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Sexual (mis)conduct in the Canadian forces
Abstract
This essay compares findings of Marie Deschamps’ 2015 report on sexual harassment and assault in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) with my earlier 1990s study of gender integration in the CAF. Both demonstrate that CAF culture is sexualized and misogynistic. Deschamps argues that changing this culture is a pre-requisite for addressing sexual misconduct. But is such cultural change possible if the CAF’s mandate and principal organizational features remain unchanged? I argue that (1) gendered military culture is grounded in the CAF’s hierarchal social structure, disciplinary system, and conditions of service designed to achieve operational effectiveness; and (2) the CAF’s normalized atmosphere of sexualized hostility to women soldiers originates in tensions within the military’s internal relations of domination designed to preclude soldiers’ resistance and ensure that they enter harm’s way to execute the military’s mandate of state-sponsored lethal violence. As long as these hold, the problem of sexual misconduct may remain intractable.
... For instance, the average representation of women in national armed forces of NATO member nations in 2020 was 13% (NATO, 2020). Moreover, the military's culture and organizational structure remain largely defined by notions of masculinity and are resistant to change (Kovitz, 2021;van Douwen et al., 2022). The lack of significant cultural change accords with a growing consensus among scholars that progress toward gender equality in Western militaries has stalled (Duncanson & Woodward, 2016;Kovitz, 2021;Pendlebury, 2020;Portillo et al., 2021;Taber, 2020). ...
... Moreover, the military's culture and organizational structure remain largely defined by notions of masculinity and are resistant to change (Kovitz, 2021;van Douwen et al., 2022). The lack of significant cultural change accords with a growing consensus among scholars that progress toward gender equality in Western militaries has stalled (Duncanson & Woodward, 2016;Kovitz, 2021;Pendlebury, 2020;Portillo et al., 2021;Taber, 2020). ...
... Common to extremely gendered organizations are deeply ingrained hegemonically masculine norms. Thus, gender reform policies are often viewed as a threat to the core masculine identity and can be resisted by those within the organization (Kovitz, 2000(Kovitz, , 2021Sasson-Levy, 2011). Although van Douwen et al. (2022) argue that cracks are beginning to show in the hegemonic masculine identity of the military, resistance to change is still enacted through a variety of subtle, discursive, and sometimes contradictory processes that are difficult to identify and disrupt (Sasson-Levy & Amram-Katz, 2007;van Douwen et al., 2022;Wilén & Heinecken, 2018). ...
Militaries have consistently struggled to integrate women into the profession of arms despite concerted, decades‐long attempts at reform. We argue that this patchy progress is due in part to a conceptualization of gender as “category”, which has limited power to explain gendered inequalities. We propose that gender as process approaches must also be used to understand the current state of gender relations within militaries. A gender as process approach recognizes the dynamic, enduring, and complex set of gendered practices and systems that affect everyday interactions and social relations. Using this frame, militaries can develop an understanding of how these processes operate—particularly, as a form of resistance to gender equality in these “extremely gendered organizations”—and can develop improved strategies for change. We use the Australian Defence Force as our case study to illustrate how gender as category approaches dominate reform attempts and how the gender as process approach offers new insights on how to promote gender equality in the military.
... institutional abuse, martial masculinities, military institutional abuse, military sexual assault, military sexual trauma Military institutional abuse must be understood as gendered, masculinized, and martial (Kovitz, 2000(Kovitz, , 2021. ...
... As in broader society, men experience the most significant threat from other men as do women and children. Kovitz (2021) describes the military as a conflict zone for women; it is also a risky environment for men but in structurally different ways. We argue that we must understand the relations of masculinities behind military institutional abuse to improve women's safety and others, including other men in the military. ...
... These elements are not heavily questioned; instead, the focus is on easing men into a new understanding of gender in the military to not generate resentment and backlash. Kovitz (2021Kovitz ( , 2000 explains the tendency to focus on policy or administration rather than culture in the Canadian context. The ADF has recognized this focus more recently (Orme, 2011, p. 4). ...
