Gender and the Military
Women in the military and their relationship with war are subjects that often provoke controversial reactions that reveal entrenched stereotypes and cultural values central to many societies. This is the first comparative, cross-national study of the participation of women in the armed forces of NATO countries. Besides an analysis of this key topic stands a critique of existing theoretical models and the proposal for a revised analytical framework. This new study employs mixed-methodological research design. Unlike previous works, it focuses on the interplay of various analytical levels (general societal trends, organizational features, and individual orientations) and combines quantitative and qualitative data: a large N-analysis based on general policies and statistical information concerning every country in the sample with more in-depth case studies. The book includes original empirical data regarding the presence of women in the armed forces of NATO countries. It proposes an index of “gender inclusiveness” and assesses the factors (social, economic, political, and military) that affect women’s military roles. It also presents two new key case studies – Portugal and the Netherlands – based on both documentary sources and in-depth interviews of both men and women officers in the two countries. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of strategic studies, gender and women studies, and military history. Helena Carreiras is professor at the Department of Sociology of the University Institute for Labor, Business, and Technologies (ISCTE) and researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES) in Lisbon. Her research interests include armed forces and society, gender issues, and methodology of the social sciences. She has published Mulheres nas Forças Armadas Portuguesas (Women in the Portuguese Armed Forces) (1997) and Mulheres em Armas. A Participação Militar Feminina na Europa do Sul (Women in Arms. The Military Participation of Women in Southern Europe) (2002).
Cass Military Studies
Intelligence Activities in Ancient Rome Trust in the Gods, but verify Rose Mary Sheldon Clausewitz and African War Politics and strategy in Liberia and Somalia Isabelle Duyvesteyn Strategy and Politics in the Middle East, 1954–60 Defending the Northern Tier Michael Cohen The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965–1991 From Che Guevara to Cuito Cuanavale Edward George Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642–1651 ‘The Genius of this Age’ Stanley Carpenter Israel’s Reprisal Policy, 1953–1956 The dynamics of military retaliation Ze’ev Drory
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War Enver Redzic Leaders in War West point remembers the 1991 Gulf War Frederick Kagan and Christian Kubik (eds) Khedive Ismail’s Army John Dunn Yugoslav Military Industry 1918–1991 Amadeo Watkins Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918 The list regiment John Williams Rostóv in the Russian Civil War 1917–1920 The key to victory Brian Murphy The Tet Effect Intelligence and the Public Perception of War Jake Blood
The US Military Profession into the 21st Century War, peace and politics Sam C. Sarkesian and Robert E. Connor, Jr. (eds) Civil-Military Relations in Europe Learning from crisis and institutional change Hans Born, Marina Caparini Karl Haltiner and Jürgen Kuhlmann (eds) Strategic Culture and Ways of War Lawrence Sondhaus Military Unionism in the Post Cold War Era A future reality? Richard Bartle and Lindy Heinecken (eds)
Warriors and Politicians U.S. civil-military relations under stress Charles A. Stevenson Military Honour and the Conduct of War From ancient Greece to Iraq Paul Robinson Military Industry and Regional Defense Policy India, Iraq and Israel Timothy D. Hoyt Managing Defence in a Democracy Laura R. Cleary and Teri McConville (eds) Gender and the Military Women in the armed forces of western democracies Helena Carreiras
Gender and the Military Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies
Helena Carreiras
First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Helena Carreiras
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0–415–38358–7 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–96903–0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–38358–5 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–96903–8 (ebk)
AOS MEUS PAIS
Contents
List of figures List of tables Foreword Acknowledgments List of abbreviations
1
xi xiii xv xvii xix
Introduction
1
Women in the military: a global overview
5
Women and warfare in historical perspective 5 Factors affecting women’s military roles 12 Research design and techniques 23 2
Gender relations, gendered organizations, and the military
25
Social structures and gender regimes 25 Gender relations in organizations 30 The military as a gendered organization 40 3
Social and political dilemmas of women’s military service
55
Women, work, and the family 55 Citizens and soldiers: the political dilemmas of female military service 59 4
The military institution and social change The military in the post-Cold War period: redefining strategic orientations 72
72
x Contents Organizational challenges and the military profession 75 Military effectiveness and gender integration 86 5
Gender integration in the armed forces: a cross-national comparison of policies and practices in the NATO countries
97
The position of women in the military: representation and integration policies 98 Explaining gender incorporation patterns: a tentative test of hypotheses 117 Concluding remarks 126 Appendix 128 6
Portugal and the Netherlands: military and social contexts
137
The military and the challenge of organizational restructuring 137 Patterns and policies of gender integration 148 Social trends and the situation of women 160 7
Interpersonal dynamics of gender integration: the case of the officer corps
165
Organizational structure and individual orientations 166 Cultural constraints and officers’ responses to gender integration 169 Concluding remarks 189 Appendix 192 Conclusion
197
Factors affecting WMP: a synthetic account of empirical results 198 Feminist theories, gender interests, and women’s military participation 203 Military organizational change and women’s motivations 205 Social change and the future of WMP 206 Notes Bibliography Index
209 218 249
Figures
1.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 7.1
Factors affecting women’s participation in the military Women in NATO forces (1986/7–2000) Women in NATO forces, by service (2000) Average occupational distribution of military personnel in NATO forces (2000) in percentage Average hierarchical distribution of military personnel in NATO forces (2000) in percentage Percentage of women within rank categories in NATO (2000) Index of gender inclusiveness in NATO (IGI): country scores Models of gender incorporation in NATO Plot of countries’ rankings: time and women’s relative numbers Plot of countries’ rankings: time and gender inclusiveness in the military Plot of countries’ rankings: forces structure (CR) and women’s relative numbers Plot of countries’ rankings: force structure (CR) and gender inclusiveness in the military Plot of countries’ rankings: gender-related development index and gender inclusiveness in the military Plot of countries’ rankings: GEM and gender inclusiveness in the military Total active armed forces in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980–2001) Conscript ratio in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980–2001) Number of military personnel by service in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980/2001) Percentage of women in the armed forces in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980–2000) Occupational distribution of women in the Portuguese and Dutch armed forces (2000) in percentage A typology of military women’s integration strategies
19 100 101 106 110 111 115 116 119 120 122 123 124 126 141 142 143 154 156 178
Tables
4.1 Social organization of the armed forces: institutional versus occupational 4.2 Armed forces in the three eras 5.1 Women in NATO forces (2000) 5.2 Index of gender inclusiveness in NATO (IGI): variables and measurement 5.3 Correlation coefficients (NATO 18) 5A.1 Recruitment policies in NATO (2000) 5A.2 Occupational restrictions and occupational distribution of personnel in NATO (2000) 5A.3 Hierarchical distribution of military personnel in NATO (2000) 5A.4 Index of gender inclusiveness in NATO (IGI) 5A.5 Milestones in the process of gender integration in NATO (1970–2000) 6.1 Male and female representation in the Portuguese and Dutch armed forces, by service (2000) 6.2 Percentage of women in the Portuguese and Dutch armed forces by occupational area and service (2000) 6.3 Rank distribution of military women in Portugal and the Netherlands (2000) – percentage within rank category 6.4 Rank distribution of military women in Portugal and the Netherlands (2000) – percentage within gender category 6.5 Military women by rank and type of contract in Portugal and the Netherlands (2000) 6.6 Female employment rates in Europe (2000) 7.1 Number of interviews by sex and nationality 7.2 Women’s integration strategies by country 7.3 Typology of Dutch and Portuguese male soldiers’ reaction to WMP 7.4 Men’s dominant responses to WMP, by country 7A.1 List of interviewees 7A.2 Interview guidelines
79 83 99 114 127 128 130 132 133 134 155
156 157 158 159 161 165 182 183 186 192 195
Foreword
This pioneering study documents a quiet contemporary revolution: the widespread inclusion of women into the most exclusively male institution of Western societies, the armed forces. And, as is the case with all revolutions – quiet and noisy, Helena Carreiras demonstrates that the results are not always what advocates had hoped for. Through a complex comparative design, the author first documents the extent of this inclusion and its uneven distribution across military services in all NATO member countries. Then, through in-depth interviews and more detailed data, she analyzes the career patterns and personal perceptions of men and women serving in the armed forces of Portugal and the Netherlands. If this were not enough, Carreiras places her research within a highly original synthesis of feminist theory and the literature on military sociology focusing on the question of how different interpretations of gender lead to different expectations concerning the role of women in the military. Her (counterintuitive) findings from the paired comparison and her (well-substantiated) conclusions from the broader sample not only set a new standard for academics working in this area, but also offer challenging insights for those who would make policy for today’s “postmodern military.” Philippe C. Schmitter European University Institute
Acknowledgments
This book began as a PhD dissertation at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Pedro was born while I was finishing the dissertation; Carolina, during the preparation of this manuscript. I thank them in the first place for reminding me of the meaning of life. As a researcher at the EUI, I was lucky to enjoy an extremely stimulating intellectual atmosphere. To Philippe Schmitter I owe much more than the supervision of the thesis. His outstanding scientific mind, brilliant insights, and contagious enthusiasm will always be a source of inspiration and motivation. The members of the dissertation committee, Donatella della Porta, Fabrizio Battistelli, and Maria Carrilho provided useful comments to the revision of the manuscript. I especially wish to thank Maria Carrilho for her intellectual guidance, moral support, and long-lasting friendship. She is not only responsible for my entrance into the world of military sociology but is also a pioneer in the study of military institutions in Portugal. Her work remains a fundamental reference for all those who work in the field. Various institutions and individuals in different countries made this research possible. In Portugal I thank the following: the Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) for the financial support to the project; the Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES) research center where most of my projects are developed and where I always find support and stimulus; the Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE), and in particular its Department of Sociology, for the time I was given away from teaching to develop my research and for the permanent encouragement received from colleagues and students. I am especially grateful to Patricia Ávila, Rui Brites Silva, and Cristina Ferreira for their help with statistical analysis. At the National Defense Ministry and the three services of the Portuguese armed forces I found invaluable help in conducting and completion of the research. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Dr Felicidade Baptista at the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant Cidália
xviii Acknowledgments Anjos in the Navy, Captain Lhano in the Army, and Major Anabela Varela and Lieutenant Susana Abelho in the Air Force. In Belgium, at the NATO Headquarters, I thank the support of the Committee on Women in the NATO Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Elleke Overbeke, Major Sarah Garcia, and each of the national delegates. In the Netherlands, Lieutenant Colonel Overbeke’s assistance was crucial not only in the development of the general survey but also in the organization and conduct of the interviews. I also want to thank Colonel Leigh, Dr Art Dekker and Lieutenant Colonel Van Baal at the Ministry of Defense, Major Anneke Govers at the Air Force, and Lieutenants Marjan Van Damme and Sylvia Simons at the Navy. This book would not exist without the cooperation of all those in the armed forces who helped me over the years to explore and understand the issue of gender in the military. I am indebted to a large number of military men and women whom I have interviewed, to military leaders who opened their units to my curious presence, and to decision makers who gave their permission and institutional support to the project. The research has also benefited enormously from exchanges with colleagues at the Research Committee on Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution of the International Sociological Association, the European Research Group on Military and Society (ERGOMAS) and the Interuniversity Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUS). I especially wish to thank Charles Moskos, Christopher Dandeker, David Segal, Gerhard Kuemmel, Irene Eulriet, Jolanda Bosch, Joseph Soeters, Karl Haltiner, Mady Segal, Marie Vlachova, Rene Moelker, and Henning Sorensen. Moreover, I am grateful to Carlos Martins Branco for his interest in my work and for all the talks we had during the dissertation years, which helped me understand better the military and their new missions. I also gratefully acknowledge the excellent work of Nicki Hargreaves who revised the original dissertation manuscript, the friendship and always generous reception by Cecilia Picchi during my return visits to Florence, the research assistance of Fátima Carreiras and Mariana Vieira da Silva, and the collaboration of Elizabeth Fordham and Berdi Berdiyev in the transcription of the interviews. Finally, I must thank my family. My parents and sisters helped enormously with the children and have always been a source of trust and emotional support. To Andy I want to thank for more than his humor, his intelligence, and the invaluable technical assistance for the preparation of the manuscript; he traveled from the other side of the world to share his life with me.
Abbreviations
AMPRONAC AVF CR CWINF DoD ERA GDI GDP GEM I/O IFOR IGI MDN MoD MOS MPR NATO NCO NIC NOW OOTW PK PT QP RAF SAF SEN SFOR SOF UNDP VHK WASP WMP WR
Association of Nicaraguan Women Confronting the Nation’s Problems All-volunteer Force Conscript Ratio Committee on Women in the NATO Forces Department of Defense Equal Rights Amendment Gender-related Development Index Gross Domestic Product Gender Empowerment Measure Institutional/Occupational Peace Implementation Force Index of Gender Inclusiveness Ministério da Defesa Nacional Ministry of Defense Military Occupational Specialties Military Participation Ratio North Atlantic Treaty Organization Noncommissioned Officer Newly Industrialized Countries National Organization for Women Operations Other Than War Peacekeeping Physical Tests Quadro Permanente Royal Air Force Servizio Ausiliario Femminile Serviço Efectivo Normal Peace Stabilization Force Special Operations Force United Nations Development Programme Dutch Women’s Corps Women’s Airforce Service Pilots Women’s Military Participation Women Ratio
Introduction
The right to fight and lead wars has until very recently been considered an exclusively male domain. In most societies, the dominant tendency has been that, with the exception of war heroines and mythological figures, women have taken part in combat only in exceptional circumstances. Although they have sporadically participated in military conflicts as combatants, usually at the end of the war they have been expected to give up military roles and return to their traditional domestic sphere. In recent decades, however, this pattern has undergone considerable transformations. From the beginning of the 1970s, most Western armies began to admit women in a way that marked a break with tradition. Contrary to historical precedents, this call has not taken place in times of war but in times of peace. Moreover, from their original role as simple auxiliaries, women have progressively gained military status, have been given similar training as men, and have performed functions in various areas which have not been traditionally feminine. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, despite a considerable heterogeneity regarding integration policies, all North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries had admitted and increased the number of women in their armed forces. During the past four decades various restrictions have been lifted; women have been progressively allowed to enter military academies and given access to a wider variety of positions and functions. In 2000, around 280,000 women were serving in NATO forces. The factors that induced these convergence effects derive from some global sociological trends affecting most Western countries, albeit with diverse rhythms and degrees: increasing pressure for gender equity and changes in the military toward force reduction and professionalization. The growing number and diversification of women’s military roles are both a symptom of and one of the most visible consequences of change in the armed forces. There is, however, the reverse side of the medal. Despite the abovementioned tendency to eliminate discrimination and equalize status between service members, occupational restrictions still exist and women
2
Introduction
are largely excluded from many combat-related areas and functions. They have limited representation in higher hierarchical posts and power positions within the military system. They are not always readily accepted and often have to face hostile reactions. Empirical data show that even when formal/legal integration has been accomplished, effective social integration has not necessarily happened (Winslow and Dunn 2002). In addition, progress made in the past has not always followed a linear pattern. Women’s military participation has been subject to cycles of expansion and contraction (Segal 1999) and tendencies to reinstate exclusionary policies have been observed. In the face of this evidence, a number of questions arise for which not many answers have been provided yet: What factors explain variation in women’s military roles? Why have some countries integrated women in their armed forces and developed specific policies while others have only granted them a residual and symbolic presence? How do social, economic, cultural, political, and military factors interact to explain these different “incorporation patterns?” Despite the significant amount of literature that has been produced by historians, sociologists, political scientists, and feminist scholars, the comparative study of women in the military is still a relatively uncharted area. This book is intended as a contribution to its development by focusing on the factors at the basis of women’s military recruitment and on the policies that have been developed in NATO countries regarding their participation in the armed forces. It sets three fundamental objectives: (a) to explore and articulate various theoretical perspectives from which to observe the topic in a multidimensional way; (b) to submit to empirical test a variety of competing explanatory hypotheses relying on original data; and (c) to achieve the previous objectives through a methodological focus on different analytical levels, ranging from the observation of macrosocietal processes to an in-depth assessment of interpersonal relations. First, from a theoretical standpoint, the purpose is to articulate different areas and levels of scientific inquiry. The interaction of different social processes and dynamics as the basis of women’s military participation justifies an approach that simultaneously considers the ideological–cultural dimension of gender relations (as a layer), the global political–institutional context for the social participation of women, and the strategic and organizational configuration of the armed forces. The conceptual framework of the research will thus combine elements from a global theory of gender with organizational analysis, interest theory, and the sociology of military institutions. These elements together should contribute to the consolidation of a systematic theory of women’s military roles cross-culturally and over time. Second, at the empirical level, the main purpose is that of testing some existing (but still untested) hypotheses concerning the factors that affect
Introduction 3 women’s military participation as well as to investigate the strength of some new relationships. This is thought of as a selective, partial exploration of a complex empirical model, but one that is innovative if compared to previous studies. This is so not only because it is based on original data gathered for the first time in a comparative manner, but also because it refers to a variety of empirical instances: all existing NATO countries in 2000, complemented with a comparative case study of Portugal and the Netherlands. Finally, from a methodological perspective, the book investigates the interplay between different levels of analysis, that is, between societal trends (macro-level), organizational factors (meso-level), and individual attitudes (micro-level) in shaping the opportunities for women in the military. Besides looking at the societal factors that influence or condition national military organization and policies, the aim here is also to study how these structural and organizational factors frame individual trajectories, choices, and expectations; and, inversely, to examine the extent to which individuals’ values and options limit, subvert, or reproduce organizational policies. The structure of the book is the following: Chapter 1 starts with a short revision of historical information concerning women’s relation to war and military activities and moves on to present the global analytical framework of the research. After a critical analysis of existing models of factors affecting women’s military roles – especially the so-called Segal model – a “refocused” analytical scheme is proposed. The set of dependent and independent variables is described and research hypotheses are selected. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 develop the theoretical and conceptual framework. In Chapter 2, a general theory of gender relations sets the ground for the analysis of the military as both a gendered and “gendering” organization. It proposes to look at the relation between the macro-politics of gender and the micro-politics of the specific “gender regime” of the military. Chapter 3 approaches the research topic from the point of view of social and political factors that frame the reality and debates regarding the presence of women in the armed forces. The analysis focuses on selected topics: transformations in women’s social participation – namely those affecting their presence in the workforce and family patterns, the constitution of “gender interests,” and the variety of political and ideological standpoints in feminist positions concerning women’s military participation. Chapter 4 reviews major transformations in the structure of military organizations. Besides comparing models of organizational and professional change – and showing the extent to which such transformations relate to the recruitment of women – this chapter discusses the military arguments that have been used to justify the inclusion or exclusion of women from the military in general and from combat areas in particular. The following three chapters present the empirical results of the research. In Chapter 5, a “large N” analysis is carried out in two steps.
4
Introduction
First, on the basis of descriptions of the situation of military women and existing policies in each NATO country an “index of gender inclusiveness” is proposed as a measure to classify the various cases in terms of the degree to which they have integrated women in their armed forces. This index is presented as an original instrument to operationalize and measure women’s military participation. At a second stage, the selected hypotheses are tested and the relative impact of explanatory factors is evaluated. Chapters 6 and 7 refer to the comparative case study of Portugal and the Netherlands. The focus of the research is now at the organizational and interpersonal analytical levels. Chapter 6 provides a detailed analysis of major trends in Dutch and Portuguese societies in terms of women’s social participation, the organizational features of the armed forces, and their respective policies on gender integration. In turn, Chapter 7 presents results of a content analysis of interviews with male and female officers in the two countries. The aim here is to investigate the relationship between structural constraints and individual values and attitudes, trying to understand the extent to which interpersonal relations reproduce, reinterpret, or subvert dominant cultural models and organizational arrangements concerning gender integration. Finally, the conclusion reviews the main results of the research and raises questions regarding the social and political consequences of women’s participation in the military, highlighting some of its paradoxes and exploring prospects for future developments.
1
Women in the military A global overview
Women and warfare in historical perspective The association of women with peace and men with warfare has had deep roots in most cultures throughout history. Stereotypes of men as “just warriors” and women as “beautiful souls” have been used to secure women’s status as noncombatants and men’s identity as warriors (Elshtain 1995).1 The pervasiveness and trans-cultural persistence of this imagery are well documented and reveal the extent to which male and female identities have been forged around the matter of collective violence. In contemporary Western societies there have been attempts – especially by feminist scholars, women’s movements, and interest groups – to transform this prevailing association. These attempts have been made either by redefining what is believed to be a special relationship between women and peace or by denying the specificity of this link and supporting the full access of women to military organizations. In all cases, the symbolic network of gender, peace, and war has been operating at the core of political fights over women’s social roles and emancipatory strategies. However, since war has usually been defined as a male activity and highly valued masculine characteristics are often associated with it, the image of women warriors has been seen as inherently unsettling, entailing a symbolic rupture with the dominant gender order based on the separation of male and female (Macdonald et al. 1987; Gherardi 1994). Curiously though, the disruptive identity of female fighters has been frequently used to sustain that same hegemonic order of gender. The myth of the Amazons is the best example of this instrumental use of the disturbing image of “unnatural” women. Amazons, the archetypal female warriors, have been depicted in many different ways – as much as heroines as unnatural, masculine, and warmongering (Kirk 1987; Hardwick 1996), but always as marginal and ambiguous in relation to accepted classificatory schemes. Confounding the normally distinct categories of warrior (men) and women, amazons represented a transgression of the ideal social order,
6 Women in the military thus defining the limits of society. Amazons, it is said, “were the opposite of the ideal Athenian women: they did not marry, they controlled their own offspring, they were warriors and they lived outside, . . . on the borders of the known world; they were neither virgins nor married; they desired men but did not want male babies” (Kirk 1987: 31). Androgyne and liminal, they acted as a metaphor for unmarried Athenian women as they were either killed or made into “proper women” through marriage. This is why it has been argued that, by talking of the Amazons, it is the male Greek polis that is being defined in terms of its opposite (Kirk 1987: 30). But the mythology of the Amazons does not only underline the opposition of dual categories. It also supposedly documents the transition from a system of thought that organized the experience of difference in terms of polarity and analogy to one based upon a relatively rigid hierarchical scheme (Dubois 1991). According to Dubois, this scheme entailed gradations of superiority and inferiority – Greek, master, male, and human as opposed and superior to barbarians, slaves, women, and animals respectively – that have continued to influence Western political thought (Dubois 1991). Many other examples of women warriors fill the history books. They go from legions of warrior queens such as Boadicea – the British warrior queen who led her people to battle against the Roman invaders (Macdonald 1987), through Jinga – the majestic and murderous black queen who fought the Portuguese in seventeenth-century Angola (Fraser 1990), Jeanne d’Arc – who has been depicted as a heroine, a saint, and a witch (Pernoud and Clin 1993), to the women in the Inca battlefields whose involvement in ritual fights has been used by the Spanish conquistadores to underline the primitive character of Andean societies (Dransart 1987). The paradoxical ways in which these exceptional figures have been described and their activities have been recorded or forgotten show the importance of the role they played in “symbolically articulating” the social order and its values (Macdonald 1987: 6).2 Their alternative and contradictory portraits supply a focus for the “proper behavior” of women, and by establishing the social limits of war they guarantee the possibility of postwar normalization. Beyond myths and tales of female warriors, the participation of women in actual war fighting or their presence in war arenas reveals a historical pattern of exclusion and omission. Women, as protagonists – not as victims, supporters, or opponents – have been systematically excluded from “regular” war and combat activities. The only thoroughly documented account of female involvement in a regular army before the twentieth century is that of Dahomey, an eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury West African kingdom. Originally a praetorian guard sworn to celibacy, the Dahomeans developed into a force of around 6,000 women warriors and were granted a semisacred status (Alpern 1998; Edgerton 2000).
Women in the military 7 Despite the intensity of this account, the fact is that it remains a historical exception. The tendency for the disarmament of women is recognized as prevalent in most societies. This explains, at least partially, the invisibility of women’s participation in the historical study of military institutions.3 And yet, women’s presence on battlefields has been extremely significant for centuries. According to Hacker “from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century, if not earlier, women in armies were not only normal, they were vital. Armies could not have functioned as well, perhaps could not have functioned at all without the service of women” (Hacker 1981: 644). During the entire early modern period in Europe, women camp followers constituted a real logistic force, which was essential to the very existence of military formations. Like the soldiers in the ranks, they were drawn from the lower social classes and most of them were soldiers’ wives or widows performing tasks as housekeepers, sutlers, whores, nurses, laundresses, cooks, and even soldiers (Hacker 1981; Williams 1988; Leonard 1993). Women’s roles changed throughout this long period and various exclusion measures were imposed during the eighteenth century. The end of the Napoleonic wars at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which completed a cycle in military history, brought with it both the elimination of the last vestiges of nonmilitary support services and the total exclusion of women. Hacker states that “as armies became more professional and bureaucratic – as they became in fact more exclusively military – they also became more exclusively male” (Hacker 1981: 666). The new industrial era provided women with work opportunities of a different kind. For some authors this gradual exclusion of women from armies is as meaningful as their prior participation, since it contributed to one of the most relevant characteristics of the modern economic order: the separation of the spheres of work and family life (Nef 1968: 210–11). In sum, despite the importance of the roles they performed, women tend to “disappear” from historical accounts of military enterprises. As Hacker puts it, “like the women healers who had vanished from the history of medicine or who were recalled only as witches, the female camp followers of early modern armies vanished from military history or were recalled only as whores. And just as the loss of the history of women healers made the rise of professional nursing and of limited places for women doctors in the nineteenth century seem novel, so the loss of army women made the rise of military nursing and the opening of restricted careers for uniformed women’s auxiliaries appear as something new” (Hacker 1981: 671). However, after the Crimean War, with Florence Nightingale and her nursing corps, there was a new kind of relationship between women and military institutions. Motivated by patriotic and humanitarian feelings, these women were now recruited from the middle classes and their presence in war theaters anticipated the progressive institutionalization of
8
Women in the military
female support roles during the two world wars. The formation in 1881 of the Army Nursing Service in Great Britain paved the way for a growing presence of women in the armed forces during the First World War. Their presence was particularly important in Great Britain and the United States. The case of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was rather exceptional in that women formed an exclusively female combat battalion, the “Battalion of Death,” under the command of Mariya Bochkareva. The constitution of this battalion, authorized in 1917 by the provisional government, aimed at providing soldiers with an example of military virtue to shame and humiliate deserting men (Griesse and Stites 1982). According to Griesse and Stites, “it was certainly the first instance in modern history in which women were used in all-female fighting units as models of military valor and performance in order to check desertion and fraternization with the enemy” (Griesse and Stites 1982: 64). In general, though, women have been demobilized at the end of the conflict. These women’s corps were reconstituted only with the advent of the Second World War, but then in substantially increased numbers. There is a wide consensus that this moment represented a turning point in terms of female military participation (Binkin and Bach 1977; Goldman 1982; Reynaud 1988; Campbell 1990). During the conflict, women had access to a larger number of functions, including some nontraditional ones such as mechanics, repair, transmissions, radar, and antiaircraft defense. However, and significantly from a symbolic point of view, their action in antiaircraft defense was limited to the preparation and control of the firing, which they were barred from executing themselves (Goldman and Stites 1982: 30). During the war, around 350,000 women served in the US armed forces and although without military status, 800 formed the WASPs (Women’s Airforce Service Pilots), flying all kinds of aircraft including combat planes. In England, more than 450,000 women represented 9.6 percent of the total force in 1943. This was one of the few countries, together with Germany, the Soviet Union, and later Israel, that instituted a female national conscription system at the time of war. Between 1941 and 1945 around 125,000 English women were conscripted for military service. Other countries such as Canada, France, or Germany have also used women in their armed forces, but in more limited numbers. Germany, for instance, did not respond to manpower shortfalls by resorting to largescale female recruitment. In both wars “a profound historical and cultural hostility to the use of women for military purposes has shaped the West German decision-making process. . . . The German pattern has been to resist the presence of women in the armed forces in anything but a marginal, preferably civilian, capacity” (Goldman 1982: 6).4 In Italy, Mussolini’s government created in 1944 the Servizio Ausiliario Femminile (SAF), which included up to 5,000 members. The constitution of this all-female corps, the first and only in the history of the Italian armed
Women in the military 9 forces, resulted from a spontaneous mobilization process, initiated from the provincial basis of the party. According to the rules, these women could only perform their functions in nonarmed support services. The fall of the fascist regime in April 1945 signaled the end of this short female experience in that which would be considered the “wrong side of the war” (Bravo 1997; Spini and Isman 1997; Viganò 1997). As happened during the First World War, the presence of women was particularly significant in the armed forces of the Soviet Union. Due to the lack of male manpower and the prolongation of the conflict, more than 1 million women were recruited to serve in all kinds of functions, including infantry, armored cars, artillery, and antiaircraft defense. The USSR’s utilization of women in combat was – at least until the Gulf War – the single major example of the large-scale use of women in combat in regular international war. However, unlike other countries where, despite the fact that women were generally demobilized after the end of the conflict, some of them remained in the armed forces with a special peacetime status, in the USSR women’s presence became irrelevant. Thus, with rare exceptions, during the two world wars women did not bear arms or serve in combat. At the end of the conflicts their presence became residual in the majority of countries and the exclusion rule prevailed. The same happened with the omission rule. As stated by Mady Segal, “what has happened in the past in many nations is that when the armed forces need women, their prior military history is recalled to demonstrate that they can perform effectively in various positions. There is a process of cultural amnesia regarding the contributions women made during emergency situations, until a new emergency arises and then history is rediscovered” (Segal 1993: 84). And yet, as clear as these exclusion and omission patterns is the tendency to include women in combat activities whenever exceptional circumstances require their participation. There is wide historical evidence that women have been effectively utilized in combat during revolutionary settings when a society is undergoing fundamental social and political changes. Whenever societies have confronted risks for survival women have entered the military domain as combatants and this participation was not only welcomed but also actively requested. This has happened during revolutionary movements and national liberation wars.5 Some well-known examples are the women warriors in Latin America – from the independence wars against the Spanish to the latetwentieth-century political struggles (Kanogo 1987; Bunster 1988; Harris 1988), the USSR during the 1917 revolution6 (Griesse and Stites 1982), Yugoslavia during the Second World War (Jancar 1982, 1988), the African liberation movements (Amrane 1982; Hélie-Lucas 1988), the various resistance movements in occupied Europe during the Second World War – particularly in France, Italy,7 Poland, and the USSR (Rossiter 1986; Bravo 1997; Spini and Ismani 1997), and the Israeli combatants during the war of independence (Yuval-Davis 1981; Bloom 1982).
10 Women in the military All these cases show that “when war intrudes into society – as in the case of invasion and colonialism – it may become very difficult to maintain the traditional social order, and boundaries, such as those of gender, may well break down” (Macdonald 1987: 9). There is, however, great debate as to whether the obliteration of conventional definitions of male and female roles in times of war represents structural or rather circumstantial changes. In other words, the debate is on whether gender boundaries really undergo fundamental reconfiguration or are only temporarily “suspended.” This discussion applies both to women’s participation in irregular partisan warfare, resistance, and liberation movements as well as to women’s status during the world wars. A common idea is that the world wars have been watersheds for women. This view stresses the new opportunities that opened up for them during the war: skilled jobs in heavy industry, new positions in government bureaucracies, educational institutions, and the armed forces, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities, skills, and power. In both world wars women gained economic independence and postwar constitutional changes gave them the right to vote. Women received formal citizenship in England, the United States, and Germany after the First World War and in Italy and France after the Second World War.8 For some, these changes were irrevocable and fundamental (Chafe 1972); others believe that they had an illusory nature and that women changed their roles “only for the duration” of the conflicts (Milkman 1986; Higonnet and Higonnet 1987).9 Although many historians agree that the two world wars had an equalizing effect on the societies of the belligerent nations, some have shown that men and women benefited unequally and that in war, as well as in peace, there were sharp differences in the activities and status of men and women (Higonnet et al. 1987). They underline the fact that while women’s situations changed, relationships of domination and subordination were retained. For instance, in Mobilizing Women for War, Leila Rupp maintains that neither the Nazi mother making munitions for her son, nor America’s Rosie the Riveter had a significant impact on women’s economic status or on the public’s basic beliefs about women’s nature in either society respectively (Rupp 1978). D’Ann Campbell has gone even further, holding that during the Second World War women – housewives and demobilized workers alike – anticipated and helped to promulgate the dominant ideal of postwar domesticity (Campbell 1985). The central question here is thus to understand why “acquiring the vote or taking up new employment did not readily translate into social and political power, and women everywhere suffered the effects of postwar gender backlash,” or why no mass-based feminist movements arose to preserve women’s wartime gains (Higonnet et al. 1987: 6–7). Some have proposed that the answer is to be found in the contents of ideological discourses concerning objective changes, which systematically gave
Women in the military 11 meaning to women’s new activities in ways that limited their potential to transform gender relations: “although wartime propaganda exhorted women to brave unfamiliar work, these appeals were contained within a nationalistic and militarist discourse that reinforced patriarchal, organicist notions of gender relations. It stipulated that women’s new roles were only for the duration and that wives and mothers must make heroic sacrifices ‘for the nation in this time of need’ ” (Higonnet et al. 1987: 7). Likewise, “for many Western feminists, the consequences for women’s roles and status of the majority of revolutions and independencemovements has been disappointing” (Macdonald 1987: 9). Even when women participated in military conflicts as combatants, at the end of the war they were expected to give up military roles and return to their traditional domestic sphere. Additionally, the image of armed women has frequently been mythified and used to mobilize men to combat. The image of revolutionary combatants in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, carrying a child in one arm and a gun in the other has been used to promote mobilization for armed conflict. According to Judith Stiehm, the implicit message of these images – that is, that “if even women fight . . .” – was a form of blackmailing men into service, as well as a spectacular demonstration of a nation’s determination to self-defense (Stiehm 1988: 96). All these perspectives underline a similar pattern, one that different studies on female fighters throughout history have also systematically stressed: after entering the military domain, it is the definition of these particular women that is altered, while broader conceptions about women, war, and masculinity are left intact (Macdonald 1987). In sum, they all point to the durability of received cultural images of men, women, and war. And yet, as noted by Higonnet and Higonnet, “if we perceive the wartime changes in women’s roles as a realignment of social territory that produces, however piecemeal or inadvertently, greater social equality, then the rapid retreat from those advances during the immediate postwar years seem puzzling” (Higonnet and Higonnet 1987: 31). In other words, the crucial question remains that of understanding why women failed to capitalize on wartime disruptions of gender norms in order to improve their social position and increase their power. This question should perhaps now be readdressed, given the fundamental changes in women’s military roles in recent decades. From the moment women started joining the military with full military status, were given similar training to men, integrated education, and access to an increasing number of functions, the historical pattern has been dramatically challenged. This process has been depicted as a revolution (Holm 1993), a threat to the military (Mitchell 1998; Van Creveld 2001), and even as a deeper transformation than the introduction of nuclear weapons.10 Independently of how extensive we consider the impact of this new pattern of women’s military participation to be – and there are reasons to suppose that the descriptions above overstate the real effects of gender
12
Women in the military
integration – one thing seems clear: this is no longer a change “for the duration.” However unequal their status, however occupationally segregated and culturally discriminated, women are no longer peripheral to the organization or merely “passive spectators to the action in the center ring” (Brownmiller 1993: 32). Beyond the question of whether the emergence of women as soldiers has shattered our notions of gender differences – which is beyond the objectives of this book – lies the pressing question of characterizing these changes and identifying the factors that have been shaping the process both from within military forces and from the society at large.
Factors affecting women’s military roles The extent to which women have participated in the armed forces, crossnationally and through time, depends on a wide set of variables, both internal and external to the military itself. The relative impact and interaction of these variables is associated with specific circumstances that define each country’s situation in varying historical conditions. Two main types of influence have been identified to explain the various rhythms and characteristics of female military recruitment, as well as policy orientations regarding their presence in the armed forces. On the one hand, social and cultural factors seem to frame the process and generally create the background conditions for women’s military recruitment. Such factors arise from global social change concerning patterns of women’s social and political participation, their entry in the labor market and democratic pressures toward more egalitarian gender values. On the other hand – and probably wielding a more direct influence – there are transformations within military organizations deriving from major shifts in international relations as well as from technological change: the inversion of the ratio between combat and support functions, organizational fragmentation and occupational specialization, the end of the mass armies and the development of all-volunteer forces, increasing professionalization and size reduction. All these changes have determined the need for more qualified personnel and underlined the dependence of the military on the global society. If, additionally, the trend to decreasing birthrates and the legitimacy crisis (Harries-Jenkins and Van Doorn 1976) that makes military service unattractive to young generations in Western developed countries are taken into consideration, the result is a rather complex picture concerning the factors that may exert influence over women’s military recruitment. It is relatively easy to list all the factors that may impact on women’s military roles; it is, however, more difficult to assess how they interact and how, under specific circumstances, some acquire more salience or how opposite tendencies operate. In one of the very few essays aimed at explicit theory building in this field, Segal outlined a systematic theory of
Women in the military 13 the conditions under which women’s military roles may expand or contract, assessing, to a certain extent, the relative and combined effects of those variables (Segal 1995). According to Segal, increases in women’s participation are likely to happen when military missions and values are perceived as being more compatible with women’s service, when changes in women’s social participation make them more suited and willing to perform military roles, or/and when threats to national security are so serious as to require the participation of all citizens. Remarkable effects may be witnessed when military needs and gender values are at odds with each other. The proposal includes three types of factors that affect women’s military participation (WMP): social structure, military, and culture. For each of these dimensions, the author presents a set of explanatory variables and proposes specific hypotheses regarding their individual or combined effects. Social structure refers to women’s civilian roles and general social and economic trends that affect those roles. It includes variables such as demographic trends, labor-force characteristics (women’s labor-force participation and occupational segregation), the state of the economy, and family structure. The lack of male labor has historically operated as a strong incentive to women’s entry in the workforce. This has had a similar impact in the military field where the lack of men has generally meant the amplification of opportunities for military women. According to Segal, this historical regularity helps sustain the hypothesis that when the supply of men does not meet the demand for military labor, which is the case in periods of decreasing birthrates, women are drawn into service. Nevertheless, this hypothesized relation does not necessarily produce similar effects independently of the dominant system of military service – conscript or volunteer – and will most certainly depend on other military variables such as the national and international security situations. In any case, the utilization of women in the military has been a standard answer by most NATO countries to the demographic pressures felt since the end of the 1960s, and a trend that has accentuated during the last decades of the twentieth century due to the anticipation of recruitment shortages (Segal and Segal 1983).11 A second factor that is considered to influence women’s military roles is the level and characteristics of female participation in the labor market, which is in turn closely associated with the state of the economy. Here, the author holds that the greater the percentage of women in the labor force, the larger will be their representation in the armed forces. This happens, she argues, “partially because the same factors affect both activities (such as a shortage of male labor) and partially because women’s greater involvement in the workplace brings structural and cultural changes in the society that make military service more compatible with women’s
14
Women in the military
roles, thereby making their exclusion less justifiable” (Segal 1995: 766–7). Likewise, gender segregation in the civilian workplace is supposed to be negatively associated with women’s military service, since a more integrated occupational structure is expected to indicate a more gender egalitarian culture. However, the author notes that this is a much less linear relation than the previous one, since when there is high gender segregation in the civilian labor market the military may rely on women to perform exactly those same tasks where women dominate in the civilian labor market. The state of contraction or expansion of the economy may also have a strong impact. Segal maintains that high unemployment rates (especially among young men) leads to a ready availability of male labor and thus a decrease of opportunities for women in the military. On the contrary, when the economy is expanding and there are low levels of male unemployment, opportunities for women tend to increase (Segal and Segal 1983). Finally, family structure, particularly women’s family responsibilities, greatly affects their participation in the military. Building on the evidence that this latter variable is positively associated with later age at first marriage, later age at birth of first child, and fewer children, the author suggests that “the greater the family responsibilities for the average woman, the less women’s representation in the armed forces” (Segal 1995: 768). Military variables are considered to be of overriding importance in determining women’s military roles. According to Segal, the national security situation – level of threat and nature of military missions – technological changes, and various aspects related to force structure and military accession policies are major determinants of WMP. As far as the national security situation is concerned, the author maintains that there is a complex relationship between both variables, that is, the level of threat to society and women’s participation in the military. On the one hand, when there are shortages of men, during times of national emergency, most nations increase women’s military roles. As mentioned earlier, historical evidence shows that many nations have drafted women in wartime and their participation in revolutionary movements is a common pattern. Thus, at the high end of the threat to the society, women’s military roles seem to increase. However, evidence also seems to support the hypothesis that in societies with low threats to national security, but with cultural values supporting gender equality, women’s military participation increases. On the contrary, medium threat12 seems to be associated with low participation of women, as may be the case of Israel. The nature of military missions is also considered to influence the extent of women’s participation. Segal hypothesizes that the greater the relative importance of actual war fighting (especially ground combat) the less the participation of women, arguing that, on the contrary, the
Women in the military 15 more the armed forces are involved in peacekeeping missions or operations that resemble domestic police functions, the greater is expected to be women’s engagement (Segal 1995: 762). Although with a much less linear relation to women’s roles, military technology is another important variable in the model, since technological changes such as the miniaturization of weapons, the development of air power, and nuclear technology have had a fundamental impact on the way war is conducted and on the characteristics of military jobs. These developments have enormously amplified the share of support jobs and, since women’s participation is expected to be negatively affected by the proportion of combat jobs, they have, if indirectly, enabled the participation of women in the armed forces. The likelihood of international deployments presents an additional factor. While warfare at home can count on civilian infrastructures, engagements away from home require the deployment of support personnel. Segal has argued that as long as women remain mainly occupied in support functions, their number and roles can be expected to rise as the number and proportion of personnel with primarily support functions rises (Segal 1995: 764). The impact of this variable on women’s roles may, however, vary depending on which positions are open to them and which ones they actually fill. Finally, various aspects related to force structure and military accession policies also have a notable impact on women’s participation. For instance, as long as support functions are concentrated on the reserves, women will be more strongly represented in the reserves than in active duty forces. Consequently, the greater the reliance on reservists for wartime mobilization, the greater the women’s participation in such mobilization. Furthermore, the delegitimation of conscription and the increase in all-volunteer forces seem to be positively associated with the growing number of women in the armed forces. Based on historical evidence, Segal suggests that “women’s military participation tends to increase under voluntary accession systems (as well as when social change is in the direction of gender equality)” (Segal 1995: 765). In sum, as far as military variables are concerned, the model predicts that the level of women’s military participation is positively associated with technologically advanced militaries, all-volunteer forces, situations of high or low threat to national security, greater proportion of support functions and greater reliance on reserves for wartime mobilization. Inversely, medium threat scenarios, low technological development, conscript systems of military service, and high combat to support ratios are expected to correlate negatively with women’s participation. The third category, culture, refers to the social construction of gender, social values about gender and family, public discourse regarding gender, and values regarding ascription and equity. Segal rightly points out that perceptions concerning the adequacy of women’s military participation
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Women in the military
are fundamentally the result of a social construction: “the discourse on the issues, indeed the salience given to specific arguments about women’s military roles, is not based on objective reality, but rather on cultural values. When circumstances change, the effects of historical fact on women’s subsequent military roles are overshadowed by the influence of cultural definitions and redefinitions of their roles” (Segal 1995: 758). Segal maintains that the more egalitarian the social values about gender, the greater women’s representation in the military. As social values have become more egalitarian in societies – concomitant with the political enfranchisement of women as well as growing cultural acceptance of their participation in other societal institutions – women’s military roles have also expanded. This is why a driving force toward increasing women’s representation in the military has been laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender. Among cultural factors, Segal underlines the importance of the social construction of family and social values about family, since women’s social roles are affected by cultural expectations regarding their devotion to the family. She holds that the greater the cultural acceptance of various family structures and the movement away from traditional family forms the less gender determines social roles and the greater the representation of women in the military (Segal 1995: 770). Emphasis on ascription by gender, cultural support to traditional divisions of labor, religious fundamentalism, and traditional family forms will thus limit women’s military roles. Although Segal’s model has been designed with an ambitious aim, that of proposing “a systematic theory of the conditions under which women’s military roles expand and the conditions under which their participation in the armed forces contracts” (Segal 1995: 758), the author implicitly recognizes its limitations as a first contribution to theory building in a field where there has been a clear absence of theoretical systematization and comparative cross-national research. It is thus not surprising that while still remaining a milestone in the study of gender integration in the military, various aspects of the model have been subject to revision and a few others still deserve critical scrutiny and development. The two major revisions that have been proposed so far coincide with the present research in a central critical comment: the lack of relevance or even absence of political factors among the determinants of WMP. The first one, presented in an article by Iskra, Trainor, Leithauser, and Segal (Iskra et al. 2002), consists of a direct attempt at expanding the original model through a literature review concerning three countries in different continents: Australia, Mexico, and Zimbabwe. While maintaining that the model fits in a general sense, the authors call attention to what they consider an important limitation: the fact that it is based primarily on women’s military roles in Western democratic countries, with Segal’s own empirical research focusing mainly on the US military or its NATO
Women in the military 17 partners. Using examples from these three very different geographical and social contexts, the authors conclude that some new variables and hypotheses should be added in order to strengthen the model and expand its applicability. The most important addition has been the inclusion of a separate category of political factors: “we concluded that a fourth dimension was needed to create a stronger model. We determined that political factors in each country also play a considerable role in defining women’s armed forces participation” (Iskra et al. 2002: 772). The authors propose the inclusion of the following variables: civil–military relations, political ideology of those in power (and subsequent public policies regarding minorities and women), and sources of political change other than armed conflict. New hypotheses are therefore set forth that predict (1) greater women’s participation in the military in states with legitimate civilian-led governments than in those where the military exercises substantial influence over the political process, (2) greater women’s representation in the armed forces the more liberal the ideology of the political leadership, and (3) less likeliness of women joining the armed forces the greater the diversity of methods and opportunities for nonviolent social change that exist in a patriarchal and discriminatory society. The second revision of Segal’s model is that of Kümmel (Kümmel 2002a). Resorting very closely to the original Segal’s model and its subsequent revision by Iskra et al. (2002), the author proposes a reorganization of the various factors in order to include a fifth dimension: the international context, considering this a separate factor. The national context would then be subdivided into politics, society, culture, and the military itself. The inclusion of the “international environment” dimension derives mainly from its importance in structuring the national perceptions of security threats. Change in these perceptions may then impact upon force structure and mission definition: “transformations of the security, political and strategic environment of a given country may thus lead to changes in the armed forces, including the recruitment – or dismissal – of women soldiers” (Kümmel 2002a: 626). According to Kümmel, another important element of the international context is its effect of “demonstration” or “diffusion,” since whether for a search for competitive advantages or a genuine interest in an international perspective, the armed forces of other countries are studied attentively, especially in the context of alliances and coalitions: “international demonstration, socialization, diffusion and dissemination effects . . . may well be supposed to be at work” (Kümmel 2002a: 628). Notwithstanding these positive additions and proposed developments, there are still some aspects that weaken the global applicability of the model. Some of them concern the set of explanatory factors that has been proposed; others refer to the definition and measurement of the dependent variable, that is, the participation of women in the military.
