evolving, adapting to the new times. With the passion of time, the woman has been having more presence and his presence is relevant, more relevant. And in Spain, by means of the vote of the Congress of the deputies is contributed. The deputies who form intellect by vote which will be the president of the government. And this in short chooses the equipment of minister with which it go to work. In this term is where you choose who will be the minister of defense. The minister of defense was created with the first democratic government of Adolfo Suarez in July in 1977. And the former minister of the army, navy and air force. It is the only ministry of the democratic period that has kept its original name in all ministeries touring Korea to date. How does the ministry of defense work? The minister of defense in Spain according to different surveys is the most important of all ministry in the government. In Spain, the work carried out by the army force is one of the most important by the work of the public administration and this work is defense usually queries more recognition by the citizen and their population. The minister of defense is now usually a military person. He was only the first in the democracy when he was still in a period of transition. Usually the minister of defense is a civilian a politician and since 1977 the first we have had 15 minister of whom only two have been women, only two and in recent time is the chain, the adapting of the new time. The minister of defense in political area is one of the most considerate minister. This is because the minister in chair is usually not a minister who goes away. This ministry is usually well regarded with regard to citizen and population. It doesn't matter the home decision as much as does the art taking and international organization, alliance, etc. Decision are more the decision of other. In general, whenever minister are appointing intruders are often infected by those who occupy each ministry and we they are relevant by the media. There is always some guess as to reason why the candidate has been chosen. In the case of minister Chacon, the first minister woman by the media, the coverage and the amount of information was very great. The mayor present of the minister in act of the ministry was new, only the present. It was the first time this happened and also incondition and that made it even more striking. She was pregnant. In the second case with the minister of hospital, the actual minister, this still was not so great. The important thing in the second case is what no longer woman. That was a question is surpassed. This is minister Chacon. Chacon was born in Barcelona and did the last, the last agree. Was a lawyer and university professor rather than political. It's, I was had a close connection with the Socialist Party. On April, on April 2008, 7 month pregnant, she become the first minister of defense of Spain and the Spanish prime minister who agreed to a pregnant ministry. Which was with a sprint on the rest of Europe due to its exceptionality. Among her first, the decision was the visit to the Spanish truth of the Spanish detachment in her Afghanistan, this picture. The image reviving the truth, this picture, the truth in Afghanistan, 7 month pregnant become one of the icon, the icon of the government of the Jose Luis Rodríguez Tabatello. Tabatello had put a woman more traditional, masculine at the head of the ministry and had done it knowing that she was in the final stretch of her pregnancy. Note, the presence of women in the army, the presence of women in the army becomes more not disabled in this moment. Women in the military are the same, the number is the same, but now they appear more in the photographs and medium. We can see, or what? It's not usually a woman in military or photographs. She was 15, 17 years old when she was admitted to the position. She declared, she declared. Pregnant of note, I was clear that my first obligation was to visit those who are capable of putting their life at risk for higher values, the freedom of the audience. It is harder to be a casual and to stand it all day. I wanted to express the gratitude of society to those who take rest for their to be peace and brilliant and complete. Another relevant moment was with the military Easter. I don't know who translated this exactly. Military Easter. This is an official act, very careful, in which a minister without leaving the protocol. A pair of this red, a pair of this red in shadow, and not with a dress or was customary among women who attended this act. Worst player, never any of these women had been ministered, it's exceptionality. This is the now currently minister of defense, Maria Dolores de Cospedal. Maria Dolores de Cospedal was born in Madrid in 1965. He's a lawyer, a state lawyer, and Spanish policy, currently zero of the fame. She's in popular party, the more or less opposite. Now it's not the opposite, but it's different sense for a politic than a social party. The last of October in 2016, Mariano Rajoy was inaugurated as president of the government of Spain, and on the 3rd of November, announced the composition of his second executive with Maria Dolores de Cospedal being appointed minister of defense. On 4 November, she bought with her position in present of the king and talked of this as minister residing the defense portfolio from the hand of his predecessor, Pedro Morenez. She's the second woman in church after Carmen Chacob. And in this moment, I asked me what happened, what happened for this situation. I asked me, what is the glass ceiling? There are glass shillings, it's broken. In, what is the glass ceiling? It's glass ceiling is to the bailout limitation of the labor increase of the woman inside the organization. This is a ceiling that limits their professional career, difficult to overcome and that prevents them from further progress. It is invisible because there are no established or official social laws or device that boosts an explicit limitation on the labor career of women. The term glass ceiling warriors is supported in 1986, Wall Street Journal article