Since its inception, the Australian armed forces, like all five eye military nations, have been challenged by the phenomenon of violence within the institution. Militaries are institutions of and for violence. The imperative of violence cultivates all service personnel through their initial training and then ongoing roles. This article assesses 4 decades of significant Australian military inquiries around the question of internal institutional violence, including bullying, sexual assault, sexual harassment, hazing, and bastardization. We define this as “military institutional abuse,” which represents a new term for describing this phenomenon that allows for a deeper understanding of institutional gendered and martial culture. The aim is to provide the first overview of military institutional abuse within the Australian military. We argue that military institutional abuse is not an anomaly but endemic to the military institution. In the last decade, there has been a significant activity around gender reforms, changing the alcohol culture and the tribal forms of masculinity associated with it. The question of how the military has responded to this phenomenon illuminates better avenues of cultural reform and responds to the problematic question, “to what extent can this authoritarian institution liberalize”?
... This study speaks to and lends support to research conducted by Kovitz (2018), who suggests that the Canadian military possesses a cultural working environment that is "sexualized and misogynistic" (p. 1), further referring to it as a "conflict zone for women" (p. ...
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) have continuously struggled to address female inclusion and concerns surrounding inappropriate behaviour, sexual violence, and discrimination within its ranks. In recent years there have been different missions directed at understanding and responding to issues of sexual misconduct and toxic work culture within the CAF. Unfortunately, these programs have not adequately captured or mitigated these issues, and the current academic literature lacks lived experiences that could inform such policies and mitigations. As a corrective, this study sought to provide an account of lived experiences of these issues. This phenomenological case study utilized snowball sampling to recruit 55 female CAF veterans for one-on-one in-depth semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis followed three research questions that surrounded: 1) Leadership, 2) Segregation and Demeaning Treatment Towards Integration, and 3) Violence and Inappropriate Behaviour. This study should be of interest to Canadian and other national forces looking to enhance their understanding of the issues faced by female veterans.
... Military personnel through their training and service reshape their sense of self and the desecration of this self leads to identity wounds which they can carry into their transition to civilian life. Our approach will assert that understanding how MIA leads to suicide in the ADF requires an engagement with gender research; in particular, masculinity studies (see Bulmer and Eichler 2017;Kovitz 2021). ...
... Employees, sometimes, are required to meet sexual demands of superiors and peers to stay afloat and maintain their jobs (Kim et al., 2016;Kleppe & Røyseng, 2016;Niriella et al., 2015;North, 2016). Often-for example at military work setting-power differential puts the victims in a position from where the victims can only accept their fate (Kovitz, 2018). Also, though SH is pervasive in different work settings, only a small number of victims report to higher authorities (Camargo, Liu, & Yousem, 2017;Chowdhry, 2010;Herrera, Herrera, & Expósito, 2014;Kleppe & Røyseng, 2016;Syarifah & Sharifah, 2015). ...
Purpose: Globally, sexual harassment is a burgeoning issue, which has been witnessed everywhere. Gripping the gravity of its significance, the present study sets forth to explore the reasons of sexual harassment in organizational settings. Methods: Following the three-stage approach, a systematic review of the available literature was done extensively. A list of 3380 articles published from 2010 to 2019 were derived from widely explored databases, such as Taylor and Francis Online, Science Direct, JSTOR and Emerald Insight. 67 studies were selected from the list based on their relevance and suitability. Results: From the extensive literature review, it is revealed that there are five dominant reasons for the widespread sexual harassment, namely ‘inadequate governmental laws and organizational policies,’ ‘perceptions and attitudes,’ ‘male dominance’, ‘power differentials and organization structure’ and ‘cultural influence’. Implications: To abate its further disastrous consequences, the present research proposes some intervention by linking the current observation with the previous empirical and theoretical studies. Directions for the future research are also provided.