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Women in the military
As far as the former are concerned, one important characteristic of this analytical framework is that it tries to be all encompassing, including as many explanatory factors as possible. This results in an extremely long list of independent variables. The lack of parsimony is thus one of the greater difficulties posed by the model, one that reviewers not only did not consider but aggravated to a large extent, since their proposals, more than specifying hypotheses, have contributed to further amplifying the list of dimensions and explanatory variables. A second aspect where the model presents fragility concerns the relative weight of the various factors and the extent to which they affect women’s military participation. Although some of the proposed hypotheses define the conditions under which a certain relation may hold, it is unclear what the outcome would be if changes were to occur in other variables.13 As far as the latter is concerned, both Segal and the model’s reviewers have given very little attention to the conceptualization of the dependent variable, “participation of women in the military,” and even less to the question of its operationalization. Segal specifies two dimensions, “degree of representation” – which seems to refer to more quantitative aspects – and “nature of activities” – apparently evoking more qualitative aspects. However, no clear definition is provided regarding the exact meaning of the concepts or which empirical indicators would be useful to measure them. This may be considered the major drawback of the model, since without a clear definition of the dependent variable it is impossible to accurately test the impact of the independent factors. Concretely, it generates confusion regarding what exactly the independent factors are supposed to affect: women’s numerical presence?; gender desegregation/amplification of occupational and hierarchical opportunities?; greater acceptance of women in military culture?; willingness of women to join the armed forces?; or all or some of these dimensions together? Taking into consideration all of these remarks, I propose some modifications to the original and expanded versions of the model. The objective is twofold: on the one hand, to work on some theoretical dimensions, not as much in terms of proposing new variables as other authors did (even if I will propose some) but by trying to conceptually elaborate some of the already proposed variables, anchoring this reflection on concrete theoretical frameworks; on the other hand, to expose selectively some of the proposed hypotheses to empirical testing against an amplified universe of cases, using original data. Both goals are to be understood as partial contributions to the work that is being undertaken in this field and not as intent to provide complete testing of the model. Figure 1.1 presents a graphic representation of a “refocused” version of the model, one that depicts a “funnel of causality.” While clearly resorting to Segal’s model, this proposal – which will be elaborated in detail throughout the following chapters – introduces some
Women in the military 19
Gender relations Characteristics of the “gender order”
Political factors
Cultural factors
• Level of women’s social/political participation • Political system • Civil–military relations • Political ideology of current leadership
• Social construction of gender • Public discourse regarding gender • Social construction of family
Social/economic factors • Demographic patterns • Economic development • Labor force characteristics (Women’s labor force participation; Occupational sex segregation) • Family structure
Armed forces International geo/strategic context • International security situation • Alliance politics • ‘Diffusion effects’
Strategic orientations
Military culture
Organizational structure
• National security situation
• Gender regime of the armed forces
(Mission definition; level of threat)
(Military ethos; values about war; dominant image of gender roles, masculinity in soldier’s identity)
• Dominant organizational orientation (Military accession policies; force structure; combat/ support ratio; social diversity of members)
Women’s military participation (WMP) ↑
↑
↑
↑
↑
↑
↑
↑
↑
↑
↑
--------------------------------------- Time and history --------------------------------(Duration of women’s presence and previous tradition of female military involvement.)
Figure 1.1 Factors affecting women’s participation in the military.
conceptual and methodological specifications regarding, in particular (1) the definition and measurement of WMP, (2) the specification of some explanatory factors and their interrelation, and, finally (3) the different analytical levels of the research. An operational definition of the dependent variable requires specification of its various conceptual dimensions and the identification of concrete empirical indicators. That is why I propose, on the one hand, a conceptual clarification of participation of women in the military that takes into account some major theoretical contributions. One of them evolves from the field of gender in organizations. That is the case of work on the
20 Women in the military definition of gendered organizations (Acker 1991; Britton 2000), and on minority and majority groups’ relations, namely Kanter’s work on tokenism (1977, 1993) and her critics (Blalock 1970; Yoder 1991).14 The second derives from feminist political scientists’ proposals, especially the theoretical distinction between women’s “simple” and “qualified” (or “controlling”) presence in the social and political realms (Jonasdottir 1990; Philipps 1995).15 On the other hand, I look at various indicators regarding the situation of military women comparing policies and practices in NATO countries. The purpose is twofold: first, that of updating previous studies through a comprehensive and empirically based description of gender incorporation patterns; second, and relying on that description, that of proposing an “index of gender inclusiveness” as a measure to access the varying degree to which NATO forces have integrated women. This is then used as the dependent variable in the assessment of the relative weight of the various factors that influence women’s military participation cross-nationally.16 The inclusion in Figure 1.1 of a top box of “Gender relations” corresponds to a concrete theoretical standpoint that stresses the importance of a general theory of gender relations as the background perspective through which to assess the framework of explanatory factors of WMP. It is intended as an effort to extend the reflection on the military as a gendered organization and explore the relation between the gender order of society at large and the particular gender regime of the military (Connell 1987). As far as the relative impact of independent variables is concerned, the present proposal assumes the usefulness of identifying direct and indirect effects of independent variables, namely the relative impact of military “internal” and societal “external” variables. Even if in the original model Segal does not explicitly point to an overall dominance of a certain type of variables, she posits that military factors have a major impact.17 I believe that this happens because there is a direct influence of military structure and policies on women’s participation, whereas other variables may exercise a more indirect – albeit no less important – influence. In Figure 1.1, I try to account for this characteristic by giving salience to military factors and highlighting the various subsystems within military organizations, namely organizational structure, military culture, and strategic orientations. Notwithstanding the fact that each of these dimensions has its own inherent impact, they also function as filters that channel broader external influences. In terms of military organizational structure one variable that seems to be a good indicator of the state of the relation between society and the military is the Institutional/Occupational typology (Moskos 1977; Moskos and Wood 1988) or its renewed version around three poles: “paleomodern,” “modern,” and “postmodern” military (Battistelli 1997d; Moskos et al. 2000).18 There are reasons to hypothesize that the more
Women in the military 21 divergent (or dominantly institutional) the organizational model of the armed forces, the greater the impact of military variables on the level of gender inclusiveness of a force. The more the military “civilianizes” itself (Janowitz 1960), opening up to and depending more on society, the more will the external economic and political pressures condition the process of women’s military participation. Considering the complexity of characterizing all countries in terms of the variables included in this typology, the hypothesis will specifically be investigated at the case study level. I will concretely look at the extent to which women’s career development is affected by organizational orientations, arguing that the more “occupational”19 the military, the easier women’s progression and access to military positions. In the “large N” analysis I select one of the central indicators of organizational format, the conscript ratio to account for organizational military factors and relate them to WMP. The hypothesis to be tested here is: “the greater the percentage of conscripts in a country’s active forces (conscript ratio), the lower the women’s numerical representation and the lower the level of gender inclusiveness in that force.” As far as social/economic and political factors are concerned, the refocused model keeps central variables identified in previous analyses but highlights and proposes testing of the importance of a new variable (here included under political factors): “level of women’s social and political participation.” Additionally, it introduces a distinction between those factors pertaining to women’s simple presence and women’s qualified (or controlling) presence in the social and political realms. The general question to be addressed here is the following: how does the level of women’s participation – both in the economy and the polity – and specifically women’s controlling presence or absence from these arenas – affect the options, rhythm, and characteristics of women’s military participation? Segal has suggested that there is a positive correlation between female activity rate and women’s military participation. I argue that while this indicator of women’s simple presence in the system may have an impact on women’s numerical representation, the same may not happen when more qualitative aspects of participation are considered. That is why an additional hypothesis to be tested is the following: “the more the women have a ‘controlling presence’ in society, the higher is the level of gender inclusiveness in the military.” I generally maintain that the more qualified the presence of women in society, the less conflictive is the recruitment decision, and the easier the removal of formal barriers to women’s access to military positions and jobs. The third category of nonmilitary factors, culture, should be understood as a layer, affecting all other spheres, from the global political and social contexts to the military institution itself. Even if analytically individuated for the sake of clarity of presentation, this sphere of symbolic constructs should not be considered as just another dimension of social
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Women in the military
life but as one that is always present and effective in social structures and practices. In other words, values about gender cut across and interact with the remaining dimensions. Consequently, it seems adequate to explore its specified effects in the particular gender regime of the military and not focus only on general or dominant conceptions of masculinity and femininity in society at large. Furthermore, the difficulty in obtaining cross-cultural and comparative data on this variable for all the countries – namely survey data on national value systems – justifies the option to concentrate the inquiry of this cultural dimension of gender integration at the case-study level and explore it through the analysis of in-depth interviews. The main problem to be addressed here regards the impact of the prevailing normative model of gender relations – and its reflection in the gender regime of the military – on the process of women’s military participation. To what extent are the images, evaluation, and behavior of military men and women based on and coordinated with global cultural models that ensure the differentiation of gender? How do conceptions of masculinity and femininity and the asymmetry they are based on affect individuals’ perceptions of the integration process, their decisions, opinions, expectations, and practices? I contend that the more asymmetric the normative conceptions of gender relations, that is, the more traditional the vision of gender differences, the more difficult is the acceptance of women in the armed forces. Following Kümmel’s proposal, the international context is kept as a separate dimension in order to underline the specific influence and relative importance of the international security situation, the effects of alliance politics on specific policies, and the dissemination effects that emerge from contact and comparisons. Finally, the bottom part of Figure 1.1 highlights one aspect that has not been adequately analyzed in previous models and that deserves more attention in the empirical study of women’s participation in the military: the effects of time and social change on gender integration. There is a widespread idea, especially among some military sectors and policy makers, that time is a crucial factor for gender integration and that the usually disadvantaged situation of military women when compared to their male counterparts is due to their recent arrival. To be sure, there are good reasons to suppose that this variable necessarily produces effects in an organization where time defines to a large extent an individual’s career development. Besides, many countries have a tradition of female involvement in the military, namely during the two world conflicts of the twentieth century. It is plausible to suppose that this historical precedent may also have an impact on present policies and orientations. However, if one looks at the process of female social and political participation in Western industrialized democracies the relation is not always obvious. In general, despite the amount of time that already passed since women obtained basic social and political rights and have increasingly joined the public
Women in the military 23 sphere, they have not reached power positions in similar proportion. It is thus important to test the following hypothesis: the longer the presence of women in the armed forces the higher the level of gender inclusiveness. Segal’s proposal, as well as its reviewers’, focus on societal-level variables, putting an emphasis on policy and subsequent representation of women. As Segal herself notes, “When we get to the micro-level of interpersonal relations, our knowledge is less systematic . . . there has not been as much theory building and testing concerning the conditions under which gender integration is more or less successful” (Segal 1999: 574). A common suggestion for further research is thus that of investigating various analytical levels, namely through the development of case-based comparisons. This book follows the suggestion. It asks not only how some societal factors influence military policies on women’s integration (macroanalytical level), but also to what extent military organizational practices are patterned through gender lines (mesoanalytical level) and how both – societal and organizational factors – influence individual practices and attitudes (microanalytical level). In other words, besides the identification of features of the global “gender order” and its articulation with the specific “gender regime” (Connell 1987) of the armed forces, this work seeks to explore the impact of macro- and organizational-level variables on the relationships, lives, options, and expectations of military men and women.
Research design and techniques The design of the study corresponds to the above-described objectives by displaying a mixed-methodological strategy, combining a large N analysis with focused case studies. At the macro-societal level, it develops a comparative cross-national test of some of the model’s propositions and hypothesis. This comparison relies on original empirical information collected through an organizational survey conducted in all NATO nations,20 as well as on complementary statistical sources and literature review. The option for the NATO universe derives from both its theoretical and practical relevance. From a theoretical point of view, two arguments support the choice: on the one hand, the NATO universe provides for a diversity of situations against which to test the proposed hypotheses. On the other hand, as noted earlier, there are reasons to believe that there are international alliance “dissemination” or demonstration effects, which may impact on doctrine formulation and policy definitions at the national level. From a practical point of view, access to information (or the possibility to collect comparable data) and contact with the various countries seemed much higher if the data collection required dealing with a central integrated structure such as the Alliance, as was indeed the case. The final database includes information on a long list of variables concerning
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various dimensions of the participation of women in the military, such as global representation, recruitment policies, selection and training, career development, occupational and hierarchical distributions, family policy, and gender equity monitoring. But it also includes military, economic, and political indicators regarding each country’s situation. Those concerning the military include, for instance, the type of military system, force structure, and force dimension. As far as the global society is concerned, data has been gathered on variables such as level of development, the state of the economy, women’s economic mobilization, and political participation. On the basis of and following this global analysis, a comparative case study of two countries – Portugal and the Netherlands – is also developed. Each of these countries reveals a different gender incorporation model. They also differ in important aspects regarding explanatory factors for women’s military participation, namely those pertaining to external social, economic, and political conditions. The question asked here is the following: to what extent have military organizational policies on gender integration been influenced by global social conditions and/or by organizational changes affecting the armed forces? The focus is on the organizational analytical level, which is explored through a comparison of the armed forces’ structural features and recent changes, as well as military policy options regarding the integration of women in the two countries. Laws, official reports, military regulations, and interviews with key observers (political and military leadership) were the main sources used. Finally, at the micro-level of interpersonal relationships, the dynamics of gender integration are captured through qualitative information deriving from fifty-four semi-directive interviews conducted in the two countries with a diversified group of military men and women officers. While it would be illuminating to confront the reality of personnel in different rank positions, pragmatic considerations regarding the extension of the research universe and the requirement of the intensive interpretative focus at this analytical level explain the option for a selective study of the officer’s category. Officers constitute the professional corps of the organization and, as such, they not only have a greater “structuring” power over organizational features and arrangements, but at the same time experience to a greater extent the power and influence of those arrangements when compared to nonpermanent personnel.
2
Gender relations, gendered organizations, and the military
The framework presented in Chapter 1 includes as a central assumption that the study of women’s integration in the military requires a theory of gender relations. This is so not only because the military may be considered a “gendering” institution but also because gender dynamics impact on definitions of adequate social roles as well as on issues of intimacy and sexuality, all of which are crucial factors in the process of gender integration in the military (Segal et al. 1999: 228). Therefore, this chapter will focus on the relevance of gender as a structuring principle both in society at large and in the military in particular. It addresses a set of interrelated questions: to what extent does the gender regime of the military relate to – reproduce, amplify, transform, distort, “feed” – patterns of a general gender order? How does it interact with other cleavages and markers of identity? How does it change over time? How do individuals use it to position themselves and to interact? To answer these questions it is important to review some proposals in the field of gender studies, namely that of Connell – one of the most systematic attempts to theorize gender (Connell 1987); one which seems to be particularly useful to understand the dynamics of gender relations in the military.
Social structures and gender regimes In Gender and Power, Connell proposes a systematic theory of gender, applied to the various domains of economics, politics, sexuality, and the psyche (Connell 1987). It is presented as a “practice-based” theory, stressing the constraining power of gender as well as the ways in which actors resist or subvert those constraints. The author identifies the existence of three fundamental structures in the field of gender relations: labor (division of labor), power (authority, control, and coercion), and cathexis (emotional links). The first refers to the processes of occupational sex segregation, that is, the allocation of different kinds of jobs to different categories of people as well as to the organization and design of the work and occupational sex typing.
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The second structure, power, is defined in a rather negative way as authority, control, and coercion. Within this domain, gender-structured hierarchies exist both in the public and private realms, creating a male monopoly of the means of institutional and interpersonal violence and defining domestic and sexual asymmetries. Here it is important to distinguish between “the global or macro-relationship of power, in which women are subordinated to men in the society as a whole, from the local or micro-situation in particular households, particular workplaces, particular settings. It is possible for the local pattern to depart from the global pattern, even to contradict it” (Connell 1987: 111). The third axis, the structure of cathexis, refers to the “sexual social relationships,” that is, those relationships “organized around one person’s emotional attachment to another” (Connell 1987: 112). While recognizing that sexual practices are governed by other structures as well (e.g. the economy), Connell notes that gender structures the pattern of desire, identities of desiring subjects and identification of desirable objects, as well as conditions for sexual exchange. This is clear in the set of norms that regulate couple relationships, laws concerning rape or age of consent, or even in the incest taboo. The socially hegemonic pattern of desire presupposes sexual difference, which can be emphasized as a means of intensifying desire.1 The mechanisms through which the sexual division of work, relations of power, or cathexis are sustained may vary significantly according to the specific contexts of various institutions. Although there is not a necessary coherence in the articulation of these structures, none of them can be considered independent of the others. There is some kind of orderliness that relates them, not in terms of a systemic functional unity, but in terms of what Connell prefers to call “historical composition.” In this sense, gender is a “linking” concept: “It is about the linking of other fields of social practice to the nodal practices of engendering, childbirth and parenting” (Connell 1987: 140). The extent of these links, its “social geometry” is then a question for empirical investigation and cannot be predefined: “there are times and places where these links are more extensive and compelling, where . . . a greater percentage of the social landscape is covered by gender relations; and times and places where they are less” (Connell 1987: 140). Gender order and gender regimes Connell maintains that the concept of a single structure of gender relations must be broken into component substructures which he calls gender regimes defined as “the historically produced state of play in gender relations within an institution” (Connell 1990: 523). For instance, to pick up Connell’s examples, institutions such as the family, the state, or the street have in concrete space–time contexts their specific gender regimes. The relations between the various gender regimes of different institutions
Gender relations, organizations, and military 27 define, at the level of the whole society, the gender order conceived as the place where the global macro-politics of gender are played out. At this level, there are patterns of relationship between masculinities and femininities, which correspond to face-to-face interactions within institutions, but become much more “skeletal” and simplified. Connell identifies the existence of a hegemonic form of masculinity,2 which establishes itself in relation to femininity, as well as to other subordinated masculinities. Hegemonic masculinity, as an ideal type, embodies the currently accepted answer to the problem of legitimacy of patriarchy, guaranteeing the dominant position of men. Although not incompatible with the use of force, hegemony does not require it. More than direct violence, hegemony is based on a successful claim for authority. As a state of play, it does not suppose the eradication of alternatives or total dominance. On the contrary, it may consist exactly in preventing these alternatives from acquiring cultural recognition or political expression. In fact, hegemonic masculinity constitutes itself in relation not only to femininity but also to other masculinities: some subordinated, as is the case of homosexuality or the symbolic assimilation of certain groups of heterosexual men into femininity when they fail to develop complicity toward the hegemonic pattern, others marginalized, as in the case of dominant and subordinated masculinities along class and ethnic divides. Thus, the idea of hegemony generally implies a large measure of consent and complicity on the part of all those who do not fit the hegemonic stereotype: “masculinities constructed in ways that realize the patriarchal dividend, without the tensions or risks of being the frontline troops of patriarchy, are complicit in this sense” (Connell 1995: 79). Furthermore, it is noteworthy that hegemonic masculinity is not necessarily considered threatening by most women, who may in fact find it more familiar or manageable than nonhegemonic masculinities. This may be a crucial element in explaining the reproduction of practices that institutionalize male domination over women, despite possible strong pressures for change. In order to gain greater understanding of this question of reproduction and change, the social psychological approach used by Lígia Amâncio may be extremely helpful, even if it is focused exclusively on the cognitive dimension (Amâncio 1992, 1993, 1994). Drawing on the work of LorenziCioldi (Lorenzi-Cioldi 1988, 1991), she emphasizes an asymmetry of the masculine and feminine models and the way this regulates social positions and relationships. According to this proposal, the concepts that define what it is to “be a man” or “be a woman” combine into an asymmetry of meanings that are more universal at the masculine end of the scale and more specific at the feminine end. Basing her work on different studies on gender-associated belief systems, Amâncio highlighted the way in which, in our societies, the model of masculinity is quite similar to the predominant model of individuality (Amâncio 1992). This overlapping of the
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categories of man and individual thus explains the symbolic dominance of the masculine and its representation as a universal being, while the female model is identified within the private space of the family and emotions. This classificatory asymmetry helps us understand the greater visibility of women when positioned in supposedly atypical contexts, since the significance of femininity is collective and depends on a specific position within the social system: “This explains why a woman who is out of her ‘natural environment,’ either because of the position she occupies or her behavior, requires explanation and justification, which is not true of men. Similarly, uncharacteristic behavior with relation to the norm is noticed more and raises more negative criticism in women than in men” (Amâncio 1992: 12). This points to the need to reconsider common assumptions about the inevitability of a transforming impact that the increase in the number of women in the workplace and in the public sphere in general will have in the internal structure of organizations and on society’s perception of the role of women. Research in this area has shown that men and women do not see differently the dominant models of masculinity and femininity and the asymmetry upon which they are founded. On the contrary, they generally share the normative assumptions of these models and reproduce them in their behavior: “just as people see ‘females’ as women more than they see ‘males’ as men, so women ‘see themselves’ first as women and men ‘see themselves’ first as individuals” (Amâncio 1993: 135). Referring to a similar issue, Connell admits that there may be a kind of fit between hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity. This specific kind of femininity represents a model of compliance with male power, of nurturance, and empathy. It is expressed in practices such as the display of sociability more than technical competence, fragility in mating scenes, or acceptance of marriage and childcare as a response to labormarket discrimination against women (Connell 1987: 187). This form, however, is not in a position to become hegemonic regarding other femininities in the sense hegemonic masculinity is. Any struggle or attempt to constitute gender interests around this model is a contradiction in terms because to acquire a stance in sexual politics would require the subversion of the model’s own prescriptions. This description of the current gender order is not supposed to identify fixed types. It is historically constituted through both the interconnections of various gender regimes and the social struggle around the terms of those relationships. As far as the first aspect is concerned, sometimes gender regimes are connected in a complementary way. For instance, the part-time pattern of female recruitment in the labor market articulates with women’s domestic responsibilities at home. There is here a “practical accommodation” between the two institutions. Other times connections may reveal a conflictive pattern (e.g. emotional relationships of the family versus
Gender relations, organizations, and military 29 demands of a state at war); a third pattern of connection between institutions sets them as the domain of common strategy or movement. Here lies the second major step in the constitution of the gender order: the struggle around the constitution of gender interests. This process refers to how groupings that are the major actors in sexual politics give “a particular content to a social category, establishing particular contrasts with and distances from other social categories, and constituting an interest around which identity and action can be organized” (Connell 1987: 137). Theorizing change: “crisis tendencies” in the gender order Practices may reproduce or depart from the existing situation in terms of gender relations. According to Connell, they may be cyclical or divergent. The process of institutionalization of gender therefore regards the conditions that make cyclical practices probable: “gender is institutionalized to the extent that the network of links to the reproduction system is formed by cyclical practices. It is stabilized to the extent that the groups constituted in the network have interests in the conditions for cyclical rather than divergent practice” (Connell 1987: 141). Since reproduction may be a common outcome of practice but is by no means a necessary one, crisis tendencies may develop, challenging the gender order as a whole or the gender regimes of specific institutions. Crisis tendencies are defined as a combination of structured conflict of interest and potential for decomposition (Connell 1987: 117). Gender politics is thus understood in terms of the clash of interests constituted historically within gender relations. An example may be illuminating at this point. Connell identifies the major structural features of the gender order of rich capitalist countries (which are at the same time building blocks of modernity) as (1) gendered separation of domestic life from the money economy and the political world (2) heavily masculinized core institutions and a more opentextured periphery (3) institutionalized heterosexuality and the invalidation and repression of homosexuality. All three patterns sustain a fourth feature: the major pattern of sexual politics, the overall subordination of women by men. While this pattern is still dominant, there are, according to Connell, various symptoms of a crisis tendency that illustrate structural tensions of the current gender order. With regard to the first aspect – separation of domestic life and the formal economy – the large-scale and long-term employment of married women seems to subvert the principle of separation between home and work. The wife’s wage, even if defined as a “second income,” is a strong power resource in domestic politics and thus contributes to the erosion of domestic patriarchy. Likewise, the concentration of large numbers of women in segregated labor markets creates a new political situation in the
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workplace, opening a potential space for the articulation and mobilization of social interests that may challenge the established gender order. Other aspects may disrupt the legitimacy of domestic patriarchy. Among them rank the growth of general claims for equality as the basis of legitimacy of the state involving state strategies that weaken the legitimacy of male’s domestic power (e.g. funding of women’s education at a large scale, creation of mechanisms for intervening in domestic violence, changing provisions about property, taxation and pensions that treat a married woman as a person in her own right). All these aspects may not result in an actual or automatic reversal of patriarchal authority, but they do seem to increase vulnerability to change. When other conditions develop (e.g. reliable and easy contraception techniques such as the pill, growth of women’s higher education, politicization of certain groups of women) the potential for a crisis becomes stronger. While these aspects impact on the structures of labor and power, the third one, cathexis, is also challenged by the crisis of the heterosexual “ideal” couple and the emergence of other forms of sexuality (women’s liberation or gay liberation movements reflect these crisis tendencies in sexuality, even if not a general crisis of the model).
Gender relations in organizations When scholars began to pay attention to organizations as a locus of gender, they usually did so by choosing one particular institution, the family and kinship, as the bearer of gender and sexuality. This has left untouched the dominant tendency to study structures such as the workplace as if gender did not matter. In fact, throughout the twentieth century, theories of organization and management have taken for granted the assumption that organizations and occupations are gender-free. Abstractly defined workers are supposed to be recruited and rewarded on the basis of “objective” skills or qualifications, and occupations structured independently of who fills specific positions. Discussions of organizational behavior developed around supposedly universalistic processes regardless of the culturally and socially contingent characteristics of workers. This dominant perspective has been so pervasive that some authors believe that “the assumption of gender neutrality may be one of the great blind spots, and errors, of twentieth century organizational theory” (Rothschild and Davies 1994: 583). Despite the fact that even today research in this field is frequently conducted within a gender-neutral framework, more recent work has clearly challenged this assumption, showing how organizational practices are patterned through gender lines (Acker 1991, 1992b; Martin and Collinson 1999). Joan Acker was one of the first to systematize the various contributions that, for more than a decade, had set the basis for this new
Gender relations, organizations, and military 31 perspective in the area of gender, work, and organizations. In her proposal of a theory of gendered organizations Acker argued that organizations are not gender neutral, that positions and jobs have built into them assumptions about the kind of worker who is supposed to fill them (Acker 1991). The idea that gender is a constitutive or even a foundational element of social structure became enormously influential and it is now common to speak of institutions, occupations, policies, or practices as gendered (Britton 2000). But what exactly does it mean to say that an organization is gendered? The literature drawing on the so-called gendered-organizations tradition is not always consensual about what it means to say that an organization is gendered. Britton identified three of the most common interpretations (Britton 2000). First, organizations may be seen as inherently or essentially gendered, which implies that they have been “defined, conceptualized and structured in terms of a distinction between masculinity and femininity” (Britton 2000: 419), presuming and inevitably reproducing gender differences. Second, organizations or occupations may be seen as gendered if they are male or female dominated. Finally, it is possible to argue that gendering occurs when organizations “are symbolically and ideologically described and conceived in terms of a discourse that draws on hegemonically defined masculinities and femininities” (Britton 2000: 420). After criticizing each of these interpretations, Britton stated a provisional definition that organizations or work environments in which gender is less salient are “those in which gendered characteristics, taken here to mean hegemonically defined masculinities and femininities, take on less significance in the construction, reproduction and allocation of advantage and disadvantage, exploitation and control, action and emotion, meaning and identity” (Britton 2000: 423). Following Britton and Connell, it may be said that gendered organizations are those where characteristics associated with hegemonic masculinity or femininity have some degree of “explanatory power” in terms of the definition of its prevailing “structure of advancement and exploitation” (Schmitter 1981), that is, on production and allocation of material and symbolic resources. In this sense, gendering occurs within organizations through some basic lines. First, there are structural divisions along gender lines (divisions of labor, of allowed behaviors, of locations in physical space, of power). For example, in terms of recruitment and selection procedures, organizations are gendered in that they prefer workers whose time, energy, and attention will not be drawn away by nonwork needs and commitments. Second, there is the level of organizational culture and ideology. This refers to cultural values about masculinity and femininity and to the construction of symbols and images that explain, express, reinforce, or sometimes oppose gender divisions. For instance, what is valued in an organization or in a worker is often expressed in terms that are culturally seen as masculine. Leaders,
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for example, are described as “forceful, hard, aggressive, tough, strong, and ambitious.” Third, there are patterns of interaction and identity formation that express, reinforce, or subvert those structural and ideological constraints. How would this work concretely within organizations in general and in the armed forces in particular? Women’s presence in organizations: conditions and constraints Besides the fundamental recognition of the gendered character of organizations, analysis in this field has been developed in close association with the more global issue of minorities in organizations, a fertile confrontation field for structuralist and individualist approaches, and of obvious relevance for the study of gender dynamics in the armed forces. The question of the relative weight of organizational positions and individual characteristics in explaining men and women’s behavior has been of central concern in these discussions. While the first position confers an overwhelming explanatory importance on organizational dynamics, power structures, and especially relative numbers, the second stresses the specific social characteristics of the actors as a key factor for understanding men and women’s organizational behavior and strategies. Kanter’s pathbreaking research Men and Women of the Corporation (Kanter 1993), which opened the way to the study of gender in organizations, is probably the best example of the structuralist framework in this field. Despite later revisions, debates and criticisms, it remains, in various ways, an invaluable reference for the study of gender relations in organizational settings. In a case study of an American corporation (dubbed Indsco) in the mid-1970s, Kanter stresses the importance of organizational dynamics and structural features to account for people’s responses. She identifies three major factors that condition work behavior: structure of opportunity, power, and relative numbers. Discrepancies in the opportunity structure – of mobility and growth – are seen as affecting engagement with work, that is, levels of ambition and commitment, ways of seeking social recognition, and amount of risk-taking. Such a structure is determined by promotion rates from particular jobs, ladder steps associated with a position, the range and length of career paths opening from it, access to challenge and increase in skills, and rewards as well as individual prospects relative to others of his or her age and seniority (Kanter 1993: 246). According to Kanter’s model, those low in opportunity are unlikely to develop the necessary motivation that would allow them to improve their situation. They tend to limit their aspirations, have lower self-esteem, seek satisfaction in activities outside work or interrupt their careers, have a horizontal orientation (compare themselves to peers), be critical of
Gender relations, organizations, and military 33 high-power people, be less likely to protest directly or seek change, and be more concerned with extrinsic rewards such as the economic or social payoff of the job. On the contrary, those high in opportunity are expected to have high aspirations, high self-esteem, be committed to the organization’s goals, have a vertical orientation, and be more concerned with the intrinsic aspects of the job. Cycles of advantage and disadvantage are set in motion that objectively limit the individuals’ responses to their organizational situations. The second building block of this structural model, power, is defined as efficacy (the ability to mobilize resources) more than domination and is seen as a virtual requisite for effective performance. Kanter examines the specific organizational ways in which power accumulates: through activities, often made possible by formal job attributes, and through informal alliances with sponsors, peers, or even subordinates. The routinization or visibility of the function, its relevance to the organization, approval by high-status people and the existence of sponsors, or favorable alliance with peers, are among the factors that determine differential levels of organizational power. Kanter hypothesizes that people low in power resources would tend to foster lower group morale, behave in more authoritarian ways, try to retain control and restrict subordinates autonomy, and use more coercive than persuasive power. The third element in the model, relative numbers, is probably the most tested and discussed component of the whole theory. It refers to the proportions and social composition of people in similar situations, that is, the relevant social types in various parts of the organization (e.g. women, blacks, and other ethnic minorities). The basic assumption here is that numerical distributions have a major influence on the social experiences of the group. In Kanter’s case study, women were found in extremely low numbers among male peers, a situation that created strikingly different interaction contexts for men and women. Due to their limited proportion – the very few among the very many – these women became tokens, that is, representatives of their category rather than independent individuals, “symbols of how-women-can-do, stand-ins for all women” (Kanter 1993: 207). In Kanter’s view, the token situation accounts for many of the difficulties that numerically scarce people face in fitting and gaining acceptance in an organization. The existence of tokens is considered to foster social segregation and may lead the persons in that position to develop compensation “strategies,” either by overachievement, hiding successes, or turning against people of their own kind. In this theory of tokenism numbers are thus considered as having a major significance: “numbers are important not only because they symbolize the presence or absence of discrimination but also because they have real consequences for performance” (Kanter 1993: 6). The relevance of both Kanter’s analysis of tokenism and the discussions and revisions it generated is of particular
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interest for the analysis of gender relations in atypical situations or “gender-inappropriate occupations” (occupations stereotypically defined as masculine) as is the case of the military. A more detailed analysis is thus necessary to clarify the social dynamics it entails. Kanter’s model of tokenism Kanter identifies four group types on the basis of different proportional representation of kinds of people: at one extreme, uniform groups are those composed of only one social type of people. These groups can be “considered homogeneous with respect to master statuses such as sex, race or ethnicity” (Kanter 1993: 208); at the other extreme, skewed groups are those where there is a dominance of one group over the other with a typological ratio of around 85:15; tilted groups, with ratios of perhaps 65:35, move toward a less extreme distribution; while in balanced groups – at about a 60:40 down to a 50:50 ratio – the effect of proportions is neutralized and outputs for individuals will depend more on other structural and personal factors. Tokenism, as defined by Kanter, refers to the numeric skewedness of one’s group, that is, tokens are members of a subgroup that composes less than 15 percent of the whole group. This was the case of women in her study. Their rarity was considered to account for particularly negative consequences: performance pressures due to high visibility, social isolation resulting from the exaggeration of differences by the dominant group (contrast), a situation that Kanter called “boundary heightening,” and finally “role-encapsulation” as an effect of gender stereotyping (assimilation). Visibility, contrast, and assimilation in turn generated typical token responses. First, the high visibility of the token – a novel perceptual element whose every move is noticed and easily recalled – leads to various forms of performance pressures. While “the token does not have to work hard to have her presence noticed . . . , she does have to work hard to have her achievements noticed” (Kanter 1993: 216). Because that visibility stems from characteristics of the master status, in this case the discrepant gender location, other aspects of the token’s performance tend to be ignored (the tokenism eclipse). For instance, women’s physical appearance tended to eclipse their technical abilities, thus producing additional pressure. However, tokenism seems to set up contradictory dynamics, for people in that minority status may also be afraid of being too outstanding in performance for fear of retaliation. They would thus try to become socially invisible. Visibility and publicity are thus two-edged swords for tokens, since they are both representatives and exceptions: on the one hand, they are considered exceptions and unusual examples of their kind, especially when they succeed; on the other hand, they serve as symbols of their category when they fumble. Kanter maintains that what in the literature was identified as women’s “fear of
Gender relations, organizations, and military 35 success” is in fact token women’s fear of visibility, that is, the result of their attempt to face pressures by making themselves and their achievements invisible, playing down the recognition of their presence. As later noted by Yoder, Kanter’s findings have helped counter a long-standing tendency, both in popular and scholarly literature, to attribute to women the difficulties they encounter in the workplace, supposedly resulting from their “Cinderella complex” (Dowling 1981), the “impostor phenomenon” (Clance and Imes 1978), or their “inadequacies on the fast track rather than the mummy track” (Schwartz 1989). A second consequence of the token situation is contrast, the exaggeration of differences. Because perceived differences generate uncertainties among dominants about how to behave toward tokens, this effect leads dominants to amplify both their commonalty and the tokens’ differences. By doing so, they create and heighten boundaries of which previously they might not even have been aware. Shared elements of the dominant culture (for instance, in the case of masculinity, displays of aggression or potency) are thus emphasized in contrast to the token, as a way of reaffirming in-group understandings or asserting group solidarity. “Ironically” – Kanter notes – “tokens . . . are thus instruments for underlining rather than undermining majority culture” (Kanter 1993: 223). Contrast is also built through other means. Kanter identifies three other interactional phenomena which contribute to boundary heightening, whether consciously or unconsciously: interruptions as reminders of difference (reminders of the special status of the token such as apologies for the use of certain language or questions of appropriateness), overt inhibition (informal isolation of tokens by keeping them away from certain occasions and networks), and loyalty tests (aimed at assuring that tokens, whose position raises uncertainty due to the possibility of “outside loyalties,” will not turn against dominants). Referring to the people in her study, Kanter notes, “The dilemma posed here to tokens was how to reconcile their awareness of difference generated by informal interaction with dominants with the need, in order to belong, to suppress dominants’ concerns about the difference” (Kanter 1993: 229). Hence, tokens’ answers to the reinforcement of cultural boundaries could take two forms: either accepting isolation with the risk of exclusion from important informal socialization, or trying to become insiders by defining themselves as exceptions and turning against their own social category. The occurrence of this second general response possibility suggests to Kanter a reexamination of the popularized “women-prejudiced-against-women” hypothesis (also known as the “Queen Bee Syndrome”) as being of structural rather than sexual origins.3 Finally, a third type of effect is set in motion that aims at reducing dominants’ uncertainty about tokens through the use of stereotypes: assimilation. This refers to situations when “The characteristics of tokens
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as individuals are . . . distorted to fit pre-existing generalizations about their category as a group” (Kanter 1993: 230). Tokens become encapsulated in specific roles that keep them in a bounded place and out of the mainstream interaction. Although instances of “mistaken identities” may be changed, this involves an extra burden in terms of time spent in reaffirming accurate role relations. Usually, status leveling occurs, which involves “making adjustments in the perception of a token’s professional role to fit with the expected position of the token’s category” (Kanter 1993: 231). One example would be the tendency to treat women as secretaries even when others know they are not. By using status leveling, dominants induce tokens into stereotypical roles that preserve familiar forms of interaction. In the case of Indsco, Kanter observed four types of informal “role traps,” defining for dominants a single response to the token’s sexuality: the “mother,” the “seductress,” the “pet,” and the “iron maiden.” The mother is supposed to be a rather “safe” role, since mothers are available to all in providing emotional support and are not necessarily vulnerable to sexual pursuit. However, it has its costs. Women who are typecast as nurturers are simultaneously assimilated into stereotypical feminine characteristics such as excessive emotionality, exactly those that are least valued and most criticized by those in positions of authority. The seductress, a second Freudian type, defines a sexual object role much more subject to tension for it involves elements of sexual competition and jealousy. Frequently subject to “protectionist” attitudes, the perceived sexuality of the seductress blots out all other characteristics. A third type, the pet, was identified as a mascot, an amusing, cute symbol, toward whom the male group tended to develop a kind of “look-what-she-didand-she’s-only-a-woman attitude,” provoking in turn self-effacing girlish responses on the part of these women. Finally a fourth type of role, the iron maiden, refers to the stereotypical role into which strong women usually fall. Those who were inducted into this profile – either because they failed to fall into any of the other categories or because they in fact resisted role encapsulation – were considered tougher and more militant than they actually were. Kanter found that, in general, the tokens’ responses to role encapsulation tended to be conservative. Low-risk strategies for minimizing change and attempts to adjust to previously defined stereotypical roles were found to be the most common. What should be underlined is that, because of this pattern and in the absence of external pressures for change, tokenism can become a self-perpetuating system. Hence, “acceptance of role encapsulation and attendant limitations on demonstration of competence may work to keep down the numbers of women in the upper ranks of the organization, thus continuing to put people in token positions” (Kanter 1993: 237). This tendency is strengthened by pressures and inducements on tokens to dissociate from others of their category, thus failing to promote, or even blocking, their entry into corporate ranks.
Gender relations, organizations, and military 37 The tendency to perpetuate discrimination at the top is even more inflated by the particular characteristics of certain jobs that make them more likely to produce discrimination. This is the case of the high uncertainty of managerial powerful positions that make trust important “thus evoking a preference for confining power to people resembling those already in power” (Kanter 1993: 292), a process termed as the “cloning effect.” The token position thus contains various dilemmas and contradictions; the person in this position is subject to personal, social, and organizational ambivalence. Kanter’s work has been extensively tested and her findings have been replicated across a variety of settings. Although with slightly different expressions, the negative consequences and dilemmas of numerical scarcity were identified among the first women to join certain occupations such as correction officers in male prisons (Jurik 1985; Zimmer 1986), police women on patrol (Martin 1980), coal miners (Hammond and Mahoney 1983), physicians (Floge and Merill 1985), and academics (Young et al. 1980). In the field of military organizations, Yoder, Adams, and Prince found that the first women to join the military academy at West Point reported social isolation, excessive visibility, and role encapsulation (Yoder et al. 1983). Rustad also identified similar patterns in a study of American enlisted women (Rustad 1982). However, Kanter’s proposal has also been subject to serious criticism. For instance, one problem that has not been highlighted, but nonetheless may be pointed out, refers to a possible “oversimplification” of the relevant social identities and cleavages that operate in organizational settings. Multiple cleavages or distinct interacting master statuses may impact on the group typology in ways that complicate the modalities in which the different variables interact in the model.4 Yet, the main criticism that has been directed to this theory of tokenism refers to the supposedly structuralist determinism of the approach, evident in Kanter’s interpretation of the effects of numerical balance. Reevaluating numbers, rethinking tokenism Kanter assumes that the negative consequences of tokenism are mainly an effect of numbers and that these consequences are similar, regardless of the category from which the tokens come. Although at some point of her argument she admits that “the specific kinds of people and their history of relationships with dominants provide cultural content for specific communications” (Kanter 1993: 212), her main argument is that “the job makes the person” (Kanter 1993: 292). The difficulties women face in a token’s situation are considered similar to the experiences of people of any other type that are represented in very low numbers (the lone black among whites, the lone man among women, the few foreigners among natives). In sum, it is sustained that “any situation where proportions of
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significant types of people are highly skewed can produce similar themes and processes. It was rarity and scarcity, rather than femaleness per se that shaped the environment for women in the parts of Indsco more populated by men” (Kanter 1993: 207). More balanced numbers of men and women would presumably eliminate the negative characteristics described. Both assumptions – the irrelevance of gender per se and the positive effects of balancing numbers – have been subject to criticism and discussion in the light of a vast set of empirical findings. In particular, inconsistencies have been found regarding Kanter’s assumption that the situation of women improves as their numbers increase in an organization5 (Bird 1996). Over time, Kanter’s hypothesis has been challenged by various alternative explanations. One of the most tested has been Blalock’s minority-size-inequality hypothesis (Blalock 1970; South et al. 1982). While in the former proposal token minorities are considered to be subject to greater hardships than nontokens and it is predicted that an increase in minority numbers would help to eliminate problems, Blalock’s perspective has led to the opposite prediction, that is, the increase in numbers would generate additional pressure. Originating in the race relations literature, it suggests that “minority individuals are less likely to be accepted by the dominant category when there are enough of them to present threats to the political and economic security of the majority” (South et al. 1982: 588). Instead of diminishing the negative consequences of tokenism, numeric surges may be experienced as threatening by the dominant majority, who then react by increasing discrimination. This may result in harassment, wage inequities, and blocked mobility. Support for this hypothesis from research findings has been considered moderate to strong (South et al. 1982). How can we thus make sense of these opposing views? Under which conditions and circumstances does tokenism produce such disparate effects? A critical perspective, which tries to identify the pitfalls in Kanter’s theory of tokenism but still aims at reconciling her analysis of numbers with other types of intervening variables, comes from Janice Yoder. She argues that Kanter’s model, as well as subsequent replications, confounded four different factors: numeric imbalance, gender status, occupational appropriateness, and intrusiveness. Yoder considers that despite the attention given to gender as a master status that permeates social relations in organizations, Kanter minimized the gender of her subjects when discussing the negative consequences of tokenism. Against the assumption that tokenism produces identical results independently of the social category of the token, Yoder maintains that the gender of the token affects its status. In fact, she argues, there is overwhelming evidence that token men avoid the negative consequences of numeric imbalance (Fairhurst and Snavely 1983). Some studies have shown that the visibility afforded to token men may even enhance their opportunities for promotion.
Gender relations, organizations, and military 39 “In short,” Yoder concludes, “the negative consequences of tokenism seem to occur only for members of social categories that are of lower status relative to the majority” (Yoder 1991: 181). Kanter, according to Yoder, thus failed to acknowledge the extent of organizational and societal sexism as one of the basic causes for the negative consequences of tokenism. How are we to explain both the popularity of Kanter’s analysis and the replication of her findings? According to Yoder, this happens because all these studies focused on women working in occupations stereotypically defined as masculine and considered at the time as inappropriate for women. “Gender inappropriateness”6 is thus proposed as another relevant variable that should be added to the analysis. However, as Yoder herself accurately notes, almost all studies of women and men tokens have been developed in gender-inappropriate contexts. Hence, there is little or no evidence regarding more “gender-neutral” occupations to test the relative effects of this factor. However, the various results seem to confirm the fact that in such “atypical” contexts scarce women feel performance pressures, social isolation, and role encapsulation, but men tokens do not. A third variable that has been demonstrated to influence outcomes is “intrusiveness,” the degree to which the presence of minorities is seen as threatening by the dominants. Intrusiveness – the central dimension in Blalock’s hypothesis – is also related to the social value of occupations, in terms of compensation and prestige. Male-dominated occupations usually score higher in both aspects. Research has extensively shown the pervasive effect of this process of gender typing, highlighting patterns such as the devaluation of women’s work (Steinberg 1990; England 1992) or an occupation’s decrease in prestige as it becomes female dominated (Maruani and Chantal 1989; Reskin 1991). This factor helps to explain why women have been more eager to join male-dominated occupations or more willing to allow men in female-dominated ones than the reverse. As Yoder puts it, “men in male-dominated occupations have more to lose by the intrusion of women in great numbers than do women in the less prestigious female-dominated occupations, which may actually increase the status when they are infiltrated by men” (Yoder 1991: 184). Hence, intrusiveness interacts with gender status in that it seems to occur when members of a lower-status group (not of a higher-status group) start gaining entrance into an occupation in greater numbers. According to the minority-size hypothesis, resistance from the majority may increase with the numerical growth of lower-status minorities. Dominants would thus react in order to limit minority power gains and prevent system changes that are less likely to occur when the minority is very small. Yoder hypothesizes that women in Kanter’s case study may have felt the negative effects of tokenism not necessarily or only because they were few but because of their increasing numbers, a growth that was perceived as particularly intrusive in a previously all-male occupation.
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The main point of Yoder’s argument is not that numbers are not important but that their impact should be evaluated in articulation with other variables. The combined effects of token numbers, gender status, norms of occupational inappropriateness, and intrusiveness may generate different outcomes. It is thus possible to reconcile apparently opposite approaches by teasing apart the individual and combined influence of these four independent variables. The analysis of structural determinants – such as those identified by Kanter – may and should be combined with the sociohistorical characteristics of the subjects (Beccalli 1997).
The military as a gendered organization Like other formal organizations, the military has a particularly clear gender regime, even if it is less homogeneous than is usually supposed. In the light of the framework of “gendered organizations” analyzed earlier, the military can be seen as an “extreme case” of gendered organization in terms of the criteria that scholars have used to classify organizations as gendered. Gender may be considered a very significant element to understand the structure of advantage and exploitation in the military in at least three main dimensions. First, the military’s organizational structure is clearly based on gender divisions, both in terms of opportunity and power (hierarchical divisions) and in terms of occupational structure (sexual division of labor). Women are excluded from certain specialties and there are distinct patterns of gender representation by rank and functional areas. Second, it is male dominated in terms of numeric representation, especially in the areas more closely related to the core functions of the institution, exactly those that confer not only more prestige and rewards but also objective possibilities to access the higher hierarchical ranks. Despite a notable increase in the representation of women throughout the organizational structure over the last few decades, it is a realistic assumption that male dominance will continue to exist in the near future. Finally, from the point of view of culture and the structure of cathexis, hegemonic definitions of military conflate with hegemonic masculine culture and ideology, even if such construction is subject to historical change and varies significantly in different sectors inside the institution. In any case, the military has for centuries been a source of normative conceptions of gender, which, on the one hand amplify dominant cultural patterns and, on the other, actively participate in their production and reproduction. Thus, more than merely gendered, the military is also a gendering, gender-granting or gender-defining (Cohn 1993; Segal 1999) institution. In the following sections, I will explore some of the most significant mechanisms through which gendering occurs in the military.