in United States. The article described the invisible body espoused by highly skilled woman, worker who were enabled to reach the highest hierarchical levels in business world, regardless of their achievements and merit. Saint Ben, several scholars in sociology and other areas have described this content at reference to women's world science, women make up half of the world population that took away at this proportionality, low percentage of management position. Through the 15 years of work of the minister, Chacom, in the forefront of the Spanish politics, Carmen Chacom wanted to break the glass ceiling that prevents women from rising to first place in their careers. Chacom got in several areas in addition to begin with the first woman named the defense minister. She was also the first to arrive at the ministry while pregnant and in the second case, the ceiling was broken. It's more easy, it's super easy. Similarity or difference between two cases. Between the two women, has the defense portfolio holders, they can difference between two completely different side of government, really with the media, social, or no. In the analysis of the press material made from the main Spanish newspaper, the results are very interesting. The newspaper analysis have been, I don't know if you know El País, El Mundo, ABC, Spanish, and the Vanguard, the La Vanguardia. Offshoot newspaper has an analysis, the photograph that has a companion in the news rating. In all this news, that had the name of the one of the two ministers. The photograph of most cases were provided by the minister of the defense itself, or in one way or another, they were managed by the ministry. We find the mind referring to the minister Chacom, where the past majority refers to inmates, that seek to make strong their position as woman in the ministry. When in the side of the ministry Cospedal, the second, what we think is to generate a masculinity image, or more accepted, or politic. No, no, the news don't explain about she is a woman, and she is a woman in public position. Both ministers reflect very different image, although both being of different political party, it's important, it's fundamental, but have defended the position of woman with respect to having responsibility and security and the defense area, good for some. Of note, is the image of the ministry Chacom, revealing the Spanish trope in Afghanistan, Pregnance of Endmont, is the more important and the more replete. The image is iconic of what is the esteem of the minister by the ministry. It is the most reproduced and recognized image in the minister, the other most notable image is the style she wore in Atushedo at the minister at the military Easter, where usually these clothes were reserved for men and women wear long dress, usually. Both image are transgressor to the institutional system. On the death of Carmen Chacom, the head of defense hospital, said that she showed her respect to Chacom as a Spanish woman and also as a minister. It is through the minister Chacom, for whom the glassing is broken and the contribution of women is struggling him as the space of peace and international security from the Spanish state itself. Thank you, thank you for your attention. I thought to have come through it, some relevant idea on how women in a state work in peace and security. Thank you very much, I'm sorry for my English. Thank you, Professor Nes, we'll have five, the states. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. And I would like to thank all of you for your absolutely inspirational and empowering work in the field. And thank you Dr. Rahm for giving me an opportunity to share about Russia's women in peace and security experience. And I feel humbled, I'm going to be considered to present that this year for him. And please be patient with me. English is still my second language and I speak with an accent, so I'll speak slow and stick to this great. So I'm passionate about this subject because I was born and raised in Russia. My grandmother worked as a passport control officer at the local police department for over 30 years. My mother worked as an engineer at the satellite construction and testing plant in Siberia also for over 30 years. So we were part of women in peace and security experience in the Soviet Union and later up to the breakup of the Soviet Union in Russia. So my hope is that my knowledge and my research somehow contribute to the knowledge in the field of women peace and security and help us to explore new venues for cooperation between our countries in Russia, engaging Russian women. Russian cultural attitudes historically and currently dictate the role of women's role in peace and security. And knowledge of Russia's history and national identity enable us to adopt culture-sensitive policies that would empower Russian women and effectively engage them in the process of peace and security and national stability. And it will allow us to operationally to advance our agenda, our goal, amplify women peace and security agenda. So I'll begin with explanation of how cultural attitudes of the patriarch of society as Russia is shaped the status and role of women, focusing on two words, a love and need. And these two words, how to explain the reality that cultural attitudes in Russia are primary found on traditional Russian Orthodox Church. And the last point would be that cultural attitudes are very slow to rule, but the new trends, they are developing and trending in a new way, challenging the tradition and challenging the perspectives in the society because there is a need. And that need allows women to take more active part in the society. And similar to women in other countries as we've heard during the conference, Russian women participate in different activities of the state. However, the difference is the motivation and commitment of the government and perspective of the majority in Russia regarding women in the society. And this kind of perspective and everything is depends on cultural attitudes of the patriarchal society that shape status and role of women. In Russia, women allow to