The present research examined how military sexual misconduct (MSM) impacts the perceived experiences of unit cohesion in a sample of woman-identifying Canadian military Veterans. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 veterans, asking questions about deployment-related factors (e.g., rewarding/challenging aspects). Although MSM was not explicitly probed for, it was widely discussed in relation to participants’ experiences of unit cohesion. Thematic analysis yielded three themes describing participants’ perceived feelings of unit cohesion—value, acceptance, and unity. In contexts where MSM was present, participants described feelings of being undermined, resulting in a degraded experience of unit cohesion. In contexts where MSM was absent, participants described value, acceptance, and unity as being improved, as well as an enhanced experience of unit cohesion. These findings provide an exploratory model by which to consider the impact of MSM on the gendered experience of unit cohesion.
Government bodies housed in Canada are not void of their own systemic issues. The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is not any different possessing a traditionally gendered patriarchal white dominant culture that is resistant to the integration and inclusivity of women (Davis 2013; 2009; 2006; Deschamps 2015; Vining 2012; Gouliquer 2011). Kovitz (2018) suggests that the Canadian military is “sexualized and misogynistic” (1) and also referred to it as a “conflict zone for women” (Kovitz 2000:2). Recently, the Canadian military has been faced with several class action law suits surrounding issues regarding experiences with gender and sexual misconduct.
This qualitative, exploratory research study inductively investigates military culture highlighting the view that women in the Canadian military space continue to experience systemic issues relating to the gender power differential and systemic discrimination, lack of integration, and sexually inappropriate behaviour from members within the Canadian military. A total of 55 interviews were conducted with women who once served in the Canadian military to gain insight on these highly sensitive, yet timely systemic issues surrounding gender. These women give voice to the systemic (in)visible injustices t they faced while serving in the CAF. A Theoretical explanation, such as Social Constructionism, is superimposed on the data to help navigate a better understanding of the gendered spaces within the military and explore how issues of equality, equity and social justice are understood. Finally, recommendations and insight into policy are discussed.
Violence in the military refers to hazing, bastardization, sexual assault and rape – violence by military personnel against other personnel. That violence has a long history and is entangled in military tradition, ritual and formal doctrine. Contemporary militaries face a key challenge posed by social change – organizational diversity. This chapter provides theoretical and empirical evidence for making sense of violence within the military. The notions of male fraternity and military masculinities are employed to explain this phenomenon. Moreover, violence in the military and military culture have become increasingly scrutinized in a historical period where liberal democracy is itself increasingly under scrutiny and resistance. How the military addresses such organizational violence and diversity is a study of the liberal potential of authoritarian institutions.
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Western military institutions are reforming to enhance gender inclusion. This imperative is driven by the need to sustain a volunteer force in a society with rapidly changing values coupled with a recognition that sustainability and legitimacy requires diverse representation from the community from which they draw their human resources. Our recent research has considered the changing character of the Australian Defence Force (ADF)’s disposition towards women, and discourse of gender and gender reform. In this paper we critically evaluate these discourses on gender equality across the ADF and outline the salient ideas and claims within institutional reviews and in academic papers written by ADF soldier–scholars. Our purpose is to interrogate current ways of framing and articulating key ideas on gender, sexuality, and equality to scrutinize the implications for the ADF’s stated purpose of creating a gender-inclusive workplace. We find that the driving functional imperative of military effectiveness limits and shapes the extent to which the ADF can become a genuinely gender-inclusive workplace.
This article considers how, in the light of contemporary military transformations, feminist theorizing about women’s military participation might be developed to take account of an emergent reality: the inclusion of increasing numbers of women in a range of roles within armed forces. A brief overview of established debates within feminist scholarship on women’s military participation is provided, and we explore the trajectory of feminist strategies for change within both militaries and other institutions. The promise and limitations of mainstreaming gender into security institutions, as a consequence of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, are discussed. The article argues that existing feminist critiques often remain deterministic and have too readily dismissed the possibilities for change created by women’s military participation, given the context of military transformations. Drawing on the idea of the regendered military, the article presents a conceptual strategy for considering how feminist theorizing about the gender–military nexus can take seriously women’s military participation while remaining alert to feminist political goals of gender equality, peace and justice.