Gender relations, organizations, and military 41 Armed forces and masculinity Traditionally, the military in general, and combat units in particular, have been seen as a proving ground for masculinity. Through specific forms of socialization, disciplinary models, and authority patterns, the military has functioned as a central agency for the construction of the masculine gender identity and, thus, has been equally central to the definition of hegemonic masculinity. The imprimatur of masculinity conferred by the institution then becomes a core element in a soldier’s self-definition and simultaneously an operative norm for the performance and interaction in military groups. Military service (especially conscript service) has frequently been depicted as a rite of passage, transforming boys into men and youth into adults. In some ways, it has also functioned as a ritual of differentiation between men and women, or better, between the socially constructed categories of masculine and feminine, an opposition that pervades many of the tensions at the core of military imagery. The equation “masculinitywarrior” is operationalized through a conditioning model of creating the masculine male where physical standards acquire a major salience. In an analysis of military socialization and masculinity, Arkin and Dobrofski have shown how, from the moment of recruitment through basic training, values associated with physical strength represent the prerequisite for masculinity: “emphasis on high physical standards implicitly carries with it the military’s belief that masculinity is determined primarily by a healthy body, not a healthy mind” (Arkin and Dobrofski 1978: 156). The initial physical status of the recruit sets the patterns for stratification within the military structure since those with better physical profiles are traditionally designated for the more prestigious and rewarding combat careers, while those with lower physical standards are tagged for support and administrative functions. Since opportunities for promotion and career advancement often depend on the performance of functions in combat or line units, being assigned to these areas obviously increases one’s status and probability of reaching the higher ranks. In no other area have the links between biology and social behavior been so exploited and abused. The fact that throughout history war has been an almost exclusively male activity is frequently used as an empirical illustration of the link between male biology and aggression. David Marlowe has maintained this position, arguing that “the male’s greater vital capacity, speed, muscle mass, aiming and throwing skills, his greater propensity for aggression, and his more rapid raises in adrenaline make him more fitted for physically intense combat” (Marlowe 1983: 190, my italics). Additionally, the capacity to carry out aggression is seen as being connected to the nature of the male bond, and this, in turn, is sustained by the language of male sexual identity: “the soldier’s world is characterized by a stereotypical masculinity. His language is profane; his professed
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sexuality rude and direct; his maleness is his armor, the measure of his competence, capability, and confidence in himself” (Marlowe 1983: 192).7 Alongside language, proclamation of sexual prowess, riddles and songs that denigrate women, and pornographic posters and movies are also evident symbols of the archetypal culture of masculinity within military units. In one way or another, the soldier’s sexual status is always “on the line.” Reinforcing male numerical dominance in the military is thus a masculine or masculinistic imagery that pervades the military function and images of it. However, this frame of military masculinity must be looked at as an ideal-typical form of the dominant model. In social practice it is often reinterpreted and enacted in apparently paradoxical ways. For instance, Cohn has noted that, while representing a traditional gender image, in practice, participation in the military allows men to transcend many of the constraints of hegemonic masculinity since they are allowed more intimate bonds with other men than is typical in the civilian world (Cohn 1999). Cohn maintains that this loosening of the bounds of masculinity is made possible by the military’s power to grant hegemonic masculinity to its members. This allows all these activities to be reinterpreted as manly rather than as threats to hegemonic manhood. Arkin and Dobrofski share an apparently different view by establishing a careful distinction between the masculine camaraderie and companionship integral to the “buddy system” and any possible sanction of intimacy (Arkin and Dobrofski 1978: 163). In reality it is possible to articulate both positions. In this case, without sanctioning a certain type of intimacy, one that could have sexual or erotic connotations, the form of military companionship embedded in the “team” archetype allows and requires another type of intimacy, one that is reinterpreted to dismiss any possible sexual meanings. The mechanism that allows the reinterpretation to take place is the buddy system. The tension generated by this understanding of intimacy among men is particularly visible in the discussion over homosexuality in the Military, as shall be seen further on. Another point worth noting is that the association and overlap between the hegemonic definition of military and masculine do not exist in isolation. According to Macdonald, these categories are part of a structural system of concepts, a semantic grid that sustains the articulation between gender, peace, and war (Macdonald 1987). While its sense and moral load may vary, in this symbolic matrix femininity, peace, and passivity frequently have the same location opposed to a set comprising masculinity, war, and activity. In this sense, the systematic exclusion of women from warfare has contributed to reinforcing gender differences and codifying frontiers between masculine and feminine. Macdonald argues that the images of women in the military domain cannot be considered irrelevant or accidental. On the contrary, whether women are present or absent their images have always played an important part in defining
Gender relations, organizations, and military 43 and articulating the symbolic order and its values: “Women’s roles and images of women, are not . . . neutral in the military scheme of things, but have a carefully defined structural relationship as part of that scheme” (Macdonald 1987: 21). The image of women is seen as a fundamental element in the definition of a soldier’s identity, functioning as a referential “other.” Besides the masculine models of the “hero,” the “buddy,” or the “tough man,” soldiers are frequently exposed to negative images, of women or homosexuals, used to represent the weak or inefficient qualities of the recruit. This is particularly clear during basic training, where soldiers are usually addressed as “faggots” or “girls.” As noted by Macdonald, “in this transaction, non-masculinity is equated with ineffectiveness and passivity; and masculinity with power and aggression. . . . The younger soldier, however, does not easily transform himself in the masculine side of the equation, for in the submission to authority required of him, he is taking on a typically ‘feminine’ role. This tension at the heart of the imagery serves the army well, however, for the insecurity it generates can be countered only by the man proving his masculinity along the lines laid down by the military ideology” (Macdonald 1987: 16). The image of woman-as-the-other is, however, subject to a great deal of variability and instability. Multiple subcategories or archetypes of women coexist in the symbolic universe of the military. Besides the broader association between women and all values and qualities that are not male, and thus not desirable for a soldier, several stereotypes emerge. A first image is that of women as sexual objects. Arkin and Dobrofski see the emphasis on the heterosexual use and abuse of women as sexual objects as deriving from the need to dismiss any possible doubts about the gender identity of the male. A curious example of this process of objectifying women to confirm male values of dominance is the common naming of equipment by women’s names (Arkin and Dobrofski 1978: 162). Related to this stereotype is also the conception of women as a hunting trophy. As accurately noted by Fabrizio Battistelli, throughout history males have always demonstrated the same perseverance in excluding their women from warfare and including in it those of the enemy. While women of one’s clan or social group were “spared” as combatants, other women were looked on as trophies. In this conception, the rape or slavery of the women of the enemy has an obvious and tremendous symbolic meaning. The demoralizing consequences of abduction or rape of women are well documented. In the context of war, rape is considered a “supreme” offense, sometimes one even stronger than defeat. Susan Brownmiller has masterly synthesized this idea: “Men of a conquered nation traditionally view the rape of ‘their women’ as the ultimate humiliation, a sexual coup de grace. Rape is considered by the people of a defeated nation to be part of the enemy’s conscious effort to destroy them . . . Apart from a genuine, human concern for wives and daughters
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near and dear to them, rape by a conqueror is compelling evidence of the conquered status of masculine impotence. . . . The body of a raped woman becomes a ceremonial battlefield, a parade ground for the victor’s trooping of the colors. The act that is played out upon her is a message passed between men – vivid proof of victory for one and loss and defeat for the other” (Brownmiller 1993: 38). Battistelli calls attention to the fact that this is a rather generalized mechanism in war, and not only in the past. Even today, sexual violence is extensively used as a weapon, as was the case of the mass rapes in Bosnia–Herzegovina between 1991 and 1995, and many others committed by soldiers of regular armies throughout the whole twentieth century (Seifert 1994; Stiglmayer 1994; Beverly 1996; Battistelli 1999; Sharratt and Kaschak 1999; Hayden 2000). The author notes that “in all-male societies, as have been the armed forces worldwide until very recently, rape in war and fantasy around it in peace-time functioned as a non-stigmatized institutional escape from the all-male condition and the inherent homosexual condition associated with it both as a possibility and as a threat” (Battistelli 1999: 51). At the other end of the classificatory spectrum, but closely articulated with it, is the image of the woman as a protected being, one that a soldier is supposed to fight for and defend from the horrors of war (mainly mothers, wives, and daughters). Underlying this category is the opposition, usually naturalized as symmetric, between the role of women as mothers and the role of men as warriors: giving life and giving death, maternity and combat, seen as mutually exclusive activities and specific to the “essential nature” of women and men. This division is also expressed in the relation between protectors and the protected which, according to Stiehm, institutes a relation of dependence of women on men and a profound inequality concerning the responsibilities of collective defense (Stiehm 1982). Segal has also proposed an explanation for the functionality of this image of women during wartime. Assuming that there is a psychological differentiation between the “real world” and the combat situation, which allows some men to resist the enormous stress of war, she conjectures that one of the survival mechanisms could exactly consist in the preservation of the image of that world where women have a central role. “Women (at least ‘our women’) – she argues – are not part of the war. Indeed, one of the reasons men have for fighting is to protect their women and the rest of the image of the world back home” (Segal 1983: 209). Just as these images of women have been present or absent, instrumentalized or ignored in different situations, also the archetypes and mechanisms of masculinity have been subject to significant variation over time. Images of masculine heroism have shifted throughout history. In fact, at a certain moment within the same society there may exist different models of masculinity, some of them more associated with violence than others. The same thing happens inside military organizations.
Gender relations, organizations, and military 45 There is a notable heterogeneity of gender environments in the military. Some units and branches are more gender integrated than others and this division maps onto a hierarchy of masculinities. Cohn provides a suggestive example of such diversity. In her study of gender and national security, she found that while combat unit men tended to think of themselves as the most “studly,” officers in combat support and combat service-support offered a different understanding, suggesting that the macho masculinity was really a compensation for combat soldiers’ lack of technological and organizational skills. Consequently, she adds, “in different branch and unit contexts, men construct different components of the construct ‘masculinity’ with concomitant differences in their attitudes about women in the military” (Cohn 1999: 35). This is exactly why the military has to be understood in terms of the relationship between masculinities (Connell 1987, 1995). It is the relationship between forms of masculinity – some physically violent but subordinated, others dominating and organizationally competent – that may help us understand the present state of gender relations in military organizations. In fact, it would be inaccurate and naive to suppose that military operations actually work on the basis of traditional heroism archetypes. With the technologization of warfare, the “management of legitimate violence” became strongly based on rational-bureaucratic techniques of organization (cf. Chapter 4). Due to the multiplication of support functions, in modern armies the majority of soldiers are not combatants at all and most military leaders would agree that “Rambo types should not be driving our jeeps and supply trucks” (Connell 1995). Within this process of structural change, military service has also lost most of its symbolic power in the production of gender referents. For some analysts the loss of relevance of the masculine “ethos” in military socialization is an accomplished and ineludible reality. According to this perspective, cohesion and solidarity of military groups, previously anchored in shared models of masculinity, have come to be based on an individualistic ethic and a more instrumental vision of interactions (Moskos 1970). Traditional archetypes of masculinity have lost most of their integrating power. The transformation here identified refers fundamentally to a normative shift in the recruitment appeal – more than “make a man out of you” military service is increasingly presented as a place for professional qualification and acquisition of technical skills within a process of convergence between military and civilian bureaucratic values. However, it is possible to hypothesize that we may have witnessed a process of reconfiguration of the traditional definition of masculinity, more than its suppression or total reconfiguration. It is worth noting the suggestion of Arkin and Dobrofski that the fact that “becoming a man” is nowadays defined in terms of learning an occupation or a skill, probably means that to the recruitment message has been added the traditional
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work ethic dimension of masculinity, which equates it with productivity, occupation, and breadwinning. These authors believe that despite the organizational shift toward more professionalized forces, “the traditional male role is still dominant and even contemporary analysis of the military must focus on the traditional processes and images of masculinity upon which the system is based” (Arkin and Dobrofski 1978: 153). After nearly three decades of women’s presence in the military of at least some Western countries, it is possible to question whether Arkin and Dobrofski’s contention is still valid. While significant changes have taken place in terms of the social composition of the armed forces, there is, nevertheless, some reason to believe that the connection between masculinity and soldering has not been entirely broken. This would seem to be proved by the experience of women in the military. The experience of women soldiers As shown in the previous section, stereotypes of maleness are frequently built through contrast with femininity and values associated with women. It is not surprising to observe that “compatibilities and inconsistencies become especially critical when women are incorporated into active military service” (Ardener and Holden 1987: xviii). Over the past two decades, despite a notorious increase in women’s representation in the armed forces of most Western countries, the routinization of their presence in some settings, the diversification of their roles, and the parallel increase in acceptance, “organizational resistance and interpersonal adjustments are still prevalent” (Segal 1999: 574). A variety of studies have emphasized the constraints and difficulties military women face in order to accommodate their gender and work status in the military. While most of these constraints have been formal and objectively expressed in regulations and policies, some authors claim that the broader ideology of masculinity prevalent in the institution is much more effective in limiting women’s participation than either specific institutional or interpersonal constraints (Herbert 1998: 6). However, it is certainly more accurate to underline the way in which such broader ideology actually intervenes in the production of formal constraints as much as it is embedded in informal relationships. Although very different factors contribute to the determination of female military roles and the experiences of women vary significantly cross-culturally and within services, a number of common features characterize these experiences as well as the way in which women manage conflict and negotiate integration in an environment generally defined as masculine. An immediate observation refers to the fact that women usually constitute a small proportion of their work groups and are thus exposed to most of the effects of gender skewedness summarized above (Kanter 1993). Kanter’s theory has been tested in the
Gender relations, organizations, and military 47 military with contradictory results (Rustad 1982; Yoder et al. 1983; Yoder and Sinnett 1985; Dunivin 1988; Williams 1989; Yoder 1989; Barkalow and Raab 1990). Most of these studies have stressed the negative effects of tokenism, amplified in this specific type of “gender-inappropriate” occupational setting for women. Others have called attention to the importance of variables such as the existence or absence of institutional support, changes in the dominant group, cohesiveness among tokens (Yoder et al. 1983), and type of work (Dunivin 1988) in explaining the diversity of women’s experiences in the military. In a longitudinal study of the first class of women at the US military Academy at West Point, Yoder, Adams, and Prince have found that women were subject to the same processes of visibility, contrast, and assimilation documented by Kanter (Yoder et al. 1983). However, the longitudinal nature of the data allowed the authors to venture the hypothesis that tokenism may be a first step in the integration process, especially if institutional supports help reduce the negative effects of tokenism over time. This was found to be the case of West Point, where growing numbers of women, time, change in the sex role attitude of men, and institutional supports (such as sustained commitment to the integration of women and reassessment of training goals) have helped to facilitate the integration process. In the light of these results, institutional policies that discourage negative behaviors against token members may be of vital importance for the failure or success of the token group.8 In other words, they may be decisive in reducing the perceived intrusiveness of the new group. Rosen et al. also suggested that “while competition or the threat of competition may lead to increased discrimination, it is also true that increased demands for certain skills or functions may lead to a decrease of discriminatory practices, particularly at policy-making levels” (Rosen et al. 1996: 540). In another study, different effects have been identified depending on the type of work. Using data from a US Air Force attitudinal survey, Karen Dunivin analyzed men and women’s perceptions of the organizational environment in terms of differential perceptions of the opportunity structure, power, and relative numbers. While in traditional areas (personnel and administration) women’s attitudes varied from less positive than men when they were few to a more mixed pattern when they were many, in nontraditional but simultaneously highly valued fields (such as the piloting of warplanes) women’s attitudes were similar to men’s. According to Dunivin, these results did not confirm Kanter’s assumptions. Instead, she argues, a potentially more powerful explanatory model would classify women’s attitudes into two interacting dimensions: numeric dominance (group sex ratio), typifying women’s ascribed status, and work type, exemplifying women’s achieved occupational status. This model suggests that occupational status may be a better predictor of military women’s attitudes than gender status: “women in sex-atypical jobs may feel greater career opportunity and power because the non-traditional job
48 Gender relations, organizations, and military (not the occupant) has opportunity and power associated with it” (Dunivin 1988: 80). Dunivin’s analysis is particularly relevant because it calls attention to the importance of diverse institutional locations – in this case the differentially valued occupational fields – in determining individuals’ attitudes and responses to the organizational environment. However, two aspects should be criticized in this proposal: first, this analysis is exclusively based on the “subjective” dimension of women’s perceptions and representations, thus leaving aside more objective indicators regarding actual power and opportunity resources; second, it reveals a rather static view of the process. A diachronic analysis of intrusiveness levels,9 focusing on change over time associated with relative numbers, as well as its specific interaction with gender status, may reveal different patterns. In any case, an overwhelming majority of empirical studies has stressed women’s position of structural ambiguity that make them face a basic dilemma: can one truly be a soldier and a woman and not be viewed as deviating either from what it means to be a soldier or from what it means to be a woman? (Herbert 1998: 10). This is particularly notorious in the case of women in nontraditional areas who often find themselves in a double bind: “when they succeed in their work, their femininity is questioned; when they fail, their womanliness is affirmed at the expense of their work role” (Shields 1988: 107). This has a clear impact on the “portability of women’s credentials.” Moskos and Wood noted that, “whenever a woman moves to a new assignment, she is tested informally in a manner not typically experienced by men. If a woman’s performance is evaluated positively, it is not generalized to other females but is considered an individual accomplishment. If her performance is judged unsuccessful, however, her individual failure is likely to be generalized to all women” (Moskos and Wood 1988: 286). It is now possible to see clearly the effects of the classificatory asymmetry that regulates gender representations as well as, to use Kanter’s term, a certain form of role “encapsulation,” where women are caught in the trap of different evaluation. The question of physical standards and tests is at the very heart of this problem of differential evaluation and perceptions of inequity, which is an important dimension of gender relations in the military (Segal 1999). It has been used both to express men’s perceptions of unjust and unequal treatment and to reinforce female stereotypes. Since women usually have lower physical requirements and can pass tests at levels for which men would fail, many male soldiers feel that women are given an unfair advantage and that their presence contributes to lower standards in the organization. The fact that women are being judged on physical traits on which average men score higher and that other traits where women would outperform men
Gender relations, organizations, and military 49 (such as flexibility) are not included in the tests is not usually taken into consideration. In fact, as noted by Segal, military women often evaluate their own performance by the male standards and therefore feel less worthy (Segal 1999: 576). Cohn has advanced a renewed analysis of this question, one that is useful to understand resistances to gender integration, particularly in operational and combat-oriented functions. She contends that the structure of work in military institutions is invisibly premised on male bodies and male social lives, which in turn shapes the image of how the work should be done and who the ideal worker is.10 In many occupations the image of the ideal worker is seen to derive exclusively from the intrinsic characteristics of the function itself, that is, it comes to look as though a man is needed to perform it because that is the nature of the work, not because the particular ways the work is expected to be done were based on male bodies and social lives. As a result, she argues, when women enter organizations like the military they will be judged on the basis of how well they match the image of the ideal soldier, an ideal that is not seen as arbitrarily gendered. A reified notion of standards is thus operating: “[In the military] a good soldier is one who can do a certain number of push-ups, climb a robe using upper body strength and run certain speed. Not because those are actually required to get the work done, but because most fit men are able to do those things, and so those capacities have been folded into the standard, the image of the ideal soldier” (Cohn 1999: 35). Some men’s protest over physical standards, she argues, has thus been a way of reasserting gender differences, a socially acceptable way of saying what is no longer officially sayable: that women are inferior (Cohn 1999). Despite the overall pessimism of most of the available reports, it is, however, important not to overemphasize the negative aspects of women’s experiences since not only are such problems not felt with identical intensity in the various locations, but there are also studies that point to rather successful integration processes (Devilbiss 1985; Moskos 1985a). A number of factors such as time, increase in the number of women, better matching of physical capacities with jobs, and changing values and expectations of younger cohorts have helped to create a more supportive environment for women and reduce tensions (Shields 1988: 108). Another important example comes from recent cases of women’s participation in peacekeeping missions, where the gender-integrated nature of military units deployed to the conflict areas has been considered to account significantly for the success of the operations (Miller and Moskos 1995; Maniscaldo 1997; Carreiras 1999a). Be this as it may, cultural ambivalence and resistance to change seem to be prevalent regarding women’s roles in the armed forces at a particularly crucial moment of institutional redefinition.
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The body, sexuality, and sexual orientation in military culture Sexuality is a crucial test-ground for the relationship between men and women in the military. The gender regime of the military includes various mechanisms of sexual regulation and surveillance, which usually involve “contrast” and “boundary heightening,” that is, the amplification of gender differences. These, however, are not only the result of “external” institutional pressures. They are not necessarily forced on people. As in the case of other nontraditional occupations, men and women in the military actively “do” gender, sometimes reinforcing, at other times redefining their activities in terms of traditional male and female traits. Gender is then constructed in self-conscious ways, and not only as a product of social “automatism.” The reassertion of the true gender identity is required both from men and from women in ways that have been, at least until today, more obvious in the military than in civilian life. It is possible to identify some major ways, both formal and informal, through which differences are built and negotiations over sexuality take place: prohibition of lesbians and gays from military service, spatial segregation, sumptuary and etiquette rules, and sexual harassment. The debate over the presence of gays and lesbians is probably the most recent and striking example of the nature of the gender regime in the military. In fact, there appears to be a relationship between the degree to which homosexuals are accepted in the military and the degree of gender integration in many nations (Segal et al. 1999).11 Although homosexuals have always served in the military, they have not done so openly. In the United States, the official ban on their service was proclaimed in 1950 and since then policies have been increasingly restrictive. Between 1980 and 1990, the US military expelled an average of 1,500 homosexual service members per year (Scott and Stanley 1994: xi). In 1992, President Clinton’s announcement that he would support the lifting of the ban generated widespread public as well as academic controversies (Scott and Stanley 1994; Herek et al. 1996; Benecke et al. 1999; D’Amico and Weinstein 1999). After much debate, Congress adopted the so-called don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue policy regarding homosexuality.12 Although there is reasonable debate as to whether the experience of integrating minorities such as women and blacks may be comparable to that of gay and lesbian soldiers (Rolison and Nakayama 1994) most arguments against the latter’s participation in the military center on similar aspects as in the case of gender and racial integration: the effect of the presence of these “minorities” on (1) male bonding, (2) unit cohesion, and (3) the external image of the military. As noted by Herbert, it is remarkable that “though the debate over lesbians and gays was not intended to be a lesson in the military’s perspective on gender, it unintentionally provided significant information on the importance of masculinity to soldering” (Herbert 1998: 43).13
Gender relations, organizations, and military 51 In a study of the attitudes of service members of eight military bases in the United States toward homosexual service members, Laura Miller found that, although traditional antiban and progressive pro-ban worldviews coexisted, the former was prevalent (Miller 1994). However, she reports that male soldiers felt much more intensely than women about the issue and were much more opposed to the lifting of the ban. Because of their minority status and experience of discrimination, women tended to feel more sympathetic toward gays and lesbians. Nevertheless, the author’s suggestion that servicewomen may have benefited from the growth of the category “gay” (a supposedly more important threat than women in the eyes of “straight” male soldiers) in the context of the “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” policy, is highly problematic. In fact, not only has it been observed that since the implementation of this policy the number of discharges for homosexuality as well as violations of the policy has actually risen, but women have been disproportionally affected (Stiehm 1994: 161; D’Amico and Weinstein 1999; Segal 1999: 577). Women become suspect for the simple fact that they join the military. As stated by a female drill instructor in the marines: “the qualities and traits that we demand and are supposed to be training our recruits are the same traits that make us look homosexual” (quoted in Herbert 1998: 18). In an even more pessimistic vein, some authors have argued that the policy serves to undermine the core values of the military culture. For instance, Benecke, Corbett and Osburn have argued that while the ban on gays and lesbians creates a culture of intolerance, the don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue policy has seriously failed to alleviate it and, on the contrary, has encouraged mistrust, deception, prevarication, harassment, and violence (Benecke et al. 1999). In any case, Miller’s contention to explain the attitude of male soldiers is worth keeping in mind: “disrupting the rules about heterosexuality sends shock waves throughout the entire system of gender as a pervasive social and cultural distinction. Fundamental beliefs about human identity and interaction are not easily shaken and are not abandoned on the basis of a single public policy” (Miller 1994: 84). In trying to explain the massive negative response to Clinton’s attempt to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military, Cohn argues that the issue is not so much sexuality as gender. Therefore, rather than simply being a manifestation of anxiety about sexuality, the massive and virulent opposition derives from a profound anxiety about male gender identity: “what is so unacceptable is not homosexuals in the military, but having people who are openly gay in the military, that is, having the military appear as anything other than a strictly heterosexual institution” (Cohn 1999: 3). The relative absence of lesbians from the controversy is considered to be a striking factor pointing to that conclusion. According to Cohn, this was an obvious feature of the fear that military effectiveness and unit cohesion would be jeopardized by the presence of gay soldiers, whose life and
52 Gender relations, organizations, and military physical integrity could be in danger (heterosexual soldiers would beat up homosexuals). No similar argument was even suggested regarding lesbians. The author notes the peculiarity that “what is acknowledged as one group’s problem is taken as a reason to discriminate against another group. Although parallel arguments were made, American society did not find this an acceptable rationale for racial discrimination. Why is it deemed reasonable, then, in relation to sexuality?” (Cohn 1999: 13). Underneath the military readiness versus civil rights debate there is a debate not about institutions and their role, but about intimate heterosexual soldiers’ feelings. In Cohn’s view, the issue then is visibly more than the mere presence of gays. The public acknowledgment that the military is not a strictly heterosexual institution would make it lose its ability to be a masculinity-granting institution. Other authors have sustained a similar position, arguing that the proposed policy is a defensive discourse that attempts to protect hegemonic masculinity in the military and, as such, is reminiscent of an earlier one that attempted to exclude African Americans from the armed forces (Rolinson and Nakayama 1994: 121). In sum, we may say that the rules that govern gender interaction are fundamentally at stake in the discussion of gays and lesbians in the military. As noted by Miller, “Cultural warfare of this sort therefore entails a struggle for cultural dominance. Compromise is unacceptable . . . winning is crucial because the worldview extends beyond the issue at hand and gives meaning to the entire structure of people’s lives” (Miller 1994: 84). A second area where gender differences are built and reproduced regards spatial segregation and uniforms. The issue of the physical separation of men and women in the military environment has always been a source of tension for policy makers. Ensuring the existence of separate barracks and latrines has probably been one of the first concerns in every country’s armed forces when women first joined the organization. Through spatial segregation and the issuing of strict rules about adultery and fraternization14 the military has tried to avoid the threat of romantic and sexual relationships, which are seen as eroding unit cohesion. This problem of physical proximity has been particularly amplified in situations such as basic training (Williams 1989) and, above all, in present debates about women’s access to submarine units. As in other contexts, “it may well be that the custom of separate facilities is not so much demanded by the existence of two sexes as it is a means of reinforcing perceptions of sex/gender differences. Control of sexuality may, in fact, not be so much a result of gender differences as it is a mechanism for insuring their maintenance” (Herbert 1998: 16). This is even more obvious regarding the use of sumptuary and etiquette rules, another common way of fostering gender differentiation in the military. Aside from logistic issues such as barracks and latrines,
Gender relations, organizations, and military 53 women’s bodies and appearance have caused extreme concern ever since they joined the institution.15 The need to stress difference and reaffirm the “correct” gender status has been a source of tension and permanent negotiation through the design of uniforms, hats, shoes, haircut style, nails, makeup, use of jewelry, etc. Uniforms are designed differently and dress codes are common. For instance, in many situations women are required to wear skirts,16 even though they may be unsuited for the performance of certain functions. In her study of the US Marine Corps, Williams reports on concerns the Corps had about maintaining the femininity of their female recruits, commissioning several studies on the “defeminization” of women marines as well as “femininity tests.” In this case, women were required to use makeup, had classes on makeup, hair-care, poise, and etiquette and, unlike men, women could wear long hair. Another trivial but revealing example refers to umbrella use: while women were allowed to use umbrellas, men were not, because senior officers thought it was “too wimpy” (Williams 1989: 47–8). Within the US service academies, Hillman has shown that the “fear of ‘masculinizing’ women was a constant refrain in the official discussion of female appearances, reflecting both concern about women replacing men as soldiers and disavowal of the possibility of lesbians – who were presumed to look ‘mannish’ – among academy cadets” (Hillman 1999: 70). She maintains that uniforms played a crucial role in keeping women at the periphery of American military culture, since the desire to create a safe feminine image often overwhelmed functionality in women’s uniforms (Hillman 1999: 66).17 As in the case of the gay ban regulations, the concern about preserving women’s femininity has been considered to reflect men’s insecurity about their own gender identity. In a study of the integration of women at the US Air Force Academy, Stiehm notes that men’s masculinity seemed to be threatened by the presence of women (Stiehm 1981). In sum, “the paradox facing armies is how to preserve sex-difference, while controlling sexuality” (Macdonald 1987: 11). The issue of sexual harassment has been at the core of this dilemma. Despite serious definitional problems that make it difficult to accurately document and “measure” the phenomenon, sexual harassment has been considered one of the most debilitating obstacles women have to face within organizational settings. Various factors make them particularly vulnerable to such practices in the military: their token status, their lower organizational power due to usually subordinate positions in the rank structure, the fact that military personnel often live in close quarters together for long periods of time, and, last but not least, the overall masculine (and often sexist) culture of the institution. Although sexual assault seems to be rare, even if present (Morris 1996), various forms of harassment are common (Segal 1999). It has even been
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considered a “fact of life” in the US armed forces (Stremlow 1990: 98). The literature on sexual harassment in the military has distinguished between two fundamental types: sexual and gender harassment. Sexual harassment or “first generation” is an overt, blatant form of harassment based on explicit comments and jokes, insistent sexual proposals, suggestive looks and gestures which affected predominantly the first generations of women to join the services. Gender harassment, or “second generation” is a more subtle and nonsexual form of harassment that has developed as women move up the ranks. This is not as blatantly offensive as the first generation but has the same discriminatory and demoralizing effects. It includes resistance to women’s authority, women’s isolation, withholding of information, gossip and rumors, sabotage of women’s work, constant scrutiny, sexist remarks, or even indirect threats (Guenter-Schlesinger 1999; Segal 1999). Another distinction has been proposed that only partially overlaps the above. It distinguishes between individual and environmental harassment, that is, between individual incidents and the broader workplace atmosphere. The former regards direct demands on individuals and leaves very little room for misinterpretation (actual or attempted rape, assault, pressure for sexual favors or dates, sexual touching, sexual letters or phone calls). The second is systemic rather than personal in nature (general teasing or sexual jokes, sexual whistles, calls, suggestive looks, etc.) (Firestone and Harris 1994). If we look again at the US case, despite several decades of programs to fight sexual harassment on the part of the services, including training and education, this is an area where severe backlash has occurred. In the early 1980s the US Department of Defense committed itself to a goal of “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment. However, incidents that happened over the last decade, including the Tailhook scandal,18 and more recent allegations of sexual assault against drill instructors in the Aberdeen Proving Ground show that such a goal is far from reality. Particularly striking is the conclusion that “training does not appear to be the critical factor in eliminating this insidious behavior it was once thought to be” (Guenter-Schlesinger 1999: 199). The tendency to reasserting masculinity is thus clear, both at the interactional and political levels. Together with attempts at resegregation in basic military training and policies regarding homosexuality, the prevalence of sexual harassment may be seen as the effect of pressures to reassert the masculinity of service members, in a period where the main function of the military is shifting from warfare to “operations other than war” (OOTW) such as peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions. As noted by Segal, “as the military changes in adaptation to its likely role in the twenty-first century, forces for tradition are resisting changes that they have defined as ‘feminization’ of the military” (Segal 1999: 576).
3
Social and political dilemmas of women’s military service
Among the variety of social, economic, and political factors that affect women’s participation in the military are the conditions and constraints of female economic and political participation. As far as the pattern of women’s economic mobilization is concerned, a crucial question is that of the conciliation of work and the family. As underlined in Chapter 1, not only are women’s social roles affected by cultural expectations regarding their devotion to the family, but the share of responsibilities in the domestic sphere also structures to a great extent women’s work options and strategies. The second issue, in turn, refers to women’s status as citizens and their relationship to the state. Examining this requires a close analysis of the specifically political debates and controversies around women’s status and interests as both citizens and soldiers. In this chapter I shall explore these two dimensions of the presence of women in the social and political system.
Women, work, and the family Combining work and the family in late modernity One of the most distinctive features of modernity has been the separation between the world of work in the formal economy and the private and domestic world of the family, understood as two potentially conflicting spheres, governed by different rules and values. This separation between formally defined work and the family has been partially achieved through a gender segregation rule: while men moved into the workplace, most women stayed within the domestic arena of the family: “The rules of family, rooted in affective ties, and those of work, rooted in calculated exchange, could be separated and protected from one another, through the work, behavior and indeed expected character traits of the two genders” (Crouch 1999: 53–4). Industrialization was therefore associated with the increase of the male population in the full-time workforce and the massive presence of women – especially married women – at home, involved with domestic work and child rearing.
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Over the past four decades this segregation pattern has been challenged, with both the rise of female employment and women increasingly, through part-time employment, combining domestic and remunerated work. Moreover, and perhaps as a consequence, there has been a reevaluation of the role of women in society and thus more expanded career opportunities for them. One central question arising from these structural changes, affecting nearly all countries in contemporary Europe and most of the Western world, regards the difficult conciliation between paid work and family life. The way in which women deal with and are affected by it has been particularly studied, as women’s move into employment has not been followed by a reverse move of men into child rearing and housework. Moreover, in families with working mothers it is the woman who usually has the major task of conciliating both worlds. Most approaches regarding this issue share the basic assumption that there is a powerful interactive link between women’s work and family decisions. Women seem to face a series of dichotomous choices in which work and family commitments are posed as competing, alternative commitments; choices in one sphere depending on the opportunities, incentives, and constraints posed in the other (Gerson 1985: 193) Therefore, combining child rearing and committed, continuous work, still implies for most women the proverbial “double burden” of household work added to paid work, while men seem to make little adjustment of their working time to take up domestic tasks (Crouch 1999, 215–18). Even when both partners are in full-time employment, women tend to undertake a disproportionate amount of both housework and childcare (Ellis and Wheeler 1991; Headlee and Elfin 1996). Research has also shown that in some situations, because of the difficulty in combining work and motherhood, women in paid employment tend to postpone childbirth (Chafetz 1995; Huinink and Mayer 1995). This asymmetry is also seen as explaining critical problems in women’s career advancement. Women who choose or are constrained to combine both roles may have to adapt to lower professional expectations and tend to accept and positively evaluate flexibility. Part-time work is clearly one central factor in this respect, which not only demonstrates women’s double commitment, but may also reveal the tendency to lower career investment among women.1 In a study on how women decide about work, career, and motherhood, Gerson addresses some of these questions stressing variation among women (Gerson 1985). She analyzes their choices regarding work and the family in the context of structured constraint. Analyzing four groups of women, distinguished by their initial orientation toward work and family and the subsequent experience of stability or change in adulthood, she found that different groups of women (choosing domestic or nondomestic lives) confronted dilemmas that lacked established, institutional solutions, facing thus different forms of “structural ambiguity” in which they
Dilemmas of women’s military service 57 were forced to chose between mutually exclusive but equally problematic alternatives.2 Women are, she argues, “especially subject to the dilemma of ‘packaged’ choices. Not only are they reared with conflicting expectations, but they also confront ambiguous structures that often require them to choose among a number of desired goals” (Gerson 1985: 193). This structural ambiguity is particularly visible in military organizations, where the above-signaled contradictory dynamics seem to be amplified. “Greedy institutions”: military women and the family From a historical point of view, the relationship between the family and the military has always involved conflict. The traditional difficulty in articulating the requirements of stability of family life and the permanent mobility, risk and availability required by the military have always characterized the military profession. The characteristics of this antagonism have changed as much as have military organizations and family structures themselves. One could even hypothesize that recent trends toward an increasing proximity between the armed forces and civil society together with greater symbolic convergence with civilian values would favor a better articulation of military life and more flexible family models. This, in turn, would help dilute traditional tensions between both institutions. However, contemporary tendencies, both at the level of global social dynamics such as the participation of women in the labor market and at the level of military families in particular (significant increases in the rate of marriage among service members in the lower ranks, increase of single parents, military mothers, and dual-career couples) seem to foster the antagonism. The conciliation between the two institutions thus becomes more problematic. According to Mady Segal, these difficulties are to a large extent due to the fact that both the military and the family have many characteristics of what Coser called “greedy institutions” (Coser 1974). Both depend strongly on the commitment of members and impose on them great demands in terms of loyalty, time, and energy, when compared to other institutions that tend to limit normative pressures, allowing workers the conciliation of a variety of activities and membership. While it is true that the family imposes burdens on all its members – even if in various degrees along time – it is, however, particularly “greedy” toward women since they are expected (and usually choose) to devote to the family more time and emotional energy than required from men. Although changes in terms of family relationships toward a more egalitarian division of domestic tasks may have positive impact on that “selective greediness” (although exerting more pressure on men), the problems persist. Empirical data about women’s work show a recurrent pattern of female segregation in the labor-market, particularly in
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occupations that require levels of commitment which are hardly compatible with child rearing or family responsibilities. Therefore, it is not surprising that the type of demands the armed forces make on service members, namely geographic mobility, periodic separation from the family, sea duty and assignments, instability of work hours, residence in foreign countries, or even the risk of injury and death, conflicts with the needs and demands that family life and maternity impose on women. This makes the management of the double membership particularly complex. While the difficulty in conciliating family and professional life is not exclusive to the military profession, and certainly not a problem only felt by women, it is nonetheless recognized as affecting particularly servicewomen and their career strategies. Research conducted on this topic has shown that maternity constitutes the main reason for the non-reenlistment of women, particularly of those assigned to nontraditional areas subject to irregular working hours. Various studies conducted in the United States during the 1980s showed that women tended to leave the military earlier than men due to their family responsibilities, and the existence of children reduced by 69 percent women’s probability of reenlistment (Shields 1988). Moreover, as also revealed in the French case, “maternity means a lower availability for the profession and may induce de-investment in the career. In the armed forces, not only are the projects to reach the officers’ ranks almost automatically abandoned, but the mere execution of daily tasks – particularly in operational specialties – may become problematic” (Reynaud 1988). In this situation, strategies may vary between the immediate leave after the first child or the option for a two-speed career, that is, a greater availability before maternity, followed by the option for a calmer and more stable activity afterward. These studies also showed that marriage strongly limited women’s professional ambitions. An analysis of differences in marital status between men and women in the US armed forces in 1985 revealed, for instance, that among male senior noncommissioned officers there were significantly higher percentages of married men when compared with lower enlisted grades (89 percent against 27 percent respectively). The opposite was true for women: 35 percent among junior enlisted were married compared to 26 percent of the NCO corps. In addition, while only 10 percent of men were childless, 70 percent of women were. Commenting on this data, Moskos stated that “career military women are pressured under the status quo either to be single or, if married, to be childless. The institutional demands of military life are much heavier for women than for men” (Moskos and Wood 1988: 285). Pregnancy and childcare have also been highly controversial and emotional issues in debates regarding women in the military. While empirical data regarding the US armed forces has revealed that there were no significant differences in lost time between men and women and that,
Dilemmas of women’s military service 59 in fact, men had lost more time on average because of drug and alcohol abuse than women because of all of these motives combined with pregnancy (Shields 1988: 109; Holm 1993: 303), the truth is that the presence of pregnant women in the armed forces has been considered a threat to military efficiency and deployability (Binkin and Bach 1977; Shields 1988; Holm 1993). On many occasions, pregnancy has been a reason for compulsive demobilization, as happened in the United States until 1975. The suspicion of intentional pregnancy by service women to avoid deployment to the front, or to remain there, has been extensively used to legitimate exclusion policies (Tuten 1982: 251). However, the fact has been acknowledged that this attitude seems to result more from cultural resistance to women’s presence in nontraditional functions than from objective factual reality: “There is no type or quantity of statistical data comparing lost time between men and women that will convince male soldiers that pregnant women are not trying to escape (i.e. avoid work) in traditionally male functions” (Moskos 1985a: 46). The participation of women in the military has also led to another potentially problematic phenomenon in terms of the articulation between the family and military life: marriage between military men and women. From the institutional point of view, the existence of dual-career couples poses several problems, namely those concerning assignment policies: “dual-service couples are often seen as a problem for personnel management because most such couples desire joint domicile, which require the military to coordinate the assignments of two people” (Segal 1988: 91). In these circumstances there is the possibility that one of the careers will be damaged, which becomes clear after the birth of the first child, a situation that in some cases seems to reduce drastically the possibility of maintaining parallel careers (Reynaud 1988: 126). Partially because of these problems, a significant percentage of dual-career couples decide to remain childless.3 Once again, the military organization seems to reproduce all too well the ambiguous messages of society regarding the proper role of women.
Citizens and soldiers: the political dilemmas of female military service Women’s interests and the military The political debates on women in the military have frequently been framed around the question of interests, and specifically of whether it is in women’s interests to join the armed forces or if gender integration in the military promotes women’s citizenship. Discussions on this issue are far from consensual, starting with the definition of the concepts of “interest” and “women’s interests.” Feminist perspectives on this respect have been very diverse in form and contradictory in content. Earlier feminist perspectives, in particular,
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often assumed that women had – and should recognize – common interests in changing the prevailing gender arrangements. It has been argued that women, as gendered individuals, should be considered a group with distinctive and “representable interests.” Furthermore, according to this reasoning, women’s interests are different from and often conflictive with men’s interests. More recent work has challenged essentialist notions of women’s political interests, based on assumptions such as the existence of a unitary and natural category, “women,” with a set of already defined interests and homogeneity of experience. This position does not suppose a denial of gender interests or even of gender interest groups but rather proposes a reformulation of the debate, stressing the need to develop a historically situated analysis. This means following a conceptualization of interests as socially identified and mediated: interests do not just “exist”; they are constituted in terms of a complex and continuous process (Schmitter 1981). Consequently, there seems to be no possible agreement about the nature of such interests: “while it is true that at a certain level of abstraction women can be said to have some interests in common, there is no consensus over what these are or how they are to be formulated . . . . A theory of interests which has an application to the debate about women’s capacity to struggle for, and benefit from, social change, must begin by recognizing difference rather than assuming homogeneity” (Molineux 1985: 61). The most interesting question to ask would not be “which are women’s gender-specific interests?” but rather, “under which conditions have these interests been socially defined and politically mediated in concrete historical situations?” According to this perspective, interests are always precarious historical products, subject to processes of dissolution and redefinition (Pringle and Watson 1992). A similar perspective is underlined by Jonasdottir: ”Whether or not certain social groups – as for instance women or children – do have group specific interests, or are concerned with public policy, cannot be determined in the abstract or as a matter of principle. Theorizing in terms of interests (as all theory that aims at description and explanation of reality) must be historically and empirically informed” (Jonasdottir 1990). Approaching the question of the gender political interests of (different groups) of men and women in an historically situated manner has been at the basis of recent attempts to redefine the opposition between objective and subjective interests, one of the most recurrent and often essentialist debates within interest theory. One proposal that explicitly considers gender interests from such a standpoint is that of Maxine Molineux, who distinguishes between “practical” and “strategic” gender interests (Molineux 1985). Practical interests are seen as arising from the concrete conditions of women’s positioning within the social division of labor. These are contextualized
Dilemmas of women’s military service 61 interests that if realized would improve women’s material situation but not necessarily challenge the gender order: “Practical interests are usually a response to an immediate perceived need, and they do not entail a strategic goal such as women’s emancipation or gender equality” (Molineux 1985: 63). An example of this would be, for instance, female collective action’s frequent claim that women have a special interest in domestic provision and public welfare by virtue of their place within the social division of labor. In terms of practical gender interests women might find themselves opposed, depending on their social location. Strategic gender interests, on the contrary, are deduced from feminist analyses of women’s subordination and from the formulation of an alternative set of arrangements to those that exist. The author recognizes that there is not an automatic relation between these strategic interests and women’s recognition of them or desire to realize them. To Molineux, even the “lowest common denominator” of interests is not accepted by all women. And this does not happen because of some “false consciousness” – although it may interfere – but because certain changes, such as women’s personal independence and autonomy from men, could threaten the practical interests of some women, or entail a cost not compensated for. So, she argues, “the formulation of strategic interests can only be effective as a form of intervention when full account is taken of these practical interests. Indeed, it is the politicization of these practical interests and their transformation into strategic interests which constitutes a central aspect of feminist political practice” (Molineux 1985: 63). While accepting as interesting the idea of practical gender interests, Orloff criticized Molineux’s belief that some unity could be built among women around these strategic interests, even in the face of differences (Orloff 1997: 11). She questions our capacity to specify objective or strategic interests for any groups, as much as she questions the possibility of deducting politically salient identities and interests from social structures. Another perspective that clearly aims at overcoming the notion of objective versus subjective interests, is that of Jonasdottir, who claims that what is needed is a refocusing of the lens of interest, to emphasize its formal dimension – the notion that interest means a group “being among” the members of a political community, who have a “controlling presence” – rather than the contents, which are the specific needs of a certain group. This view leaves open to theoretical and empirical analysis the content aspect of human values and preferences, which then remain the object of conflicts: “ ‘Interest’ always relates to some sort of controlling attendance confronting conditions of choice . . . this means either ‘being among’ those creating the alternatives, or knowing, by means of information, concrete thinking, and clear vision what one chooses and has to chose between” (Jonasdottir 1990: 50/51).
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By focusing on the conditions of choice and not only on the contents of those choices that are offered, women’s present political interests are considered to concern the building up and controlling of, as sex/gender, a concrete presence or attendance in the system. It follows that a central point to consider is whether and to what extent present political structures enable women to build, maintain, and control their presence in politics as women. In other words, the question is: under what conditions can women as women develop a controlling presence in situations of choices in general and in authoritative decision making? This perspective is especially promising if taken as a conceptual framework to analyze women’s interests facing military participation. In the light of Jonasdottir’s proposal, it is possible to ask how women’s access to military positions is seen as promoting or decreasing women’s controlling presence over conditions of choice, both inside the institution and in the state arenas where decisions concerning the use of military force are made.
Feminist perspectives on women and the use of military force Associations between gender and military force are prevalent and yet full of confusion. According to Carroll and Hall, this uncertainty arises from two main sources: (1) the diversity of women’s experiences and (2) the divisions within feminist perspectives (Carroll and Hall 1993). Feminists have posited conflicting theories on the relation of women to war, peace, and revolution and women have, according to changing social historical circumstances, responded to warfare and peace movements in a great variety of ways. It is thus not surprising to find no unitary position being taken either by feminist groups, or women’s associations, or feminist scholars on the relation of women to issues of war, peace, security, and organized violence. One possible way of dealing with this complexity has been to categorize the varieties of feminism. The conventional categories of feminism usually include at least three branches of the feminist movement: “mainstream” or liberal feminism, socialist and Marxist feminism, and radical feminism. It is however common to find different typologies, based not only on political/chronological dimensions, but also on methodological standpoints.4 In order to contrast these different perspectives, the argument will follow an analytical distinction – even if this is not always easy to operate – between two central problems: the legitimacy of military force and the distinctiveness of women’s relation to peace and organized violence.