participate in diplomacy, intelligence, military, economy when there is a need to fill the gap due to lack of capable men to do their job. According to Rostov, the Russia's Federal Statistics Service as of January 2016, women comprise 54% of the total population of Russia. The Russian government, faced with the demographic and current economic crisis, recognizes the need to allow women to participate in the fields that historically have been traditionally male fields as military, heavy industry government. However, only few women can reach some sort of decision-making position in the government or in the military or any other fields, any other organizations. And according to the deputy prime minister of Russian Federation, woman Olga Golodets, women in Russia are more educated than men but still face discrimination in the workforce. And for example, 37% of women in Russia have a college education, which is 8% higher than men. However, women's salary is still at the 73% of men's, even though women work much harder to achieve any high positions and performing double duty at home and at work. And such discrimination is due to traditional perception of women in the society and role in the society, which is a man is to be a breadwinner and a woman is to take care of the household and the family in addition to to seek for career advancement. And growing up in Russia, like I witnessed how my mother or our friends, it was challenging for my mother to balance work and home, working full-time, taking care of us and managing the entire household. My brother and I grew up in a state-run, big-care school, summer camps. I turned out okay, I think. But women in Russia indeed are very resilient. Yet historically and currently women in Russia are gross land that represented traditional positions of power and still face many discrimination and challenges. And why is that? That brings a second point. To explain the complexity of Russia's women's peace and security experience, it is necessary to provide a historical background, the root of such traditional perspectives and challenges. Cultural attitudes in Russia are mainly found on the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, since the introduction of Christianity to Kiev's Garrus in the ninth century. The church defined primary role of a woman as a pious and supportive wife and a good mother responsible for rearing children and managing the household. But there was a need to keep order in the state and in the family movement. And the church teaching to fear God and endure sufferings became an instrument of Tsarist powers, enforcement of demonstrable, which is literally building of the household and the management of the household. Has endured in Russia since 16th century when it was first introduced, shaping cultural perspective and cultural attitudes. The most we describe the ideal family in its management where everyone knew his or her role and it brings a God fearing wife had to be obedient to her husband at all times, follow his instructions and could be disciplined if not compliant. And this demonstrate was currently resurrected by the church and the government during the recent debate over the criminalization of domestic violence law early this year that Professor Bird's mentioned in her presentation yesterday. So that was the base and that was the foundation. And for our history, when leaders recognized that national peace and security were closely connected to empowerment of women to seek education and to find their voice in the society, stability and prosperity of the state in its allies' fold. And one of the most significant demonstrations of the empowerment of women was during the rule of Tsar Peter the Great. He desired to see Russia equal to European great powers and therefore there was a necessity for women's participation. There was a need that, again, the need of women participation in the society. And they were allowed to pursue education and live in many areas of the society. And Tsar Peter's initiatives resulted in the age of the emperor's rule in Russia that up to his death in early 18th century, six emperors who defied cultural attitudes and even rebelled against the church rules, they ruled the nation for nearly a century, advancing that vision that Peter the Great established at the beginning of his rule. And after emancipation observes, in 1861 followed by industrialization and organization in Russia, many emancipated peasants moved from villages to cities. Women's labor at that point contributed to manufacturing, expanding commerce, social services. A greater number of women became teachers, doctors, factory workers. They became politically engaged in the society, actively participated in protests, political meetings which ignited the revolution that changed the world. And the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 empowered women to push for legal equality. Women became, women were able to vote. They had access to education and employment. And that changed cultural attitudes and perspective on Russia. Everyone in the Soviet Union became equal, equal commerce dedicated to spread communism and socialism around the world, while still rebuilding the nation, all of them together. And they decried the Russian Orthodox Church and declared church as an enemy of state. During the World War II, women contributed significantly to the war efforts. When there was a need, women were called to arms, took leadership of the factories and plants, collected farms, worked double shifts to simply to meet the needs of the war. Many served as nurses in the battlefield and became active combatants. And the Soviet government prided itself in the liberation and empowerment of women. Nevertheless, the communist party policies throughout the entire Soviet Union period, addressing women issues were absolutely inconsistent. The policies reflected more of the agenda of the party, more than women's issues. And that became the trend in Russian society for the next century. And the last point, the cultural attitudes are slow to evolve, but changes are trending in a new way. And