War is a highly complex and dynamic form of social conflict. This new book demonstrates the importance of using sociological tools to understand the changing character of war and organised violence. The author offers an original analysis of the historical and contemporary impact that coercion and warfare have on the transformation of social life, and vice versa. Although war and violence were decisive components in the formation of modernity most analyses tend to shy away from the sociological study of the gory origins of contemporary social life. In contrast, this book brings the study of organised violence to the fore by providing a wide-ranging sociological analysis that links classical and contemporary theories with specific historical and geographical contexts. Topics covered include violence before modernity, warfare in the modern age, nationalism and war, war propaganda, battlefield solidarity, war and social stratification, gender and organised violence, and the new wars debate.
As an epilogue to the present volume, this article picks up its central themes. It elaborates some of the main points about casualty aversion that are made in the preceding contributions. At the same time, by adding its own themes and insights, this article is complementary in character. It focuses on how a “good” military death is defined by cultural scripts and how, in accordance with those scripts, death is dealt with by the military organization and its guild of experts. Cultural scripts change over time and may differ from one society to another. As a consequence, the practices of dealing with military death may differ too. Generally speaking, though, military organizations throughout the West echo the ways in which casualties nowadays are looked upon by parent societies.
The inclusion of women in the U.S. military is generally understood as radically transforming traditional gender relations. Drawing from 38 interviews with women and men in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, I ask: how do women negotiate gender identities within the "masculine" military institution, and what types of transformations in their gender ideology and practices does this negotiation entail? I find that ROTC women's transformative agency is limited by the cultural imperative of performing gender. That is, because their very identities as women are called into question in the military sphere, ROTC women must privilege traditionally feminine aspects of themselves in order to maintain a coherent sense of self. Through this process, these women ultimately reproduce traditional femininity and male privilege.
In Finland more than 80% of the male population participates in military service. Going to the army is an important step in the transition to male adulthood and a period for further education. This paper explores reflections on the army of 20‐year‐old men, some of whom have it already behind them and some others with their military service forthcoming. The focus is on exploring the kinds of masculinities that are constructed when talking about experiences or expectations. The paper suggests that, when talking about the army, male bonds are established which unite men from different cultural, educational and social backgrounds, as well as different generations. This communality is discussed in relation to differences. I concentrate on the making of differences due to the formal hierarchies within the army, between men and the women who participate in military service and between Finns and immigrants in the army. The final discussion is on attitude, endurance and the construction of ‘proper’ masculinity. The paper draws from interviews of 21 young men conducted in a longitudinal, ethnographically grounded study on youth transitions.
This article examines the construction of hegemonic masculinity within the US Navy. Based on life history interviews with 27 male officers, this study explores alternative discourses and identities of officers from three different communities in the Navy: aviation, surface warfare, and the supply corps. Definitions of masculinity are relationally constructed through associations of difference: aviators tend to draw upon themes of autonomy and risk taking; surface warfare officers draw upon themes of perseverance and endurance; and supply officers draw upon themes of technical rationality. Further, these masculinities depend upon various contrasting definitions of femininity. Finally, this article explores a series of contradictions that threaten the secure construction of masculinity within this military culture.
Existing legal responses to sexual assault and harassment in the military have stagnated or failed. Current approaches emphasize the prevalence of sexual assault and highlight the masculine nature of the military’s statistical composition and institutional culture. Current responses do not, however, incorporate masculinities theory to disentangle the experiences of men as a group from men as individuals. Rather, embedded within contestations of the masculine military culture is the unstated assumption that the culture universally privileges or benefits the individual men that operate within it. This myth is harmful because it tethers masculinities to military efficacy, suppresses the costs of male violence to men, and positions women as perpetual outsiders. Debunking the myth of universal male privilege in heavily masculinized institutions would advance gender equality and shift the law reform focus. It would bring sexual assault, domestic violence, and sexual harassment into the same frame as the military mental health crisis and even mass solidier-on-soldier shootings. This would reveal the gender equality implications of military mental health and disentangle masculinities and military efficacy. Debunking the myth of univeral male privilege would yield more vigilance to how law reforms can exacerbate hyper-masculine violence. It introduces new entry points to gendered violence in the military, expanding the focus from incident-based responses to recruiting and training.