Dilemmas of women’s military service 63 The legitimacy of military force If, for some movements, armed action is considered necessary in certain social situations – especially those of political resistance and national liberation struggles – and female participation and leadership are even seen as a reason for pride, for some other feminists military force lacks legitimacy, and they thus describe women’s military involvement as unacceptable. The first of these positions inspires some revolutionary feminist perspectives, which advocate women’s right to fight against the imposition of an unfair social, economic, or political order. This tradition can be traced back to the time of the French Revolution when some women among the minority of feminist supporters of the revolution included in their demand for political equality the right to bear arms. Pauline de Léon, who became the leader of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, submitted a petition to the national assembly in 1791, requesting authorization for a women’s militia, on the grounds that women have the right to self-defense and to the defense of the revolution. Women wanted, she declared, the honor of sharing the trials and glories of their brothers-in-arms and of “making tyrants see that women also have blood to shed for the service of the fatherland in danger” (quoted in Pierson 1987a: 208). As Pierson has argued, for these early feminists, the militarization of women was not just something seen as an imprescriptible right but as a necessary step toward redressing the powerbalance between the sexes (Pierson 1987a: 208). This type of request became frequent during the initial years of the revolution, even if it was not successful. Indeed, the request of women to concern themselves with state matters was considered a threat by most male revolutionaries, who strongly opposed their claims by invoking the danger of inverting the natural order of gender roles (Pierson 1987a; Marand-Fouquet 1993). Although the fear of women taking up arms to defend themselves may have contributed to the decisiveness of their political suppression, the tradition of women’s involvement in uprisings of social protest and revolutionary civil war lived on (Pierson 1987a: 210). The involvement of women in the Nicaraguan revolution – and particularly the positions taken up by the Association of Nicaraguan Women Confronting the Nation’s Problems (AMPRONAC) – are often presented as a modern example of this standpoint. However, instead of focusing on women’s specific demands, the association has aimed at incorporating women both physically and ideologically into the revolution. In its attempt to integrate women into the anti-Somoza movement, AMPRONAC recognized that its campaign “would not please the big international feminist movements, for in content, it rather laid emphasis on the general struggle of our people for a free country. But this corresponds to the real need of Nicaraguan women, who lay the foundations of the equality of their sex on equal participation in the construction of a new Nicaragua” (Isaksson 1988).
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While still surviving in the contemporary world, the revolutionary position found itself facing serious criticism. Different arguments have been used to show how the participation of women in revolutionary struggles only apparently contributed to a positive change in women’s social and political status; on the contrary, according to this view, it seems to have further reinforced traditional gender cleavages. On the one hand, it has been noted that although the exclusion of women from combat has been relaxed during revolutionary struggle – national liberation wars, guerrilla resistance against invasion – the “political and military decisions to put women into combat have almost always been made by men” (Goldman 1982: 11). On the other hand, as shown in Chapter 1, there is the historical evidence of the impact of revolutions over the status of women. Despite their combatant roles during these conflicts, in their aftermath women were usually expected to give up leadership positions and return to the domestic sphere: “once a stable state has emerged (or re-emerged), its domination by men is reasserted and combat becomes male exclusive again” (Pierson 1987a: 222). The experience of women during the colonial struggle in Cuba, Algeria, and China suggests that after a period of gratitude to all those who cooperated in overthrowing the foreign power, the revolutionary government returns to a policy of female exclusion (Tobias 1990: 166). The aftermath of the revolution in Nicaragua also documents this change, providing a useful case study of the typical effects of women’s involvement in revolutionary movements (Seitz et al. 1993). However, the process of the military incorporation of women that developed in most Western armies during the past four decades has significantly changed this situation, shifting attention to the question of citizenship and equity regarding women’s access and progression inside military structures.5 This position has been highlighted by many women’s organizations in the area of so-called liberal feminism. The main claim of such organizations has been the fight for a “first class citizenship” for military women. Their action has mainly concentrated on the question of the equality of women’s access to all military specialties and jobs. The revolutionary expectations of other groups of women are here replaced by the fight against occupational segregation policies and the search for the removal of institutionalized forms of discrimination, including on women’s access to combat jobs. In fact, most prescriptive analyses by liberal feminists start by highlighting the fact that the traditional exclusion of women from those organizations in charge of managing legitimate violence has historically meant an exclusion from citizenship. By the time Western nation-states were constituted, the right to combat and use guns on behalf of the political community was seen as one of the major acquisitions of an emergent citizenship status. Military participation was an instrument through which certain discriminated social groups acquired civic and political rights, while others – like
Dilemmas of women’s military service 65 women – were denied such rights. They seem to have been excluded from the political community through both exclusion from conscription and suffrage. In this respect, it is curious to note how, in the majority of Western democracies, the extension of voting rights to women was closely linked to their participation in the war effort during the two world conflicts of the twentieth century. As described in Chapter 1, in most countries women obtained the vote in the aftermath of suffragist campaigns and women’s mobilization into the formal economy during the First and Second World Wars (Reynaud 1988: 44).6 This two-century-old association between citizenship and the right to combat has continued to be evoked in recent decades in situations where military participation was seen as a potential way for some minority groups to obtain legitimacy and political rights, thus supporting the claim to full citizenship.7 Some scholars have also stressed how military service still functions as a kind of entitlement for a role in civic life. Analyzing the connections between participation in warfare and political leadership in the United States, Sheila Tobias has suggested that during periods when heroism in warfare and leadership in politics are strongly linked, women have experienced real obstacles to their political ambitions (Tobias 1990: 164). To explore this hypothesis she compares two periods: the period immediately after the Second World War, when returning soldiers made their claim to leadership in Congress, and the 1986 elections, when Vietnam veterans were asserting their claims. As in both periods women candidates to public office did not serve in war, their claim to leadership quite as much as their right to citizenship had to be posited elsewhere. Tobias raises questions about the degree to which participation in war continues – even into the nuclear age – to be a test of political leadership, a test that, in her view, women are virtually certain to fail (Tobias 1990: 165). What is surprising in this analysis is the extent to which contemporary political strategies still rely on the soldier–citizen connection, and how strongly candidates for public office feel the need to describe themselves in this way. Facing the reality of a growing presence of women in the armed forces, she answers with skepticism: “While more and more women are volunteering for the military, particularly as previously restricted classifications are being opened to them, it remains most unlikely that any significant number of American women will seek military service in the coming decades the way some men do, as a convenient stepping stone for politics. . . . So long as women cannot display either medals of honor or missing limbs as signs of service to their country, the issue of war and politics for women will remain on the cutting edge of feminist theory and a constraint on the future of feminism itself” (Tobias 1990: 183). However, it has been noted that in the relationship between citizenship and defense the status of women as citizens is profoundly ambiguous. Carol Pateman showed how, in the context of the battle for women’s suffrage, part of the counterargument for extending the vote to women
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was that in their role as mothers they were performing a public service: that the women who died in childbirth were sacrificing their lives as much as the men who died in battle. According to Pateman, motherhood as a political status, as a major vehicle of women’s incorporation into the political order, has shaped women’s duty to the state and women’s citizenship. This has been, she argues, a troubling legacy; women and men have been incorporated into citizenship in different ways: men primarily as soldiers and workers and women primarily as mothers (Pateman 1992). Some feminist scholars have stressed the fact that this asymmetry already underpins liberal democratic notions of citizenship, since the political status of citizens is premised on arrangements of sexual inequality (Phillips 1993: 106/107). Most of the arguments against revolutionary or liberal feminist’s perspectives have been used to sustain the claims of antimilitarist feminists in the fields of radical and socialist feminism. However, it is difficult to identify a consistent and homogeneous position in this regard. While some radical feminists express doubt about taking a fully pacifist stance, arguing that the participation of women in national liberation struggles may be necessary, others deny any validity to the right to fight, dismissing it as unimportant, nonexistent or, like the right to sell oneself into slavery, inadmissible (Chapkis 1981; Ruddick 1983b: 474). In spite of this fundamental difference, the various perspectives share the same fundamental opposition to militarism seen as a basic expression of patriarchy. Female military participation is thus perceived as strengthening further male domination in society as well as women’s discrimination. According to this perspective, war cannot be eliminated without eliminating patriarchy and no lasting peace or security is possible if patriarchal social structures are not transformed. It is from a position of outsider and refusal of co-optation by the system that Virginia Woolf wrote in Tree Guineas the sentence that became famous among the most prominent representatives of this radical and internationalist feminism: “As a woman, I have no country, as a woman, I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world” (Woolf 1966). Without being a pacifist, Cynthia Enloe is one of those advocating extensive societal transformation. Sharing with Woolf the idea that women as “outsiders” have a valuable contribution to make to the debates on war and peace, she subjects the military definition of national security to feminist inquiry. In Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, she draws a connection between the politics of US “capitalist imperialism” and the denigration of women in third world countries (Enloe 1990b). By analyzing women whose role in world politics escapes the conventional definitions of actors that might influence policy makers – diplomatic wives, women employed in exportoriented industrial sectors of Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), or women working in military bases – she also intends to show that women are not peripheral to international affairs. Moreover, when addressing the
Dilemmas of women’s military service 67 question of the interconnections between patriarchy and militarism, she argues that the military have a crucial interest in the preservation of a male-dominant social order, depending, for its reproduction, on ideological constructions of masculinity and femininity as complementary (Enloe 1990b). In this context, the problem of equality is carefully reexamined, leading to the conclusion that the occupational segregation of women in the armed forces is the clearest proof of the reinforcement of the sexual division of labor in the military, even more so than in civilian life. It is also frequently argued that military interests are openly opposed to the development of the social, political, and economic interests of women: “Instead of falling into the trap of seeking equal opportunity within a system rooted in oppression, women can redefine the terms of the struggle. We can undermine the power of men over women by undermining and resisting the structures that make men powerful. When militaries promise us ‘equal opportunity’ we must respond by questioning: the opportunity to do what? Opposition to all forms of militarism must be a vital part of the feminist movement. In a nuclear age, all our lives depend on it” (Chapkis 1981: 39). One good example of the clash between liberal feminist and radical positions can be found in the debates in the United States regarding the return of the draft in 1980. The controversy surrounding women’s conscription (and conscription in general) divided US feminists over questions of principle and strategy. Ultimately, it was about how to reconcile the immediate demand for equality of opportunity – a practical interest, in Moulineux’s terms – with the more strategic recognition of the need to eliminate the structural roots of inequality. While opponents to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) firmly rejected the possibility of the registering and drafting of women, using arguments such as “we are not going to send our daughters to do a man’s job” (Holm 1993: 351), most ERA supporters were uncomfortable. Some of them suggested that women should refuse to register until the ERA was ratified: “When American women have equality of opportunity” said Bella Abzug, “there will be enough time to talk about equality of sacrifice” (Holm 1993: 352). Others, like the Women’s Equity Action League, saw registration as an opportunity to show women’s commitment, thus helping ratification by putting women in a stronger position to insist on equal protection of the constitution. Women in Congress were also divided on the issue. As Holm reports, some considered that as long as women were not to be used in combat, there was no need to register for the draft; others predicted “a terrible back-lash” if women were not registered (Holm 1993: 353). Liberal feminists have traditionally advocated extending all civil rights and responsibilities to women, including their equal exposure with men to the political will of the state. The elimination of exclusions regarding
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conscription or the criteria used to recruit for combat-related positions has thus been considered necessary as a means for women to acquire full citizenship rights. In the United States, the National Organization for Women (NOW) is taken to be the organization most paradigmatic of this liberal feminism (Jones 1990b: 126). Although opposed to the draft in principle, NOW’s reaction to a possible registering of women, if a draft became unavoidable, was positive. This was seen as being in the interest of the military and also in the interest of women, who otherwise would be denied the chance to fulfill the “unique political responsibility” of risking one’s life for the state: “War is senseless. Neither the lives of young men or young women should be wasted. But if we cannot stop the killing, we know we cannot choose between our sons or daughters” (quoted in Holm 1993: 352). NOW’s positions have been criticized for their supposed blindness regarding gender-neutral concepts of equality. Kathleen Jones argued that it is not only necessary to grant political rights, but also to assume the democratization of choices and responsibilities at the economic, social and political levels: “The demands for an agenda of non-discriminatory opportunities within the existing framework bears all the marking of cooptation” (Jones 1990b: 127). Stressing that the use of force on behalf of the state’s interests is determined by political authorities, the author assumes that women’s power to influence it would be secured to the extent that they had of equal access to political positions. Moreover, her criticism of NOW’s positions underlines the fact that the liberal argument of equality of opportunities becomes virtually insignificant if their substance contributes to a narrowing of choices in the long run: “If women content themselves with petitioning for entry in certain quarters, leaving the institutions arranged as they find them, women will discover the existing characteristics and values of society unscathed, if not strengthened” (Jones 1990b: 132). However, predisposed by their criticism of war to assume antimilitarist and pacifist positions, radical feminists have faced some profound contradictions that more moderate scholars have not hesitated to point out: on the one hand, the relative difficulty in discussing, from such a standpoint, the question of equality of opportunities and nondiscrimination regarding women’s access and progression in the military. On the other hand, as argued by Sara Ruddick, by assuming this perspective, such movements ignored the historical and political significance of both the right to fight and the duty to serve, thus assuming a politically separatist position based on the “comfortable” political identity of the outsider: “The right to participate in organized violence and to share its burden is for women a means to self-respect, full citizenship and equality with men. The alternative, allowing men exclusive control of the means of violence, endorses the division between protectors and protected, endangers women, and ironically sustains military as well as masculinist ideologies” (Ruddick 1983a: 476).
Dilemmas of women’s military service 69 Stiehm’s analysis of the protector/protected relationship underlines the same perspective. She considers that the masculine character of the military has contributed to create an asymmetric division between protectors and protected which, in turn, has instituted – both at the individual and collective levels – a relation of dependency of women on men. The degree of threat is in part defined by the protector, in whose interest it may be to exaggerate the threat. Furthermore, the fact that protectors sometimes identify more with other protectors than with the protected may become the greatest threat of all. “A society of defensors,” she sustains, “composed of citizens equally liable to experience violence and equally responsible for exercising society’s violence, is . . . stronger and more desirable” (Stiehm 1982: 367). Even authors who situate themselves in the area of poststructuralist thought, but who seem to share similar concerns regarding the “structural violence of state systems,” have acknowledged the basic asymmetry of protection rackets and the need to consider the different location of individuals within security systems: “once institutionalized, protection systems render disengagement risky at best, and possibly devastating” (Peterson 1992b: 52). The fact that choices are always trade-offs shaped by context renders this particularly true for the most vulnerable, posing at the same time enormous difficulties in asserting strategies for change. Another perspective on women’s interests regarding the use and legitimacy of military force is somehow less extreme than the previous one, and can be seen as an attempt to reconcile feminism and antimilitarism. Referring to the Italian case, Sebesta has argued that the question of the admission of women into the armed forces or the conditions of their presence within the institution can only be addressed after a necessary reconversion of the military. The most useful task that women can accomplish is that of contributing to the external control of the military apparatus. The reconversion of the military in terms of ethical values and internal goals is seen as a double function that “could be carried out with more incisiveness by many women outside the military system, rather than by a few inside” (Sebesta 1994: 44). The fact that women are not adequately represented in power positions outside the military – thus lacking a “controlling” presence in the system – does not seem to be taken into consideration. The distinctiveness of women’s relation to peace and war Besides the problem of legitimacy of military force, feminist positions have considered the distinctiveness of women’s relation to organized violence in differing ways. If sometimes the argument underlying such specificity is based on women’s exclusion from power positions in the public sphere, in other cases it is anchored on women’s maternal experience supposedly responsible for “ontological” propensions to pacifism,
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care, and the defense of life itself. In any case, both oppose women’s military participation, often sharing an essentialist vision of gender categories. One of the most influential contemporary feminist perspectives is exactly the one we could call pacifist and maternal feminism, which opposes the “moral mother” to the image of the “warrior woman,” a powerful symbol supporting many women’s pacifist groups and their political activities. In the West, this association grew out of the Victorian ideology of women’s moral superiority and the glorification of motherhood. Most turn-of-the-century feminists shared this ideology. Indeed, the presumption of a deep relation between “feminine nature” and pacifist virtues was already strong during the first suffragist campaigns, where the argument that women’s vote would favor peace was frequently used. Emily Pankhurst, the leader of the British suffragettes, declared in 1912: “It has never been and never will be the policy of the Women’s social and political union recklessly to endanger human life. We leave that to the enemy. We leave that to the men in their warfare. It is not the method of women” (quoted in Pierson 1987a: 213). The second wave of feminism that developed after the 1960s partially assumed this position (cf. Albrecht-Heide 1981). The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the development, within the context of East–West tension, of diverse threats to peace, constituted the background of such movements. Another perspective aiming at discussing the relation between a supposedly feminine peacefulness and women’s military participation comes from Sara Ruddick, who considers herself antimilitarist but supports women’s right to combat. She holds that there is a specific women’s culture based on “preservative love” emerging from women’s maternal experience, which, if transformed by a critical feminist consciousness, could become a reliable resource for peace. By pointing out how women seem to be disproportionally involved in all societal modes of care and by noting the important role that they have played in peace movements and peace-thinking, the author claims that such recognition may be used to empower women and make peace politics more efficacious. Consequently, it is assumed that women’s presence in the military would serve women’s interests to the extent that some fundamental changes would occur regarding the nature of that institution (Ruddick 1983b).8 However, such conclusions have been considered highly problematic. The pacifist position, even if in a less radical version, has been criticized for reproducing the gender stereotype of the nonviolent caring woman, thus eroding the very basis that would allow the claim for nondiscrimination and equality of opportunities between men and women. Once again, feminists have found themselves divided over this question. Like many “Just War” thinkers, a number of contemporary feminist scholars have highlighted the fact that an unjust peace can be as
Dilemmas of women’s military service 71 devastating as outright violence, concluding that, as Elshtain and Tobias argue, the simplistic dichotomy “war versus peace cannot capture the daunting complexities of contemporary political and social life” (Elshtain and Tobias 1990: x). Elshtain has proposed one of the most well-argued critiques of the association between women and peace, identifying the absolutizing effects of such an equation. According to her, the social boundary thus reinforced between a masculine, patriarchal, violent, and disordered world on one side, and a peaceful, nonviolent, harmonious world on the other, has helped to maintain the dualism of separate spheres: “Such is the irony of total inversions which wind up endorsing – indeed requiring – that which they would oppose. Until such absolutist constructions are challenged, not in opposition to but in the name of a critical and ironic feminism, peace will remain a problem” (Elshtain 1990: 265). A similar position is held by Janet Radcliffe Richards in a provocative piece significantly titled “Why the pursuit of peace is not part of feminism” (Richards 1990). She insists that the apparently radical claim for the building of a new society based on female peacefulness is profoundly conservative, helping to sustain traditionalist claims concerning separate spheres. “From this it will follow,” she concludes, “that although there may be excellent reasons for an all-female protest camp at Greenham, the idea that peace is a feminist issue is not one of them” (Richards 1990: 213). Advocating the need to reconsider traditional notions of citizenship, Ann Tickner joins the chorus of criticism, arguing that “a new notion of citizenship cannot come about until myths that perpetuate views of women as victims rather than agents are eliminated” (Tickner 1992: 59). One such myth – she claims – is the association of women with peace, an equation that has been invalidated through considerable evidence of women’s bellicosity and support for wars in many societies. According to Tickner, “the association of femininity with peace lends support to an idealized masculinity that depends on constructing women as passive victims in need of protection” (Tickner 1992: 59). The feminist perspectives analyzed and contrasted in this chapter diverge in fundamental epistemological, theoretical, and normative/ political dimensions, which in turn become particularly amplified when the issues of women and the use of military force are at stake. The debate is no more conclusive than is the recent historical record on the impact of gender differences on the management of “legitimate violence.” But it certainly has helped build both public opinion and military and political leader’s attitudes on the question of women’s participation in the military.
4
The military institution and social change
The tendency toward women’s military recruitment has developed in a context of significant transformations regarding the global security conditions as well as the goals, strategic orientations, and organizational structure of the armed forces of Western democracies. These changes have been charted along two main dimensions: on the one hand, the strategic, political definition of the use of force and the management of violence in a new international scenario; on the other hand, the changing relationship between armed forces and society, which can be analyzed in terms of both the organizational and professional transformations inside the military institution and the social perception thereof. Whatever the implications of these organizational shifts may be in terms of specific policies, women’s military recruitment is a feature that simultaneously results from and reveals the intensity of change within military organizations. In this chapter, the major trends of these ongoing transformations, as well as the theoretical debates around them, will be reviewed and subjected to critical discussion.
The military in the post-Cold War period: redefining strategic orientations One of the most important assumptions in civil–military relation theory is that armed forces are Janus-faced organizations: on the one hand, they have to assure military effectiveness in order to respond to the changes of the strategic context; on the other, especially in democracies, they must be responsive to wider social values and thus to the society in which they are embedded and which pays for them (Dandeker 1998; Ammendola 1999). The dilemmas and tensions originating from this dual frame of reference have been particularly highlighted since the end of the Cold War. A number of changes at the broader social–political level – in terms of both the international strategic context and domestic social structures – have fundamentally and progressively challenged previous national definitions of strategic interests, conceptions of security and threat, and even existing perspectives regarding the nature of warfare.
The military institution and social change 73 At the international strategic level, the most obvious feature of these changes has been identified as the “shift from the ‘certainties’ of the bi-polar standoff between the two superpowers to a more uncertain, fragmented world of competing centers of economic, political and military power” (Dandeker 1994: 639). Especially in the past two decades, security issues have been redefined. Traditional approaches based on the classical paradigm of realism, focusing on a strict political–military dimension and a stato-centric vision, have been challenged. Barry Buzan’s study, People, States and Fear (Buzan 1991), was one of the first attempts to rethink the core concept of “security,” calling attention to its multidimensional nature.1 While maintaining that states are still the dominant units, he at the same time criticized the conceptions of security bound to the level of individual states and military issues and called for a broadening of the concept in order to include political, economic, societal, and environmental dimensions. Nonmilitary dimensions of security, considered as “common risks” which individual nation-states can neither escape from nor deal with alone, have thus come to the fore. The new concept of “risksociety” posited a major emphasis on these new sources of danger that cut across political borders (Shaw 1998). Although recognizing that this is not a new idea – since Western states have developed a perspective of common security in response to perceived common threats for at least half a century – some new elements are now seen as decisively changing the situation. Among them is the emergence of a new and rather nebulous category of political subject, “the international community,” whose individual members’ rights and interests are increasingly acquiring stature in world politics. As argued by Shaw, “however inconsistently Western states and the UN respond to genocide, human rights abuse, anti-democratic regimes, global poverty and environmental degradation, it is an extremely significant transformation which has turned these issues into definers of world politics” (Shaw 1998: 78). However, common risks affect different groups very unequally and not all of them are military in nature, although some may become a potential source of military threat. As a result, it is difficult for any society to identify the conditions under which certain risks (defined as capabilities not matched to intent) may become identifiable threats (Dandeker 1994). These shifts have had major consequences in terms of the role and structure of the armed forces. It is possible to outline two fundamental dimensions of change: the nature of military missions and the impact of technological developments on the organizational format of the military. First, the nature of the military task has changed. This process had already begun during the Cold War period. Together with the diversification and diffuse character of emerging new threats, nuclear weapons meant that the armed forces’ mission became determined by a logic of deterrence. Some authors argue that this fact revealed a radical
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transformation of the traditional role of the armed forces: while deterrence had always been a part of military strategies, it now became the core organizing principle of the institution (Reynaud 1988: 27). Providing deterrence or accomplishing some limited political objective were now the major functions that the military had to share with politicians and diplomats. In this perspective, the use of military force became an option to be used in the last resort. Especially since the end of the bipolar world, the military mission has been reoriented, with priority shifting from national territorial defense to multinational interventions aimed at supporting peace and stability at a more global scale (Dandeker 1998: 84). Although international law after the Second World War already contemplated this type of mission, the actual number of multinational “peacekeeping operations” has undergone a substantial increase since the dilution of East–West tensions and the renewal of the UN’s role in world politics. Precisely because this entailed fundamental changes in the nature and scope of military missions and not a mere increase in their number, a distinction has been proposed between the first and second generations of peacekeeping. The second type of mission, which took on increased importance among the armed forces’ operative possibilities, may thus be distinguished from the former at different levels. Some of its key features are (1) complexity and “fuzziness”: experience has shown that this type of mission is reasonably unpredictable in what concerns its territorial scope as well as its specific “engagement rules,” (2) the armed forces become multinationalized in various degrees and forms. In order to be effective, national leadership has to address interoperability problems, “including not only technology and equipment but also a range of cultural issues arising from cooperation between formations working under quite different national personnel policies” (Dandeker 1998: 85), and (3) they also become multifunctional: military dimensions increasingly interface with local and international political dimensions. The need to interact with a wide variety of political and social actors has challenged the traditional understanding (and practice) of military professionalism. Military establishments have also been reshaping their organizational format, accelerating the trend away from mass armed forces toward more technically based volunteer forces. Technological developments, which have increased the destructive power of the arms systems in unprecedented ways, have been among the causes of the decline of the mass army, based on universal conscription, of the modern period. Technological change has fragmented the military organization into many specialties and increased reliance on nonmilitary experts for the development and operation of complex weapon systems. This new situation has led to an inversion of the ratio between support and combat functions (tooth-to-tail ratio), the first becoming largely dominant. Military sociologists have thus underlined the progressive constitution of “deterrence”
The military institution and social change 75 forces: smaller and professionalized, easily deployable and highly technically qualified, and capable of handling the growing uncertainty of international relations. The problem, however, as Dandeker has put it, is that “changes stemming from the external strategic context and the domestic social structure are not occurring sequentially but simultaneously. Thus, while armed forces in most industrial countries have experienced sharp cuts and restructuring of their organizational format, military personnel are being asked to be prepared for a wider variety of missions encompassing peace support operations as well as traditional war-fighting” (Dandeker 1998: 85). How has the military attempted to adapt to these different challenges? It may be said that it has done so both by seeking to achieve greater flexibility in its organizational structures and by responding to pressure from the wider society to conform to civilian values such as social equality.2 In order to analyze further this process and its implications in terms of women’s military participation, it is worth scrutinizing the main features of both organizational and professional transformations and revising the scientific debates that have taken place in this respect.
Organizational challenges and the military profession Changing patterns of military service: the decline of the mass army After the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Warsaw Pact the question of whether universal conscription was still the appropriate organizational recruitment pattern for the armed forces has gained a new impetus. As some countries started processes leading to the abolition of the draft – France, Belgium, and the Netherlands – different authors anticipated the end of universal conscription in the West before the millennium. However, the erosion of the fundamentals of conscription had started much earlier. From the mid-1960s on and during the 1970s, different countries were already facing basic challenges to their existing force structure and recruitment practices. Some clear symptoms of this tendency were the decreases in enlistment, in the quality of the draftees, in retention rates, in growing levels of conscientious objection and also in the publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the conditions and terms of military service (Kelleher 1978: 3). The draft, as an institution, seemed to be losing its previous basis of legitimation. The prediction of the end of the mass army and the theoretical debates around it have been permanent constituents of military sociology during the second half of this century. The thesis of the “end of mass armies” has traditionally emphasized the relation between increasing living standards in modern industrialized societies, with their growing functional
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fragmentation and professional specialization, and the erosion of compulsory military service. Some authors have anticipated that smaller and professionalized forces would better meet the political needs for security, requiring fewer conscripts and a different civil–military framework. This would happen as a consequence of two major trends: (1) technical developments blurring the traditional distinctions between civil and military spheres and (2) the impacts of the modernization process over social and political structures, based on an increasing degree of individualization and normative pluralization. According to the “end of the mass army theory,” in the course of the modernization process the nation loses importance as a reference point for collective identities and the military organization – both technically and sociopolitically – tends to follow an organizational pattern based on differentiation. The higher the internal division of labor inside the military the higher the tendency to rely on well-trained professional soldiers. This aspect was particularly emphasized by Van Doorn, who claimed that especially the large and rich countries could afford to maintain forces on the basis of volunteers, thus assuming the existence of a negative correlation between the socioeconomic degree of modernization and the extent of compulsion as the recruitment basis for the armed forces (Van Doorn 1975a). In sum, a common conclusion was that “the mass army, indebted to a national ideology, organizationally homogeneous, but functionally little differentiated and based on physical mobilization of human masses in order to be efficient, but economically inefficient as far as the ratio between personnel, capital and technology is concerned, is out of date” (Haltiner 1998a: 39). However, these developments have not always been viewed in such a linear way. Already at the end of the 1970s, difficulties were identified concerning organizational and political resistances to the end of the draft. While confirming Van Doorn’s and Janowitz’ central predictions regarding the decline of the mass armies, a study conducted by Kelleher in 1978, concentrating on six European states, has underlined two major obstacles: on the one hand, what the author called the “pervasiveness of incrementalism,” that is, the ability of bureaucratic actors to defend entrenched positions; on the other, the difficulties of making political choices, particularly about the future of conscription (Kelleher 1978). The concrete political situation of Western European states at the end of that decade – namely, their supposed structural weakness and the inability of leaders to assess what would be a tolerable level of risk if essentially professional armed forces were to be established – seemed to indicate that “a politics of gradualism, of solution by attrition [would be] the safest short-run course, however compelling and irreversible the long-run pressures and trends” (Kelleher 1978: 5). In a more recent research, aimed at answering the question of whether the decline of mass armies has taken place in the sense predicted, Haltiner
The military institution and social change 77 concluded that the era of mass armies would come to an end with the turn of the century in Western Europe, even if not all of its nations had given up conscription by then. In the light of an analysis of structural indicators for the period 1970–94 and an expert survey for fifteen Western European nations,3 James Burk’s assumption that ending conscription is not a necessary outcome of the decline of mass armed forces was confirmed (Haltiner 1998a: 58). Models of organizational and professional change In the face of all these transformations, various scholars have tried to characterize the new emerging organizational format of the armed forces of Western nations, considering its degree of convergence or divergence toward civil organizations and societal values. The models used by researchers in the post-Second World War period already reflected the strong pressures for social change in military organizations. While some focused on the divergence factors, others pointed to the development of a converging tendency between civil and military organizations. An extended literature was produced in the United States during the 1950s, which emphasized the homogeneity and the relative autonomy of the officer corps as a distinctive feature of military institutions. Wright Mills popularized the term “military mind” (Mills 1956) and Huntington, in his famous book The Soldier and the State, identified the development of military “professionalism” as the distinctive element of the military profession compared with civilian occupations, while at the same time distinguishing the present military from his predecessors (Huntington 1957). Based on expertise, responsibility and corporateness, professionalism is seen as a specific type of vocation shared by career officers who would therefore assure the specificity of the military organization. According to Huntington, while the nationstate remains the main form of political organization, war cannot be eradicated and those who assure the high function of external security should preserve the conservative and realist ethos of professionalism. Historical evidence, however, has pointed to the inadequacy of Huntington’s thesis, which he himself partially reformulated at a later stage, recognizing the impact of a double technological/strategic revolution upon civil–military relations and military organization and professionalism (Huntington 1963). At the other end of the spectrum of normative positions, but still emphasizing the isolationism and divergent character of military institutions, are those approaches where the army is considered to be a total institution (in a “Goffmanian” sense), aimed at reproducing repressive social forms while at the same time remaining insensitive to the evolution of the broader external context. Some authors believe that these perspectives, which flourished during the 1960s and 1970s, are today as outdated
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as Huntington’s (Boëne 1998: 174). Nevertheless, some recent proposals still rely, at least partially, on this author’s thesis when it comes to stressing the uniqueness of the military institution and the need to develop “internal” models to understand military professionalism. Between these two extremes, military sociology has developed a set of alternative theories to explain social change within military organizations, at the core of which questions related to professionalism have acquired major importance. This is the case of Morris Janowitz’ classical work that signaled a trend toward “civilianization,” stressing the growing convergence between the military and civil society (Janowitz 1960). According to this perspective, technological developments have occasioned institutional fragmentation and a growing dependence of military organizations on nonmilitary expertise and technologies, thereby narrowing differences between the two sectors. As a result of the rationalization process, affecting both civil and military institutions, bureaucratic structures lose weight, combatants become a minority, and leadership styles are less authoritarian. In addition, the author believes that such a convergence partially dilutes the sources of potential ideological conflict between civil and military elites. He stresses, however, that such proximity does not lead to identity or confusion; even if submitted to instrumental rationality, the military profession maintains its distinctiveness and must incorporate and preserve the limits of convergence. Janowitz’ civilianization thesis opposed, albeit only implicitly, Huntington’s hypothesis, which assumed the need for a certain military isolation from society as a basic condition to ensure organizational efficiency and political neutrality. Despite this difference in emphasis, which continued to characterize later work in this area, most of the subsequent proposals reveal some conceptual continuity. While recognizing the structural distinctiveness of military institutions – that is, the ever-present probability of combat and the monopoly of organized violence, most of them point to increasing commonalties between military and other bureaucratic organizations. Janowitz inaugurated a paradigm that became classical and dominant, giving rise to a variety of perspectives within the sociological study of military institutions. In a certain way, the common core of all the research aiming at explaining change lies in a generalized perception of the decline in relevance, legitimacy, and prestige accorded by contemporary society to the military profession, the dilution of its specific contents, and a shift in the value orientation of military professionals. This was also the starting point for Moskos’ analysis of change within the American military. In order to overcome strict theoretical and methodological oppositions around micro–macro or action–structure polarities, he proposed a model highlighting the ever-changing interface between armed forces and society, which came to be known as the Institutional/Occupational (I/O) thesis (Moskos 1977, 1985b, 1986; Moskos and Wood 1988).
The military institution and social change 79 The I/O model is considered to be an obligatory starting point to the analysis of change within military organizations. Indeed, when first proposed in 1977, it gained attention not only from social researchers but also from policy makers and senior officials in the armed forces, and all subsequent models refer to or criticize Moskos’ proposal in one way or another. In this model a set of polarized empirical indicators is identified in a continuum ranging from a military organization that is highly divergent from civilian society to one that is highly convergent with civilian structures. Two ideal-type models are conceptualized: an institutional or divergent model, legitimated in terms of norms and traditional values, where the members of the institution are seen as following a “vocation,” relying on symbolic rewards and sharing “a purpose transcending individual self-interest in favor of a presumed higher good” (Moskos 1986: 378); and an occupational or convergent model, close to the dominant market rationality of civilian society, where motivations to join or remain in the military are of an extrinsic material and instrumental nature. Table 4.1 shows the different variables initially identified by Moskos along the lines of both orientations. Table 4.1 Social organization of the armed forces: institutional versus occupational Variable
Institutional
Legitimacy Societal regard
Normative values Esteem based on notions of service Role commitment Diffuse; generalist Reference groups “Vertical” within the armed forces Recruitment appeals Character qualities; lifestyle orientation Evaluation of Holistic and performance qualitative Basis of Rank and seniority; compensation decompressed by rank Mode of Much in noncash form compensation Legal system Military Justice; broad purview over member Female roles Limited employment; restricted career pattern Spouse Integral part of military community Residence Work and residence adjacency; military housing; relocations Postservice status Veterans’ benefits and preferences Source: Moskos and Wood (1988: 16).
Occupational Marketplace economy Prestige based on level of compensation Specific; specialist “Horizontal” with occupations High recruit pay; technical training Segmented and quantitative Skill level and manpower shortages; compressed by rank Salary and bonuses Civilian jurisprudence; limited purview over member Wide employment; open career pattern Removed from military community Work and residence separation; civilian housing; permanence Same as nonservers
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When this thesis was first presented – in the context of a “strange crisis”4 in the definition of the essence of the military organization – Moskos defended the idea that the dominant trend in the American armed forces was a shift from a “vocational” to an “occupational” logic, and a corresponding move from institutionalism toward occupationalism. In this sense, the I/O thesis reproduces polarities of the social structure that have always been at the core of mainstream macro-sociology, such as idealism versus materialism, normative versus functional integration or even traditional versus legal–rational authority. As Moskos himself admits, “any master trend in Western society would certainly be found somewhere along the lines of the shift from normative to functional integration. The posited shift of the military system from institutional to occupational is perhaps no more than the particular application to the military of this master trend” (Moskos and Wood 1988: 17). However, in subsequent work aiming at evaluating theoretical developments and empirical applications of the model, a significant renewal of institutionalism among the American military during the 1980s was signaled, contrasting with the clear occupational emphasis of the previous decade (Moskos and Wood 1988). This trend underlined the possibility of potential tensions between the two orientations, in some cases leading to the reinforcement of institutional orientations – presumably more adequate to promote institutional cohesion, personnel commitment, and motivation around common values and shared goals – and other times promoting a more individualistic occupational pattern congruent with the rational calculation of the marketplace that supposedly undermines military professionalism and decreases organizational commitment and distinctive identity (Moskos and Wood 1988: 7). This fact was at the origin of at least some of the subsequent controversies and discussions around the conceptual and operative difficulties regarding the application of the model. Janowitz was one of the first to criticize Moskos for “changing the rules of the game of social analysis without clearly signaling the change he introduced” and suggested that changes would be better conceptualized as from professional to occupational (Janowitz 1977: 51–4). The intense dispute between Moskos and Janowitz set the foundations and arguments for later discussions of the model and its operationalization. However, their opposition was based more on conceptual than on factual disagreement. Sorensen has clearly identified elements of compatibility and divergence between the two approaches (Sorensen 1994). Starting from the idea that the two authors disagree less than is usually thought, he points to five main themes where agreement can be found: (1) despite the different concepts of “occupationalism” and civilianization, both refer to the same trend (2) even if Moskos argues that all the American military is undergoing change and Janowitz confines his view of this trend to the officer corps, Moskos implicitly agrees that only the
The military institution and social change 81 officers could accomplish the I/O shift, since only officers can claim the feeling of “following a call” characteristic of members of an institution (3) Moskos sees the military facing major problems while Janowitz identifies partial discontent but not to the point of undermining professional identity. This disagreement can be considered as limited because Janowitz recognizes the problem and speaks of the “lower standards of some officers,” (4) they both explain I/O shifts in terms of external forces more than internal factors, and (5) finally, according to Sorensen, both perceive officers as passive and inactive actors in their reactions to the shift. In two aspects, however, their disagreement is seen as real: the role of trade unions (Moskos believing that members of an institution do not organize themselves into a union and Janowitz considering unions as proof of professional strength) and the reversibility of change (while for Moskos the I/O shift can be reversed, Janowitz sees no return from the civilianization trend). The main factor that provides a lead to understanding the discussion between the two authors is the conceptual focus of each. As Sorensen has noted, Moskos used the concepts of organization, institution, and occupation but ignored the concept of the military profession, as it had been developed in previous research traditions. In contrast, Janowitz concentrated on the military profession, understanding it as an institution. We may thus conclude, with Sorensen, that “this different approach eroded any mutual understanding, even of formerly well-accepted concepts” (Sorensen 1994: 607). Sharing a similar critical view, some authors have emphasized the simultaneous presence of institutional and occupational features in the armed forces, proposing a conceptual frame close to what Janowitz called “pragmatic professionalism” (Stahl et al. 1980); others have stressed the alternative and even incompatible character of both orientations (Faris 1988). Moskos suggested a possible solution to this dilemma when he stressed that the I/O model should not be seen as describing homogeneous or unambiguously defined situations at either one of the poles or even as intermediary positions along the continuum, but rather as a conceptual tool useful to chart the existence of plural configurations where contradictory features may coexist. As he himself admits, “I/O modalities will interface in different ways even within the same national military system. There will be differences between military services and between branches within them. I/O modalities may also vary along internal distinctions, such as those between officers, non-commissioned officers and lower ranks; between career and single-term military members; between men and women; between draftees and volunteers; and so on” (Moskos 1986: 81). In this sense, the military organization could become plural or segmented: while some sectors would remain distinctively military and divergent from civil society (such as the combat units), others, particularly
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in the more administrative or technical areas, would progressively resemble an occupation. Even if we agree with Battistelli’s comment that Moskos did not develop this idea in his later contributions to the I/O debate (Battistelli 1990: 168), it should be noted that Moskos stressed the model’s capacity “to allow us move beyond the institutional versus occupational dichotomy to examine the different degrees of institutional and occupational aspects and see where they are in opposition to each other, and where they are manifest jointly. Such a dynamic approach comprehends not merely an either-or situation, but a shifting constellation of institutional and occupational features in the armed forces” (Moskos 1986: 382).5 Toward a “postmodern” military? In recent years changes in the military have been reinterpreted as the move from a “modern” to a “postmodern”6 form of organization and thus a new model – even if more complementary than oppositional – has been proposed. Moskos, Williams, and Segal (2000) posited the thesis that Western developed democracies are moving from a type of organization associated with nationalism, to an organizational form adapted to a new world system and to the erosion of traditional forms of national sovereignty. While the modern military was based on “a combination of conscripted lower ranks or militia and a professional officer corps, waroriented in mission, masculine in make-up and ethos, and sharply differentiated from civilian society,” the new postmodern type “undergoes a loosening of ties with the nation state. The basic format shifts towards a volunteer force, more multipurpose in mission, increasingly multipurpose in makeup and ethos and with greater permeability with civilian society” (Moskos et al. 2000: 1). Drawing on the experience of the United States and other Western European nations, the authors propose a threefold typology of the military and society to account for the identified historical changes (Table 4.2). At the global societal analytical dimension, five major organizational changes are highlighted: increasing structural and cultural interpenetrability between civilian and military spheres; diminution of differences within the armed services based on branch, rank and type of functions; change in military purpose from war-fighting to missions that cannot be labeled as military in a traditional sense; increased use of military forces in international operations legitimized by entities beyond the nation-state and finally, internationalization of the military themselves. Battistelli has noted that all these changes can be placed along the classic institutional/occupational dichotomy proposed by Moskos to describe the transition from an early modern to a late modern military organization. The same happens, he argues, with correlated changes at the organizational analytical level, namely in terms of the dominant
The military institution and social change 83 Table 4.2 Armed forces in the three eras Forces variable
Modern (Pre-Cold War) 1900–45
Late Modern (Cold War) 1945–90
Postmodern (Post-Cold War) Since 1990
Perceived threat
Enemy invasion
Nuclear war
Force structure
Mass army, conscription
Major mission definition
Defense of homeland
Large professional army Support of alliance
Subnational (e.g. ethnic violence, terrorism) Small professional army
Dominant military professional Public attitude toward military Media relations Civilian employees
Combat leader
Women’s role Spouse and military Homosexuals in military Conscientious objection
Supportive
Manager or technician Ambivalent
Incorporated Manipulated Minor component Medium component Separate corps or Partial excluded integration Integral part Partial involvement Punished Discharged Limited or prohibited
Routinely permitted
New missions (e.g. peacemaking, humanitarian) Soldier-statesman; soldier-scholar Indifferent Courted Major component Full integration Removed Accepted Subsumed under civilian service
Source: Moskos et al. (2000: 15).
professional ideal (movement away from the warrior-hero type toward the emphasis on the soldier-scholar and soldier-statesman ideals), the increasing use of civilian personnel, fuller integration of women and acceptance of homosexuals and more tolerance of conscious objection and alternative forms of military service. However, Battistelli also notes that “discussion of the transition to a postmodern military has so far neglected the third dimension of the institutional-occupational dichotomy that focused on the subjective experience and attitudes of soldiers themselves” (Battistelli 1997d: 468). Having found that frequently individual soldiers’ attitudes could not be traced back to either the institutional or occupational pole but rather to postmaterialistic motivations, ideal in kind, described as “self-oriented, individualistic in the expressive (rather than instrumental) sense, even narcissistic” (Battistelli 1997d: 469), he moves on to expand the original bipolarity into a trichotomy. Moskos’ institutional model, characteristic of the early modern era, is thus associated with what the author prefers to call “paleomodern” society, the occupational type is associated with the more utilitarian and materialistic modern
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society, and finally, Inglehart’s postmaterialist outlook is considered to be a salient feature of postmodernity. The author warns against possible distortions that might arise if these types were to be interpreted in historical sequence. He prefers a synchronic focus where, as in the I/O model, characteristics of the various types are not mutually exclusive and may coexist in specific empirical contexts. This proposal is an important complement to the model if we aim not only at describing change at the societal/organizational levels and relating it to policies regarding WMP, but especially if, as is the case of the present research, an additional goal is that of exploring interpersonal dynamics of gender integration and how these relate to the above-mentioned transformations. The I/O model and women’s professional identity The interpretative models concerning WMP outlined in Chapter 1 underline that the extent to which the armed forces of Western countries have increased the recruitment of women has depended largely on military requirements such as the professional character of military force structure and volunteer accession policies (Segal 1995; Haltiner 1998a). Those proposals also stress how women’s military roles have been enlarged in the context of growing technical specialization and occupational pressures within the armed forces during the last three decades. This tendency is congruent with the assumption of the I/O thesis regarding the role of women, which is considered to be extremely limited in an institutional type of military organization, whereas the shift toward more occupational and especially postmodern patterns is supposedly associated with expanding employment opportunities for women. Empirical research has shown that the armed forces of Western countries have regularly increased the number of women in their ranks during the last two decades. A relation has been shown to exist between this tendency and the degree of specialization of the armed services (namely, the growing need for qualified personnel to fulfill new technically demanding functions). The results of early research have revealed that the goal of raising the force qualification has been met, at least in the case of the United States. Here, the presence of women has promoted an increase in educational levels, as women who volunteered for the armed forces were on average better educated than men. The country’s ability to maintain an all-volunteer army has even been considered to depend on the effective use of the female labor force (Binkin and Bach 1977: 71). Most of the researchers who dealt with this problem have thus tried to understand how organizational change interacts with individual orientations: if at the macro- and mesoanalytical levels the trend toward occupationalism seemed to characterize both civil–military relations and organizational recruitment policies, what happens with women’s orientations? What kind of values do women bring to the military? Is it possible to identify among them a specific value pattern when compared with
The military institution and social change 85 their male counterparts? Are women motivated by economic-related aspects, by an institutional sense of calling, or by a mix of those values? It has been predicted that, due to their usually disadvantaged position in the labor market, women would tend to adopt, more than men do, a “market-oriented” approach, seeking to maximize economic advantages in terms of salaries, fringe benefits, or job security. Despite the fact that, historically, women have always proved to be institutionally driven, conceiving military service as a vocation or a calling (as was the case of military nurses during the First and Second World Wars), the new context is seen as potentially revealing a different motivational pattern. As stated by Patricia Shields “according to the occupational thesis, variables such as wages and unemployment are critical in explaining enlistment, attrition and reenlistment. If these variables are effective at predicting female military participation patterns, they would certainly support the contention that women are attracted to the armed forces for occupational reasons” (Shields 1988: 103). Empirical research carried out in Europe and the United States during the 1980s seemed, however, to highlight an opposite tendency. Drawing on the results of various studies on enlistment motivations, Shields showed that, paradoxically, women do not see the armed forces as another employer but, rather, are attracted by the unique characteristics of the military such as discipline and adventure. One of these studies, conducted by Shields on American military women, has revealed that the possibility of traveling and the feeling of being different from civilian women were among the most important motivations for enlistment: “Theirs wasn’t just another job – it offered excitement, adventure, discipline and structure” (Shields 1988: 104). While job security was still indicated as a relevant reason for enlistment, the more “institutional” characteristics of the armed forces (absent in the context of other civilian organizations) were dominant. Reynaud pointed to the same effect in the case of the French military, underlying the way in which “the search for a structured environment and an organized life” as well as the need to escape routine was important among women’s motivations (Reynaud 1988). In a study of the first one thousand women to join the Portuguese armed forces (including officers, noncommissioned officers, and lower ranks) carried out in 1994, these results have also been confirmed to a certain extent (Carreiras 1997a). As in the previous cases, Portuguese military women seemed to have been attracted by the uniqueness of the armed forces, more than by mere circumstantial factors or the search for labor/economic security. More than a job or an occupation, military service was above all a challenge and a distinctive activity where structure and innovation coexisted. It should, of course, be noted that such tendencies might vary depending on the positions individuals occupy within the organizational structure. Traditionally, officers trained in military academies and schools or those employed in combat-oriented functions tend to score much
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higher on institutional features than the remaining personnel. Even if women are underrepresented in top hierarchical positions, they may be expected to develop institutional orientations as they move into higher ranks. To the extent that they are excluded from these positions, their future institutional orientation may, however, be diluted. Referring to career combat soldiers, Shields argues that “the values that tie these men together and produce unit cohesion are institutional. Hence, as long as women are excluded from this inner circle, their institutional orientation in average will not reach its full potential. . . . The military is giving women a message that undermines female institutional values and, by implication, promotes an occupational orientation” (Shields 1988: 110). Trying to assess the problem of the change in values in an analysis of the potentialities of the I/O model in policy making, Wood has argued that only if minimum material requirements are met will individuals accept the hardships associated with military activity, as long as they perceive themselves as working for the common good of society (Wood 1988). To the extent that such an objective is diluted, or material conditions are considered to be particularly deficient, their commitment will suffer and they will tend to adopt the occupational orientation characteristic of the specialist. As far as military women are concerned, a hypothesis may be raised concerning the possibility of change. As it goes, institutional orientations may not be sustained, or may at least suffer some erosion, in the absence of both material/economic incentives and personal fulfillment. Especially for those women who remain in the military and proceed with their military careers, the maintenance of high levels of institutional affiliation may largely depend on the existence of guaranties in the field of economic reward and individual well-being associated with expressive and participatory dimensions of life. In the case of military women, however, the conditions under which a specific orientation may develop – and potentially influence role performance, career paths, attrition or reenlistment decisions – are related to other variables that seem to affect them in ways not confronted by men. Beyond the scope of policy decisions that define women’s roles at the organizational level, social structure dimensions, such as family and maternity, as well as cultural aspects must be considered. Some of these variables are crucial in explaining the military roles of women and these will be carefully scrutinized at the case-study level.
