The Army has responded to claims that female soldiers don’t want to be known as guardsmen by saying it is “open” to new ideas about the naming of ranks.
All privates in the Foot Guards are known as guardsmen, even though it is not an official rank, whether they are men or women.
That includes soldiers in the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Grenadier and Coldstream Guards - the elite infantry units of the Household Division who protect the Queen and her family. They serve as regular soldiers and are frequently deployed to the front line, while also serving the ceremonial role of guarding the Royal family and palaces wearing red tunics and bearskin hats.
However, the call for a change to the title of guardsmen reportedly came from members of the Household Division.
One woman told the Army Servicewomen’s Network, an internal organisation for supporting female soldiers, that she was “so tired of being called a man every day”, according to The Sun.
“Does anybody know if the rank of guardsman is going to change soon?” she reportedly asked.
Controversy has raged in the other branches of the Armed Forces over gendered terms, with the RAF last year dropping the catch-all terms airman and airwoman in favour of “aviator”.
In 2020, the Royal Navy was said to be pushing staff to move away from “gendered language” such as unmanned, in favour of uncrewed, however, it has not ditched the term seaman when referring to ratings.
No groundswell of anger against terminology
The decision caused a minor row at the time, with unnamed high-ranking officers criticising it as a distraction from defending the nation.
The Royal Canadian Navy announced plans two years ago to remove the phrase seaman from all of its junior ranks, replacing it with the term sailor. A spokesperson said at the time that the Canadian Navy needed “to reconsider some few rank titles that are rich in history, but perhaps not reflective of the modern, progressive service that is the RCN today.”
An army insider told The Telegraph that it wouldn’t reject the idea out of hand, but said there had not been a groundswell of anger against the terminology.
An Army spokesperson said: “We value every soldier within the Army and remain open to different views and opinions on the naming of ranks. It is the quality and diversity of our people that gives the British Army its unique edge”.
Women have only been allowed to hold front-line combat roles since 2018. Nevertheless, there is already a significant number in the Household units, which includes the five guards regiments and the two regiments of the Household Cavalry.
Kingsmen and riflemen remain
Last Thursday, Major Lauren Petritz-Watts directed the band of the Welsh Guards - she is the first female musical director for a regiment of the Foot Guards.
When the decision to allow women into combat roles was first made in 2017, a “deep and comprehensive” consultation was undertaken ahead of women joining the unit. This found that women preferred to keep the historic term guardsman.
Other units with gendered titles include the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, whose soldiers are known as kingsmen, and the Rifles, which has riflemen.
Members of the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers are known as craftsmen, although in January of last year the corps reportedly began investigating replacing the term with a gender-neutral alternative.
A leaked memo at the time said it was an “opportunity” to “remain appropriate, relevant and attractive to soldiers in the future”.