In the last few years, much attention has been focused on women in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). In 2014, a Maclean’s magazine report on sexual misconduct was published; in 2015, former Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps conducted an External Review Authority (ERA) investigation that detailed sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the CAF; and in 2016, Statistics Canada published a report on sexual harassment and sexual assault in the CAF. The results of these reports indicated that the sexualized culture of the CAF, combined with problematic policies and insufficient training, as well as a lack of action by the leadership, resulted in the sexual harassment and sexual assault of many members within its ranks, mainly women but also men. The CAF launched Operation HONOUR in order to address these concerns, which was nicknamed Operation Hop on Her by some members, demonstrating resistance to cultural change. In this article, I describe CAF culture and how it relates to women and gender; outline the history of women in the CAF, particularly as relates to sexual harassment and sexual assault; examine concerns with the content and implementation of related policies; and conclude with a discussion of the intersection of culture, policies, training, and leadership. The article ends on a note of hope, with the possibility that the CAF has now begun to seriously address the organization’s sexualized culture, and discusses the tensions inherent in analysing an institution that both constructs and impedes organization change.
Rather than accept at face value the assumption that militaries exist to protect the borders of states and the citizens within them, anti-militarist feminists see militaries as part of a system which threatens us all. As such, they are sceptical that the integration of women into militaries will challenge this war system. This chapter details the twin themes of much anti-militarist feminist research – militarism’s destructive power and militaries as misogynist institutions – and shows how they generate a feminist analysis of war as a system. It then examines the place of anti-militarist feminist scholarship on gender and the military today.
Basham and Bulmer offer an introduction to the ways that Critical Military Studies (CMS) asks new questions about gender and its relationship with military institutions, militarisation and military power. The chapter argues that a CMS approach challenges feminists to interrogate the limits of established feminist concepts such as ‘militarised masculinity’ and to recognise that gendered boundaries routinely fail and are contested by people in proximity to military power. It concludes with an exploration of the ways in which a CMS approach to gender and the military opens up space to think differently about resistance and feminist praxis within and outside the academy.
Feminist scholarship on war and militarization has typically focussed on the making of militarized masculinity. However, in this article, we shed light on the process of ‘unmaking’ militarized masculinity through the experiences of veterans transitioning from military to civilian life. We argue that in the twenty-first century, veterans’ successful reintegration into civilian society is integral to the legitimacy of armed force in Western polities and is therefore a central concern of policymakers, third-sector service providers, and the media. But militarized masculinity is not easily unmade. Veterans often struggle with their transition to civilian life and the negotiation of military and civilian gender norms. They may have an ambivalent relationship with the state and the military. Furthermore, militarized masculinity is embodied and experienced, and has a long and contradictory afterlife in veterans themselves. Attempts to unmake militarized masculinity in the figure of the veteran challenge some of the key concepts currently employed by feminist scholars of war and militarization. In practice, embodied veteran identities refuse a totalizing conception of what militarized masculinity might be, and demonstrate the limits of efforts to exceptionalize the military, as opposed to the civilian, aspects of veteran identity. In turn, the very liminality of this ‘unmaking’ troubles and undoes neat categorizations of military/civilian and their implied masculine/feminine gendering. We suggest that an excessive focus on the making of militarized masculinity has limited our capacity to engage with the dynamic, co-constitutive, and contradictory processes which shape veterans’ post-military lives.
Corruption is often seen as being caused by internally motivated greed leading to prohibited acts in contravention of laws, rules and regulations. However, corruption may also be defined as “dishonest action that destroys people’s trust.” Building on research conducted by scholars examining this phenomenon in the United States military, this article explores questionable actions, which are externally motivated by systemic factors embedded in the culture of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), by senior leaders in the CAF that can destroy trust in its chain of command. It analyzes two case studies, the Deschamps report into sexual misconduct in the CAF and the Board of Inquiry into Afghan sexual assaults witnessed by CAF members, to identify some key themes and areas for future research into how the lack of trust in the chain of command has impacted negatively on the CAF’s professionalism and culture.