Military effectiveness and gender integration The debate over women’s military roles: “rights versus readiness” Most of the discussions around the participation of women in the military or the roles and functions they should perform have been framed in terms of
The military institution and social change 87 the opposition between citizenship and military efficiency. In these debates, democratic values of equality and nondiscrimination are weighted against those of military necessity and readiness, two sets of values considered to be incompatible, as if the choice for one would automatically cancel out the other. A civil society equal rights discourse is set in opposition to a discourse of military readiness and national security. Supposedly, accepting one involves denying the competing claims of the other. The “effectiveness argument” assumes that the military are different from the rest of the society: their mission, to provide security, is singular and take precedence over all others; therefore the role of the military is not to grant equal rights to all individuals and the institution should not be transformed into a “laboratory for social experimentation.” The “civil rights argument,” on the contrary, underlines the way in which the military in a democratic polity is (or should be) a reflection of the society it is supposed to protect, including the defense of its core values such as citizenship and equality. Between these two ideal-types, positions have varied significantly and not always has the endorsement of one necessarily involved a full rejection of the other. In any case, the intensity, pervasiveness, and confrontational character of the “rights versus readiness debate” are striking. The relevance of this debate resides less in its contents than on the impact it has had on policy decisions, from recruitment and selection standards, to women’s functions and assignments, as well as on the overall sociopolitical construction of the issue of women soldiers. Moreover, it has been taking place not only in the military policy-making arena but also more generally in the public sphere, the media, and even in academic circles. It is remarkable and simultaneously puzzling to note that the arguments do not seem to have changed significantly since the 1970s. Segal already pointed to this in the beginning of the 1980s (Segal 1982, 1983), and at the start of the twenty-first century a revision of current debates leads to the same conclusion. With very few differences, arguments have been reproduced ad nauseum, in a way as repetitive as apparently inconsequent. However, even admitting that many of the confronting perspectives have developed in strictly normative/ideological terms (Binkin and Bach 1977: 72), one should not dismiss the importance of the crucial issues at stake. As central as addressing citizenship concerns is to know whether ensuring the acceptation of social diversity (women in this case, but also ethnic minorities or gays) requires a trade-off in military efficiency. In general, the basic assumption shared by those who believe that women represent a danger to military readiness is that the military should not be used as a social laboratory. Because the presence of women is seen as jeopardizing the effectiveness of the forces, their access to combat functions is considered a risk for the security of the nation. Tuten has put it bluntly: “the primary function of the U.S. armed services is to provide for common defense – not to redress perceived social and sexual inequalities
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in our society. . . . The primary function of the military services is to defend the American society, not to change it. To the extent that we use the military as a testbed for social experimentation we risk the security of the nation” (Tuten 1982: 261). In a similar vein, Marlowe maintained that “if we are serious about the missions that are mandated for the combat arms, we cannot afford to make them a locus of social experimentation” (Marlowe 1983: 195). More recently, Moskos has also endorsed a similar position, stating that “political leaders and scholars have come to think of the military as a social laboratory, in which charged debates over gender roles and homosexuality and national service can not only be addressed but possibly resolved” (Moskos 1993). This position is usually accompanied by controversial statements (as seen earlier) such as that there are no fundamental discontinuities between modern war and modes of successful warfare in the past (Marlowe 1983: 198) or that the influx of women into military services was not the product of military need but the result of external political pressure (Tuten 1982: 260). In this respect, the United States is probably the most paradigmatic of NATO countries. Resistances have been expressed from the very start of female recruitment in the 1970s. Often critics focus explicitly and exclusively on the combat-related functions, with opponents of female involvement in combat showing nevertheless some tolerance for the assignment of women to support and combat support roles (Marlowe 1983). Other times the mere presence of women, independent of the function they perform is seen as a fundamental threat to the functionality, if not survival, of the organization (Tuten 1982; Mitchell 1998).7 Some have even argued that the influx of women into the militaries of advanced countries not only does not represent a gain for women but it represents in fact part symptom part cause of the decline of the “advanced” military. Van Creveld has sustained this position, stating that, “if only because research shows that going into combat is the last thing most military women want, the more of them there are around the less capable those military are of acting as effective combat units” (Van Creveld 2000: 442). At the other end of the ideological spectrum are those who believe that citizenship rights and responsibilities are paramount and should have priority in the whole discussion. Liberal feminists have been among those who more strongly emphasized the need to bring citizenship concerns into the debate on women soldiers’ roles. Lorry Fenner maintained that the focus of discussions should not be the particular conditions of service and the inclusion of specific groups, but the fundamental issues of citizenship and the role of the military in a democratic society. She argued that the debate has excessively focused around the question of military effectiveness, but “we resist discussing the disjuncture between our cultural ideology and democratic political philosophy; or how discrimination and inconsistent and contradictory restrictions hurt efficiency; or how constantly changing, non-reality-based standards militate against
The military institution and social change 89 cohesiveness and damage the credibility of policy-makers; or how failure to live up to our rhetoric affects morale and integrity” (Fenner 2000: 19). Likewise, Feld has argued that “the case for accepting women for combat assignments cannot be argued on a pragmatic basis; nor at least on strictly military terms” (Feld 1978: 559). Defenders of this position usually underline the fact that arguments to exclude women from the military or limit their roles and functions are reminiscent of those used in the past to exclude other categories, or of those used to justify excluding women from other occupations (Segal 1982, 1983). They also point to the connections between concepts of citizenship and military participation, stressing the way in which excluded groups have achieved more equal citizenship rights through military service. Although debatable, it is also frequently assumed that “integration of women into previously masculine domains such as the military is likely to accomplish equality faster and more completely since this involves access of previously excluded individuals into an existing social system, rather than core changes in the cultural value of differing social systems” (Segal 1983: 204). But what arguments have been used to justify exclusionary or integrative policies? Value rationales in the policy debate over women in combat Four main sets of arguments have been exposed and confronted on each side of the “rights versus readiness” divide.8 First are concerns about women’s individual characteristics, their bodies and psychological characteristics that supposedly make them less effective combatants (physical strength, menstruation, pregnancy, emotionality, ability to perform under stress, etc.). Second are questions related to the effects of women’s presence on cohesion and morale of military units (interpersonal processes bearing on performance; impact on “male bonding”); third, arguments regarding cost-effectiveness (attrition, job migration, lost duty time, personnel selection costs); finally there are the consequences of women’s participation in the military in terms of social and cultural values (preservation of gender ideals, public opinion, perception of the military by allies and potential adversaries). In order to move forward from a repetitious debate, without at the same time ignoring its significance and impact on policy definition, I will review two core issues: the problem of physical standards and the effects of women’s presence on cohesion in military units. The physical tests debate Women’s psychological characteristics such as lack of physical (upper body) strength, menstruation, and pregnancy have always been seen as limiting women’s capabilities to perform military tasks, especially those
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related to combat. The issue has raised and continues to raise deeply emotional reactions, partially because of the perceived injustice of gendernorming the physical fitness and training standards. Referring to men’s average higher levels of physical strength, resistance, and speed, Tuten noted that “few would deny that these physical attributes are essential to the soldier or marine in ground combat. Therefore . . . , the exclusion of women from front-line ground combat is mandated by their lesser physical capabilities” (Tuten 1982: 248). Opponents to this view emphasize the need to develop job-related physical tests: “if a certain level of physical strength is required for a particular job, then this would serve as one of the selection criteria for the job. Rather than assuming that all women are incapable of performance by virtue of the average women’s lack of capacity, specific requirements should serve as the selection criteria, not gender” (Segal 1983: 206). This would of course imply the development of such measures. Actually though, since the relationship between specific military training standards and the physical requirements of the jobs or tasks is not clear, other analysts sustain that from a sociologist’s perspective there is nothing self-evident about the argument of identical physical tests standards. In this line of thought Cohn has asked: “what intrinsic relation does women doing push-ups, or running, or being able to perform in exactly the same way men do, have to equal rights?” (Cohn 1999). Her answer is that at the level of political theory it has none, since the political notion of equality assumes difference and presumes a social agreement to consider different people as equivalent (not identical) for a stated purpose. But it has also been pointed out that different physical standards and tests may have problematic consequences. On the one hand, when gender-specific physical tests are implemented (the most common situation in NATO countries) change associated with gender integration may be interpreted as a lowering of standards. On the other hand, physical performance becomes one important source of perception of inequity and inequality. Referring to the physical fitness test soldiers have to go through for admission and training, Segal has noted that “since a women can pass the test with a performance for which a man would fail, many male soldiers believe that women are given unfair advantage” (Segal 1999: 576).9 Change in standards is itself a difficult issue; usually, preexistent standards are reified as if they are something outside anyone’s agency or ability to challenge. Since physical tests were initially conceived to measure men’s physical fitness with limited equipment, this reinforces perceptions of inequality. Not only are women being evaluated by traits on which average men score higher than average women, but those physical traits in which women would outperform men are not routinely included (such as measures of flexibility). Moreover, military women often “judge themselves by male standards (just as men judge them) and
The military institution and social change 91 therefore feel less worthy” (Segal 1999: 576). Nevertheless, the fact remains that perceptions of women’s physical inferiority by both men and women, military and civilians, lay at the basis of much of the opposition to women in various military functions, especially those related to ground combat. Effects of women’s presence on unit cohesion and morale Behind the argument that the presence of women affects male bonding, and thus performance, is the belief that effective or successful performance is the result of cohesion, and this, in turn, is a result of social homogeneity. By interfering in the unit cohesion of male-bonded groups women would thus represent a threat to effectiveness, especially in combat situations. Gabriel has clearly expressed this point of view: “the fact is that combat effectiveness is only partially and probably only a small part, the result of well-applied technical skills. . . . military unit effectiveness and cohesion are far more the result of sociopsychological bonding – anthropologically, male bonding – among soldiers in combat groups. Without this crucial bonding units disintegrate under stress no matter how technically proficient or well-equipped they are” (Gabriel 1980, quoted in Tuten 1982: 251). Strong arguments have been put forward against these assumptions. One of them regards the evidence of women’s prominent role in terrorist and guerilla groups, in which strong patterns of male bonding would be expected to exist (Binkin and Bach 1977: 91). Others derive from the results of various empirical researches. Two important early studies, conducted by the US Army Research Institute for Behavioral and Social Sciences in the mid-1970s, examined the performance of women both in noncombatant units during training programs (MAXWAC) and while away from home installations during extended field exercises (REFWAC). In both cases results showed no significant relationship between the proportion of women and the readiness and operational capability of the units. More recently, the participation of women in peacekeeping missions has also been a source of information regarding the performance of mixed groups in field situations. Various authors who have studied this issue concluded that men and women work better together under the difficult and stressful field conditions than often in the barracks’ environment. The fact that they are sharing tasks and goals presumably makes integration easier and increases the possibility that people are seen as individuals more than members of a group or sexual category (Miller and Moskos 1995; Maniscaldo 1997; Moskos 1998). One of the first researches to highlight this result was conducted by Moskos in 1984 during the US Granaderio exercise in Honduras, where the author observed the performance of male and female soldiers in a difficult field situation. According to Moskos, “the incorporation of women in
92 The military institution and social change the extended deployment and field conditions of Honduras can be recorded as a success story. On balance, the women were working well in demanding jobs in a difficult environment. Work relations between the sexes were better in the field setting than was often the case in garrison. Over time, the women came to be regarded and evaluated as individuals rather than as a sexual category. This individuation contributed more than anything else to the successful incorporation of women into nontraditional assignments” (Moskos 1988: 42–3). In another study, Devilbiss also found evidence that “cohesion is based on commonality of experience, shared risk, and mutual experiences of hardship, not on gender distinction” (Devilbiss 1985: 543). A research conducted by Miller and Moskos among American soldiers deployed to Bosnia–Herzegovina in 1996 (Maniscaldo 1997) concluded that there was a generalized acceptance of women in peacekeeping operations: 98 percent of the soldiers was contrary to the possibility of preventing the participation of women in this type of mission. This opinion was identically shared by both sexes. In various aspects, this debate mirrors the one about homosexuals in the military.10 Interestingly, in both cases the debate is centered less on women’s or gay’s attitudes than on claims about heterosexual men and their response to having women or gays with them in their units. Yet, as pointed out by Segal, “if men believe that women are not part of their group and that they cannot function with women around, this belief will disrupt functioning and may hinder actual ability to cope with the stress of combat, thereby serving as a self-fulfilling prophecy” (Segal 1982: 278). But even if we admit that the presence of women or other minority categories may have disruptive effects on the cohesiveness of all-male groups and that this is an important issue to be addressed by policy makers, the question of assessing the relationship between cohesion and performance remains. Contradicting intuitive ideas, research results in this field seem to be extremely elusive and inconclusive. Kier has underlined the fact that cohesion is only one of the multiple factors that may affect group performance and that its contribution may be both considerably less significant and more complex than often assumed (Kier 1999: 44). For instance, there is little evidence of a causal relationship between cohesion and performance. Only a modest positive correlation has been identified and, even in this case, analysts seem to be more confident that successful performance leads to cohesion than the contrary (Kier 1999: 41). Additionally, cohesion can be beneficial or damaging to a group’s performance. Group cohesion can be dysfunctional to organizational performance whenever the group goals are contrary to those of the organization, or when the group develops a subculture that make acts of resistance feasible. This was observed during the Vietnam War, where certain groups developed a powerful ideology of their own that was more likely to reinforce dissent from, than commitment to the service’s larger goals and normative claims (Helmer 1974; Westbrook 1980, quoted in Kier 1999: 42).
The military institution and social change 93 A fundamental distinction to understand this issue is that between two components of cohesion: social cohesion and task cohesion. Social cohesion refers to emotional personal bonds that unite people, such as friendship, caring, or closeness; task cohesion refers to a shared collective commitment to achieve goals. Research has shown in a more clear way that while the more instrumental nature of task cohesion seems to have a positive influence on performance the same cannot be said about social cohesion (McCoun 1993; Kier 1999: 43). Where a small correlation has been identified between cohesion and performance, task cohesion was found to be the critical component. In various studies not only did social cohesion show no contribution to the cohesion–performance link, but it has even been shown to hinder productivity, a result that has been replicated in historical and sociological research of military units. Researchers have identified multiple factors that may explain this pattern: affective bonding may provide a kind of “shield” against external authority, it may influence commanders to be less willing to push the members of the group, and in socially cohesive groups individuals may tend to devote more energy to strengthen interpersonal relationships than to achieve common tasks. These results also confirm those obtained regarding the effects of homogeneity on performance. Various studies have highlighted a similar conclusion: homogeneous groups are not necessarily more effective than more heterogeneous groups. Consistency of beliefs may produce rigidity and generate forms of what has been called “strategic myopia,” the difficulty in admitting that things could or should be different (Lorsch 1985). In sum, although similar individuals tend to seek one another’s company, and cohesive groups may often be more enjoyable, they are not always more productive. Even admitting that social cohesion may under certain conditions improve military performance, there seem to be reasons to believe that cohesion does not depend on discrimination against women, gays, or lesbians. Kier has identified five reasons to sustain this claim. First, even if sexist and homophobic attitudes may help build military cohesion, that does not mean they are the best, optimal, and, even less, the only way to achieve unit cohesion. Second, the factors that affect the formation of primary group ties are as diverse as the stability of membership, group size, frequency and duration of contact, the group’s recent experience, the presence of a threat or crisis, the quality of leadership, and the sense of equity within the group. Building in-group cohesion is thus something that can be achieved in many different ways, and shared values and attitudes can be created among disparate members. Third, research has indicated that social cohesion based on homogeneity (such as the one most likely to derive from male bonding) is less likely to contribute to military effectiveness. Fourth, as shown earlier, studies of field situations have demonstrated that when task cohesion was achieved within a group the presence of women did not damage performance. On the contrary, the distinction between the group and the
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outsiders was prevalent over that of the sexes within the group. Fifth, the fact that women are presently an active part of military forces and play an important role in terms of force stability, suggests that tolerating sexism and homophobic attitudes is dysfunctional. As Kier puts it, “any form of discrimination toward organizational members is pernicious in an organization that performs group tasks and depends on the integration of all individuals and units. Even if these attitudes once served important functions in the military, they are unnecessary and they undermine military effectiveness” (Kier 1999: 47). From the policy-making point of view, this conclusion supports the vision that “managing diversity” more then assuring homogeneity is the fundamental challenge for personnel policies in modern armed forces.
Re-equating the debate: social experimentation and the measure of effectiveness In the previous sections it has been shown that arguments about equality and military necessity have developed hand in hand, whenever the question of social diversity has been at stake, as in the case of women, African Americans, or the presence of gays and lesbians in the military. Despite the different rationales behind the laundry list of arguments used by advocates or opponents of women in the military (or in combat), these are frequently based on the assumption of a necessary trade-off between egalitarianism and military excellence. However, this background assumption may be challenged. The question is: should the debate be framed thus? Some authors believe it should not. According to them, this particular dyad is a very inaccurate way of understanding ongoing processes and policy debates regarding women’s military participation. First of all, one should question what it means to talk about “social experimentation.” Katzenstein and Reppy most accurately note that the armed forces necessarily engage in “social experiment” in the sense that they must always to some extent adjust to changes in society while respecting criteria for military readiness. An example is the way that changing social norms regarding the role of women as well as patterns of their participation in public life have made the military women’s corps seem anachronistic, and how, simultaneously, maintaining separate organizations imposed managerial inefficiencies (Katzenstein and Reppy 1999b: 5). In this sense, the authors read military history as “having been and continuing to be an experimental process in which societal norms about citizenship rights and societal perceptions about group competencies continuously inform the calculations among military policy makers about how best to constitute a fighting force. . . . Militaries are always in the business of evaluating the competencies of their personnel, a process that involves the necessity of witnessing the actual experience of
The military institution and social change 95 performance under fire but is also shaped by perceptions filtered through the social norms of the day” (Katzenstein and Reppy 1999b: 4–5). A similar position is sustained by Cohn, who argues that the military has always been part of the society and a reflection of it, showing how public opinion and values are often cited as justification for military policies and actions when they fit the institution purpose, while ignored when they do not (Cohn 1999). Second, the criteria used to measure effectiveness must also be addressed. Against the dominant representation of efficiency calculations as “objective,” is the evidence of social/subjective elements built into these apparently objective and neutral measures. The fact that standards of efficiency have permanently been subject to changes and adjusted to adapt to both the characteristics of the available personnel pool as well as to technological developments11 is a striking example of this. In one of the first studies to address this problem, Binkin and Bach stated it clearly: “perceptions of military efficiency are as often as not themselves constituted by existing social typecasting . . . The problems associated with measuring military effectiveness are well recognized. Even with weapon systems, whose function and purpose may be reasonably pinpointed, it is difficult to measure effectiveness with any confidence. The more labor intensive the operation becomes, the more difficult it is to identify output and the less quantifiable are the relevant variables. Complex factors such as discipline, leadership, training, societal influence, and group relationships, all bear on performance. . . . Given these inherent conceptual difficulties and measurement problems, it is not surprising that the arguments on both sides of the issue have been largely ideological” (Binkin and Bach 1977: 72). Moreover, some changes seem to be taking place regarding the nature of the debate itself. In certain policy-making contexts the emphasis put on military effectiveness is fading as a rationale for preventing women’s access to certain positions within the military structure. Rationales are in fact frequently reviewed. Results of a study conducted by Dandeker and Segal in the United Kingdom indicated that military effectiveness could decline as a basis for excluding women from certain positions and functions, to be replaced by arguments concerning rights of privacy and decency: “The main reason for such a change is the vagueness of arguments based on operational effectiveness, especially those concerning the supposed effects on male bonding” (Dandeker and Segal 1996: 33). The vagueness and difficult measurement of the concept of “military effectiveness” make it difficult to be convincing in a court of law. Facing a growing tendency on the part of service members to use law courts to pursue their grievances, military policy makers would thus tend to use rights to privacy, which are “enshrined in law and are therefore easier to justify in court” (Dandeker and Segal 1996: 33).12 Paradoxically, although it has been proved that effectiveness is not affected by the presence of women – at least not more than by
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other variables – and that good leadership, technological innovation (e.g. ergonomic studies), or monitoring programs may help produce the necessary adjustments, this does not mean that attitudes toward military women have changed significantly. In fact, some believe that “there is both empirical and theoretical basis for asserting that increased contact between men and women in the military workplace will not in and of itself lead to an improvement in attitudes towards women” (Rosen et al. 1996: 539). Negative attitudes persist despite positive performance results. While some authors have emphasized the importance of institutional policy to change such negative attitudes (Yoder et al. 1983; Rosen et al. 1996), others have stressed the major impact of culture and the limits of formal policies in redressing culturally entrenched stereotypes. According to this later position, acceptance problems happen because of the central role that hegemonic masculinity has played in the construction of military identity and also because of its nice fit with another military core value, uniformity. Katzenstein and Reppy share this perspective: “Persistent gender discrimination suggests that there are aspects of military culture that actively promote intolerance. Military culture is at odds with official policy on gender integration because masculinity has traditionally been central to military identity and culture” (Katzenstein and Reppy 1999b: 2). In this view, frequent incidents related to sexual harassment, for instance, should not be understood as a failure to have rules but rather as a result of the clash between a sexist culture and official policies on gender integration. Accounting for the persistence of many of the problems of gender integration in the military is a dominant culture of masculinity more than the lack of rules, the deficient leadership, or the absence of adequate policy. The question thus remains for research to investigate the extent to which the increasing representation of women, their access to more functions and combat functions, and their participation in major deployments have contributed to alter perception’s of women’s roles in the military, the acceptance of women, and the readiness of gender-integrated units (Rosen et al. 1996: 551).
5
Gender integration in the armed forces A cross-national comparison of policies and practices in the NATO countries
A common observation regarding the current participation of women in the armed forces in Western democratic societies is that there is great variation regarding the extent to which different countries have integrated women. Such variation, ranging from an almost total absence, rank limitations, segregated training, and severe functional restrictions to relatively open career patterns, full integrated training, and access to combat roles, is due to complex constellations of factors that in each case have differently affected policies and practices. As argued in Chapter 1, the degree to which women have been accepted in the military results from a variety of factors: different cultural value systems, the structure and characteristics of the military, the length of time women have served, or the social, economic, and political characteristics of each society. Since each country has its own history and cultural traditions – which in part affect the degree of acceptance that women can expect to find in the armed forces – some might argue that comparisons are too complex and not always obvious. However, there are also factors that induce convergence effects, some of which are even more accentuated within the universe studied here: the NATO countries. Factors such as the global pressures to achieve gender equality in society at large, professionalization of the military, or common membership in the Committee on Women in the NATO Forces (CWINF)1, constitute a minimum (but operative) common denominator that produces “comparable” effects in terms of cognitive models, policy orientation, and formalization of behaviors. It is against the background of these commonalty factors that the differences between countries emerge. In the following sections I shall describe the situation of women in the armed forces of NATO, both in terms of formal policies and, as far as possible, actual practices, in order to explore patterns of gender integration in the military.2 The purpose is twofold: on the one hand, that of updating previous studies through a comprehensive and empirically based description of gender integration patterns; on the other hand, and relying on that description, to create “an index of gender
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inclusiveness” as a measure to access the varying degree to which NATO forces have integrated women. This index will then be contrasted against some of the explanatory factors that seem to influence women’s military participation cross-nationally. The proposed description and analysis rely on original information collected through an organizational survey conducted in all NATO nations in the year 2000, as well as on literature review. This database includes information on a long list of variables concerning analytical dimensions such as global representation, recruitment policies, selection and training, career development, occupational and hierarchical distributions, family policy, and gender equity monitoring.3
The position of women in the military: representation and integration policies Global representation and recruitment policies Global figures and statistical representation reveal little about the nature and characteristics of the gender integration process in the military, as fundamental differences regarding women’s roles remain invisible. Nevertheless, these are important indicators of women’s presence inside military structures that must be taken as the starting point for any further analysis of the “quality” of such presence. In 2000, around 280,000 women served as volunteer soldiers in NATO countries. Table 5.1 shows the absolute numbers and percentages of military women in each country. A first striking observation concerns the disparity of absolute numbers if compared to percentages, a situation that results from the variable size of military forces. Luxembourg, for instance, had an almost negligible number of female soldiers (47), but still a percentage (4.2 percent) that triplicated that of Germany (1.4 percent) whose forces (medical service) employed more than 4,500 women. Roughly, it is possible to identify four groups, two of them corresponding to extreme categories: a first group where female representation was extremely limited, accounting for around 1 percent or less of the total military force (Germany, Turkey, Italy, and Poland); a second group of countries that had still a limited representation, around 3–4 percent (Greece, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, and the Czech Republic); a third set where female representation ranged from 5–9 percent, including at the bottom Portugal and Spain and at the top Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and France; and finally a fourth group referring to the special cases of the United States and Canada, where women made up more than 10 percent of the total military force. If we compare the two extreme groups, there are of course effects of time to consider. While the higher percentages of Canada and the United
Gender integration in the armed forces 99 Table 5.1 Women in NATO forces (2000) Country
N
%
Italy Poland Turkey Germany Norway Czech Republic Greece Denmark Luxembourg Spain Portugal Hungary Belgium Netherlands United Kingdom France Canada United States Total
0 239 917 4,530 1,030 1,935 6,155 1,033 29 6,462 2,925 2,957 3,202 4,170 16,623 27,516 6,558 198,452 282,673
0 0.1 0.1 1.4 3.2 3.3 3.8 4.2 4.2 5.8 6.6 6.8 7.6 8.0 8.1 8.5 11.4 14.0 12.7
Sources: Organizational survey, Annual reports of the Committee of Women in the NATO Forces. Notes Values refer to active forces, conscripts included. When dimension of total force was not made available in the survey, data from The Military Balance (ISSM, 2000–1) was used.
States may relate to the longer presence of women in the forces, the Italian case is rather exceptional due to the absence of servicewomen until 2000. The case of Germany, in turn, is a deviant one since there existed a constitutional restriction on the use of guns by women until 2000. As a consequence, female soldiers served almost exclusively in the medical services (defined as nonarmed) and a small number in the military bands. This situation changed after a decision by the European Court of Justice in response to a lawsuit by a German servicewoman, according to which all existing restrictions were lifted.4 As far as the intermediate groups are concerned, two situations are worth noting: first, the rather good representation attained by Portugal and Spain, two of the last NATO countries to admit women in their armed forces; second, the striking difference between Poland and the other two ex-communist countries, the Czech Republic and especially Hungary. While the rapidly increasing percentage of women soldiers in the southern European countries may be due to the political will to intensify the delayed modernization of the armed forces, the almost residual
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female representation in the Polish military seems to relate to aspects of military structure and culture as well as to a strong catholic and conservative social environment. In all cases, and despite a notable increase in representation levels (Figure 5.1), global percentages point to a “token” situation, where women represented less than 15 percent of the whole group. However, it is important to call attention to differences in representation in specific sectors of the military, since, as shall be seen further on, percentages of women vary enormously by occupation, unit, rank, or service in each country. This myriad of situations ranges from total absence to situations of accentuated feminization (e.g. the case of some units of the medical service in Germany where women represented more than 50 percent of the personnel pool). From the point of view of service distribution, women’s representation was higher in the more specialized services: navy and air force. Women made up 6.3 percent of army personnel, 10.2 percent of the navy, and 12.2 percent of the air force (Figure 5.2). United States Canada France United Kingdom Netherlands Belgium Hungary* Portugal Spain Denmark Luxembourg Greece Czech Republic* Norway Germany Poland*
2000
Turkey
86/7 0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Figure 5.1 Women in NATO forces (1986/7–2000). Sources: Stanley and Segal (1988: 563); Organizational survey; Annual reports of the Committee of Women in the NATO Forces. Notes Percentages of women in the total active force, including conscripts. * Data for the first period refers to years 1990/2.
Gender integration in the armed forces 101
14
12.2
12
10.2
10 8
6.3
6 4 2 0 Army
Navy
Air Force
Figure 5.2 Women in NATO forces, by service (2000). Sources: Organizational survey; Annual reports of the Committee of Women in the NATO Forces.
With regard to the recruitment format, a first noteworthy observation is that all NATO countries have decided to incorporate women on a strictly volunteer basis. In the Netherlands, Greece, and the Czech Republic, however, the possibility of women’s conscript recruitment was foreseen in the case of general mobilization or war. Countries such as Norway or Denmark, where military service is still based on a conscript model, also admitted women’s volunteer enlistment to perform service under similar conditions as conscript soldiers. The same possibility existed in Belgium and France until these two countries decided to move toward an allvolunteer force in the mid- and late 1990s respectively. In all cases, however, the position of women joining this modality of service has been very different from that of men, starting with the significant fact that theirs is a voluntary commitment.5 Besides, the representation of women in the conscript type of service has generally been very limited. In Belgium, for instance, the measure was introduced in 1984 when an Economic Recovery Act allowed young women to volunteer for military service as draftees with the aim of encouraging recruitment for the regular army. This measure had little success and military conscript service was suspended, for both men and women, in 1995. In France, the presence of women in the national service, introduced on an experimental basis in 1970 but only fully institutionalized in the early 1980s, involved an extremely reduced number of women. In 1986 there were only 1965 female volunteers in a total force of 250,000 soldiers (Reynaud 1988: 58). Norway has also experienced difficulties in attracting women to this modality of service and the number of those who voluntarily complete military basic training has been decreasing.
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Even if debates regarding conscription of women have generally lost momentum, associations of female conscription and citizenship concerns are not totally absent from legitimating discourses concerning type of service. In some contexts where recruitment difficulties are felt, this discussion has gained a new impetus. This has happened in Norway, where conscription of women has been presented as a way of amplifying female representation in the services and promoting equality (Nielsen 2001: 26). From the point of view of global representation, policies have varied depending on internal and external determinants. Two major formal mechanisms have contributed to limiting or conditioning the overall representation of women. A first formal mechanism refers to rank restrictions. A number of countries with conscript recruitment systems and no possibility of volunteer service in the noncommissioned or enlisted ranks did not recruit women in these ranks. This was the case of the Eastern European countries, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, as well as Greece and Turkey. A second mechanism consists of the establishment of maximum ceilings. Again, countries with conscript systems, no recruitment shortages, facing some degree of national security tension, and simultaneously experiencing little pressure toward gender equity in the services, have formally instituted ceilings on women’s representation. This happened in Greece and Turkey, where women could not represent more than 10 and 4 percent, respectively, of cadets in military academies. Italy was the only other country that formally indicated that it would place limitations on women’s recruitment, and this can be associated with the very recent start and experimental character of the whole process during its first year. Interestingly, however, the limits established were rather generous, if compared to the actual overall representation of women in NATO forces: 20 percent in military academies and NCO ranks and 30 percent in the enlisted ranks. Some countries that had regulatory quotas in the past have progressively eliminated them. In France, maximum quotas were eliminated in 1998 and the same happened in Belgium, where until 1981 there were quotas reserving a certain number of places for women in military academies. In 2000, thus, the overwhelming majority of countries did not have formal quantitative limitations (Table 5A.1). Nevertheless, two situations must be distinguished. A first and larger group of countries did not have formal limitations (at least not generally applicable in all services and categories), but ceilings existed in practice when assignments were considered. And, in general, these are not “glass” ceilings: frequently the number of women is directly limited by the number of billets and positions they can access in each recruitment campaign or, more pragmatically, by logistical considerations (as, for instance, the posts aboard ships). It may also happen that women are not
Gender integration in the armed forces 103 assigned to a number of positions that are supposedly open to them because these positions are coded to be filled by someone with occupational skills women cannot have due to existing functional restrictions (Harrell and Miller 1997: 30). The decision on which and how many positions will be made available for women or the options for concrete assignments is often taken on the basis of the commanders’ authorized discretion in assigning personnel. These decisions are frequently supported either by arguments concerning concrete material conditions, such as those mentioned earlier, or by unexpressed feelings and personal judgments of decision makers.6 As noted by Harrell and Miller regarding the US case, since these practices are not formally sanctioned, the extent to which they occur cannot be easily accessed and “can only be discerned through site-based investigations” (Harrell and Miller 1997: 30). Additionally, even when some kind of record exists, the fact that often these decisions are not the object of explicit regulation in the law but rather issued periodically in specific directives, often at service level, makes it extremely difficult to investigate the gap between formal policies and actual practices. Hence, it becomes difficult to determine the extent to which these informal restrictions contribute to defining the level of women’s representation in various functions, units, or categories. In sum, in all these cases, the absence of formal restrictions is most probably related to existing antidiscriminatory laws – both at national and international level – in the light of which such explicit limitation policies are (or have become) unsustainable. Besides, those restrictions appear as rather difficult to justify on a rational or theoretical basis, since, as noted before, there seems to be no clear or direct relation between the representation of women and the degree of force cohesion and readiness. There are, however, other cases where we witness the opposite situation, that is, where recruitment difficulties have forced the military to define recruitment goals in terms of female representation. In the context of favorable economic conditions in the labor market, as well as specific dilemmas concerning service conditions within the armed forces (e.g. excessive amount of deployment time, low salaries, and limited economic benefits), the number of candidates usually decreases and attrition levels tend to increase. This was, for instance, the case in the Netherlands, Norway, or Canada. These different situations have a clear expression in policies regarding recruitment programs. In those countries where the number of female candidates was high, no specific programs have been developed. In other cases, recruitment and retention problems, sometimes associated with legal pressures to achieve gender equity, have led to the development of specific recruitment programs. While many countries had comprehensive recruitment programs not specifically targeted to women (e.g. the United
104 Gender integration in the armed forces States), sometimes programs and promotional campaigns have been designed concretely to attract or retain female soldiers. This has happened in Norway, Denmark, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Selection and training With regard to recruitment and selection standards, all countries surveyed applied similar educational requirements and psychological tests, both in general recruitment and in contests for military academies and schools. Likewise, the overwhelming majority followed integrated basic training programs. In 2000, Hungary was the only country that segregated basic training, but Greece and the United States also reported partial segregation practices. While in the United States this happened only in the Marine Corps, Greece applied the segregation rule in the navy and in NCO ranks. Notable differences existed, however, with regard to physical tests and training. The global approach to physical evaluation, specifically the institution of what has been called “gender-fair” or “gender-free” tests, has been a source of tension for policy makers, as can be seen in the variety of solutions adopted and the hesitation and changes that have characterized the policies of various countries. While the majority of NATO countries adopted different physical tests and standards to evaluate men and women – even if with variation depending on trades and services, as in the United States – some have decided to apply similar criteria to evaluate physical capabilities and performance. In 2000, this was the case in the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, and Canada. One striking observation refers to the disparity and instability of policies that have been followed in this field. Changes have occurred in opposite directions: while some countries decided to move from similar to different physical requirements, others have done exactly the opposite. Denmark and Spain moved from similar to different physical tests and standards. After 1999, an association established between recruitment and retention problems and the high difficulty level of physical requirements, led the Danish armed forces to differentiate measures. After one decade of supposedly gender-free physical tests7 and in a similar context of recruitment shortages, the Spanish armed forces have also decided to move in the same direction. This decision was part of a policy “package” of overall lightening of physical and educational demands on all candidates. Belgium has followed a rather different path, changing from different measures prior to 1981 to then judging women by the existing male standards until 1984. Following a ministerial decision, the Joint Staff decided to apply the formerly male tests to everybody. However, this decision “proved naturally discriminatory to the extent that these tests were not gender-neutral, but favored men” (Manigart 1999: 111). One example is the decline in the number of female cadets at the Royal Military Academy
Gender integration in the armed forces 105 after 1981, when the previous quota system reserving a certain number of places for women was eliminated. In order to change this situation, the Minister of Defense ordered the Joint Staff’s Personnel Directorate to develop new, gender-neutral tests, which were implemented in 1986.8 After this, the number of women increased. In 2000, criteria for physical fitness and physical training were thus identical for men and women. The Belgian option seems to fit into an emergent pattern, especially visible in those cases where physical overload has been identified as one of the factors that more negatively affect women’s recruitment and retention (as well as women’s health, since the percentage of injuries and medical downgrading is much higher among women)9 and where, simultaneously, pressures toward greater gender equity have been felt. Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are among those countries that have gradually changed their overall policy and philosophy concerning physical evaluation. In all these countries efforts were made to adjust physical measurement without differentiating between male and female. This is not sought by applying previous male tests to all personnel but through a policy of focusing not on initial requirements but on possible end results. In general, physical tests become job related and assessments are supposed to show individuals the level of training they need in order to perform specific functions. These examples of diverging policies show how very little consensus exists among nations regarding the definition of “best practices” in terms of gender-related physical requirements and evaluation and it also shows how critical the issue of physical evaluation and requirements has been in determining recruitment policies. Occupational segregation and employment The occupational distribution of military women reveals a strong cross-national segregation pattern. Data available for thirteen NATO nations10 show that, by the turn of the century, more than two thirds (70 percent) of military women were concentrated in support (personnel/ administration/logistics) and medical functions, 17.5 percent in technical areas (engineering, communications), and only 7 percent occupied positions in the more operational areas in combat arms (artillery, infantry, and cavalry). Even if the relative weight of each of these different types of functions in the overall military organizational structure is taken into account, women were clearly over represented in the traditional female areas. In fact, support functions in the areas of personnel, finance, administration, and medical services employed an average of 46.1 percent of military personnel in NATO countries, against more than 70 percent in the case of women. The opposite happened in technical and particularly operational functions where the asymmetry is also extremely visible: while
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80
Total Women
70.4
70 60 50
46.2
40 28 30
22.2 17.5
20 7
10
3.5 5.2
0 Support
Technical
Operational
Other
Figure 5.3 Average occupational distribution of military personnel in NATO forces (2000) in percentage. Sources: Organizational survey; Annual reports of the Committee of Women in the NATO Forces. Notes Data in this figure refer to thirteen countries. Italy and Germany were not included due to their specificity and there was no information available for France, Poland, and Turkey. Women’s percentages refer to the total number of women.
22.2 percent of military personnel occupied operational functions, only 7 percent of women did (Figure 5.3). This limitation to the occupational opportunities of military women, especially their exclusion from combat arms, has a negative impact on future chances for promotion. Although there is great variation in NATO militaries regarding personnel career paths, most armed forces require service members to perform specific functions as a basis for promotion. Being formally or informally excluded from these functions prevents women from acquiring the experience that would allow them to reach higher ranks.11 According to most of the studies that have been conducted on this issue, reasons for disparities between men and women are to be found in the conservative and discriminatory occupational assignment policies that have been followed by a majority of countries. As noted before, the ideological association between high percentages of women in military units and a decrease in force cohesion and readiness (which has not been objectively proved) is frequently used to justify exclusionary policies. But it is also important to acknowledge another important determinant in this unequal outcome. Sometimes, the characteristics of women’s choices, whenever they are organizationally possible, may help to explain
Gender integration in the armed forces 107 the higher concentration of women in traditional female areas. Knowing that such a trend is predominant in terms of previous women’s vocational choices in the educational system, it is not surprising to find a reproduction of this pattern in terms of military occupational preferences. Very limited empirical research has been conducted on this issue at a comparative level. However, some results obtained in particular case studies seem to corroborate this hypothesis. A study conducted in the Czech Republic concluded that most women chose their field of university study [in the military] according to the type of duty they want to assume after completion of training. They are mostly interested in service that does not involve irregular and long hours, outstanding physical requirements, work in the field and direct command work with a large number of soldiers. Therefore, female soldiers mostly perform administrative, legal, personnel and technical work on lower management levels. (CWINF 2000) Likewise, in Belgium, official sources report that women’s preferences may partially explain their absence from certain jobs (CWINF 2000). In any case, and especially in the absence of accurate cross-national research, the impact of formal policies should not be under evaluated. A detailed analysis of statistical representation and policies followed in each country reveals a rather diversified picture (Table 5A.2). While in some NATO nations such as Poland and Greece (and Germany until 2000) women were formally excluded from combat functions, others, such as Belgium, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands have been pioneers in lifting such restrictions. Belgium eliminated all restrictions in the early 1980s, and the Netherlands allowed women to join the crew of combat ships in the mid-1980s. Denmark and Norway, two of the most progressive countries in this respect, quickly followed the Dutch example. Norway was the first country to permit female service aboard submarines and, in 2000, it was the only NATO country that had employed women in submarines. After 1985 they were allowed to join all combat functions and the Norwegian navy had its first woman submarine commander in 1997. Denmark adopted a similar measure in 1988 after various successful experiences in combat arms. Unlike the Netherlands, where, despite a legal absence of restrictions there were still areas closed to women on the basis of combat effectiveness or “practical reasons,” or Belgium, where women had not yet served in a considerable number of functions, by the year 2000 Danish and Norwegian servicewomen had served in almost all operational specialties.12 Consistent with an open approach to occupational issues, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg were the only NATO countries
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where part-time work was allowed for active-duty personnel. This possibility was related to the overall situation in the labor market, where part-time work has known significant diffusion. However, it did not seem to be extensively used by military personnel, due to the opposition of superiors and the loss of financial benefits. Many other countries, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, and Spain, did not impose legal occupational restrictions. However, this does not mean that women had real access to all functions: they were, in practice, absent from combat or close-to-combat areas. For instance, in the Czech Republic, women were concentrated in the logistics field, engineering, communications, medical, and support services and absent from airborne units and flight personnel. In Hungary most women were employed in administrative, personnel, and medical positions. Portugal and Spain shared this pattern in that, despite the theoretical absence of restrictions,13 various specialties and units remained closed in practice. On the contrary, countries that have instituted formal restrictions such as the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, were among those where more progress has been made concerning the diversification of women’s roles. Canada and the United Kingdom are two interesting cases in terms of gender occupational policies. Together with Germany after 2000, these countries have experienced rather strong external pressures to achieve gender equality in the services and eliminate functional restrictions. These pressures, coming from the broader society, and particularly channeled through civilian courts, clearly revealed a new emergent trend in terms of civil–military relations as well as the growing relevance of political factors in the definition of women’s military roles. In the United Kingdom, significant changes started taking place in the early 1990s when positions aboard surface ships as well as all aircrew roles were opened to women. In 1998, a review of areas of employment closed to women on combat effectiveness grounds led to 1,300 “attached billets” filled by royal navy or army personnel in the Royal Marines being opened to women. In 2000 overall 70 percent of army posts were open to women, 73 percent in the Naval Service, and 96 percent in the Royal Air Force (RAF). However, restrictions on women’s employment in submarines and in units whose first function is to “close with and kill the enemy” remained in place. Women could not serve in submarines or as mine-clearance divers “due to medical/practical reasons” (CWINF 2000).14 They were also not allowed in the RAF regiment, the infantry, the Royal Armored Corps, and the Royal Marines. Policy makers have been hesitating as to whether the country should move to a totally unrestricted employment policy for women. However, the policy of excluding women from certain areas on the basis of combat effectiveness was challenged in 1999 in the European Court of Justice against the EC Equal Treatment Directive.15 The final outcome of this legal
Gender integration in the armed forces 109 process was consistent with existing restrictions, since the court left it up to national authorities to decide which areas would justify the exclusion of women on the basis of combat effectiveness. Canada, in turn, is probably the most paradigmatic case of change fostered by external political factors. In 1989 the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal required the armed forces to remove all employment restrictions (with the exception of service in submarines). The ruling allowed for a 10 year period to achieve the full integration of women. However, in 1999, despite progress made, the integration was still considered incomplete. This period has been marked by massive reorganization of the forces, including downsizing, recruitment restrictions, and budgetary cuts, all of which had a significant impact on the ability to recruit and promote women. The overall representation of women grew very moderately from 9.9 percent in 1989 to 10.8 percent in 2000. The same happened regarding diversification of occupational roles, with percentages showing a small increase in almost all areas. In spite of the fact that only in a small number of cases were women allowed to get involved in combat, they had already been mobilized in highly operational situations. During the Gulf War, 37,000 American and 1,100 English servicewomen were deployed to the Persian Gulf region. In the United States this extensive presence in a war theater has contributed decisively to changing the combat exclusion rules. After the first Gulf War, combat rules were changed to allow women to compete for assignments in aircraft engaged in combat missions. The navy was also directed to open additional positions aboard ships and to develop legislative proposals to repeal the remaining restrictions on the presence of women on ships engaged in combat missions. Identical requests were made to the army and Marine Corps. Hence, 41,000 new positions were made available to women. Rules stated that “service members are eligible to be assigned to all positions for which they are qualified, except that women shall be excluded from assignments to units below brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground.” This new policy was stated in 1994 along with a definition of “direct ground combat” as “engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile force’s personnel.” Since April 1993 over 1.1 million positions had been opened to women and despite remaining restrictions16 in 1999 women competed equally for assignment in 260,000 additional combat positions from which they were previously excluded (CWINF 1999). In 2000 more than 80 percent of the total jobs and over 95 percent of all career fields were also open to women. The participation of women in international operations has also been intensifying significantly since the early 1990s, after the start of the conflicts in the Balkans. By 2000, all NATO countries (with the exception of Italy) had deployed women in UN and NATO international and
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Gender integration in the armed forces
peacekeeping missions. However, levels of participation have varied significantly among member nations. While in some cases it has been almost symbolic (Greece, Turkey, Poland, and Luxembourg), in other cases women’s presence in PK operations has been particularly expressive. For instance, by 2000 the United States had 11,200 women involved in NATO peacekeeping operations and in 1999 women constituted 8.9 percent of the total US force deployed in missions abroad. Hierarchical representation At the beginning of the twenty-first century, nearly half (49.9 percent) of all servicewomen in NATO were concentrated in the enlisted ranks, 36 percent in the NCOs, and only 15 percent belonged to the officers’ category. Unlike their distribution in terms of occupational areas, the representation of women throughout the various ranks was much more balanced when compared to the overall personnel rank structure: they were only slightly underrepresented in the officer’s and NCO’s ranks and over represented among the enlisted (Figure 5.4). However, a different reality is highlighted when looking at percentages within each hierarchical category. Due to their very low absolute numbers women had an extremely limited representation in the various ranks. But, contrary to the widespread idea that women’s representation is limited in the officer’s ranks when compared to the enlisted force, data show that there was not a large gap between these two categories. If the countries that imposed rank restrictions (Poland, Hungary, The Czech Republic, Greece, and Turkey) are excluded from the analysis, women represented in average 11.1 percent of the officers and 12.6 percent of the enlisted personnel in NATO forces (Table 5A.3). 49.9 46.1
50 38.2 40
Total Women
35.6
30 20
15.714.5
10 0 Officers
NCO’s
Enlisted
Figure 5.4 Average hierarchical distribution of military personnel in NATO forces (2000) in percentage. Sources: Organizational survey; Annual reports of the Committee of Women in the NATO Forces.