since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the level of women participation in the society is slowly changing. In September, 1999, the president of Russia approved the decree allowing women to serve in the military as a volunteer force. Conspiracy service in Russia, it's still required only for men. And according to Russia's ministry of defense, currently there are 45,000 women serving the military, which is approximately 10% of total military volunteer forcing in Russia. Women are allowed to serve in every military branch, if there is vacancy and at the discretion in need of the ministry of defense. And the majority of women in all branches of the military are still in the support role, such as nurses, doctors, in communications, logistics, information technology. Similar to other nations' militaries, women are not allowed to serve on summaries. However, the reason for that, for the absence of female in the Russian Navy is different. Russia does not need women to serve on the summaries, because what? Because there are enough highly educated and trained men who are capable of serving and performing their duties. And this comment of Rea Admiral Viktor Pachymosov, director of military training of Russia's Navy reflects a common perspective about women's participation in the service and military. Women are allowed and can assist when the reasoning, instead of extending equal opportunities to serve the country and people. And many male leaders still do not understand no city benefit of having women serving in their units. So also, женские вопрос, which is women's question, very popular word in Russia. Russian term for a broad range of policies on women issues has reemerged on government agendas. The process of empowering women and fully engage them in state, in every kind of activity of the state is a very slow process. Russia is yet to join 66 nation states which have already adopted national election plan to fulfill the provisions of UN Resolution 1325. However, there is a positive step in the right direction in Russia. There is hope. On the International Women's Day, still observed in Russia on March 8th, 2017, the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, signed the national strategy of actions in the interest of women for the period 2017-2022. Additionally, it is Russia's Ministry of Defense together with Ministry of Education slowly change cultural attitudes. They allegedly invest in patriotic education of the U.S. in addition to military training of the U.S. So that also includes girls. This trend started in 2008 when the president of Russia signed an executive order allowing girls to study at the historical called Voice Military Boarding Schools and Accountants. Shortly thereafter, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Education established the first and only military boarding school for girls. It's called Molska Kadev School, officially Boarding School of Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. And in addition to this new trend, enabling girls to receive the best education from those military schools and academies. So in addition to this, enabling them to receive the best education and to expand their opportunities, the Russian government resurrected the idea of youth operating in education through indoctrination, similar to Soviet Union pioneers and council members that are responsible. So that was very familiar to me and that's a kind of alerted me. There is something new happening. So culturally, the younger generations are more enthusiastic about the youth trends, especially if something was not previously allowed and capitalizing on this enthusiasm. In late 2016, the Ministry of Defense established the National Youth Patriotic Movement, Yunaria, which is Young Harvey. Currently more than 100,000 Russian teenagers, 11 through 18 years old, boys and girls alike. Learning about national interests, history, security, receive military training, holding like summer camps in the military exercises. All together. The girls embrace such opportunities because they love them to do what boys do and which changes cultural attitudes now. And these girls and boys, they are future decision makers and they potentially can lead to a more active participation of women and men alike in a women visit and security process. So in conclusion, all this historical and current trends in Russia confirmed that Russian cultural attitudes, historically and currently, dictate Russian women's role in peace and security. The cultural attitudes primary found on tradition of Russian Orthodox Church, which once again evolved from the enemy of the state to the instrument of the state that passionately advocates traditional values and still influences policies and public opinion. The Russian reality confirms that cultural attitudes are slow to change. However, changes are trending in a new way. Women are allowed to serve in the military, government, work in predominantly male industries and have a better education and employment opportunities because there is a need to fill a gap in a manpower. And this knowledge enables us to explore new venues for cooperation between Russia and our countries, effectively in the Russian women's peace process in the process of peace and security and which allows us to achieve our goal, amplify women's peace and security agenda. Thank you. And Spicey, side note for my 15 minutes that probably are over. Every issue, like in mass media, like this is the issue of Minister of Defense Publication and they celebrated in me, they celebrated the Unatomia, they celebrated one year anniversary. All the pictures specifically picture girls, more girls than the boys, just to show that they still think in this way, we need to really bring women on board, bring girls on board. And yes, there is that propaganda and indoctrination and everything, so we'll see how that will play out. But there is a venue for us to really engage them in the process in a right way, in an effective way that contributes to peace and security in the world. So thank you. And if you're interested, you're more than