Hegemonic masculinity was introduced as a concept which, due to its understanding of gender as dynamic and relational, and of power as consent, could explain both the persistence of male power and the potential for social change. Yet, when hegemonic masculinity is applied in empirical cases, it is most often used to demonstrate the way in which hegemonic masculinity shifts and adopts new practices in order to enable some men to retain power over others. This is especially so in feminist International Relations, particularly studies of military masculinities, where shifts toward “softer” military masculinities such as the “tough and tender” soldier-scholar demonstrate to many feminists merely the “flexibility of the machinery of rule.” In this article, I challenge the pessimism of these accounts of military masculinity. My particular contribution is to build on an emergent and underdeveloped strand of Connell’s work on hegemonic masculinity: how change might be theorized. I argue that hegemonic masculinity remains a useful concept, but that the process through which “hegemony may fail” requires rethinking. I make this argument by exploring and working through empirical material on military masculinities, drawing on both my own research and critical analysis of the literature.
Gendered stereotypes in the US military context often result in the creation of barriers for women. Constant confrontation with these barriers may negatively impact a servicewoman’s career. The author argues that gendered stereotypes in the US Marine Corps (USMC) have the potential to undermine a female Marine’s performance, and sometimes the performance of others around her. Through the application of ethnographic content analysis to thirty-five in-depth interviews (seventeen female and eighteen male Marines), this article investigates the possible consequences of gendered stereotypes in the USMC. Four themes regarding the origination, socialization, and reinforcement of gender-role stereotypes in the USMC emerge through the interview process. Findings suggest gender-role stereotypes influence (1) the perceived abilities of female Marines, (2) the initial socialization of Marines, (3) camaraderie and opportunities for female Marine mentorship, and (4) a culture of double standards. The aforementioned themes are compared to findings in the literature and implications for camaraderie, shared sense of mission, and leadership are discussed.
This study intends to analyze the relationship between military culture, masculine norms, attitude toward women, and workplace aggression. By using a paper-pencil survey in the Austrian Armed Forces, we show that overall 6.5 percent of all soldiers in the sample suffer from severe, long-term collective aggression (bullying). The detailed analysis suggests that systematic workplace aggression is associated with a culture with high power orientation and adherence to traditional (masculine) military norms. It occurs most often within socialization processes in training centers as well as in combat units. Conversely, culture in support units has high levels of task orientation with a comparably positive attitude toward female soldiers and less reported workplace aggression. The data reveal the gender dimension of workplace aggression in the Austrian Armed Forces: women are significantly more vulnerable to bullying. Almost every second soldier declares to have observed and every tenth soldier admits to have conducted aggressive acts against women.
A man's friendship is more than simply a product of being a man. It is a performance of masculinity that is influenced by gendered expectations. Using structural equation modeling to analyze 98 men's friendships, this study shows how two masculine expectations: one behavioral (stoic), the other attitudinal (anti-feminine) influence different forms of intimacy between friends (instrumental, expressive). Analyzing the relationship between these variables across two occupations, one male-traditional (military) and the other female-traditional (teacher), further display how friendship is part of a masculine performance, as the relationship between masculine expectations and interactions with friends are stronger for teachers than military personnel because teachers are counteracting their feminine performance as a result of their jobs. Overall, “doing friendship” is “doing gender.”
Based on empirical research among women's antiwar organizations worldwide, the article derives a feminist oppositional standpoint on militarization and war. From this standpoint, patriarchal gender relations are seen to be intersectional with economic and ethno-national power relations in perpetuating a tendency to armed conflict in human societies. The feminism generated in antiwar activism tends to be holistic, and understands gender in patriarchy as a relation of power underpinned by coercion and violence. The cultural features of militarization and war readily perceived by women positioned in or close to armed conflict, and their sense of war as systemic and as a continuum, make its gendered nature visible. There are implications in this perspective for antiwar movements. If gender relations are one of the root causes of war, a feminist programme of gender transformation is a necessary component of the pursuit of peace.