Gender integration in the armed forces 111 16 Officers NCO+Enlisted
14 12 10 8 6 4 2
Lu
xe
m bo
u Po rg la G nd er m a Tu ny rk e Fr y an D c en e m ar C k ze ch Spa in R ep ub G lic re e Be ce lg i P um N ortu et he gal rla n N ds or w U a ni Hun y te ga d Ki ry ng do m C U a ni n a te d da St at es To ta l
0
Figure 5.5 Percentage of women within rank categories in NATO (2000). Sources: Organizational survey; Annual reports of the Committee of Women in the NATO Forces.
There were, however, relevant differences between the countries (Figure 5.5). Two patterns emerge: a first one referring to roughly half of the cases consists of a lower representation of women in the officer’s ranks and a higher representation among enlisted personnel when compared to women’s overall percentage in the force. Here, the percentage of enlisted women more than doubled their weight in the officer’s categories (Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Spain). A second pattern refers to countries where there was a more balanced representation between categories, and even higher percentages of women in the officer’s category than in the enlisted ranks. Belonging to this group, Norway was a clear “deviant” case as women officers constituted 5.3 percent of the officer’s category, only 1.5 percent of enlisted, and 3.2 percent of the total force. In Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, women were represented in the officer’s category in slightly higher percentages than in the overall structure; the same happened in Greece and the Czech Republic, which in this case may result from the existing rank restrictions, since women were excluded from the enlisted category. In principle, there were almost no formal restrictions on women’s hierarchical progression in NATO. Countries that in the past had imposed maximum posts for women progressively changed that policy. In 2000, all nations reported that women’s hierarchical progression was not limited by law and that they were subject to identical promotion criteria. However, there were some exceptions to this rule and women’s representation in the various ranks as well as their promotion conditions were
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Gender integration in the armed forces
limited in at least three major ways. First, in some countries women had not served long enough to attain higher ranks. Second, some countries did not recruit women for specific categories: these are the cases of Greece, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, where women were not admitted in the enlisted categories (exclusively conscript). Third, in other instances, combat exclusion and occupational segregation prevented women from acquiring the experience and fulfilling the functions that would serve as the basis for promotion. Social issues: family policy, fraternization, and harassment According to the survey results, the conciliation between family life and a military career is one of the most important – if not the major – problem women have to face in the services. The difficulties they find in effectively pursuing a military career while at the same time devoting attention to family and children were considered to have a major negative impact on women’s retention and career development. Data show that, together with cultural and attitudinal resistances, conciliation between family and work is the greatest difficulty confronted by military women in more than half of the NATO countries. Despite this acknowledgment, a majority of nations limits policies in this field to following civilian law and regulations regarding pregnancy (namely pregnancy leave and prohibition of dangerous work to pregnant women) and parental leave. All have issued specific directives concerning service conditions in particular jobs or military positions for pregnant women. However, the extent to which family issues have been the object of specific programs varies significantly. In about one third of the cases specific measures or programs aimed at facilitating the articulation between family responsibilities and military life have been implemented. Not surprisingly, this happened more extensively in those countries where women’s roles knew greater development: the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Canada. In all these countries there seemed to exist a process of “spill-over” from civilian social policy to the armed forces. All remaining countries fall in the default category: they all followed civilian regulations and did not have specific family programs. Poland, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Spain granted maternity leave (ranging, however, from 12 months in Greece to 4 months in Portugal) and various levels of parental leave and allowances, but had not developed a global policy on family matters. A similar situation characterized NATO countries’ policies concerning gender-equality monitoring and sexual harassment. Again, it is possible to identify two main situations. On the one hand, there are those
Gender integration in the armed forces 113 countries with a proactive orientation regarding discrimination and sexual harassment, where specific policies have been drawn. On the other hand, there are those nations where no specific policies have been implemented, and in many cases are not even considered to be necessary. Consequently, they have a merely reactive attitude following general law and military disciplinary regulations. Among the first group we find the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium, where specific programs have been implemented to deal with these sensitive issues. Situations vary from extremely regulated contexts, as in the United States, to an approach that privileges “confidential counselors” adopted in the Netherlands and Belgium. In most cases, however, regulations in the field of sexual harassment are part of broader policies aimed at dealing with discrimination and promoting equity. This “mainstreaming” orientation has had a clear expression in the development of mentoring or monitoring programs aimed at gender equality and gender awareness. This trend began during the 1990s and particularly intensified during the last years of the decade. All other NATO countries have a “minimal,” and frequently ex-post, approach to issues of harassment and gender discrimination. Even if some of them, like Spain and Luxembourg, have regulations that concretely focus on harassment, these are not integrated in any broader program or even within an explicit policy. The general pattern is the dependence on existing disciplinary regulations and general civil law. In the absence of institutionalized solutions and clear policies, problems of this kind become simultaneously less acknowledged inside the ranks and less visible to the exterior. In the light of these descriptions, one crucial question regards the efficacy of programs aimed at facing cultural and attitudinal resistances to women in the military. Here again, we are confronted with the need to assess the relation between formal policies and regulations and their implementation and outputs, which is not necessarily a linear one. Unfortunately, empirical data in this area are scarce. Research conducted in the United States has shown a rather dark picture. Despite existing regulations and efforts made to prevent harassment, the US military has faced various sexual harassment and sexual assault scandals during the past decade. This has been considered “especially troubling in light of the fact that Department of Defense (DoD) has had specific policy prohibiting sexual harassment of military personnel for over fifteen years” (Guenter-Schlesinger 1999: 195). In spite of increased awareness and knowledge, a large majority of service women surveyed in 1995 declared that they had experienced behaviors that could be described as sexual harassment. In the wake of serious harassment incidents, military orientations became more conservative, ranging from
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proposals to resegregate basic training to a significant shift in fraternization rules.17 In any case, independently of policy concrete orientations and efficiency – the evaluation of which will require extensive research – awareness of sexual discrimination and harassment, as well as service attempts to confront these problems, should be read as efforts toward integration and thus as a positive element in a country’s classification in an overall index of gender inclusiveness. An index of gender inclusiveness Despite the lack of information for some of the countries, the available data – both in terms of precise statistics and more qualitative analysis of policies – allow the construction of a global index of gender inclusiveness. Considering the macroanalytical level of this analysis, it is more accurate to talk of an index of “formal” inclusiveness, since the available indicators refer mainly to global statistics and formal mechanisms and rules. In spite of the efforts to confront, whenever possible, normative frames and their implementation, it has not always been possible to evaluate the distance between policies and actual practices. In any case, different indicators have been chosen to build the index, including organizational structure and organizational policy indicators (Table 5.2).18 Structural variables refer to the overall representation of women in active duty forces (1), occupational sex segregation (3), and rank distribution (5). These indicators are usually considered of major importance to determine the extent of women’s roles in the military. The impact of Table 5.2 Index of gender inclusiveness in NATO (IGI): variables and measurement Variable (weight)
Indicator
Measurement
Global representation (3) Occupational integration (6)
1 Percentage of women in total active force 2 Formal functional restrictions to combat functions 3 Percentage of women in traditional functions 4 Formal rank restrictions 5 Percentage of women in officers ranks 6 Segregation in basic training 7 Family programs 8 Harassment and gender equity monitoring
0 0–1%; 1 1–5%; 2 5–10%; 3 10% 0 total; 1 many; 2 few; 3 none
Hierarchical integration (6)
Training segregation (2) Social policies (2)
0 90–100%; 1 66–89%; 2 50–66%; 3 less 50% 0 yes; 3 no 0 0–1%; 1 1–5%; 2 5–10%; 3 10% 0 total; 1 partial; 2 no segregation 0 no; 1 yes 0 no; 1 yes
Gender integration in the armed forces 115 related policies is also captured through the inclusion of indicators pertaining to the existence of segregation practices (6) and presence or absence of formal limitations in occupational (2) and hierarchical terms (4). Hence, beyond the question of relative numbers, other dimensions of the integration process are included that concern respectively the structure of opportunities and power distribution. This is why, together, these indicators contribute almost 90 percent to the indexes’ overall weight. Finally, the index includes two additional variables relative to existing programs or policies aimed at confronting erosion factors, such as those derived from the difficult conciliation between family and a military occupation (7) or sexual harassment and gender equity monitoring (8). Since these factors may have a strong impact on integration processes, attention given by policy makers to “quality-of-life” areas should be taken as important elements for the qualification of women’s presence in the military.19 This index – like a similar one proposed by Segal, Segal, and Booth (1999) – is not supposed to reveal absolute positions, from total exclusion to complete inclusion. While having a low score means almost total exclusion, having the highest score by no means signifies full integration; a concrete score merely indicates a relative position between countries. The country with the highest score is simply the one that has reached the highest level of gender integration within the selected set of countries. Figure 5.6 presents a graphic representation of the countries’ scores.
(0 = lower integration; 19 = higher integration)
Ita l Po y l a G er nd m an G y re ec Tu e r k C ze Hu ey ch ng R ary e Lu pu xe bli m c bo u Po rg rtu ga Fr l an c Sp e ai D n e N nm et a he rk rla n U ni Be ds te d lgiu Ki ng m do m U No ni te rwa d St y at e C s an ad a
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Figure 5.6 Index of gender inclusiveness in NATO (IGI): country scores.
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Gender integration in the armed forces
If we separate relative numbers (global representation) and the remaining dimensions of integration, it is also possible to graphically represent different groups of countries along both dimensions (Figure 5.7). Four different groups of countries can be identified. The two groups on the upper half of the figure are those that score high on inclusiveness and can thus be named as “advanced inclusiveness” types. On the upper left quadrant, there are those countries that not only have the higher levels of inclusiveness but also have the highest numerical representation: Canada, United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These countries constitute type I: “advanced/extensive inclusiveness” (Euro-Atlantic model). On the upper right quadrant, there are those that although scoring high in inclusiveness have more limited quantitative
+
Actual representation
Canada (14)
_
Norway (14) Denmark (13)
United Kingdom (13)
+ Formal inclusiveness (1–16)
Belgium (13) Netherlands (12) United States (12)
France (9)
Luxembourg (8)
Portugal (9)
Czech Republic (7)
Spain (10) – Hungary (5)
Greece (3)
Turkey (4) Germany (2) Poland (1) Italy (0)
Type I – advanced/extensive inclusiveness (Euro-Atlantic model) – five countries (Canada, US, UK, NL, B). Type II – advanced/intensive inclusiveness (Scandinavian model) – two countries (N, Dk). Type III – moderate inclusiveness (Southern European model) – four countries (F, P, Sp, H). Type IV – limited inclusiveness (mixed territorial model) – seven countries (L, CR, Pl, Gr, T, G, I).
Figure 5.7 Models of gender incorporation in NATO.
Gender integration in the armed forces 117 representation: Norway and Denmark. These can be classified as type II – “advanced/intensive inclusiveness” (Scandinavian model). On the lower part of the figure there are those countries that have lower levels of inclusiveness. On the left quadrant we find France, Portugal, Spain, and Hungary, the countries of type III – “moderate inclusiveness” (Southern European model): while having medium to low scores on inclusiveness, they have still reached significant representation levels. Finally, on the lower right quadrant, are the countries with the lowest levels of inclusiveness and also the lowest percentage of women in the armed forces: Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Poland, and Italy. These are type IV – “limited inclusiveness” or “mixed territorial model.” After conceptualizing, describing, and measuring WMP, it is now important to understand what factors may explain the observed incorporation patterns and test some of the hypotheses that have been proposed to explain variation in women’s military roles.20
Explaining gender incorporation patterns: a tentative test of hypotheses Historical heritages, time effects, and relative numbers A first fundamental variable to consider when analyzing current situations concerning the role women play in the armed forces is the time frame of the process. This can be observed around two different dimensions: the existence of a historical tradition of female military involvement, and the length of time that has passed since countries started the so-called second generation process of gender integration that took place throughout the Western industrialized world after the 1970s. Beginning with the historical dimension, NATO countries have very different historical traditions of female involvement in military operations. As described in Chapter 1, some of them, namely the United States, the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, Canada and Germany, have had large contingents of women performing support roles during the First and Second World Wars. Some have mobilized women at various times but in a less significant way; in various other cases women have joined revolutionary armies in civil wars or resistance movements throughout the twentieth century. While in some nations women’s participation was interrupted after the end of conflict, in some others they continued to serve in reduced numbers and under a special peacetime status. As far as the moment they started female recruitment after the 1970s is concerned, major differences can be observed: some pioneer countries started recruiting women more than three decades ago, in the early 1970s. Among these are the United States, Canada, Denmark, and France.
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Gender integration in the armed forces
Others followed the trend and progressively opened their ranks to women in the late 1970s and during the early 1980s – Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Turkey, and Greece. A third group includes those countries where female recruitment was initiated in the late 1980s or early 1990s – Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland, and Hungary – or intensified it during this period, as happened with the Czech Republic. Finally, there are the rather special cases of Germany and Italy. As previously described, in Germany women joined the military in the Medical Corps in 1975, but only in 2000 were given a full military status, and in Italy the first female incorporation took place in that same year (Table 5A.5). Three decades were thus necessary to institute female recruitment in all eighteen NATO countries. A commonly stated belief is that both aspects – time and previous tradition – condition the state of gender integration in the military. Two specific arguments have been used21: first, the idea that previous experience must have had at least some impact in defining the conditions that surrounded the “second-generation” process of gender integration, and, second, that time has a positive impact on both quantitative and qualitative dimensions of women’s military integration. According to this perspective, unequal gender representation is not necessarily a result of discriminatory practice or glass-ceiling effects, but mainly a consequence of the limited amount of time women have served. Hence, from this point of view, time constitutes a major factor in eliminating discriminations and bringing nations with lower levels of integration to reach the levels of the more progressive countries. Interestingly, however, empirical results do not confirm this general hypothesis, or at least seem to support it only partially and for a specific cluster of countries. As far as historical experience is concerned, there are some “anomalous” elements. On the one hand, among the pioneer group of countries we find some which had significant female involvement in the First and Second World Wars (United States, United Kingdom, and Canada), while others such as Belgium, France, or Denmark did not. On the other hand, the two latecomers (Italy and Germany) recruited women in these conflicts, albeit in limited numbers. This may lead us to rethink whether previous women’s presence in the war arena had some, if any, influence in the timing of a “new” start in the 1970s. One possible conclusion is that, apparently, previous tradition did not have the catalyzing function some would have expected in terms of pressing for an early start at this later stage. The pattern of “historical amnesia” – the invisibility of women’s contributions to war and their return to traditional roles after the end of conflicts – has probably prevailed (Segal 1993: 84). But even if there were not a direct impact of this historical factor in explaining differences in polices and practices between countries, it is possible to sustain the second hypothesis. For instance, it is plausible to admit the existence of a link between time and relative numbers: in general, countries with a
Gender integration in the armed forces 119 longer experience of female recruitment should also be those where percentages of women are higher. However, results show only a moderate negative correlation22 between time (yearstart) and relative numbers (percentagewomen2000) (R .507; Sig. 0.05). A graphic representation helps to visualize it (Figure 5.8). If there was a high correlation, countries should cluster along a diagonal linking the upper left and lower right side of the graphic. This does not seem to happen. If, besides, we eliminate the outliers, where the relation seems to hold strongly (Italy, Canada, and United States), there is a rather chaotic pattern relating the length of female presence in the forces and their relative numbers. If we look beyond numbers and strict quantitative representation, there are again reasons to believe results could be different. The fact that the military is an organization where time is usually an important criterion for assessing statutory positions (rank progression, promotions) makes it reasonable to admit that time almost “automatically” affects the various circumstances that define women’s positions. This would support the hypothesis that the longer the presence of women in the armed forces the higher the degree of gender inclusiveness. The relation between the length of female recruitment (yearstart) and the index of gender inclusiveness (IGI) shows, in effect, a significant, if still moderate, negative statistical correlation (R .604; Sig. .01): the
2010
2000
I
P Year start
1990
Pl
L
S
H
CR T UK Nl
Gr
1980
N G
Be USA
F
Dk
C
1970
1960 –2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Percentagewomen2000
Figure 5.8 Plot of countries’ rankings: time and women’s relative numbers.
120
Gender integration in the armed forces 2010
I 2000
Year start
P 1990
H
Pl
CR
S
L
T Gr
1980
UK N Be USA Dk Nl
G F 1970
C
1960 –5
0
5
10
15
20
Index of gender inclusiveness
Figure 5.9 Plot of countries’ rankings: time and gender inclusiveness in the military.
earlier countries started to recruit women the higher their score is in the index of gender inclusiveness. Figure 5.9 portrays countries’ scores along both dimensions. Nonetheless, visibly different patterns emerge. The first concerns the most integrated countries, that is, those classified as advanced inclusiveness types (C, US, Nl, UK, B, Dk, and N). Because these have the highest scores in the IGI and were among the first to start female recruitment, they appear in the lower right quadrant and form a clear cluster. The second pattern characterizes countries with progressively lower scores – moderate and limited inclusiveness types – which tend to appear toward the center and upper right side of the diagonal, even if distributed in a less tight cluster. Here, a few cases deserve particular attention: Portugal and Spain have an unexpected location, since the two countries have already reached a good integration score despite a rather late start. The opposite happens with France, a clearly deviant case in this correlation. Even if it had a rather early departure, France does not reach levels of integration comparable to those countries that started recruitment at about the same time.23 A third group, however, does not fit at all into the general pattern. The supposed correlation does not hold true for countries with the lowest scores in the index of gender inclusiveness, thus belonging to the limited inclusiveness type – Turkey, Poland, Germany, and Greece. Despite the fact that these countries started women’s recruitment rather
Gender integration in the armed forces 121 early (with the exception of Poland), various factors (to be analyzed further on) must have prevented or created obstacles to the development of the integration process. In sum, results show that time is correlated to some extent to the degree of women’s integration, but this does not hold true for those countries that score low in integration. Against common beliefs, data support the idea that time, by and in itself, does not automatically foster gender integration and especially does not have the relevant impact on representation that some would expect. Military structure and personnel accession policies Military factors have been considered important determinants of women’s military roles (Segal 1995, 1999; Haltiner 1998a, b). Characteristics of force structure are supposed to condition both representation and other more qualitative variables regarding the process of gender integration in the armed forces (e.g. role differentiation/segregation). In order to test this general hypothesis for recent years and for the NATO universe, I have selected, as independent variable, an indicator pertaining to the organizational format of the military and used as criteria to define the mass army character of a force: the conscript ratio (CR – percentage of conscripts in total active force). The CR has been used as one of the most significant indicators of the mass army nature of a military force, in that “the larger the CR, the more likely a force may be called a mass army under a structural perspective” (Haltiner 1998a: 45). The presumption is that the higher the CR of a military force the lower will be the representation of women and their role differentiation. On the contrary, the lower the CR the higher is expected to be the percentage of women and the less segregated their occupational distribution. Results show that there is a negative correlation between the weight of conscripts in the total active force and the representation of women in the ranks (R .720; Sig. .01). This confirms general research findings in this area that relate the percentage of women and the organizational format: the higher the mass army format of a force the lower is the percentage of women in that force (Figure 5.10). Figure 5.10 shows that the representation of women is higher in countries that have voluntary systems of military service or consider transition from conscript to AVF and face actual or potential recruitment shortages. Inversely, countries based on conscript military systems and no recruitment difficulties tend to have the lowest representation of women. But besides the impact of organizational format on quantitative representation, that is, on relative numbers, the proposed hypothesis points to a relation between organizational format and more qualitative indicators such as the diversification of women’s military roles. Countries with AVF
122
Gender integration in the armed forces 80 T Gr Pl
60
S
N
H
I CR
Conscript ratio
G 40
F
Dk
20
P L
BeNlUK
C
USA
0
–20 –2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Percentagewomen2000
Figure 5.10 Plot of countries’ rankings: forces structure (CR) and women’s relative numbers.
systems of military service are expected to score higher on variables such as the proposed “index of gender inclusiveness,” while countries with high CRs are expected to show the lower scores in this type of measure. Once again, results point to a significant if moderate negative statistical correlation between both variables: the higher the CR the lower the level of gender inclusiveness (R .683; Sig. .01). The corresponding scatterplot (Figure 5.11) displays a visual representation of countries’ relative positions along both dimensions. Those with high conscript ratios such as Turkey, Greece, or Poland have the lowest scores in terms of gender inclusiveness, while AVF cases such as the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, and the Netherlands show the best performances of the index. But the positions of the intermediate cases are much less clear. Additionally, together with Luxembourg – an exception to the general trend since the AVF character of its forces coexists with a very modest level of integration – Norway is a deviant case in that it presents a high percentage of conscripts, while at the same time scoring high on inclusiveness. In any case, since this greater dispersion was not observed in the correlation between CR and strict quantitative representation, we must admit that the variable “organizational format” helps explain variation in relative numbers more than it does in terms of the overall index.
Gender integration in the armed forces 123 80 T 70 Gr Pl
60
S
Conscript ratio
H
N
I
50
G
CR
40 F
Dk
30 20 P 10 UKBe NlUSA
L
0 –5
0
5
10
15
C 20
Index of gender inclusiveness
Figure 5.11 Plot of countries’ rankings: force structure (CR) and gender inclusiveness in the military.
This suggests that the organizational format may be a good predictor of women’s representation but does not seem to be as powerful when it comes to understanding variation in gender inclusiveness levels. In the light of this, we may admit the hypothesis that other external variables will probably help to better explain the “quality” of the process (the level of inclusiveness). This is the objective of the following section. The impact of social–economic and political factors: a selective exploration Hypotheses concerning the influence of social–economic factors over women’s military participation stress the impact of global economic conditions and the degree of women’s economic mobilization on their military roles. Here, I propose to test the following two hypotheses: “the higher the affluence of a society, the higher the degree of gender inclusiveness in the armed forces” and “the greater the percentage of women in the labor force, the larger will be their representation and level of inclusiveness in the armed forces.” In order to explore these hypotheses, I have opted to select a few independent variables concerning two main defining dimensions of the broader social context: the level of development of each society and the specific situation of women in the economic and political
124 Gender integration in the armed forces spheres. In both dimensions, individual variables as well as composite indexes have been identified. The first dimension – level of development – is measured through two single variables: GDP per capita (Gross Domestic Product) and youth unemployment, and a combined measure, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP’s) gender-related development index (GDI).24 Likewise, the second dimension – more directly related to the situation of women – includes two different measures: female economic activity rate, and a synthetic measure of participation, UNDP’s gender empowerment measure (GEM).25 As far as economic and social development is concerned, results show that levels of youth unemployment do not seem to affect representation of women in the military or the extent to which they have been integrated in the ranks.26 As far as economic development is concerned (GDPpc), there is a low positive correlation with the dependent variables: correlation with numeric representation is .402 and with IGI .499 (both for Sig. .05). However, the more complex GDI has a moderate positive correlation with the index of gender inclusiveness (IGI) (R .618; Sig. .01). The visual representation of this relationship shows that this is especially true for the set of countries that form a cluster at the upper right end of the diagonal (Figure 5.12). These are those that score higher on the inclusiveness index (C, USA, Dk, N, Be, NL, and the UK). In fact, in this subgroup, the
Gender-related development index
1.0
G
I
.9
F L Gr
C N USA Be Nl S Dk UK
P CR
Pl
H
.8
T .7 –5
0
5
10
15
20
Index of gender inclusiveness
Figure 5.12 Plot of countries’ rankings: gender-related development index and gender inclusiveness in the military.
Gender integration in the armed forces 125 correlation increases to R .679 (Sig. .05). If excluded from the analysis, the correlation disappears. There are thus two different situations: countries with high levels of human development (and a more balanced situation between men and women in those indicators), scoring high on gender inclusiveness in the military, and countries where such a relationship does not hold. The fact that the correlation rose when a gender “weighted” measure was introduced supports the idea that indicators of the situation of women may be particularly helpful to explain variation in integration levels. If we look at indicators that measure more directly the social and political participation of women, a surprising result emerges. Against theoretical expectations, namely contradicting the hypothesis that the greater the percentage of women in the labor force, the larger will be their representation in the armed forces, results show that, for this particular universe, “women’s economic activity rate”27 does neither affect their numerical representation in the armed forces (R .172) nor does it affect inclusiveness (IGI) (R .306). Apparently, this result indicates that women’s “simple presence” or attendance of the system does not seem to be sufficient to influence their representation or integration levels within the military. In Chapter 1, I have put forward the hypothesis that “the more women have a ‘controlling presence’28 in society, the higher is the level of gender inclusiveness in the military.” In order to test this hypothesis, it is fundamental to find indicators pertaining to the quality of women’s presence in the social–economic and political arenas. Among the various possible indicators of women’s “qualified” or “controlling” presence I have opted for using a composite measure of gender inequality: UNDP’s “Gender Empowerment Measure.” This measure combines participation and decision-making indicators in the economic and political spheres, as well as an estimate of power over economic resources (UNDP 2001: 244–5). Here again, the data show no significant relation between gender inequality (measured by GEM) and relative numbers of women in the military (R .386). However, unlike what happens with activity rates, there is a significant correlation between this participation indicator and gender integration in the military: the higher the GEM (and thus the more qualified the social and political presence of women), the higher is the score in inclusiveness (R .665; Sig. .01). If, additionally, one of the most deviant cases is eliminated from the analysis (Germany), the correlation becomes clearly the higher obtained till now (R .809; Sig. .01) (Figure 5.13). This reinforces an underlying distinction in this research: that which exists between quantitative indicators or the simple presence of women, and their qualified presence, that is, the actual access to a wider set of opportunities and exercise of power. These two dimensions are frequently collapsed and it is not always clear whether scholars refer to relative
126
Gender integration in the armed forces .9 N Dk
Gender empowerment measure
.8
G
Nl
Be USA
C
.7 UK P S
L
.6 I
CR
Pl
F
H
.5
Gr
.4 T .3 –5
0
5
10
15
20
Index of gender inclusiveness
Figure 5.13 Plot of countries’ rankings: GEM and gender inclusiveness in the military.
numbers alone or to broader inclusiveness dimensions. Additionally, external variables related to the “qualification” of women’s social and political participation – more than their economic participation alone – have a crucial impact on inclusiveness.
Concluding remarks If we consider the various coefficients that have been observed throughout the previous sections (Table 5.3), some conclusions can be highlighted. Time is not as good as expected as a predictor of women’s representation in the military: a longer presence of women in the ranks does not imply a consistent increase in their relative numbers. Although time is positively correlated to some extent to the overall degree of inclusiveness, this only seems to be true for the group of countries that score higher in that variable. Against common beliefs, data support the idea that time, by and in itself, does not automatically foster gender integration or contribute to eliminate existing discriminations in occupational or hierarchical terms. As far as military related factors are concerned, evidence shows that, as expected, a specific military factor – the organizational format measured by the conscript ratio – has a significant relation with inclusiveness and
Gender integration in the armed forces 127 Table 5.3 Correlation coefficients (NATO 18) Inclusiveness
Time
Military factors
Year start
Conscript GDPpc Youth ratio unemployment
Index of .602 .683 gender inclusiveness (.727)a (IGI) % Women .507 .720
Social–economic and political factors
.499
—
GDI Female GEM activity rate .618 —
.665 (.809)b
.402
—
.534 —
—
Notes a Without Luxembourg. b Without Germany.
especially with representation. This means that the more a force relies on volunteer personnel, the higher is the percentage of women. Inversely, the closer a military is to the mass army format the lower is female representation. Some external variables related to the social–economic and political structures seem to have a negligible influence over numerical representation of women in the military but a significant impact on their global integration. Still, here one must distinguish between those factors that concern women’s simple presence in the system, which are not responsible for relevant variation in the qualitative status of military women, and those referring to women’s qualified presence, which instead seem to influence gender integration to a reasonable extent. Taken together, the results suggest that changes in the organizational format of the military may foster change in the human landscape of the armed forces, but some external variables, specifically those concerning women’s qualified presence in the social and political realms, have also a significant impact on gender integration. Even if extrapolating beyond available results, I would hypothesize that change toward greater gender equality in the armed forces will not occur automatically as a consequence of time or the increase in relative numbers. It will probably depend much more on the extent to which external variables, such as women’s controlling presence in society at large will determine policy orientations and decision-making processes within the armed forces.
No limitations Quota until 1981 in military academy
No limitations
No limitations Ceiling for military universities abolished in 1999 No limitations
No limitations Quotas abolished in 1998
No limitations Occupational restrictions until 2000
Belgium
Canada
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Denmark
Formal restrictions
Countries
Table 5A.1 Recruitment policies in NATO (2000)
Appendix
Long term recruiting goals (40% in army and navy; 27% air force). “Aggressive” campaign to increase women in combat arms. Programs in three services No programs
No programs
Recruitment programs
Voluntary Aggressive recruitment campaign 1998 possibility of joining focusing on female role models in conscript terms Voluntary No programs Until transition to AVF (All-volunteer force): possibility of joining in conscript terms Voluntary No programs
Voluntary
Voluntary 1984: possibility of joining in conscript terms Suspended in 1995 for all Voluntary
Type of service
No limitations — No limitations No limitations
No limitations
No limitations No limitations No limitations Ceiling of 4% in service academies No limitations Navy and army establish recruitment goals based on limitations on billets open to women. Navy limit by posts aboard ships
Hungary Italy Luxembourg The Netherlands
Norway
Poland Portugal Spain Turkey
UK US
Limited to 10% of service academies
Greece
Voluntary Voluntary
Voluntary Possibility of joining in conscript terms Voluntary Voluntary Voluntary Voluntary
Voluntary Legal possibility of conscription in case of war or whenever decided by MoD Voluntary — Voluntary Voluntary
Specific advertising for women Comprehensive recruitment programs but not specifically for women
No programs No programs No programs No programs
No programs — No programs Ergonomics project; recruitment campaigns Active campaigning
No programs
No restrictions Restricted from submarines No restrictions
Belgium Canadaa Czech Republic Denmark France
No restrictions Restricted from all functions implying direct contact with hostile forces and promiscuity Germany Restricted from all areas except medical service and military bands c Restricted from all combat areas Greece Hungary No restrictions Luxembourg No restrictions Italy – (Women allowed in 2000) The Some areas closed on grounds of Netherlandsd effectiveness and practical reasons (Marine Corps, submarines)
Formal (legal) restrictions
Countries
n.a. 69.8
100
87.9 n.a. 93.1 — 67.1
n.a.
33.9 n.a. 67.5 — n.a.
46.7 59.5 66.8
n.a. n.a.
26.8 20.2 61.7
30.4 n.a. 20.5 — n.a.
n.a.
n.a. n.a.
24 20.8 31
— n.a. 6.9 — 22.5
—
n.a. 6
8.8 4.6 19.9
W
MW
MW
W
Operational (combat arms)
Support Medical
Occupational areas (%)
35.7 n.a. 11.9 — n.a.
—
n.a. n.a.
49.2 59 7.3
MW
Technical (eng./comm.)
Table 5A.2 Occupational restrictions and occupational distribution of personnel in NATO (2000)
12.1 n.a. — — 10.3
—
n.a. 13.5
44.5 35.9 13.3
W
— n.a. — — —
—
n.a. n.a.
— — —
MW
Other
— n.a. — — —
—
n.a. 10.7b
— — —
W
n.a. 100 67.5
n.a. 89.2e
63.2
70.2
n.a. n.a. 50.2
n.a. n.a.
28.3
49.2
20.4
30.5
n.a. n.a.
n.a. n.a. 34.4
6.6
16.2
n.a. 10.8
n.a. — 8.0
26.6
36.8
n.a. —
n.a. n.a. 15.3
18
20.6
n.a. —
n.a. — 10.4
Notes a Only officers. MW refers only to men (data for 1998). Technical/operational MOC in navy and air force counted in technical. b Gendarmerie and “others.” c Only air force and navy; data not available for the army. d Data only regards army women with long-term contracts for 1998 (CWINF 1998). e Support and technical functions. f Nonrated.
Source: Organizational survey.
No restrictions Restricted from combat areas No restrictions Areas closed in Navy: submarines, divers, mine-clearance Spain No restrictions Turkey Restricted from some combat areas (armored corps, infantry, and submarines) United Restricted from infantry, Kingdom armored corps, cavalry, marine corps, mine-clearance divers, and submarines United States Restricted from direct ground combat positions. Over 80% jobs and 90% career fields open in all services
Norway Poland Portugal
3.8
4.4
n.a. —
n.a. — —
5.2f
2.7
n.a. —
n.a. — —
5,079 13,219 14,240 4,262 49,816 50,724 22,137 10,666 54 9,709 11,645 37,782 6,623 19,640 100,323 31,076 196,125 583,120
Source: Organizational survey.
Belgium Canada Czech Republic Denmark France Germany Greece Hungary Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Spain Turkey United Kingdom United States Total
227 1,562 502 112 704 428 942 640 0 516 619 234 313 622 864 2,589 29,562 40,436
4.5 11.8 3.5 2.6 1.4 0.8 4.3 6.0 0.0 5.3 5.3 0.6 4.7 3.2 0.9 8.3 15.1 6.9
17,789 43,029 9,481 5,393 121,209 123,418 39,367 9,654 176 23,636 1,076 91,928 16,244 28,816 244,098 98,045 540,693 1,414,052
MW
%W
MW
W
NCOs
Officers
1,021 5,101 1,433 168 15,152 2,425 5,263 2,317 5 1,021 80 5 693 45 0 5,321 59,297 99,347
W 5.7 11.9 15.1 3.1 12.5 2.0 13.4 24.0 2.8 4.3 7.4 0.0 4.3 0.2 0.0 5.4 11.0 7.0
%W
Table 5A.3 Hierarchical distribution of military personnel in NATO (2000)
19,266 — 34,479 8,499 146,275 148,942 104,166 23,120 456 20,189 18,144 110,940 13,051 69,801 294,579 74,180 628,178 1714,265
MW
Enlisted
1,945 — 0 716 11,202 455 0 0 23 2,611 274 0 1,750 7,595 0 7,834 104,984 139,389
W 10.1 — 0.0 8.4 7.7 0.3 0.0 0.0 5.0 12.9 1.5 0.0 13.4 10.9 0.0 10.6 16.7 8.1
%W
42,134 57,441 58,200 18,154 317,300 323,085 165,670 43,440 686 53,534 30,865 240,650 35,918 118,257 639,000 203,301 1,364,996 3,711,437
MW
Total
3,193 6,663 1,935 996 27,058 3,308 6,205 2,957 28 4,148 973 239 2,756 8,262 864 15,744 193,843 279,172
W
7.6 11.6 3.3 5.5 8.5 1.0 3.7 6.8 4.1 7.7 3.2 0.1 7.7 7.0 0.1 7.7 14.2 7.5
%W
3 2 3
3 2 0 0 2 — 3 2 3 0 2 3 1 2 2
2 3 1
1 2 1 1 2 — 1 2 1 0 2 2 0 2 3
2. Formal occupant. restrictions (b)
(2) 1 0 1 (1) — 0 1 (2) 0 1 (1) 1 2 1
3 2 1
3. Percentage of women in tradition functional (c)
3 3 0 0 0 — 3 3 3 0 3 3 0 3 3
3 3 0
4. Formal rank restrictions (d)
1 1 0 1 2 — 0 2 2 0 1 1 0 2 3
1 3 1
5. Percentage of women in officer’s corps (e)
2 2 2 1 0 — 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 1
2 2 2
6. Training segregation (f )
1 0 0 0 0 — 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1
0 1 0
7. Family programs (g)
1 0 0 0 0 — 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1
1 1 0
8. Harassment and equality monitoring (h)
14 11 3 4 7 0 9 14 15 1 11 12 4 15 15
15 17 8
Total (1 ⫹ 8) 0–19 (i)
Notes Scores between brackets are based on qualitative information due to the absence of precise statistical data. (a) 0 0–1%; 1 1–5%; 2 5–10%; 3 10%; (b) 0 total; 1 many; 2 few; 3 none; (c) 0 100–90%; 1 66–89%; 2 50%–66%; 3 50%; (d) 0 – yes; 3 – no; (e) 0 0–1; 1 1–5%; 25–10%; 3 10%; (f) 0 total; 1 partial; 2 none; (g) 0 no; 1 yes; (h) 0 no; 1 yes; (i) 0 lower integration; 19 higher integration. * Only Air Force and Navy. Data not available for the army.
Belgium Canada Czech Republic Denmark France Germany Greece* Hungary Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Spain Turkey United Kingdom United States
1. Percentage of women in total force (a)
Table 5A.4 Index of gender inclusiveness in NATO (IGI)
1971 – Women allowed to NCO and enlisted ranks 1974 – Women allowed to military academies 1971 – Women obtain military status
Denmark
Belgium
France
Unites States
1970 – Legal measures to abolish quotas, expand areas and promote equality 1973 – AVF. Expansion of women’s roles
1975 – First women recruited as enlisted
1978 – Equality laws induced progressive elimination of restrictions
1978 – Human Rights Act: trials to evaluate women in combat arms
1970s
Canada
Countries
1982 – Women allowed in military academies 1983 – Policy Document “Thirty measures for military women” 1981 – Equality laws opened all functions, prohibit
1980s 1989 – Court order to full equality
Table 5A.5 Milestones in the process of gender integration in NATO (1970–2000)
1993 – Defense Authorization Act: eliminated various restrictions in combat arms
1990s
1998 – Quotas eliminated
2000s
Limited representation in separate corps
1979 – Women allowed to NCO Corps
United Kingdom
Greece
Czech Republic
Turkey
1978 – Women allowed in military schools (except naval college)
The Netherlands
Norway
1978 – Women allowed to military academy 1977 – Parliamentary resolution to allow women to join
1982 – Resumed recruitment for officers on direct appointment
1982 – Separate Corps disbanded 1983 – Women allowed in naval college
discrimination and abolish quotas
Expansion of women’s presence
1985 – Parliament recognize full employment opportunities Combat restrictions lifted
1990 – Women allowed to military academies 1992 – Resumed recruitment in service academies
1992 1993 – disbanded last separate female corps
(Table 5A.5 continued)
1999 – Ceilings eliminated to military academies
Germany
Italy
Portugal
Spain
Luxembourg
1975 – Women join medical service
1988 – Women allowed to join military academies
1988 – Specific regulations for military women 1987 – Women allowed to army as NCOs
Poland
1980s
Limited women’s presence
1970s
Hungary
Countries
Table 5A.5 Continued
1991 – Women allowed to join all ranks
1994 – Women allowed to military academies
1990s
1996 – Eliminated restrictions in army combat arms 1999 – Law 2000 – First allowing incorporation women to of women join military academies 2000 – Women allowed to all positions and functions
1999 – Eliminated functional restrictions
1996 – New constitutional law prohibiting discrimination 1999 – Women allowed to officer’s schools 1997 – Women allowed as enlisted
2000s
6
Portugal and the Netherlands Military and social contexts
The two countries chosen as case studies, Portugal and the Netherlands, have a different score in the IGI (11/19 and 14/19 respectively). These countries have been classified as belonging to different gender incorporation models: Portugal to the southern European model, the “moderate inclusiveness” type, while the Netherlands was included in the Euro-Atlantic model, also called the “advanced/extensive inclusiveness” type. If the conclusions of the global comparative analysis are to be taken seriously, these differences must relate to both military organizational features and external variables, particularly those concerning women’s social participation. The objective of the present chapter is exactly that of analyzing and comparing the two countries along these dimensions. It will also provide the occasion to investigate the particular ways chosen in each country to accomplish transformation in the social composition of the armed forces.
The military and the challenge of organizational restructuring As happened throughout the Western world after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1990s were a decade of profound changes for the armed forces of Portugal and the Netherlands. However, these two ex-colonial powers have adjusted to change in different ways and with different rhythms. In order to set the context for confronting gender incorporation patterns in each country I shall start by giving a general overview of military policies and organization, reviewing some of the indicators that have been proposed to analyze change in military organizations (Moskos et al. 2000). These indicators are organized around three main analytic dimensions: strategic orientations in defense policy, organizational restructuring, and relations between the military and society. Strategic orientations: perception of threat and mission definition Since the mid-1960s, “civilianization” has been a major trend in the Dutch armed forces. While Portuguese soldiers were still fighting colonial wars in
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Portugal and the Netherlands
Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, supposedly defending the empire, the Dutch were already starting to change away from the divergent institutional model of organization. Defense policies aiming at a complete integration of the armed forces in society and the motto ‘as civilian as possible, as military as necessary’ seemed to capture this orientation (Van der Meulen 2000: 117). The last decade of the twentieth century produced a radicalization of this trend. The so-called final professionalization of the military contributed decisively to this “blurring” of the civil–military dichotomy. As stated by Van der Meulen, “during this time, crucial decisions and painful experiences changed the Dutch military to a degree unprecedented in the previous forty-five years” (Van der Meulen 2000: 102). The dilution of the East–West tensions and especially the disintegration of the Soviet Union led the Netherlands to review its defense interests. The “defense white paper,” published in the spring of 1991, set the basis for a gradual reduction and restructuring of the Dutch armed forces. In the meantime, the experiences of the Gulf War, the former Yugoslavia, and Cambodia, indicated the growing importance of out-of-area operations, peacekeeping and peace-enforcement missions. After a strong debate, the Dutch parliament accepted in 1993 a “Priorities review note” redefining military missions. Two major tasks were defined: crisis management and protection of the integrity of Dutch and allied territory. The first, referring to the “new missions” – preventive deployment, humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping, peace building, and even peace enforcement – became extremely frequent during the 1990s and has since taken the Dutch military all over the world. Unlike Portuguese soldiers, who only started to deploy internationally after the second half of the decade, their Dutch counterparts had already developed routines for monitoring elections, verifying weapons agreements, and controlling embargoes by then. The need for flexible, highly mobile forces capable of operating all over the world led to the creation of an airmobile brigade composed exclusively of professional soldiers. The creation of this new elite unit is, however, associated with an historical episode that has tragically signaled the role of one of its battalions, the “Dutchbat,” during the UN peacekeeping mission in former Yugoslavia. The fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, and the tragic fate of 7,000 Moslems killed, raised doubts about the intervention of the battalion, accused of not having done enough to stop the slaughtering. The importance of this event and its consequences justify the statement that “in writing about the Dutch military during the watershed period after the Cold-War, one must discuss Srebrenica” (Van der Meulen 2000: 102). In fact, in its aftermath and in the context of bitter debate in the Netherlands, support for sending Dutch troops abroad decreased significantly, “if not in the eyes of the public, then certainly among politicians” (Van der Meulen 2000: 102). In the wake of Srebrenica, decisions on how, where, and when Dutch troops should be involved in the new missions acquired a new
Portugal and the Netherlands 139 tone: “lessons learned involve the balancing of ‘narrow’ national security interests against the ideal of safeguarding a lawful international order” (Van der Meulen 2000: 104). The whole situation had significant consequences in terms of defense policy definition: greater prudence in the acceptance of future missions, additional emphasis put on the protection of national and allied territory and loss of consensus about mission definition. There is a general conviction that “another Srebrenica would no doubt push the military profession into a crisis” (Van der Meulen 2000: 107). Portugal presents a rather different picture in terms of the two variables at stake, perception of threat and mission definition. Policy definition on defense issues – as on all other spheres of social life – has been marked by the two major political–military developments of the Portuguese modern period: the colonial war between 1961 and 1974 and the democratic revolution that overturned a fifty-year-long authoritarian regime in 1974. Despite the relevance of the military’s role in the process of transition to democracy, their progressive withdrawal from the political scene was accompanied by a process of objective and subjective marginalization, which has continued until the present. The Portuguese armed forces reached the end of the century in a particularly difficult situation in terms of obsolescence of equipment, absence of strategic orientation, and shrinking budgets, while experiencing a climate of civil–military distrust (Carrilho 1994). The lack of clear defense policies has been systematically pointed out and made clear by the absence of an updated strategic concept of national defense. Santos has put it bluntly: “no one knows which perception the Portuguese democratic political power has regarding potential threats. . . . This unusual situation, unique among Western countries, is due to the complete obsolescence of state structure for security and defense issues” (Santos 2001: 184). As far as mission definition is concerned, similar criticisms have been echoed, especially from within the military institution itself. According to some of these analysts, the nature of military missions that emerges from official documents seems to be broad enough to cover any possible situation regarding the use of military force (Santos 2001: 185). Santos notes that the result of this “strategic vacuum” is that the organization, equipment, and utilization of military forces are taken on a case-by-case ad hoc basis, with all the technical and economic problems this attitude involves. Others underline the inadequacy of existing legal frames and the perverse effects that a merely reactive (and often delayed) attitude on the part of political leaders has on the international perception of the Portuguese military (Pinto 2002: 185). Notwithstanding such criticisms, it is possible to identify very general trends in the political definition of defense orientations. Against the opinion of significant sectors of the Portuguese political and military elites, who endorsed an attitude of isolationism in the line of the famous “collaborating neutrality” that prevailed during the previous world conflicts, the
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participation in international missions became a progressively important area for military action. The need to constitute a force system able to fulfill Portuguese commitments in NATO and the European Union, as well as collaborating in multinational peacekeeping missions, was explicitly stated as a desired objective in the Portuguese Defense Concept defined in 1994. Portuguese troops had already been modestly present in UN operations, mainly in Angola and Mozambique,1 but it was only the participation of a Portuguese contingent in Bosnia in 1996 that signaled a true change in policy toward what some have referred to as the “Europeanization” of Portuguese defense policy (Vasconcelos 1999). This experience revealed a growing public, political, and military support for the participation of Portuguese soldiers in multinational peacekeeping operations (Carreiras 1999a; Carrilho 1999; Vasconcelos 1999). However, old policy dilemmas became extremely visible during the Kosovo crisis, when the national capacity to maintain troops simultaneously in more than one operation was severely tested.2 The ambiguities and lack of strategic definition of Portuguese defense policy emerge thus as a major source of civil–military tension in a context where growing internationalization seems to be the unavoidable “destiny” of the Portuguese military. Organizational change and the dominant military professional Force structure: from conscription to the all-volunteer force The global trend toward force reduction that has generally affected NATO countries since the early 1990s has also characterized the situation in the two countries under analysis. As shown in Figure 6.1, both Portugal and the Netherlands have drastically reduced their personnel pool, even if this reduction has been fostered by different direct historical and social influences. In the Netherlands, the announced change in mission orientation led to extensive transformation in force structure. In order to fulfill the new tasks, a drastic restructuring of the armed forces was announced and downsizing became the key objective: plans where drawn to reduce personnel from 128,550 in 1990 to 75,200 in 2002. The projected decrease of 40 percent overall by 2000, in what had been a standing mass army during the Cold War, produced a loss of legitimacy of conscription, since it would be virtually impossible to fairly distribute the burden of the draft. As Van der Meulen pointed out, “Calling up a minority of draftees could be justified under the conditions of threat that the cold-war entailed. Continuing with this policy in the new international context could no longer be legitimized” (Van der Meulen 2000: 105). This loss of legitimacy would happen for two main reasons: first, because the number of conscript soldiers would shrink even further; second, because
Portugal and the Netherlands 141 140,000 Netherlands Portugal
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Figure 6.1 Total active armed forces in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980–2001). Source: IISS, The Military Balance, 1980–2001.
worldwide crisis-management would be felt (by politicians and by the public opinion) as a task to be developed by well-trained and immediately deployable soldiers – and not by conscripts. In 1993, the government decided to suspend conscription, becoming one of the first countries in continental Europe to take that decision. Although the initial suspension date was set at January 1, 1998, since August 1996 the armed forces of the Netherlands have consisted exclusively of volunteers (Figure 6.2).3 The Portuguese way into professionalization has been much slower. From the beginning of the 1990s, a slow but clear – albeit conflictual – tendency has developed toward professionalization. Plans to change from conscription into an all-volunteer system of military service were drawn up. The approval in 1991 of Law No. 22/91 was an important step in the direction of professionalization. Besides the reduction of the time of conscript service to a mere 4 month period, a semiprofessional system was created, based on volunteer and short-term contract regimes. New volunteer members were expected to progressively replace the pool of conscript soldiers. This initiative is to be understood in the context of the first significant transformation of the Portuguese armed forces after the end of the colonial war in terms of personnel reduction and global re-dimensioning. From 1989 to 1998 there was a reduction of 39 percent in the total force, corresponding to a decrease from 72,085 to 44,200 service members. There were two main reasons for this: a reduction in the number of conscript soldiers (Figure 6.2) and a similar reduction of career personnel from the permanent structure (QP – Quadro Permanente).