welcome to move. Thanks. Okay, we'll open it now for some questions. Mary. So Anna, I know you just finished talking, but I'm going to ask you a question. Sure. I really enjoy the word of it. So I teach the history of women and war in combat here. And some of the best examples of female lawyers come out of Russia. In particular, Maria, and I don't know how to say her name, Maria Batskareva during World War I, not because she formed the Russian women's battalions of death. To me, that's the most uninteresting thing she did. The fact that she fought in the front lines with men as the only female was very interesting. Lillian lit back the white rose of Russia and the night witches from World War II. So I was wondering in Russia, are they considered heroines? Or as time goes on, do they disappear through propaganda? In other words, they're not important anymore. I know Maria Batskareva fought for the white army, so I don't think the communist system would appreciate her. So I'm just wondering, are there female heroines there to talk about? Absolutely. And they still, in Russia, it's still especially now that the government really adopted that patriotic upbringing and almost that on the borderline with nationalism. It's not full blown nationalism yet because Russian people tell me we cannot be nationalistic because we have a lot of different ethnicities and nations live in our country. But yet it kind of going that way, which is a danger. But they bring back that history. They needed people to know the history. And absolutely, there are so many, especially during the Victory Day celebration. There are so many really, in every venue of mass media and in the cities and the local level, those that find the heroes and talk to them because not many left. And I grew up on the military base in Russia. And our field trips were to the barracks. Our conferences worked with the heroes of World War II. So that's the reason Trent resurrected the same idea. And if you saw any military parades in Russia, especially on May 9th, the Victory Day in Russia, those who left, they are still there upfront, together with the president, together with all the dignitaries. So yes, it is very much resurrected. I think it was the period when everything was a kind of slow, but now it's the new wave of patriotism for nationals. You can hear the same very similar notes. So many similarities, it's amazing, whether this information is widely available or also a question that people are actually asked in the context of the role of communism, which I'm so curious about as well. As a former communist country where Gendry Folly, as you said, was such a point of pride and such an emphasis, is there now, do you think, a sort of rejection of implementing policies like that because of the association with communism social, like by the government that is seen sometimes in other former communist countries where there will be sort of a rejection of those ideas because they're seen as values that are not one. As I mentioned, thank you. As I mentioned that I don't see it's, they see it as a resurrection of communist ideas or something. The attitude, they're realizing we have more women than a society and we have so many gaps in every industry, everywhere where we need to fill those gaps. And that's when there is that from that realization, they bring women into every area in every field. So that's my understanding, but going into like how I do research and what I see and especially when I started talking with Dr. Rahm about this conference and what is the Russian, Russia's experience, it was extremely difficult to find anything in English. So I went to the Russian sources and it's mainly what is published, what is the current events, current use and that's what research and analysis as the professor pointed later, like mass media is propaganda. So even there is information there, you still have to, you need to sift through what is propaganda, pure propaganda and what is really what's going on. So if there are similar things in different sources, you take it and you analyze and you see and you compare. So that was pretty much what I did. And that's why I said that my research is mainly based on the Russian sources. So hope I answered the question because they, I don't know, that's what people are talking about resurgent of communism and I don't think that it would be the case. It's more really totalitarian regime but not different from communism. So and women are considered the force, like the working force that can produce so much and we need to capitalize that, we need to utilize that to advance our agenda and that's what a lot of women in the government, it's only like six, seven percent in the government in both upper and lower branch of the government. They are used as megaphones for advancing the government's agenda and the Russian Orthodox Church is also used as an instrument, as I said, as an instrument of the government power to really push that agenda and influence the policies and that's what domestic violence, the departmentalization of domestic violence law was heavily engaged Russian Orthodox Church that shaped that perspective. Women role is in house, not that they are against them to go in the workforce but they need to figure out their priorities and stay them straight. So that's the basic attitude and a very short, brief way to explain it. Thank you, I'll go over here next. Thank you, it really holds me free with inclusive security. My question is for Colonel Beggin, thank you so much for your presentation. First of all, I wanted to congratulate you and Canada on your gender plus training, we often say that women's peace and security is not just about women, it's about also an entry point to other marginalized voices versus women directly in these processes, so real kudos to Canada that you guys are demonstrating that with your gender plus training. My question is about Canada's natural action plan. As I'm sure you know, there's often some controversy around NAFs and whether or not they're effective or if they're the best policy mechanism for implementing this