Hegemonic masculinities are at the top of the gender hierarchy and exist in relation to subordinated gender constructs. Traditional constructions of hegemonic masculinities include risk-taking, self-discipline, physical toughness and/or muscular development, aggression, violence, emotional control, and overt heterosexual desire. Using a grounded theory approach, 43 men were interviewed focusing on the process of hegemonic masculinities construction (n = 25 pre-active duty Reserve Officer Training Corps members and n = 18 Delayed Entry Program men). By casting non-military personal (i.e., civilians) and service members of different branches (i.e., Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force), different occupational specialties (i.e., infantry, artillery, supply, etc.), and different rank (officer versus enlisted) as less physically able, self-disciplined, willing to take risks, emotionally controlled, and/or intelligent, pre-active duty servicemen discursively dominate others. The end result is that men create hierarchies that subordinate others while simultaneously placing their own perceived characteristics in positions of symbolic dominance.
Discourses on military gender integration in the US are shaped by various groups of social actors who promote different gender ideologies according to their varying interests in the process of military restructuring. Different branches of the Armed Forces, politicians, NGOs and lobbyists argue for or against integration by utilizing different images of military masculinity and femininity. Depending on social and military conditions, female soldiers are portrayed as efficient professionals, patriotic heroines, victims in need of protection or sexualized intruders in a male domain. The aim of this paper is to identify the strategic and political contexts that influence these ideologies, emphasizing the importance of structural change in military and civilian labor markets, patterns of gender-specific labor division and political power relations. For this purpose, media reporting on military gender issues in The New York Times (NYT) and The Washington Post (WP) from 1990 to 2010 is examined in a discourse-analytical case study.
This article uses three interrelated concepts-ideal type, model, and paradigm-to examine and explain both change and continuity in the American military culture as it undergoes major social change. Briefly, the analysis defines the three concepts and then applies each to current military culture. From this analysis, one sees continuity in the military's cultural paradigm, termed the "combat, masculine-warrior." However, one also sees change as illustrated by the military's "evolving" model of culture. Also discussed is how the military's combat, masculine-warrior paradigm conflicts with its evolving model of culture. This conflict helps explain some of the current turmoil as the military adapts to social change (e.g., diversity). The article concludes with a discussion of a potential paradigm shift in military culture. Hopefully this article provides a framework of analysis from which military leaders can better understand and proactively manage culture and change.
Recent studies examining sexual harassment in the military indicate a decrease in reports of harassment, which may be attributed to several factors, including zero-tolerance policies or anti-harassment programs. However, the decrease may also be attributed to fears of losing one's job or of being derogated by colleagues if harassment is reported. This qualitative study of women employed in the Canadian combat arms examined spontaneously shared perceptions and experiences of sexual harassment. Six of the 26 women interviewed shared their experiences or perceptions of harassment, including concerns about potential repercussions of reporting. Implications for gender integration in military organizations are discussed.
We examined the incidence, dimensions, and impact of sexual harassment on women officers and cadets in the Swedish military (N = 324). We expected that harassment rates for direct measures would be lower than for indirect measures; hostile environment harassment would be more prevalent than quid pro quo harassment; and harassment would negatively influence women's job-related outcomes and their psychological and physical health. We found that harassment rates for direct measures were lower than indirect measures; hostile environment harassment was more prevalent than quid pro quo harassment; and harassment was associated with decreased job satisfaction, organizational commitment, work group effectiveness, and psychological and physical health. We discuss the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of our findings for studying harassment across cultures.
Cultural awareness, along with the capacity to effectively develop and apply cultural knowledge, has become critical for military leaders. Based on a multi-dimensional model of cultural intelligence and a review of selected aspects of the Canadian Forces' (CF) experience with gender integration, this paper highlights implications for the development of culturally intelligent military leaders and teams. The gendered evolution of the CF in recent decades has been critical in preparing the CF for the complexity of challenges that it faces today. In spite of progress, significant resistance to expanded roles for women has been based upon the assumption that gender is a dichotomous biologically determined construct. On the other hand, the institutional discourse that has developed in the face of legal imperatives permitting women to join the combat arms since 1989 claims that the CF is gender neutral. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that such limited constructs of gender act to reduce the capacity of the CF to develop cultural intelligence, a critical contributor to mission success, among male and female members.