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Figure 6.2 Conscript ratio in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980–2001). Source: IISS, The Military Balance, 1980–2001. Note: Conscript ratio Percentage of conscripts in total active force.
A set of economic incentives was established in order to make the new volunteer regimes attractive to young people. These included vocational orientation, access to education, professional training, social security, financial allowances, fringe benefits, and support for reintegration into civilian life after the end of the contract. Notwithstanding its initial ambitions, the model began to show signs of major weaknesses soon after being implemented. Highly critical reactions were felt, especially among certain military sectors: “after a rather turbulent process . . . only by miracle it was possible to organize and keep, specially in the army, operational units and mobilize them to distant operations’ theatres” (Santos 2001: 188). Portuguese political authorities would later recognize the fragility of the model, considered to be excessively costly and operationally inefficient. Despite these drawbacks, the trend toward professionalization intensified throughout the decade and the constitutional reference to conscription was eliminated in 1997. Finally, in 1999, a new military service law established what may be seen as the most challenging measure in the reorganization process: the establishment of an all-volunteer force in peacetime, to be completed by 2004 after a 4-year transition period. In both countries, personnel reduction had different impacts on each of the three services, affecting particularly the army (Figure 6.3). Given its heavier territorial structure, this service is more dependent on large contingents of complementary personnel. In the Netherlands one fourth of noncommissioned army officers alone had to leave and in Portugal it is
Portugal and the Netherlands 143 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 0 1980/1
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Figure 6.3 Number of military personnel by service in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980/2001). Source: IISS, The Military Balance, 1980–2001.
also in the army that the situation is considered more problematic in view of the projected reforms. The Portuguese army has to face additional problems due to its major dependency on conscript personnel. In 2000, while the air force did not have conscripts and only a small percentage of navy personnel came from the conscript group, the army still relied extensively on conscription to fulfill its personnel needs. By that year, the professionalization ratio was already 100 percent in the air force, while conscript soldiers still accounted for 25.4 percent of the army. Recruitment problems and solutions Although force reductions and professionalization raised similar problems in the two countries, different approaches were chosen to solve them. In the Netherlands, there was much concern over possible recruitment shortages during the transition years. Until 1996, the results were quite successful, with over 90 percent of positions filled “without concessions in respect to quality” (Dekker 1998: 7), but in 1997, the first postdraft year, difficulties made themselves felt, especially within the combat arms affected by a strong shortfall of volunteers. As a consequence, a set of measures was taken to improve the position of the Dutch armed forces on the labor market on a structural basis. Critical success factors have been
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identified and implemented: the recruitment process (expansion of interservice recruitment centers), duration of contracts (adapting the length of contracts to the preference of candidates, making them “as flexible as possible”), employers’ image (intensive media campaigns), and education: new education training centers have been opened, aiming at giving short contract personnel an opportunity to obtain certificates to enhance their future employability. At the same time, at the end of their contract, personnel are put in contact with civil employers and institutions. This emphasis on education aimed at both restricting the armed forces’ expenses with unemployment benefits4 and assuring the political and social legitimacy of a system that takes in large quantities of young people for a short period of time. Finally, a labor-market monitor system has been developed in order to review the supply and demand on the labor market at regular intervals: “by anticipating labor market developments we are trying to gain and maintain a strategic advantage over our competitors” (Dekker 1998: 12). In the context of a favorable external economy, continued recruitment and retention difficulties during the decade have pushed even further this policy orientation. In 2000, these concerns were translated into renewed policy orientations toward effective staffing policy: offering external job security when leaving the service, new media and communication campaigns, support for prerecruitment physical training programs, reduction of “initial wastage”5 by reducing excessive waiting times between selection operations and actual enlistment, reinforcing the relationship between living and working in the same region, clarifying posting and job allocation for fixed-term contractors; combining work and care tasks and, finally, paying specific attention to women in the organization (Hoof 2000). In Portugal, the transition into an all-volunteer force raised similar concerns. In view of such a profound change in force structure and personnel accession policies, there was a fear that serious recruitment and retention problems would emerge. This fear was exacerbated because of a generally accepted failure of the social–economic incentive system that ought to have been established following the 1991 legislation, but which, in fact was never adequately developed. Complementary regulatory legislation was never issued for many of the proposed measures. This is seen as partially accounting for the failure in attracting the necessary number of candidates, especially in the army. In 2000, there was a deficit of around 8,000 soldiers in this service, corresponding to half of its needs in terms of enlisted personnel (Santos 2001: 188). It is thus not surprising that the army has shown greater resistance to the introduction of the all-volunteer force and posed more obstacles to proposed changes during discussion of the law. Besides centralization at the organizational level, various measures have been proposed with respect to the challenge of professionalization,
Portugal and the Netherlands 145 especially the need to attract sufficient numbers of qualified personnel. First, and probably the most important axis of the model, a renewed policy of socio-economic incentives, including all those previously programmed – vocational orientation, access to education, professional training, social security, financial allowances, fringe benefits, and return to civilian life after the end of the contract – and some additional measures concerning preferential treatment of ex-soldiers in public programs and institutions. Second, an emphasis on the public relations dimension of recruitment policy. Third, a possible rise in the proportion of civilian personnel and of women. However, despite the announced intentions, skeptical evaluations concerning the real possibilities to implement this model are common: “a safeguard clause is kept according to which the government may use conscription in case the number of volunteers is not enough to fulfill military needs. We shall see whether there will be the courage to activate this clause, since it is almost sure that it will have to be done” (Santos 2001: 188). In any case, although it is early to evaluate the results of the new recruitment process, data relative to the first incorporations into the exclusively voluntary system have not justified the more pessimistic forecasts. Considering, however, the fact that the ability to attract volunteers to the armed forces has historically depended upon economic trends and, in particular, those that affect the job market, one must carefully evaluate the impact and evolution of this variable on personnel policy design. Some of the stated tendencies, namely the attention to civilian personnel and the need to diversify the potential target-public for recruitment, are important elements of this new frame which are common to the various countries that have started similar reforms. Organizational identification: institutional, occupational, and postmodern trends The professionalization process and the occupational turbulence it generated have significantly accentuated the civilianization trend in the Dutch armed forces. As noted by Van der Meulen, “no matter how tactful, responsible, or even generous any negotiated policy is with respect to the shrinking numbers, such a process cannot fail to influence overall organizational identification [which] will tend to become more occupational than institutional” (Van der Meulen 2000: 108). Various factors have emphasized this occupational orientation throughout the decade. First, the need for recruitment appeals for short-term soldiers to become attractive in the labor market forced the development of a social policy network, including contracting with civilian employers and commercial outplacement organizations to guarantee the placement in the labor market of both redundant soldiers and those finishing their contracts. Second, the
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individualization of career patterns, namely the move away from collective promotions, and the flexibility of work contracts, became a crucial element in staffing and human resource management policies. Third, large trade unions, representing 80 percent of defense personnel, acquired growing influence. Even if not able to prevent involuntary dismissals, military unions, combining frequently with their civilian counterparts, have today a great impact in negotiating salaries and career-related issues. Overall, there seems to be a consensus over the idea that “the Netherlands is crossing a historical threshold . . . . (Professionalization) along with military unionization, acceptance of homosexuals, placement of women in combat assignments and a strong commitment to peacekeeping missions – would seem to have launched the Dutch armed forces well into postmodernity” (Moskos et al. 2000: 9). However, even if it is clear that the Dutch military resemble more and more other large-scale organizations in their unprecedented move toward cost-effectiveness, some aspects, however, seem to underline institutional features. The character and frequency of new missions, as well as the “deep soul-searching on the utility of the military” in the wake of Srebrenica, point in that direction. Accordingly, Van der Meulen stressed that some shifting lines typical of divergence should not be overlooked, and raised the question of whether “such postmodern state of affairs is not another indication of the marginalization of the military . . . . In terms of presence, purpose, priorities (regarding non-military issues) and budget (a 20 percent reduction between 1990 and 2000), such marginalization can be considered the real macro-trend following the end of the mass army” (Van der Meulen 2000: 118). In Portugal, similar structural forces are at play, even if trends are less clear, outputs more ambiguous and the rhythm of change slower and more conservative. The move in 1991 toward a semiprofessional model was accompanied by a clearly occupational campaign, including television spots and other promotional initiatives. Military service was presented as an opportunity for professional development and as an instrument for self-fulfillment. Although more institutional values were not totally absent from the recruitment appeal, the rationale behind the arguments used was predominantly occupational: “the proposed legal model aims at raising awareness among young people about military service as a demanding professional activity . . . countervailing the inconvenience of its short duration with appropriate stimulus to the reinsertion of the citizen in active civilian life” (MDN, n.d.). However, the above-described occupational orientation proved to be more intense in its discursive and symbolic dimensions than in organizational reality since, as noted earlier, measures aimed at materializing this orientation were not successful and initial plans to overall modernization and reequipment were also not fulfilled. One decade later, at the moment of transition toward the all-volunteer force, the same type of appeals was
Portugal and the Netherlands 147 made. However, a concern over more institutional aspects prevailed. The national defense white book of 2001 stated that “the reference to values based upon patriotism and ethics, the formation of a spirit of mission and the availability of diverse and effective incentives are conditions to be fulfilled by the new model of professionalized military service. Their absence would reduce such service to a mere technical offering, would eliminate its national dimension and institutional character, the identification with civilian society and the resulting connection to the service of the higher national interests and, quite probably, would turn its base of recruitment into a universe of outcasts. To create the conditions that prevent this type of perverse and undesirable development, is an obligation and a promise on the part of the political power” (MDN 2001). Various other indicators point to the dominance of conservative institutional forces while simultaneously marking strong differences between Portugal and the Netherlands in terms of their armed forces’ openness to society. One of these indicators refers to professional representation and military trade unionism. As noted before, in the Netherlands the existence and growing influence of military trade unions, consulting with their civilian counterparts, is a consolidated reality. On the contrary, in 2000, all types of military trade unionism were still prohibited in the Portuguese armed forces, and the National Defense Law imposed an extremely restrictive frame in terms of civic and political rights on military personnel. After more than one decade, during which various associations for representation of professional interests have been born (Carrilho 1994: 162–6), changes were introduced in the law in order to eliminate some of the existing restrictions, namely those regarding freedom of expression and association. However, this has been considered a very limited accomplishment both by the media and various military sectors (Santos 2001: 195), since these newly stated rights refer exclusively to the professional/deontological sphere and still exclude all types of unionism or political involvement. The aspects where such conservative institutional forces are more obvious are those related to cultural attitudes toward social diversity, namely sexual orientation. While, as shall be seen further on, reactions to the innovation of women soldiers have not revealed strong resistances, the issue of homosexuality is still a taboo in the Portuguese military, as much as it is in society at large. Existing regulations do not make any reference to the problem of sexual diversity and the actual practice has been that of discreetly excluding homosexuals that explicitly indicate their sexual orientation. Besides, as noted by Santos, “if there is knowledge that a certain service member is homosexual, he risks being excluded and marginalized . . . , which may lead to an attitude of voluntary dismissal equivalent to a de-facto punishment” (Santos 2001: 194).
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From the point of view of professional identities there is also some ambivalence. Data from survey analysis, collected throughout the decade, confirm the relative growth of occupational orientations among specific categories of military personnel, but also the fact that institutional orientations have kept a relative predominance. A representative survey of the Portuguese officer corps, conducted by Carrilho in 1990, showed that occupational motivations were dominant among air force officers, while army and navy personnel still endorsed more clearly institutional values. In any case, Carrilho notes that at this stage a “plural” model was dominant in the Portuguese armed forces (Carrilho 1994: 152). At the end of the decade, another survey of soldiers who participated in the Peace Implementation Forces (IFOR) and Peace Stabilization Forces (SFOR) missions, in Bosnia, showed a mixed picture (Carreiras 1999d). Not only were institutional orientations still dominant among officers, but also new, postmodern motivations emerged with notable intensity. In this survey, some questions dealt with professional identity, namely those regarding motivations to join the military. Results pointed to a considerable weight of institutional (paleomodern) factors, that is, factors associated with the traditional culture, values, and objectives of the military – with emphasis on aspects such as service to the nation or “esprit-de-corps” – as well as on the more self-centered factors (postmodern) such as “search for adventure” or “personal test.” Enlisted personnel tended to choose these last items in higher percentage, whereas officers and NCOs stressed more the institutional factor “serve my country.”
Patterns and policies of gender integration6 The recruitment of women: historical and legal frameworks Women have served in the Dutch armed forces since 1944, when some two hundred women integrated the first Dutch Women’s Corps (VHK) created in the United Kingdom during the Second World War (December 23, 1943). The corps aided evacuees, assisted with food distribution, and took part in the organizing of the transportation of children. After the War, the VHK remained as a reservoir of administrative personnel (Bolscher and Megens 1991: 180). From 1944 through the 1980s, there were three separate women’s corps: MARVA (navy),7 MILVA (army), and LUVA (air force). Within these corps, women fulfilled jobs in administration, signal units, medical corps, service corps, transport units, fighter control, and air-traffic control. Although the corps had military status, separate rules and restricting terms of employment related to education, career potential, and dismissal from the service in case of marriage or pregnancy were created. The work of women was considered to be temporary and supporting: “In advertisements to recruit women for the corps it was said, ‘the only weapons of the female soldier, her accuracy and charm – weapons
Portugal and the Netherlands 149 we should call “disarming” ’ and ‘here women are not trained in readiness to fight but to fulfill a useful function’ ” (Richardson and Bosch 1999: 134). The “real” integration process began in 1978 when women were allowed to enter all military institutes and military training centers, except the Royal Naval College, Den Helder, which remained closed until 1983; from January 1979 on, they were assigned to various arms and branches of the three services. Some consider that this decision to allow men and women to take part on an equal base in the Dutch military has put the Netherlands in a unique position in the world, even if conscription for women was considered not opportune (Bolscher and Megens 1991: 180–1). In 1982, all separate women’s corps were disbanded and from this moment on women were given the same contracts, submitted to the same training, and supposed to have the same rights and obligations as their volunteer male colleagues. In 2000, more than 4,000 women represented 7.7 percent of the total military force in the country. The Portuguese armed forces also had a pioneer historical experience with female soldiers. They were recruited for the first time in 19618, with the creation of an all-female corps in the air force. These first women were trained as parachutists with the mission of providing nursing assistance during the war in Portugal’s overseas territories in Africa, and served in combat areas in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau during the thirteen-year colonial conflict. Notwithstanding the fact that they participated in difficult rescue missions in combat areas, their position was still exceptional. For not only were they placed in a separate corps and limited to support roles but they also had a particular outlook on their participation in the war. One of these nurses later declared: “I went overseas to help those who needed me, never to participate in a war. I was given a gun for personal defense, but I never used it. Besides, our vision was very different” (Reis 1978). In addition, the whole experience may be considered rather limited, since no more than fifty nurses graduated during the whole period and at the end of the war only sixteen of them remained on active duty. Moreover, the immediate interruption of female recruitment after the end of the war brings the Portuguese case into the historically dominant pattern: recruitment of women during war periods, followed by their “dismissal” and return to traditionally female occupations at the end of the conflict. More than two decades later, the situation had changed dramatically. Following the general European trend, even if with some delay, the Portuguese armed forces opened their ranks to women. In 1988, two young women were accepted by the Air Force Academy for careers as pilots, and henceforth the three services gradually allowed women into their various establishments, including service academies, without rank restrictions. Portuguese women found this an attractive opportunity. During the years of 1992 and 1993 about 3,500 candidates applied for the army, navy,
150 Portugal and the Netherlands and air force.9 Indeed, the number of female candidates has always been much higher than the number of those actually enlisted, and in 2000 almost 3,000 women were serving as volunteers in the Portuguese armed forces, in a wide variety of services and positions. “Ex-post pragmatism”: the Portuguese way toward gender integration in the military In Portugal, at the beginning of the 1990s, there were no policy documents that concretely referred to women’s recruitment as an element of the new semiprofessional context. However, the political conditions and the organizational atmosphere were already there, favoring women’s presence in the ranks or at least ensuring the absence of serious resistance. This must explain why no obstacles were placed in the way of the two women who, in 1988, “knocked at the Air Force Academy’s door” and were welcomed, despite the absence of specific legislation. According to senior officers in the Air Force Academy, the law subsequently had to be changed to conform to reality. However, the whole process developed unplanned, in a markedly contingent way. Not only was there a total absence of previous preparatory studies,10 but even policy makers admit that a true policy definition was lacking and that decisions were being made on an “ad hoc” basis. Indeed, they were frequently also made on an “ex-post” basis, that is, a merely reactive attitude on the part of the services prevailed when dealing with the most immediate concerns involving the presence of women: uniforms, logistics, physical tests, pregnancy, maternity, etc. One of the most obvious examples of this “pragmatic” approach was the way decisions were taken on the functions and occupational areas that should be open to women. Practical considerations (even if accompanied by somewhat obscure justifications such as “easiness of women’s integration”) explained, above all other reasons, the initial selection of support areas (Carreiras 1997a). Very often, the number of available posts for women, or even their access to certain functions, was exclusively determined by circumstantial and material conditions, such as the existence of adequate accommodation or sanitary facilities. Curiously, the same dominant pattern would explain the rather surprising lifting in 1996 of all previous formal interdictions on women’s access to combat arms in the army. According to the testimony of an officer responsible for policy definition at the Army Academy, the bar was removed after a woman cadet was admitted to the military Academy’s artillery course. Once again, the law had to be changed accordingly. Despite the almost anecdotal element of these reports, ex-post pragmatism seems to have worked out extraordinarily well. The various services have demonstrated a notable capacity to adjust to the new situation and to rapidly find adequate solutions. This may account for
Portugal and the Netherlands 151 both the smooth start of the process and the subject’s “eclipse” from public and political attention just a few years later. All three branches gradually opened to women – the air force being the absolute pioneer and the navy the most cautious – including all military academies and schools. Except for some areas of the navy – maneuvers, diving, and the marine corps – women are formally accepted in every military specialty. However, combat areas have never in practice been opened to female personnel. In the context of the transition to a voluntary system, the need to recruit women was for the first time included as a relevant goal in official discourse. A significant increase in the number of women was considered an important element for success of the new model and a target of 8 to 10 percent women has been set. Politicians apparently became aware of the importance of recruiting women to meet the needs of the future allvolunteer force. The instrumental nature of this decision is clear in the legal text, which focuses explicitly and exclusively on the functional aspects of women’s participation. Concerns about citizenship are still absent from the political discourse. The bottom line is that women seem to be seen, as in so many other similar situations, as a kind of labor-force reserve that the armed forces had to mobilize to deal with a current or anticipated lack of qualified personnel available on the job market. The Netherlands: a NATO test-case toward gender integration Unlike Portugal, the Netherlands has always had a proactive attitude regarding the presence of women in the armed forces. Two major factors have motivated this policy attitude: on the one hand, the influence of social and political pressures toward gender equality, which were felt in society at large; on the other, military recruitment needs following the move to an all-volunteer force. From the beginning of the integration process in the late 1970s, and unlike other NATO countries, where combat restrictions were clearly stated, no combat jobs were formally closed to women. Bolscher and Megens have hypothesized that, for this reason, the Dutch army may have been used by NATO as a test case for the integration of women in the military (Bolscher and Megens 1991: 181). These authors also believe that “a lack of manpower, or the more technical way of fighting, reasons which in other countries contributed to the growing part of women in the military, did not have a decisive influence on Dutch policy makers. . . . The integration was introduced mainly for political motives and was more or less forced on the military . . . . The decision to integrate women was mainly a political decision, one which many men and women in the military itself were not very pleased with. Many prejudices against women and doubts concerning the integration policy were expressed” (Bolscher and Megens 1991: 181–2). However, even if
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military related factors might not have exerted a direct influence at the start, they very soon became of an overriding importance in determining policies concerning military women, when recruitment difficulties began to be felt. During the first decades of integration, maybe because “the cultural development lagged behind” (Richardson and Bosch 1999: 134) and some practical problems also remained concerning adaptation of barrack and ship accommodation and the apposition of physical requirements, which often women could not fulfill, “the interest of women in the army seemed to diminish more than to increase” (Bolscher and Megens 1991: 181). As a result, the first emancipation memorandum “Women in the armed forces” was issued, stressing the importance of cultural change, which was needed to train men and women in a dominantly male environment. Assuming that affirmative action would stimulate the integration of women, all services formulated plans of this kind in 1989. However, the attempts to facilitate women’s access to the military were different for the various services. The navy decided on a large experiment with women in jobs on ships (Guns 1985) and the land forces distinguished all jobs according to their physical demands, within functional groups. As a result of the transition from a conscript system of military service to an all-volunteer force, the conditions for access, training, and career progression became similar for both sexes and women acquired the same formal rights, duties, and possibilities as their male counterparts. However, this formally gender-neutral integration policy did not lead to a great increase in the number of women in the military. Despite the fact that the Ministry of Defense had set a target of 8 percent of women to be reached in 1993, recruitment difficulties made it impossible to reach that figure. Progress reports in the early 1990s showed that women were not interested in military jobs, and this was considered to be due to various reasons: the image of the defense organization, being an organization only with men, the lack of technical education among women, and physical overload during basic training (Richardson and Bosch 1999). In 1994, that goal of 8 percent was postponed to 1996 but still had not been met at the end of the decade. This situation started to raise major concerns, due to a growing shortage of qualified personnel, and female recruitment was considered vital in the constitution of the AVF: “Whereas in the past the integration of women was mainly a matter of desired cultural change, a situation has now come about in which the armed forces have to adapt more and gear themselves more towards women within the operational and organizational possibilities provided to that end by the organization” (MoD 1997: 3). In addition, the acknowledgement of the disappointing rate at which emancipation was being attained, gave origin to the publication in 1997 of a “Policy Letter on Equal Opportunities within the Defense Organization,” aiming at applying to the armed forces the same framework on equal
Portugal and the Netherlands 153 opportunities policy established for the general Dutch society by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. In this document, a recruitment goal of 12 percent was set for 2010. To achieve this goal, the services were aiming at a recruitment figure of 20 percent women with fixed-term contract per recruitment batch. A new emphasis on social diversity and the conciliation of work and care set the basis of this new policy approach. Different measures concerning physical training, conciliation of work and care, acceptance, attitude, and image were announced and regularly updated from then on. However, initial recruitment is only one of the problems military services have to face. The premature outflow of women remains very high and is partially considered to account for the limited presence of women in the higher ranks. Besides the focus on career guidance, measures aimed at conciliation between family and military life – an issue also reported high on the political agenda of the country – have been intensified in order to face the retention problem. Childcare facilities – namely in-house day-care centers – financial compensations for day nursery, and special licenses are in place as well as a family policy aimed at preventing simultaneous deployments of military couples. Consistent with the situation in the external labor market, where part-time work has known significant diffusion, a package of arrangements of part-time jobs has also been made available for both men and women within the Dutch armed forces.11 However, military personnel do not extensively use it. For instance, in 2000 only 185 women and 133 men used this possibility. The main reason suggested to explain this is the opposition of superiors who still do not accept the idea of such an occupational trend within the military profession.12 In addition, the loss of financial benefits and bad publicity on these measures seem to account for its unsuccessful outcome: “a lot of defense personnel do not know which arrangements are possible” (Richardson and Bosch 1999: 137). As far as cultural acceptance is concerned, there is a policy outlining a complaint procedure on sexual harassment, which details its purpose, the use of confidential counselors, and a complaints committee. All service training courses devote attention to lessons in ethics, managing diversity, and dealing with undesirable behavior. All military personnel, both during initial training and during follow-up and career training courses attend these lessons. Notwithstanding all existing programs, the established goals, namely those concerning representation, have been difficult to attain. A general idea is that the prevailing image of organizational culture still remains as one of the more resistant obstacles to gender integration: “discipline, uniformity, and toughness are making a comeback in the Dutch armed forces. Such a correction of the excesses of conscript culture makes some sense, but it might be overdone and unintentionally might contribute to the impression of a macho community. This would be counterproductive for gender diversity” (Van der Meulen 2000: 112).
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The situation of women in the military: representation and integration policies Relative numbers and evolution of representation If we compare the two countries in terms of relative numbers, there is an apparently surprising finding: representation levels do not reflect the impact of the observed differences in policies concerning the presence of women in the military. In the case of the Netherlands, one might have expected that, having started female recruitment one and a half decades earlier, in the mid-1970s, and having pursued specific policies aimed at improving female recruitment and retention, the quantitative presence of women would tend to be significantly greater than in Portugal, one of the latecomers within NATO. However, the data show that this is not the case, which confirms the absence of a clear relation between time effects and relative numbers (cf. Chapter 5). In fact, the Netherlands had low levels of female recruitment until the beginning of the 1990s, when numbers began to rise more significantly. In 2000, only one percentage point separated the two countries in terms of female military representation. By that year, and after a decade of sustained numerical growth, almost 3,000 Portuguese women soldiers represented 6.6 percent of a total of 44,000 soldiers, while the existing 4,148 Dutch servicewomen made up 7.7 percent of the total 53,500 military force (Figure 6.4). Despite having started female recruitment more than a decade later, Portugal nonetheless saw the same intensification of female recruitment that characterized most NATO militaries in the early 1990s. What is striking here is that, in the Netherlands, the intensification of female recruitment coincides with the establishment of the all-volunteer force,
10 8
Netherlands Portugal
6 4 2 0 1980 1983 1985 1987 1989 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000
Figure 6.4 Percentage of women in the armed forces in Portugal and the Netherlands (1980–2000). Sources: Netherlands: data from the Policy Letter on Equal Opportunities in the Defense Organization (MoD 1997), and CWINF – Annual Reports. Portugal: data from Carreiras (1999c) and CWINF – Annual Reports.
Portugal and the Netherlands 155 Table 6.1 Male and female representation in the Portuguese and Dutch armed forces, by service (2000) Branch The Netherlands
Army Navy Air force MP Total
Portugal
Male N
%
Female N
%
Total N
Male N
%
Female % N
Total N
22,458 11,679 10,645
93.1 90.8 90.5
1,675 1,183 864
6.9 9.2 9.5
24,133 24,497 12,862 10,332 11,509 6,447
94 1,638 96.6 363 87 924
6 26,135 3.4 10,695 13 7,371
4,604 49,386
90.8 92.3
462 4,148
9.2 7.7
5,030 — 53,534 41,276
— — 93.4 2,925
— — 6.6 44,201
Source: CWINF, 2000.
while in the Portuguese case the recruitment process brought forward by more than 10 years the transition to a professionalized system. There are, however, some asymmetries regarding the relative weight of women in the various services. While the Netherlands presents a rather balanced situation, albeit with the navy and air force showing a slightly higher female representation than the army, Portugal reveals a clear imbalance, especially in the navy, a service where women make up only 3.4 percent of the personnel, that is, half of the army’s representation and one quarter of the air force’s (Table 6.1). While, as mentioned, the navy has the smallest absolute number of women, showing an extremely moderate growth and a tendency toward stabilization, the army reveals a trend of accelerated growth, both in terms of absolute as well as relative numbers. Some 56 percent of Portuguese servicewomen are found in the army, 12.4 percent in the navy, and 31.6 percent in the air force. The air force, which was the pioneer service regarding women’s recruitment, slightly reduced its relative share in 1998 and then grew again over the following two years. The particularities of the various services, namely the difficulties associated with service aboard ships (and their transformation in order to accommodate women), as well as the army’s greater territorial component help to explain the existing distribution. Occupational and hierarchical distributions If, instead of focusing strictly on relative numbers we look at more qualitative indicators of the situation of military women, namely those pertaining to the functions they perform, a fairly common situation can be identified: they are concentrated in support functions, that is, health, administration, personnel, logistics, and finance. Therefore, the two countries share the dominant pattern that characterizes the whole NATO universe (Figure 6.5). However, a closer look at the distribution within occupational areas reveals substantial differences between the two countries. This is the case
156
Portugal and the Netherlands
Portugal Netherlands
100
81,6
80
67,1
60 40
22,5
20
10,4 10,3
8
0 Operational
Technical
Support
Figure 6.5 Occupational distribution of women in the Portuguese and Dutch armed forces (2000) in percentage. Source: CWINF, 2000. Notes Percentages refer to the total number of women. Data for the Dutch army refer only to women with long-term contracts (CWINF 1998); Data for the Dutch navy refer to January 2002.
Table 6.2 Percentage of women in the Portuguese and Dutch armed forces by occupational area and service (2000) Functions
Services Army NL
Operational Technical Support Total
Total Navy
Portugal
5.0 1.1 14 6.8 81 86.4 100 100
NL
Air Force Portugal
35.4 12.4 5.2 19.5 59.4 68.1 100 100
NL
Portugal
40.8 13.9 9.7 7.6 49.5 78.5 100 100
NL
Portugal
22.5 8.0 10.3 10.4 67.1 81.6 100 100
Source: CWINF, 2000; Data supplied directly by the navy and air force in the Netherlands. Note Percentages refer to the total number of women.
of the relative weight of women in operational and support functions, with Portugal showing a much more segregated distribution. Over three quarters of Portuguese servicewomen (81.6 percent) are concentrated in support areas, and only 67.1 percent in the Dutch case; inversely, a very significant percentage of women perform their tasks in operational functions in the Netherlands (22.5 percent), against only 8 percent in Portugal (Table 6.2). This difference must be related both to existing antidiscriminatory policies (within a supportive general social environment) as well as to the pioneer role the Netherlands has had within NATO in eliminating restrictions on
Portugal and the Netherlands 157 women in combat and operational functions. Although there still remain some practical restrictions to the employment of female soldiers in the Marine Corps and submarines, the fact that they joined the crew of combat ships nearly 20 years ago, in the mid-1980s, is very relevant in this context. Although there is limited data to compare men and women’s distributions across the occupational structure, available information shows that women are clearly overrepresented in the health and support functions, and underrepresented in operational and technical areas. In the Netherlands, for instance, while men serving in long-term contracts in the Dutch army are equally distributed over different corps, only 5 percent of the women in that type of contract occupy positions in combat units, 14 percent in technical functions, and 81 percent serve in auxiliary areas (Richardson and Bosch 1999). In Portugal, comparisons between men and women reveal identical imbalances: 36.7 percent of military men serve in operational areas, against only 8 percent of women; 42.4 percent are employed in technical specialties, against only 10.4 percent of women; and 47.5 percent are concentrated in support functions, against 81.6 percent of women. Turning now to the position of women in the rank structure, we see that they are concentrated in the lower ranks. Curiously, the relative distribution of military women through the various hierarchical categories is similar in the two countries. In 2000 they represented around 5 percent of the officer ranks, 4 percent of NCOs, and 13 percent of enlisted personnel (Table 6.3). If we look at column percentages and compare the structure of rank distribution between the total force and that of the women’s group in each country, the same asymmetric effects become clear (Table 6.4): while the officers’ group represents 18 percent of the total military personnel, only around 12 percent of women occupy officer’s positions. This underrepresentation is even more evident in the NCO ranks, for only one quarter of women belongs to that category (which concentrates half of the total Table 6.3 Rank distribution of military women in Portugal and the Netherlands (2000) – percentage within rank category Ranks
Country The Netherlands
Officers NCOs Enlisted Cadets Total
Portugal
MW
W
%W
MW
W
%W
9,709 23,636 20,189 n.a. 53,534
516 1,021 2,611 n.a. 4,148
5.3 4.3 12.9 n.a. 7.7
6,623 16,244 13,051 1,056 36,977
313 693 1,750 119 2,875
4.7 4.3 13.4 11.3 7.8
Source: CWINF, 2000. Notes Percentages refer to the total personnel in each rank category in each country. Conscripts are excluded in the case of Portugal; n.a. information not available.
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Portugal and the Netherlands
Table 6.4 Rank distribution of military women in Portugal and the Netherlands (2000) – percentage within gender category Ranks
Country The Netherlands
Officers NCOs Enlisted Total
Portugal
MW
%
W
%W
MW
%
W
%W
9,709 23,636 20,189 53,534
18.1 44.2 37.7 100
516 1,021 2,611 4,148
12.4 24.6 62.9 100
6,623 16,244 13,051 35,918
18.4 45.2 36.3 100
313 693 1,750 2,756
11.4 25.1 63.5 100
Source: CWINF, 2000.
personnel). Inversely, women are clearly overrepresented in the enlisted ranks, where their relative number doubles the weight of that category within the total military structure. As far as the internal structure of the officers’ rank is concerned, women’s limited representation is even greater: in Portugal the maximum rank attained so far by a woman is that of captain,13 and in 2000 the majority of women officers belonged to the lowest officer’s positions. This may be considered a normal consequence of the regulatory norms for promotion due to the more recent Portuguese experience, which require individuals to spend certain amounts of time in each rank. However, it is more difficult to understand that in the Netherlands only 2 percent of military women officers hold posts over major (CWINF 1998). As seen earlier, this problem has been identified as a consequence of premature outflow, which seems to affect women in a disproportionate manner if compared to men. While there are no significant differences in the percentages of regular and nonregular outflow between men and women in fixed-term contracts, there are strong differences by sex among those with indefinite contracts. In this situation women tend to leave for nonregular reasons much more than men (85.3 percent against 49.1 percent). Another indicator of the segregation pattern concerns the contracts women have: in the two countries they are mostly employed in short-term contract service or as complementary personnel. In the Netherlands, men and women can serve as volunteers in two major categories: contracts for an indefinite period of time or short-term contracts. Apparently, women “show a preference” (CWINF 1998) for enlisting on a short-term basis: they represent 13.8 percent of all military personnel in short-term contracts and only 3.6 percent of those enlisted on a long-term basis. In Portugal, women are concentrated in the complementary personnel structures, representing less than 1 percent of career personnel (Table 6.5). Despite a balance in relative numbers – partially explained by the late arrival of Portugal and the political decision to rapidly reach the levels attained by other countries, the lack of recruitment difficulties in Portugal, and the existence of these difficulties in the Netherlands – Portugal
177 2,816
2,993
923 20,727
21,650
13.8
19.2 13.6 31,884
8,786 23,098
Source: CWINF, 2000; MoD the Netherlands; MDN Portugal.
Officers NCO/ Enlisted Total 1,155
339 816
W
3.6
3.8 3.5
%W
14,486
1,297 13,189
MW
2,459
291 2,168
W
17
22.4 16.4
%W
MW
MW
%W
Complementary personnel
Indefinite contracts
Short-term contracts
W
Portugal
The Netherlands
Table 6.5 Military women by rank and type of contract in Portugal and the Netherlands (2000)
19,682
5,546 14,136
MW
166
65 101
W
Career personnel
0.8
1.2 0.7
%W
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Portugal and the Netherlands
presents a more segregated pattern (1) in terms of service distribution – with a low representation of women in one of the more specialized branches, the navy, (2) in terms of occupational distribution, with a much lower representation of women in operational functions. Generally, indicators point to a situation where women have more precarious positions within the structure and are still far from a fair representation in power positions inside the organization. Even if time effects are considered, the comparison between these two cases – one with longer experience and clearly more active in issuing and implementing policies – seems to confirm that once again, time does not seem to have interfered in correcting the observed imbalances. Additionally, the failure to reach a more balanced gender representation, in spite of the proactive policy attitude, suggests that external factors may be of great importance in explaining the role of women within the armed forces. Why are women in the Netherlands leaving and in Portugal still wishing to join? Various aspects related to global economic conditions, women’s participation in the labor market, the conciliation of work and family, and values concerning gender equality may help to explain individual options.
Social trends and the situation of women Women’s economic mobilization The increase in women’s labor-force participation is one of the most significant changes in Western developed countries during the last decades of the twentieth century. Portugal and the Netherlands are no exception to the global trend, but each country presents some particularities in terms of this normative and objective reshaping of the female social participation pattern. In Portugal, from a situation where women represented only 13 percent of the active population in the 1960s, they reached 60.5 percent in 2000. Although the increase in women’s labor-force participation has been very significant in nearly all European societies, is should be noted that Portugal, which started out with one of the lowest levels in the 1960s, at the beginning of the 1990s had the highest rate among southern European countries and a relatively high rate within EU countries. Comparative data from Eurostat (Table 6.6) show that in Portugal the proportion of employed women between 15 and 64 years old (60.5 percent) was in 2000 above the medium value for the EU (54.1 percent), and far above Spain (41.3 percent), Italy (39.6 percent) or Greece (41.7 percent). One other important indicator of this Portuguese specificity regards work characteristics: unlike most of their European counterparts, Portuguese women do very little part-time work (presently less than 6 percent). Furthermore, while 30 years ago women tended to be more active between 15–19 years of age – that is, in most cases before marriage
Portugal and the Netherlands 161 Table 6.6 Female employment rates in Europe (2000) Belgium Denmark Germany Greece Spain France Ireland Italy Luxembourg The Netherlands Áustria Portugal Finland Sweden United Kingdom EU (15)
54.1 71.6 58.1 41.7 41.3 55.2 53.9 39.6 50.1 63.5 59.6 60.5 64.2 70.9 64.7 54.1
Source: Eurostat.
and childbirth – the modal value of such participation at the beginning of the twenty-first century is especially strong among the 25–29 years age group, exactly those that sooner or later will face active maternity. Even if some of these women leave the labor market – whether on a temporary or permanent basis – in the near future, as a consequence of marriage or childbirth, it is still unlikely that it would lower this rate significantly, the major trend pointing to a conciliation of career and family commitments. If we add to this picture the finding that participation levels among married women (49 percent) are still very high if compared to European patterns, the particular situation of Portugal in the European context is further stressed. Scholars have found this a puzzling situation. How can such a strong female participation in the labor market be explained, knowing that: (1) it happens during a particularly intense moment in terms of family commitments; (2) most women have full-time employment and not part-time work; (3) it coexists with a remarkable deficit of either public or private childcare and support structures? A number of explanations have been provided. These range from ideological factors such as the impact of the democratic revolution of 1974, which supposedly reinforced a modern dynamic of female autonomy and emancipation, to more structural variables such as women’s participation in the Portuguese economy – due to emigration (particularly strong during the 1960s) and male military recruitment in the context of the war in the Portuguese former colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea between 1961 and 1974 – basic economic constraints that still affect considerable sectors of the Portuguese population, and the existence of strong solidarity and family networks (sometimes even co-residence)
162 Portugal and the Netherlands which compensate for the absence of childcare facilities and provide a different kind of domestic support to families. In the Netherlands, there has also been a significant rise in the participation of women in the labor market since the 1970s, from 34 percent in the mid-70s to 58.5 percent in 1995. Unlike in Portugal, female labor-force participation is characterized by the immense popularity of part-time work. The Netherlands is the only European country where the majority of working women (67.9 percent) work part-time (less than 36 hours a week) (Jacobs et al. 2000: 1). Here, “part-time work has been actively encouraged by a range of state policies and collectively bargained agreements as a central plank in the creation of a more employment intensive pattern of economic growth and as a means of increasing women’s integration in the labor market” (Fagan et al. 2000: 175). However, the shorter average working week and the shorter employment history (due to temporary career interruptions) of Dutch women, when compared to men, have their drawbacks. A report of the Ministry of Social Affairs states that this pattern “continues to undermine the position of women in the labor market and their ability to progress to more senior or management posts” (MSAE n.d.: 13). Considering the popularity of part-time work among parents of young children, especially mothers, Jacobs et al. stress the same conclusion: “Part-time work is not considered a second-best option; on the contrary, it has gained full recognition . . . . However, the acceptance of part-time work is less obvious for managerial and leading positions, both in the private and the public sectors, which leads to a negative impact on the career of mainly women” (Jacobs et al. 2000: 2). In any case, the possibility of what has been called a “genderfriendly working time regime” (Plantenga et al. 1999) has been associated with a long practice of consultation between social partners (employer’s organizations and trade unions) and the state regarding work arrangements. This institutionalized tripartite model – the so-called poldermodel – is strongly embedded in the Dutch society and has even been considered responsible for the favorable economic climate in the country during the 1990s. Taking into account the above-described facts and figures, we should then address the question of the kind of relation that exists between objective participation and values concerning gender equality at work and family roles. Values, gender roles, and the conciliation between work and the family Sociological surveys carried out at the European level during the last decades show interesting results in this respect. A survey conducted in the framework of the “European Study Group” in 199014 throws some light on attitudes toward family issues and women’s role in society. Almeida and Wall report that, as generally happens in Europe, the family seems to
Portugal and the Netherlands 163 have – more than work, friends or leisure – a decisive importance in the Portuguese daily life (Almeida and Wall 1993). There is a broad consensus on the level of satisfaction over family life – 80 percent – regardless of social origins, age, or even gender. Additionally, a curious pattern emerges from Portuguese attitudes toward female labor-market participation: not only is it largely accepted as an important factor for individual autonomy, but also as a source of economic wealth for the household. This is particularly visible among women themselves, younger cohorts, and more educated groups, but it is still a notable feature in general terms. Not even maternity appears as an obstacle to such a positive attitude: 76 percent of the Portuguese agree with the idea that “a working mother can maintain with her children a relation as strong as would a nonworking mother.” It should therefore be noted that, more than in other European countries included in this study, “reciprocity ideals between men and women outside the household are remarkably sustained in Portugal” (Almeida and Wall 1993: 48). However, other variables reveal ambiguity: if women’s presence in the labor-market is seen as acceptable, so is their domestic role. Some indicators are telling: 62 percent of the respondents agree that “a job is a good thing but what women really want is a home and children,” 84 percent admit that “a school-age child will probably suffer if the mother has a job,” and 61 percent admit that “a women needs children to be fulfilled.” With regard to male and female domestic roles, Portugal presents notable differences from the other countries with high female employment rates, mostly northern, instead sharing southern European features. Eurostat data (Knüppel 1995) show that, at least in the opinion of women, Portuguese men are among the least cooperative in domestic work (72 percent), supplanted only by the Spanish (80 percent). The case of the Netherlands reveals some acute contradictions as far as values on gender roles are concerned. Jacobs et al. have noted that “It looks as if the work ethic in the Netherlands is controlled by opposite forces. . . . On the one side, we observe the persistence of traditional family values, whereas, on the other side, we notice the development of a strong ideology of equality between men and women” (Jacobs et al. 2000: 2). Survey data results are consistent with this statement. A special Eurobarometer report on equal opportunities for men and women in Europe, published in 1996, reveals that 46.2 percent of Dutch women agree with the statement that a woman should have a job, whereas only one third of the men (34.2 percent) does. These figures are among the lowest in Europe. A majority of Dutch think that “equality between men and women brings more harm than good in daily life,” the highest number in Europe. But Dutch are also those in Europe who agree more with the idea that “equality between men and women makes personal development easier.” Results from another survey, conducted in the frame of the European, network for the division of unpaid and paid work between women and men, have
164 Portugal and the Netherlands shown that the percentage of time Dutch women spend in paid work decreases substantially (to about half) when they start a relationship and even further when they become mothers (Jacobs et al. 2000). This research has also confirmed the idea that the Dutch are not globally favorable to the image of the working woman and seem to evaluate more positively women’s role as mothers. This strong “maternalistic” orientation, characteristic of other European countries, such as the United Kingdom or Germany, is visible in the historically rooted Dutch resistance to forms of institutionalized childcare. As noted by Jacobs, “Dutch parents are not in favor of asking someone else to look after their children. Taking children to a day-care centre for a substantial amount of time per week is generally done out of necessity” (Jacobs et al. 2000: 2). Although it seems to be gradually waning, opposition to this type of childcare continues to exist. The same research has also come to a curious conclusion: that policies do not play an important role in the time spent on paid and unpaid work among men and women. The authors stress the fact that this does not mean that policies such as childcare, parental leave, calamity leave, or flexible working hours are useless or unnecessary. Instead, they believe that such policies may facilitate the combination of work and care. A lack of policies, in turn, could also be a severe obstacle to achieving a more egalitarian gender division of work. In any case, and despite the fact that Dutch couples seem to reproduce at the microlevel of the household the global practice of “consultation,” reported as a typical Dutch phenomenon to decide about the division of household tasks, work time, and family commitments, the result is still that “it is the woman who does the majority of the work, while the man only gives a helping hand” (Jacobs et al. 2000: 49). These conclusions confirm a common finding of similar studies: females’ growing participation in paid work does not automatically lead to a redefinition of the domestic division of labor or to more egalitarian values about gender roles. For instance, in a comparative study of female employment and changes in attitude toward gender roles, Haller and Hoellinger (1994) have demonstrated that an automatic connection between women’s participation in the labor force and a move toward more egalitarian ideas about the role of women in the family and at work did not exist. Although the increase in the number of women in paid employment is essentially determined by changes in political and economic circumstances, as well as the economic status of the women and their families, changes in attitude in this area would seem to have more to do with historically prevalent attitudes toward individuality, freedom, the family, and social stratification. These findings seem to contradict the sometimes “taken for granted” inevitability of a transforming impact that the increase in the number of women – in the workplace and in the public sphere – would have on the internal structure of organizations and on individuals’ ideas about gender roles. This is one of the questions to be analyzed in Chapter 7.