agenda, the most common criticism being that they can often be window dressing. So I wanted to ask you if you could reflect maybe a little bit on some of the, what you see as some of the successes and failures of Canada's NAF, especially as you're now on the verge of watching your second. Well thank you for that question. With my one year experience in my last session, I'll try to give you the best answer as I can. What I've seen is I, when I arrived last year in the position, we're starting the process of writing our new national action plan. So I've participated in that past year and they're writing the new national action plan. One thing I've seen, one of the challenges is when you think about evaluation and does that really work. So I find that we're really good at, when we look at measure of performance, we're really good at how many people left the training, how many numbers, numbers, numbers. Where the challenge is, is when we look at measure of effectiveness and that's not only for national action plan, that's for pretty much in my opinion, it can apply to everything. Measure of effectiveness is really hard to show and demonstrate. And this is where, in my opinion, we're struggling with. So even though we have, let's say, 75% of all the courses that do that courses online, are they applying it in the planning of their version? And are they applying it correctly? And if they apply it correctly, does that really increase our operational effectiveness? So this is, in my opinion, the challenge. One thing that I've seen from the first edition of the national action plan to the second edition is we are, in the second edition, we are devising the action plan by annexes. So the Department of National Defense and the Canadian Armed Forces will have its own annex so we can focus on tasks more precisely to DND and CAF, so when it's time to evaluate and report on it, it's four to five themes, governance, training, and so on and so forth. So I guess it won't make us more or less comfortable, but maybe a little clearer to look at who's in charge of what in terms of reporting and reporting on the national action plan. I'm not sure if that is from your question or not. Thank you. Great. Thank you. I just want to have a question for you again. Could you mention your internal processes for natural disasters? I'm just curious to know how it was being implemented for the first wildfire. Thank you for your question. So it's really the way we work and the way we received those, we were able to see those effects on the ground is by the employment of gender focal points. So when we stood up that direct directive in January 16, the operational level developed a structure of gender focal points, which are individual that are identified in every organization, as dual-added as their job is, they have their primary job, their secondary job is to look at integrating gender perspective. So having those gender focal points from a strategic to practical level is one of the key enablers that help us to integrate gender perspective when it's time for domestic operation like the flooding, fireworks. At this stage it's a little bit early to give you all the findings of if we apply it and what were the operational effectiveness, but the gender advisor, the operational level is currently in liaison with the gender focal point, which is in Victoria right now, working at consolidating all the data. So I'll be more than happy to share with you the findings when the fires are ended and we can consolidate concrete examples out of it. And science that we're also trying to do, develop micro-learning videos out of those examples so we can use that and train our own forces because I find that the best way to train our military personnel is to show concrete practical example of gender perspective. So we're trying to do one right now on the flooding situation. I'm not sure when it's gonna be ready, but I'm open, I'm really happy to share that with you when it's gonna be produced. Nice, thank you. Go back. Port of command, Mayor. Mr. Dan, what's your biggest challenge when it comes to the WPS? Thank you for that question. So, like I mentioned, I've been doing this since April's when I checked on board and took over for Elaine who did a phenomenal job with little resources. As I mentioned, I'm an action officer for the joint staff and OSD is kind of going through some manning challenges as is the rest across the whole of government right now. We're seeing a lot of gaps and so I would say probably the resources of time, time, money and people to devote to this battle space is probably one of the biggest challenges, three of the biggest challenges. Because I think there's a lot that needs to be done, there's a lot that can be done, but it requires, you know, brain power, bandwidth. And so really finding the time to devote to that is challenging. I think there's a lot that can be done, but there's only so many hours in the day and there's only so many people working on it at this level. Anyone else raise their hands? Nope. So Maria, your study, the reason I chose that study is I just thought it was interesting that you were looking at women defense ministers. So I was curious and I haven't been able to ask you, are you also looking at the business sector, whatever sorts of interests you have in terms of the female population and the country? In the business sector, the woman is more present than in the public administration. It's, the number is higher and the position is more around. We have women in the head of the more important bank financial sector is more relevant in Spain, but now in this moment, we have to surprise the economic crisis. That position is very important for to improve the rate of the state and it's a hard woman. And in the public administration there are, we have a lot of pressure on women. It's not 50-50 with men, but it's not like a business sector. In the business sector, it's have a percent of government more higher than in the public administration or local. It's a great thing. Thank you for the question. All right, please join me in thanking panel seven.