This paper examines the experiences and perspectives of ex-military servicemen in the UK. It focuses specifically on the complex links between emotional distress and various constructions of 'masculinity' in a military context. Aspects of military culture that exacerbate vulnerability and also those that are protective to mental health are identified and discussed with reference to the theoretical constructs relating to hegemonic masculinity. A qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews provided in-depth accounts of the experiences of 20 ex-servicemen aged 23-44, all but one of whom were in the Army. We found that in a military setting hegemonic masculinity is embedded in the construction of a soldier identity and expression of emotion may be seen as inappropriate. As a result soldiers often lack a language with which to express distress (in a context in which they may witness extremely distressing events), which may result in delays in recognising and treating mental health problems. However, constructions of masculinity in this setting to some degree also promote a caring, sharing ethos based on strong inter-dependent bonds. A young soldier who can cope with the stresses of military life 'becomes a man', adopts a masculine/soldier identity and is well-placed to benefit from these protective factors, notably the camaraderie that is part of service life. In this manner a caring ethos in which some admissions of weakness may be permissible is situated within hegemonic masculinity. This seeming paradox between hyper masculinity and caring masculinities appears to be embedded within military culture, perhaps reflecting the flexibility and ambiguity inherent in constructions of hegemonic masculinity.
Two months after the attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration, in the midst of what it perceived to be a state of emergency, authorized the indefinite detention of noncitizens suspected of terrorist activities and their subsequent trials by a military commission. Here, distinguished Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben uses such circumstances to argue that this unusual extension of power, or "state of exception," has historically been an underexamined and powerful strategy that has the potential to transform democracies into totalitarian states. The sequel to Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, State of Exception is the first book to theorize the state of exception in historical and philosophical context. In Agamben's view, the majority of legal scholars and policymakers in Europe as well as the United States have wrongly rejected the necessity of such a theory, claiming instead that the state of exception is a pragmatic question. Agamben argues here that the state of exception, which was meant to be a provisional measure, became in the course of the twentieth century a normal paradigm of government. Writing nothing less than the history of the state of exception in its various national contexts throughout Western Europe and the United States, Agamben uses the work of Carl Schmitt as a foil for his reflections as well as that of Derrida, Benjamin, and Arendt. In this highly topical book, Agamben ultimately arrives at original ideas about the future of democracy and casts a new light on the hidden relationship that ties law to violence.
Gender is a contested category of analysis, generally understood to describe the characteristics and practices of its end products, men and women. Alternatively, this interdisciplinary study of changing masculinity in the Canadian Forces conceptualizes gender as characterizing the social worlds that people inhabit, worlds through which they are constructed and reconstructed as gendered beings, and which they negotiate, change or resist. The military has been selected as the investigative terrain because military technology--a social system comprising human and material resources--has been under-researched as a matrix of gender in the West. The conceptual framework for this study draws on linkages between gender constructs and warfare practices in various small-scale societies, and on comparisons between the organization and practice of warfare in pre-state versus archaic state societies. The result of this comparative framework is the problematization of certain structural features of the contemporary Forces, features which address one of it core preoccupations: engendering and sustaining bellicosity in its combatants, and obviating their resistance. These technologically rationalized features, shown to be historically anomalous, are designed to control how soldiers think about and carry out their deadly work. The study employs a triangulated methodology to gather data from interviews, written texts, and participant observation. Narrative analysis of this data affords a gendered mapping of military social practice and thought, culminating in the military gendering of human lives and deaths. Women, in their multiple feminine incarnations, are revealed for the threats which they pose to the Forces' 'operational effectiveness'--constructed as homogeneously masculine. Herein lie the ideological and practical reasons why 'gender integration' in the Forces--ordered in a 1989 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling--may be an oxymoron, and why women more readily resist military authoritarianism than men.
Thesis (M.A.)--McGill University, 1994. Includes bibliographical references.
Mining Masculinities in the Canadian Military.” Unpublished Ph.D dissertation
- M Kovitz
Rape in the US Military: America’s Dirty Little Secret
- L Broadbent
Military Sex Assault and Misconduct Investigations Increase in 2015
- M Brewster