7
Interpersonal dynamics of gender integration The case of the officer corps
In previous chapters, the process of women’s integration in the military has been analyzed at the global societal and organizational levels. It is now important to address the question of individuals’ attitudes and values, and examine the relation between structural arrangements and interpersonal processes. Therefore, this chapter deals with a set of related questions: how do military men and women make sense of their experience in a mixedgender environment? How do cognitive models of masculinity and femininity influence their interpretations of the gender integration process? To what extent do external variables, such as family responsibilities, determine personal options, expectations, and institutional commitment? In order to answer these questions, fifty-four semi-directive interviews of men and women officers have been conducted in Portugal and the Netherlands (Table 7.1.) Interviewees were selected by a contact person in each branch of the armed forces, according to a predefined profile that aimed at assuring diversity in terms of personal characteristics, professional experience and institutional location (e.g. rank, type of function, and family status) (Table 7A.1). To make sure that interviewees were correctly informed about the nature of the interview, its academic goals, and guarantee of confidentiality, a written statement was provided at the moment when they volunteered to cooperate with the research. The fieldwork took place during the months of June and July of 2000 in the Netherlands and during the months of October and November of the same year in Portugal. All Dutch interviews were conducted in reserved rooms at the headquarters of each branch of the armed forces. Trips were Table 7.1 Number of interviews by sex and nationality
Male officers Female officers Total
Portuguese
Dutch
Total
13 16 29
12 13 25
25 29 54
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Interpersonal dynamics of integration
organized for some interviewees to come from their units to The Hague. In Portugal, most of the interviews took place in the interviewees’ local units (air bases, ships, army bases). The interviews followed the same overall plan but with a great deal of flexibility in each conversation. This flexibility was crucial in order to explore aspects of the personal experience of officers (e.g. deployments, peacekeeping operations) as well as specific issues (e.g. sailing in the navy, experience at military academies, etc.) (cf. Table 7A.2).
Organizational structure and individual orientations Some of the social and organizational trends that characterize and differentiate the Portuguese and Dutch cases, analyzed in Chapter 6, have a clear expression on the officers’ individual attitudes and values. A first dimension to be addressed concerns patterns of motivations for enlistment. Male officers’ motivations for joining the military are a mix between the three types previously considered: institutional, occupational, and postmodern. While Dutch officers refer mainly to occupational (five out of twelve) and postmodern (five out of twelve) factors, the Portuguese tend to stress postmodern (eight out of sixteen) and institutional factors (six out of sixteen). If this different emphasis on the occupational and institutional poles respectively seems to be congruent with global organizational orientations, variation cannot be considered important since the two groups privilege postmodern orientations. However, the case of women officers reveals significant differences. More than three fourths of Dutch women officers (ten out of thirteen) share postmodern orientations. With very few exceptions of occupationally driven officers, and a couple of references to institutional motivations, the remaining identify the search for adventure, travel, excitement, distinctiveness, and teamwork as the most attractive features of a military career and the reason for joining. The lack of institutional motivations is coincident with the overall organizational occupational and postmodern characteristics. Contrarily, Portuguese women are much more institutionally driven.1 While postmodern motivations are also strong (seven out of sixteen), two thirds (ten out of sixteen) of Portuguese women indicate institutional reasons to justify their option. They talk about “values,” “organization,” and “respect.” Before coming, at college, I thought that things “out there” were just like in the jungle, and I thought that if I didn’t want to step on other people to progress, why should they step on me? Therefore, I wanted to go to a place where there is some order, some hierarchy, where I know that a certain place belongs to me and no one is going to steal it from me. (PAF1; 24-year-old Portuguese air force lieutenant, navigator)
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 167 These different orientations relate to perceptions of behavioral patterns, as for instance is the case of leadership styles. When asked about differences in command styles between man and women officers, Portuguese women consider themselves, and are also considered by men, to have a particularly directive command style, to be more rigid and less permissive than men. This tendency is explained by both women and men in terms of women’s need for recognition. A more soft or less directive command style would not only be at odds with valued organizational features (traditional leadership and discipline, characteristic of the institutional model) but would also favor women’s identification with stereotypical female “weakness.” Women have a style of leadership which is more rigid, more secure, less permissive. They don’t tolerate mistakes. This can be negative, right? They are leading a team so they should have more humanitarian feelings . . . But they need to affirm themselves; they are tougher for defensive reasons. I think I am less permissive myself. (PM4; 31-year-old Portuguese navy lieutenant, psychologist) In the Netherlands, on the contrary, both men and women think that women have a softer and more person-oriented approach, if compared to the task-oriented male style. Yet, this is not necessarily seen as negative, considering the general postmodern organizational climate where cooperative ideals of rank relations are more valued than traditional authoritarian models. I always say that I am happy if the task is done, but I am not happy if people are not smiling. I prefer people smiling and the task not done than the other way around, the task done but everybody walking around in a bad mood. That is a difference. Men mostly say the task is important and “you have to do this!” (HAF3; 39-year-old Dutch air force lieutenant colonel, electronics) A second area where global cultural and organizational features have an impact on individual options concerns the conciliation of work and family. Segal’s assumption that women’s military roles may be affected by cultural expectations regarding their devotion to family is confirmed. Family responsibilities and children rearing are identified by both men and women as the most important obstacles to women’s career development and access to higher ranks. If you want to make a career in the forces . . ., you have to have full commitment, you have to work five days a week, take some extra time, skip your vacation once in a while, have piles of extra hours in a weekend; . . . If you have one or two children or if your husband
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When asked about the conciliation of family and work, and about the impact of family commitments over professional choices, most women experience “structural ambiguity”: they have to face “choices” in which work and family commitments are posed as competing, often mutually exclusive alternatives; choices in one sphere depending on the opportunities, incentives, and constraints posed in the other (Gerson 1985). But here we find the most striking differences between the two countries. When confronted with the need to divide their time and energy between work and family, Dutch women give a clear preference to the latter. Together with the negative impact of frequent deployments (a strong complaint also among male officers), this devotion to the family is also one of the most (if not the most) significant reasons for hypothetically leaving the armed forces. Difficulties in this respect are increased by the fact that many women officers are married to servicemen. This finding is congruent with the above-described cognitive patterns of gender relations in the Netherlands: a strong family-oriented, maternalistic ideology, and an individualistic work ethics centered on idealistic values such as selffulfillment. The following testimonies are illustrative of this overwhelming preference for family among Dutch women, as well as of a tendency to devaluate promotion and career progression. I don’t see the navy as my total future. It’s nice for a couple of years. But I’m thinking about children, and I don’t want to have to go away and sail and have my children at home. That’s not an option. (HN4; 27-year-old Dutch navy lieutenant, weapons engineer) I think it is more important to feel well at your present job than to be promoted. I do not think promotion is important. When we will have children, they will be much more important than my job, and my career will not be important at all anymore. (HAF2; 28-year-old Dutch air force captain, intelligence analyst) A rather different picture is revealed by Portuguese women, who are less sure than their Dutch counterparts about which aspect of life they should give preference to. In general though, they underline their will to keep working and try to manage the dual commitment. Even if, also in this case, women admit that they sacrifice career development to a certain extent, they search for compromise.
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 169 I cannot imagine the situation of leaving work and staying home for years taking care of the kids. I would become crazy after one week. But I could sacrifice a quicker career progression; have less money, but caring for my children. That would be ok, but giving up my career, that is out of the question. (PAF4; 26-year-old Portuguese air force lieutenant, engineer) Various factors may explain this pattern: the strong orientation of Portuguese women toward work and reciprocity in gender relations; the average lower age of Portuguese female officers, which possibly makes them more optimistic regarding the possible conciliation of both spheres, and even the economic difficulties that force both members of Portuguese couples into paid employment. But the nature of military missions in each country also helps to explain the observed differences. The frequency of deployments abroad – which can sometimes last for 6 months every 2 years – is clearly a dissuasive factor for both male and female officers in the Netherlands. These constraints are incomparably more important for women, but Dutch male officers also show a strong attachment to the family. Although Portuguese soldiers have already been involved in a few international missions, all personnel were deployed on a strictly volunteer basis. Hence, this factor does not seem to affect their respective choices or calculations, at least not yet. However, if international missions increase in the future it is possible that there will be a correspondent change in attitude. If women’s family roles are definitely perceived as affecting their military roles, other aspects, stemming from cultural conceptions of gender, have also been identified throughout the interviews as significant obstacles to gender integration.
Cultural constraints and officers’ responses to gender integration The perspective of women officers The analysis of the women officers’ interviews confirms, to a large extent, the conclusions of previous studies concerning the impact of the military’s gender regime – namely the institutionalization of “hegemonic masculinity” and its correspondent archetypes of femininity – on gender integration. Despite the growing acceptance and routinization of women’s military participation, cultural resistances are still prevalent. Although a large majority of interviewees does not recognize the existence of explicit discrimination – at least they have not felt it personally – a diversity of problems have been identified that not only coincide but
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clearly amplify patterns observed in situations of “tokenism” and women’s access to other “atypical” or “inappropriate” occupations. Comparing the two groups of women officers in this research allows us to identify these organizational and interpersonal constraints as well as women’s responses and adjustment strategies. But it also provides an occasion to investigate the complexities of the gender “accommodation” process and to explore variation among women. The paradox of discrimination When directly confronted with the question of male soldiers’ resistance to women in the military and the existence of discrimination, a large majority of women officers, irrespective of their national background, state they have never experienced it, although they know about cases of effective and explicit discrimination. There is a tendency to underline the exceptional character of discriminatory practices (1) through “particularization” – that is, explaining discrimination in terms of the idiosyncratic characteristics of specific individuals (2) by situating it at a different institutional location, as is the case of transferring that burden to “enlisted” women (3) or also by referring it to a specific time frame (initial periods of women’s presence in the armed forces or in a certain unit). However, in the course of almost every interview, these same women recognize the existence of a variety of obstacles and difficulties regarding the acceptance of women. This is the case of a Portuguese parachutist on a short-term contract who, having started by saying that “I personally don’t have any reason to complain. I never had any problems,” moves on to reporting a situation that could actually be described as perceived discrimination on the basis of gender. I am the deputy of a company commander, and they won’t give me the position of company commander because I am a woman. There is even a company where a commander is missing . . . [Did you complain about that?] Yes, I have shown that I am as capable as a man but . . . I think it is the only negative aspect here: at the leadership level a woman is not welcomed . . . . Being a woman is always a disadvantage. (PE1; 31-year-old Portuguese army lieutenant, parachutist) Accounts of male resistance to women’s presence range from various forms of symbolic ostracism – as in the refusal to adapt language used in basic training – to rather brutal intimidating practices. This latter situation is reported by one of the first women to join the Portuguese armed forces who felt enormous resistance to her presence at the academy.
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 171 It all started with small things, such as anonymous letters under the room door, pornographic images . . . sometimes they went inside and made a mess . . . (PAF10; 30-year-old Portuguese air force lieutenant, pilot) Stories of women having to cope with sexual jokes and pornographic posters are also common. A 39-year-old Dutch air force Lientenant Colonel gives one of the most extreme accounts of such a situation: Once I was a commander and was commanding about 50 people. We had there a poster from Playboy, a kind of girl . . . and everybody saw pictures of me in advertisements [air force recruitment campaign]. They had cut out my head and put it on that poster, in the office. . . . I really thought “what do I have to do? Is this a kind of insubordination or is it just an attack from men on women or something like that?” (HAF3; 39-year-old Dutch air force lieutenant colonel, electronics) Most of these accounts come from women who work in operational or technical areas, or refer to specific situations such as academy life. Both contexts are known to be a reserve of traditional military norms and values and thus less exposed to change. Yet, even interviewees who report intimidating practices show an ambivalent position regarding their global evaluation of inequity. Why then, do women officers prefer not to talk about discrimination? This apparent contradiction is probably the result of two interrelated processes: on the one hand, the need these women may feel, as officers, to avoid a negative image of the integration process, trying to stick to a more “official version” of reality; on the other hand, the reinterpretation of problems as difficulties, hardships, and obstacles – in any case, something different from discrimination – may serve an important goal in the process of self-identification and building of a positive institutional image. The discrimination diagnosis would probably sound like dissent, jeopardizing women’s chances of being accepted, while at the same time tying them to the undesirable role of the victim. The analysis of specific problems and dilemmas confronted by women provides additional occasions to confirm this interpretation. The negative effects of “tokenism”: visibility, contrast, and role encapsulation Almost all of the negative consequences of tokenism, intrusiveness, and asymmetric social status, were identified by women in the two countries. Problems associated with gender numerical unbalance, concerning both the hardships associated with the “one token” situation and the “intrusiveness”
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of greater numbers of women, were frequently described. Performance pressures, resulting from excessive visibility are a generalized complaint. We were being tested, evaluated. That’s what I felt, a pressure, the need to do everything perfect and comply with the orders we had, not break the rules to reach the goals. That’s what I tried to do. (PE8; 27-year-old Portuguese army lieutenant, administration) Performance pressures also lead to the proverbial “double bind” regarding the evaluation of women’s performance: when a woman is positively evaluated her success is considered an individual accomplishment, not generalized to other women. It may even be interpreted at the expense of her femininity. When she fails, her womanliness is affirmed and her failure is likely to be generalized to all women. You are always in the picture and they are not even aware of it, but as soon as you make a mistake everybody notices. If a man makes a mistake nobody cares, we do not even remember his name anymore. (HAF4; 39-year-old Dutch air force captain, helicopter pilot) Likewise, if a woman is praised, it is said to happen because she is a woman and not because she performed well. I became captain now, there are some colleagues from my class who have the same rank now, and some are still lieutenant and they will stay for another year, so they are looking, “oh why did she become captain? Ah . . . because she is a woman.” They argue as a joke, but there is second meaning. When you get something before they do, they always suspect. (HA8; 27-year-old Dutch army captain, logistics) This cognitive process may be less unconscious and more strategic than is usually supposed. Used as an argument in competition for promotion it becomes an instrument in the power structure of gender relations. A second set of problems relates to the mechanism Kanter named contrast, the exaggeration of differences between tokens and the majority group (Kanter 1977, 1993). One of the consequences of contrast is social isolation and exclusion from informal networks. Many women, especially when they were the only one, felt lonely and excluded from socialization in the men’s group, either because they were not invited or because they were not really interested in sharing “boys’ talk” or activities such as “drinking and smoking in the bar,” or “watching porno movies.” To be
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 173 sure, women react differently to social isolation, as shall be seen further on. Nevertheless, the idea that “there was something going on and information being passed that I missed” is very often transmitted. The above-quoted Dutch air force captain notes: [a]s a woman, no matter how close you think you are with your male colleagues and go on exercises, you sleep in the same tents, you go on UN operations, you share a lot of experiences together; no matter how much you feel part of the group, in the end you will never be. They will always, at some point, not unfriendly but whatever . . . they bond together and you realize there is something going on and you are not part of it . . . . And it does not matter if you are gay or women or ethnical minority. It does not make any difference. It is the same; it is just the basic fact: you are a minority. And it is not personal; you just have to live with that. (HAF4; 39-year-old Dutch air force captain, helicopter pilot) In her theoretical assessment of this dimension of tokenism, Kanter has underlined the process through which men tend to amplify commonalties, emphasizing shared elements of the dominant culture, such as, in the case of masculinity, displays of aggression or potency, in contrast to the token’s stereotypical features. However, empirical data points to a more complex situation. While this type of boundary heightening seems to depict accurately the situation in special and operational units (e.g. marines, pilots), in less “extreme” environments the presence of women is often considered to relax the atmosphere. It induces language moderation and less exaggerated macho behavior. In the eyes of some women, men who do not identify with hegemonic masculinity apparently appreciate this situation of lowering boundaries. You know, there is also a lot of pressure between men. A lot of them are doing things they do not really like to do . . . . As soon as women join the squadron, the atmosphere changes; mentality changes. That is also funny then, because a lot of guys say “we like it.” There is not as much peer pressure anymore for them. Attention gets focused on the women . . . and not on the few men that are weak or not so good in their job. (HAF4; 39-year-old Dutch air force captain, helicopter pilot) The third most common consequence of tokenism role encapsulation (the distortion of women’s characteristics to fit existing stereotypes) is again a salient process reported by Portuguese and Dutch interviewees. The ambiguity of women’s role as both soldiers and women is a permanent reference.
174 Interpersonal dynamics of integration You have to prove yourself as an officer and as a woman. (HA8; 27-year-old Dutch army captain, logistics) When women join the forces they are immediately labeled: looking for men. Since I came it’s been a hard fight to escape that label. (PAF1; 24-year-old, air force lieutenant, navigator) Besides focusing on general obstacles to the integration process, the interview aimed at exploring the question of more insidious forms of discrimination, such as sexual harassment. Here again, positions reveal caution. Despite the fact that some women reported personal experiences that could fit a general description of harassment, most declared that they knew about specific cases but had never been the object personally. However, in this case, there are remarkable differences between the discourses of Dutch and Portuguese women. This can be related to the very different policy approaches regarding sexual harassment at the organizational level. While Dutch women are aware of the existence of formal complaint mechanisms, the Portuguese talk about a “gray area” and the very negative consequences, for the supposed victim, of using formal complaint procedures. These are very tricky situations. Now, if one asks me: “why didn’t you complain?” No, these things happen and we cannot prove them; these are very gray situations and besides they don’t just happen, it is a slow process . . . the tendency is to say “she provoked it, she is the bad one.” So I think it is natural that people don’t want to talk about it. (PAF10; 30-year-old Portuguese air force lieutenant, pilot) With regard to sexual behavior, various interviewees also reveal the existence of a phenomenon that seems to be particularly amplified in the military environment: the control of women’s sexuality. Women’s sexual behavior is a matter of organizational anxiety, especially among Portuguese officers. One of the most striking examples of this is an account of the interruption of male sailors’ socialization with women invited aboard the ships (usually during scales at foreign ports) after the moment women joined the navy. One night there was a conversation among officers. We talked about different behaviors regarding women aboard ships. Then he told me: “Women are not equal. Women are women, men are men, and they cannot behave the same way.” Then, he gave various examples. When ships are at shore it is rather common to have female visits aboard. From the moment the crew included women the commander prohibited those visits. Why? Not to upset women sailors, he said! But it was
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 175 really because if they would bring female friends the girls would also be allowed to bring men, and that was totally out of the question; he, could not even imagine that. (PM1; 35-year-old, Portuguese navy lieutenant, physician) This same circumstance is confirmed by male soldiers who react in an extremely negative way to the possibility that women sailors would be allowed to invite civilian men aboard ships. There are also various other situations where women are required to conform to gender-appropriate behavioral norms. This is often done through specific requests concerning women’s body and physical appearance: a Portuguese naval engineer (PM8) reports a situation where he had to tell a girl to shave her legs; a Portuguese “marine” (PM5) reveals his uneasiness for having to tell two girls that they should not shave their hair completely; many others express their worries about possible pregnancies. One of the most interesting examples comes from PAF12 who, because of her “manly” behavior felt pressures to conform to the “correct” female identity. She reports a brigadier’s admonition. Once he told me: “you know X, women have their place here but there are two mistakes: the men who cannot deal with them, and women themselves. To emulate men we don’t need you. Maybe we opened up to women because they have something that the organization needs. In general, you have to be equal but then there are particularities where you have to be women and they have to be men.” He told me that I should behave like a woman; otherwise I would not be of any value to the organization because I would be simulating something I was not. From then on I started to pay more attention, trying to be myself, lowering my defenses. (PAF12; 27-year-old Portuguese air force cadet, pilot) Positive discrimination, differential evaluation, and inequity Notwithstanding the previous findings regarding integration difficulties, and the intensity of reports on the negative effects of male soldiers’ resistance to accept women as equal coworkers, women officers seem to resent more the existence of “positive” than “negative” discrimination. At first glance, this is a surprising result and one more paradox revealed at the interpersonal analytical level. In fact, the majority of the interviewees are upset with the dynamics of “positive” discrimination, both in its organizational form (specific policies, rules, or standards for women) and in its attitudinal expression in protectionist and paternalist behavior on the part of some men. Both are seen as negatively affecting women’s acceptance, since men’s perception of unfair and unequal treatment would provoke rejection and sexist attitudes. Even a measure such as part-time
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work – technically available to both men and women but clearly more used by the latter – may produce the same negative effects. Referring to a woman colleague, promoted at the same time, a Dutch army captain says. But I said to her: “it is not fair that we become major at the same time, because I have worked five years full-time and you worked half-time. So why is it not that you have to stay longer captain and then become major?” O.k. if we make that kind of rules, those women walk away. It’s always a contradiction . . . . But inside of me I don’t feel that is fair . . . . It is not possible that she has the same experience as me when you are just there half-time. She must do that work some years longer, maybe not for 50 per cent longer, but for example 40 percent. (HA3; 33-year-old, Dutch army captain, logistics) From the point of view of paternalistic and protectionist attitudes, women officers are conscious of how deference can be a reminder of difference: accepting protection means accepting to be different, which, in turn, leads to rejection by male peers. To be sure, sometimes paternalism is considered “understandable.” But this does not mean it is accepted. On the contrary, most women find themselves facing a dilemma, since it is difficult to reject paternalism without confronting male authority and sending a message of presumption and excessive rigidity. More than in any other area, tension in this respect rises whenever the question of physical skills and tests is at stake. This is one of the areas where more difficulties are signaled in the course of the interviews – also in men’s opinions as shall be seen further on – and where women’s positions reveal great ambivalence. While the Dutch are divided over the question of similar or different physical tests, the Portuguese tend to understand why men (namely at the academy) feel discriminated against because of women’s lower physical requirements. An interesting feature of discourses about positive discrimination is that women tend to be more critical of other women, who accept favors, than of the organization which develops policies that are seen as favoring women (especially in the Dutch case where those policies actually exist), or of men who have paternalist attitudes. Of course men do not like that [positive discrimination of women] and I can not blame them for that. If we want to do the same things, we have to have the same rights but also the same obligations. (HAF2; 28-year-old Dutch air force captain, intelligence analyst) In addition, the interviewees’ speech reveals a process of rationalization that somehow naturalizes male peers’ resistance. There is an interpretation
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 177 of men’s behavior as normal or at least understandable: it is understandable (not necessarily acceptable) that they refer to women saying “man”; that they resent the existence of different physical standards; that they prefer to bond with other men; that they use deference toward women. The share of cognitive models that regulates gender roles and identities has this curious consequence: the normalization (or at least underevaluation), on the part of the supposed “victim,” of the discriminatory discourse/behavior of the supposed “offender.” Women’s responses to organizational constraints Women officers react differently to the problems described earlier. But before exploring these different profiles, it is important to look at commonalties and specifically at two responses, which are common to all interviewees: overachievement and rejection of one’s kind. As described in Chapter 2, overachievement is a frequent token’s response to visibility and the performance pressure it generates. Women feel they have to do more and better than their male peers and that this effort is not always rewarded. It is hard because you have to give 200 percent and you see that your men colleagues do not have to do the same things and that is why it is hard in the beginning. I also think that women do not want to stay long in the army because it costs you a lot of energy, always [trying] not to come in the picture or in the spot lights; but if you want to be accepted, you have to give much more than a man. You get results, but it costs a lot of time and a lot of energy. (HA7; 41-year-old Dutch army captain, communications) However, if overachievement is a strong pattern, the amplitude of the second response is overwhelming. The lack of cohesiveness among tokens has also been identified as one of the most common responses of members of a minority group to social isolation and role encapsulation. The rejection of one’s kind constitutes an attempt at detaching oneself from the stereotypical characteristics associated with one’s social category. This is extremely amplified in the present research. Both Portuguese and Dutch women officers adopt a particular critical stance regarding other women. In general, they prefer to work with men, who are seen as more “direct,” “honest,” “sincere,” “friendly,” “straightforward,” and “loyal.” Women, instead, are considered to be more “conflictive” and driven by “jealousy.” There’s a lot of trouble between women and jealousy, and I think it’s easier to deal with men [Why do you think it happens?] Maybe men talk about it when they don’t agree and women just let it go. (HN2; 37-year-old Dutch navy major, administration)
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Interpersonal dynamics of integration Women are like cats. They lie and they don’t look at means to reach their goals. Frequently, when they want something, they are even hypocritical, deceiving . . . I think that among men there is more loyal competition. When they have something to say, they say it. (PAF12; 27-year-old Portuguese air force cadet, pilot)
Positions are ambiguous regarding women as role models: on the one hand, the presence of older women who could act as mentors is considered positive since lower rank women can see that it is possible to progress; on the other hand, women as superiors may be seen as a threat. I think it is not easy for lower ranking females if there is a higher ranking female. You think you know more than, or better than anyone what is going on. If they complain to a male officer they might get lucky. (HA7; 41-year-old Dutch army captain, communications) In order to make sense of the variety of women’s responses to organizational constraints, I have built a typology where cases are classified along two different dimensions: on the one hand, women’s normative conception of gender “distance” in terms of their focus on difference or equality; on the other hand, their dominant attitude concerning the organization. Figure 7.1 displays the various types. Each strategy is characterized by a specific standpoint regarding two variables: on the one hand, the dominant perception of gender in terms of (b) Attitude toward the organization
Equality Difference
(a) Perception of gender “distance”
Loyalty
Dissent
Assimilation
Conformity
Disaffection
(a) Masculinization
(a) Diluted femininity
(“Exit” without
(b) Disruptive loyalty
(b) Silence
conflict)
Complicity
Assertiveness
Antagonism
(a) Emphasized femininity
(a) Militant femininity
(“Exit” with
(b) Conservative loyalty
(b) Voice
conflict)
Figure 7.1 A typology of military women’s integration strategies.
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 179 equality and difference – which defines various archetypes of masculinity and femininity: “masculinization,” “diluted femininity,” “emphasized femininity,” and “militant femininity”; on the other hand, women’s attitude toward the organization, defining a set of responses which I have named after Hirschman’s famous typology (Hirschman 1970): “conservative loyalty,” “disruptive loyalty,” “silence,” “voice,” and “exit.” The two types in the right column – disaffection and antagonism – do not have empirical correspondence in any of the interviews. They remain theoretical possibilities to be explored and tested in future research. Being members of the active force, none of the interviewees could be classified as having adopted the exit solution described by those types. Nevertheless, it is possible to imagine situations where women with egalitarian gender values would feel so disappointed and impotent in the face of organizational constraints, as to opt for leaving the armed forces passively and without conflict. Disaffection would thus correspond to an attitude of great skepticism regarding the possibility of women being truly accepted and given equal treatment in the military, together with the belief that nothing can be done about it. Antagonism, instead, would refer to those cases of profound discontent due to the organizational failure in accommodating women’s difference. In this case, exit with conflict could be a possible outcome. Conformists believe that gender differences should be minimized. Women should avoid exposure and excessive visibility and should adapt to existing rules. This is the prototypical defensive position coincident with Kanter’s remarks regarding tokens, attempt at becoming socially invisible (somehow “diluting” their femininity), carefully building an image that minimizes organizational and peer concerns. Conformists use various mechanisms to play down difference, but two of them are especially visible: self-contention and search for gender neutrality. The main thing is not complaining. When you complain about different things you are not accepted. I had in my mind “I am not going to complain,” so if I have a tough time, I walk or something, they cannot see me crying or complaining. (HA1; 24-year-old Dutch army lieutenant, medical service) I always wanted to be the more neutral possible, not being an excessively feminine stereotype nor the opposite. Try to find a balance, to be able to have good relationships and manage things. (PM4; 31-year-old navy lieutenant, psychologist)
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Those who confront integration dilemmas through assimilation believe that gender differences should not only be minimized but eliminated. Women should adapt and “do it the military way”: develop aggressive and directive leadership styles, share male social practices, and use the same language. The idea is to deal with men on their own ground. By unconditionally incorporating dominant aspects of military culture, assimilation entails women’s masculinization, that is, the display of stereotypical masculine traits both in physical appearance and behavior. Since this type of subversion of gender norms is seen as dangerous, the assimilation strategy involves a disruptive kind of loyalty. Such cases range from discursive practices such as those of a 27-year-old Portuguese air force police officer (PAF5) who always refers to the “men” under her command, even if those “men” include women, to those of a 27-year-old Portuguese air force pilot (PAF12), who provides the most remarkable example of someone who assimilated male culture to a point of having identity problems and even being warned about it by a male officer. Once they told me: “stop, you are a woman; you are not a man.” I reached the extreme of only dressing in men’s clothes, I didn’t feel well with a skirt. Male jackets, boots . . . Before I was not like this, I liked typical female clothes and make-up. Since I came, I cut my hair like the boys. I stopped being feminine . . . . And there is something I am not very proud of, the language, but it ended up by saving me; when they started testing me I would answer with some bad words. (PAF12; 27-year-old Portuguese air force cadet, pilot) Complicity is the most conservative of the four integration strategies. It reproduces traditional gender roles by emphasizing the stereotypical characteristics of femininity. As noted by Connell, there is a kind of fit between this pattern of emphasized femininity and traditional conceptions of masculinity (Connell 1995). The “accomplice” believes that gender differences should be preserved. Women should keep and openly express their femininity and behave according to traditional gender roles. I do everything not to be confounded with them, not to be confounded. I love to dress my skirt and do everything to wear it because I am a woman, I am in the military but I am a woman . . . My skirt, my shoes, my earrings . . . I am a woman, I like it and care about it. They see me and they say she is a woman and an officer, but she is careful to show that she is a woman, she is feminine. Maybe the girls don’t care, but I do. (PE8; 27-year-old Portuguese army lieutenant, administration)
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 181 They further believe that, in the military, there are functions that are more appropriate for women and therefore their exclusion from combat functions is legitimated. Women who choose assertiveness think that gender differences should be respected but in an emancipatory sense. Women should impose their specificity, not adapt to gender-unfair rules and macho behaviors. This strategy corresponds to a proactive behavior, where women use voice to make their claims or channel their complaints. If emphasized femininity involves the risk of increased role encapsulation, assertiveness is also a risky strategy. It erodes various loyalties, not only toward the organization and male peers, but also toward other women, since support for feminist militant positions is extremely reduced. It may result in effective segregation, either imposed from the outside or self-induced. Assertive women are ready to report cases of supposed sexual harassment, to use the official complaint channels, to ensure respect for existing policies regarding maternity and family, to denounce failure in promotions or assignments due to women’s family responsibilities, etc. . . . They are also ready to confront male culture, as in the frequently mentioned issue of watching porn movies or having posters of naked women on the walls. Referring to the later situation, a Dutch army captain reports her assertive behavior: I said to those mechanics: I want you to take them [posters] down, “why? they have been there for years,” and I said “I do not care, I accepted this but I do not any longer, I want you to take them down.” “Oh, we are going to talk to the commander,” and I said “I don’t care to whom you are going to talk to, but I win this, you take them down.” (HA3; 33-year-old Dutch army captain, logistics) All these strategies are ideal-types. Interviewees have been classified according to a dominant tendency in their discourses, but some have been included in more than one type. Change through time also occurs, and various women report having changed their opinions and behavior in the course of the years. These cases refer usually to moves from the more cautious conformist position to assertiveness or from assimilation to conformity. In other cases, reported ambivalence of gender status makes it difficult to classify certain interviewees. You should not behave like “ok I am a woman and I cannot do this and I cannot do that.” On the other hand, you should not behave like a man because you are not a man, you are a woman. (HAF2; 28-year-old Dutch air force captain, intelligence analyst)
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Interpersonal dynamics of integration Table 7.2 Women’s integration strategies by country Country strategies
Portugal
The Netherlands
Total
Assimilation Complicity Conformity Assertiveness Total
3 2 11 0 16
1 4 6 2 13
4 6 17 2 29
As expected, there is also a lot of criticism between the various types. Conformist women tend to criticize both emphasized femininity and masculinization. In turn, those who adopt assimilation criticize emphasized femininity, and finally those in the accomplice category tend to criticize assimilation. If we look at the distribution of interviewees by the various types (Table 7.2) we see that the most conservative strategies are clearly preferred: 23 out of 29 women prefer not to challenge military culture, by choosing to act in a conformist or accomplice manner. Conformity is by far the most frequent strategy: almost 60 per cent of the interviewees are classified within this category (17). Although this is true for both Portuguese and Dutch women officers, almost two thirds of the former adopt a conformist position (11 in 16) for less than half of the latter (6 in 13). Compared to their Portuguese counterparts, Dutch female officers diversify integration strategies, using to a greater extent the more risky responses of complicity and assertiveness. Such eclecticism may relate to the more diversified organizational orientations found among Dutch women (namely the more self-centered, hedonistic motivations associated with postmodern values), while the institutional orientations of the Portuguese might explain the greater percentage of those who prefer to keep a low profile and a nonchallenging attitude. The perspective of male officers In order to organize and systematize the analysis of male soldiers’ values and attitudes in a way similar to what has been done for women, interviewees have been typified according to both their values regarding gender differences and their opinion concerning the presence of women in the military (Table 7.3). The starting point for this analysis is Battistelli’s typology of male soldiers’ attitude toward women in the military (Battistelli 1997c, 1999). With some nuances and readjustments regarding that proposal, the various types can be described as follows: Sexist: The sexist has a negative evaluation of women’s difference in relation to men and opposes the presence of women in the military, which is
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 183 Table 7.3 Typology of Dutch and Portuguese male soldiers’ reaction to WMP Perception of gender “distance” Attitude regarding WMP Opposition
Difference (Women’s subordination) Difference (Women’s sublimation) Equality
Acceptance Full
Conditional
Sexist
—
Traditionalist
—
Macho Pragmatist Gentleman
[Antimilitarist]
Integrationist
—
Note: This typology is based on a similar proposal by Battistelli (1997c).
considered negative for the organization in general and for his military unit in particular. The best example of this attitude is expressed in a Portuguese marine’s dramatic statement “If women come here, I will step on my beret.” The symbolic meaning of the beret – something precious that one only wins the right to use after hard tests of courage, toughness, and manliness – is so important that making such a statement is equivalent to rejecting one’s identity as a soldier. Traditionalist: The traditionalist underlines women’s difference in terms of their supposed virtues and capabilities, framed by an idealized conception of woman. The ideal female image is considered incompatible with military functions and their military participation is discarded. I cannot see a woman combatant as my female ideal, not really. I may accept her, but that is not the woman I like. [What is your ideal?] She’s got to have a certain fragility and I must feel that I can be a support for that fragility . . . so that she may feel safe . . . I cannot think otherwise. (PAF7; 48-year-old Portuguese air force colonel, physician) Pragmatist: The pragmatist stresses women’s difference due to their physical and psychological weaknesses, but still favors conditional integration. The prototypical pragmatist idea is that women’s presence in the military is not good or bad; it is a fact. Pragmatists believe that the armed forces would function better if they were to remain all male, but since women joined, the organization has the responsibility to integrate them if effectiveness is to be achieved. In general, this position coincides with the belief that women should follow exactly the same standards and requirements as male soldiers, including those used to evaluate physical aptitudes and training.
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Interpersonal dynamics of integration So let’s see it this way. In the navy we need about 16,000 people to do the work. If we have to take 16,000 people from only men, then you could have a problem with filling all those places. If you can also try to reach girls, women, for those functions, then you have a much bigger group to fill those functions. I think that’s good. Of course, they have to have the same education. You should ask the same for the same standards. My experience is that I don’t like to have female problems on board of my ship. I don’t want to be responsible for that. For myself I feel better in a male environment. (HN5; 33-year-old Dutch navy lieutenant commander, logistics)
Macho: Like the pragmatist, the macho type stresses women’s inferiority and favors conditional integration. However, unlike the previous type, he does not require that women follow exactly the same criteria as men to access military functions. Instead, he believes that women’s presence is acceptable only in support functions, such as logistics and administration. In his view, women’s characteristics (weakness) and presence endanger military tradition, performance, and values, so they should not join military specialties: I believe that in the army there are functions where women may perform well, but not here as parachutist! There are women who are very strong, even more than some men, right? But the image of a woman . . . the image itself creates fragility. That alone makes instruction different, less requiring. The spirit gets lost, that’s my idea. (PE3; 20-year-old Portuguese army lieutenant, parachutist) Integrationist: The integrationist advocates gender equality, believes that the presence of women is good for the organization, and supports the full integration of women. He recognizes the existence of problems but stresses their systemic more than individual character, and focuses on the need to solve them. This supposedly gender-blind perspective is frequently associated with the “best person for the job” argument: Perhaps every minority will have different problems; a lot has to do with circumstances, I think. I talk about making it not an issue as much as possible. To make something a non-issue you must put the right people in the right place, the one who is fit for job . . . . For me it is not about being men or women, but about putting the right person in the right job. (HA4; 30-year-old Dutch army lieutenant, infantry)
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 185 Gentleman: The gentleman shares with the traditionalist a sublimated conception of women but, unlike the latter, favors women’s presence in the military, if only in traditionally female occupational areas. I think that women are more tender. A woman does not fit in a military profession, as warrior. Maybe she can be a soldier, yes, why not? In certain areas it is not necessary to be aggressive. I think women are more oriented for services, communications and logistics; everything that requires less physical effort. As far as combat is concerned, the nature of women is not adequate to the spirit. (PE10; 35-year-old Portuguese army lieutenant, engineer) Although this analysis neither allows nor justifies the identification of regularities that could then be generalized, the distribution of cases shows some interesting results. First, the characteristics of the sample explain to a great extent the typological distribution of cases, namely the very residual presence of the “oppositional” types (sexist and traditionalist) and the total absence of the “antimilitarist.” The first aspect certainly relates to a more institutional or politically correct discourse on the part of officers – not willing to directly oppose what is viewed as an already consolidated, or at least ineludible, policy measure – than might be expected among the other ranks. The second aspect, in turn, derives from the absence of conscripts, since it would be – to say the least – strange to find an officer who was antimilitarist. Nuances within the “acceptance” types led to a separation between full and conditional acceptance. Second, it should be stressed that these are also ideal-types. Individuals have been classified according to the dominant tendency in their respective discourses. To be sure, there is also a great deal of ambivalence and even contradictory views revealed in the same interview just as much as in women’s discourses. Besides, if we consider individuals’ reports of change in attitude through time, here again moving from one type to another is not uncommon. Although this happens on a limited scale, it is an important element to consider when explaining transformations induced by the presence of women. Third, national contexts also reveal different distributions (Table 7.4). Dutch officers are more supportive of women’s integration in the armed forces than the Portuguese: half of the Dutch are coded as integrationist compared to less than 1/4 of the Portuguese. The latter, in turn, are much more dispersed through the various types. Although some Dutch are coded as macho, the majority are identified as integrationist and to a lesser extent pragmatist. In any case, all of them accept women’s presence in the military, supporting either full or conditional integration.
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Interpersonal dynamics of integration Table 7.4 Men’s dominant responses to WMP, by country Types
Sexist Traditionalist Macho Pragmatist Integrationist Gentleman Total
Country Portugal
The Netherlands
Total
3 1 3 1 3 2 13
0 0 3 3 6 0 12
3 1 6 4 9 2 25
Only the Portuguese are categorized as sexist and traditionalist, which means that despite the small number of interviews, all those that oppose women in the military are Portuguese. Besides, they are also the only ones classified as gentleman, which again seems to indicate that only Portuguese officers share a sublimated conception of women’s difference from men.2 All these features are consistent with the identification of Portuguese officers with a more “paleomodern” vision of reality, whereas the Dutch seem to have a clearer orientation toward modernity. This is confirmed by other elements in the analysis of the interviews. If we focus on the problems men soldiers believe result from women’s presence, a first general observation is that Portuguese men tend to resort to naturalist and essentialist explanations of women’s difference, whereas the Dutch hardly ever use such an argument. Instead, the latter have a clearly rationalistic discourse where differences – whenever identified – are preferentially attributed to social and cultural aspects, such as women’s education, as well as to organizational mistakes: bad selection at start or deficient training. Once again, rationalizations of gender difference resort to global organizational orientations. Dutch officers have clearly internalized the ‘best person for the job’ official argument, coincident with the modern utilitarian discourse; the Portuguese are much more prone to using “premodern” arguments. I have the feeling that when a man needs to kill he doesn’t think; a woman may shoot but then she will take care of him . . . shoots him but then feels very sorry. It is possible that, in a group, there may be four or five ferocious, but that is not the nature of women. It goes against . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe because of women’s physical and psychological characteristics, because of maternity. Maybe that is a
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 187 woman’s own nature . . . I don’t know . . . unless she is totally crazy as we see in movies, but that must be a mental problem, not because it is women’s nature. (PE10; 35-year-old Portuguese army lieutenant, engineer) In any case, independently of the discursive focus, a large number of problems have been identified concerning women’s presence in military units. Traditionalist and gentleman types underline the fact that the presence of women in the military harms both military tradition and values. Women: no way! Naval history is history made by men. The opposite is the denial of our history and of our culture. (PM11; 45-year-old Portuguese navy lieutenant commander, logistics) However, the most negative criticisms come, as expected, from sexist and macho types, who echo the widespread idea that women’s presence harms military performance (cf. Chapter 4). For most Portuguese officers, this is considered a consequence of women’s lack of physical capacities and of their biological and social limitations deriving from pregnancy and family commitments. According to this standpoint, if women cannot accomplish their tasks, either because they are not strong enough, get pregnant, or have to assist their family and children, the result is work overload for men. She stopped flying because she wants to get pregnant. So now I will have to work more because she will get pregnant . . . that pisses me off. (PAF3; 27-year-old Portuguese lieutenant, pilot) Perceived inequity is even amplified when sailing assignments in the navy or international deployments (in the Dutch case) are at stake. The suspicion that women may use pregnancy to avoid being sent away is not uncommon. Another current argument is that the presence of women produces changes in men’s behavior, as for instance, when it stimulates their protective feelings, which raises security concerns. Men change to women, if you are in a small group you see . . . especially with a generation that is not used to the position of women in society. . . . You see, especially in the beginning, that if the man changes . . . he will be more protective, a father role or whatever you want to call it. And that’s an operational risk. The safety of your
188
Interpersonal dynamics of integration soldiers in the marines is affected if their effectiveness is affected because their roles are changing . . . so they are not only focused on the enemy. . . . As we are in small groups, in extreme conditions, we say that we don’t want to have a gender tension there . . . I think that combat effectiveness will not improve because some of the men will react differently in the presence of women. (HN7; 50-year-old Dutch navy commander, marines)
From the point of view of daily life, especially in more operational areas, the presence of women is not always welcomed: it is often seen as introducing excessive informality and producing constraint: men have to control themselves, “watch what we do and what we say.” Privacy requirements, for instance, are a factor that is considered to cause tensions and unequal treatment between men and women. Officers coming from Special Forces or referring to accommodation aboard ships, often stress the idea that creating special arrangements to ensure women’s privacy is a potential source of conflict. Sometimes, this argument is even at the core of rationalizations for, the exclusion of women from certain specialties. The reverse side of the coin of women’s acknowledgement and refusal of positive discrimination is a very strong reaction against it on the part of male officers, especially if they are young and Portuguese. Some feel relative deprivation and think they should also enjoy women’s benefits (e.g. preferential treatment by senior officers, special showers, etc.). Others complain about disloyal competition (e.g. lower requirements in physical evaluation). Some of my friends wanted to become pilots and maybe they did not get in because they wanted to get a woman who probably had less capacity. That irritated me deeply and it still does. (PAF3; 27-year-old Portuguese air force lieutenant, pilot) Still others believe that the presence of women is the reason for lowering standards, which is harmful for the institution as a whole. Among Dutch officers there is a more sophisticated discourse regarding positive discrimination. They prefer to explain women’s inadequacy or failure in terms of deficient selection procedures and training and recognize the organizational rather than individual responsibility. Dutch soldiers emphasize mistakes supposedly made because of the political pressure to recruit women. According to various testimonies, standards were lowered and women did not really comply with existing selection criteria. Consequently, they were assigned to functions they could not fulfill. This caused negative evaluations that lingered, leading to the stigmatization of women.
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 189 They could not do their job; it was not their fault because they were not fixed for the job they were put on . . . This has a negative effect that lasts for years. (HA5; 42-year-old Dutch army captain, administration) Girls are less skilled than men, because they had to come into the organization. (HN5; 33-year-old Dutch navy lieutenant commander, logistics) Notwithstanding the variation in discourses, at the bottom line the paradox remains and the result of argumentation is the same: either because of their biology, their physical capacities, their family commitments, or their inadequate selection and bad training, women should not join operational areas. To be sure, some interviewees recognize that women have to face a lot of hardship and hostility, that they are discriminated against and treated in a rough manner, especially those in the enlisted ranks, that women are encapsulated in specific roles and find it difficult to manage the ambiguity of being a woman and a soldier; some also recognize that men themselves may be the problem, either because they did not know how to deal with change or because they tend to protect and paternalize women. However, a common feature is that these men do not seem to realize that they are actually describing mostly problems that result more from men’s attitudes than from women’s characteristics and behavior.
Concluding remarks After reviewing some of the issues that lie at the core of WMP from the point of view of the actors involved, at least one question remains to be answered: what changes do men and women officers think have taken place since women began to join the military? Do they identify changes or do they believe that everything remains the same? If women’s presence in the military “shakes” the existing gender regime, albeit in a piecemeal manner, and unintentionally, as some believe, we should expect the main protagonists of change to acknowledge this to some degree. Surprisingly, however, when asked this question directly, both men and women mention very few changes, stressing instead superficial aspects related to the global social atmosphere rather than effective structural transformations: less ruthless behavior on the part of men, more polite language, more relaxed (less macho) atmosphere, etc. This is also true in the Netherlands, where, due to the longer presence of women, one might expect to find perceptions of deeper transformations.
190
Interpersonal dynamics of integration
A majority of interviewees in the two countries thinks that the dominantly male culture is not affected by gender integration. How are we to interpret this result? Reviewing the main conclusions of this chapter will help to shed further light on this apparent paradox. First, it is important to sum up those aspects where variation was found between the two countries. The global economic and socio-political conditions, which influence organizational policies of gender integration (Chapter 6), are also related to different value orientations at the micro-level of interpersonal processes. As far as women are concerned, this is particularly visible in a few issues. A first aspect relates to motivations for initial enlistment: Portuguese female officers reveal significant institutional motivations whereas the Dutch stress postmodern reasons; this tendency matches global organizational characteristics in the two countries; a second area refers to the conciliation of work and family. All female officers perceive their family roles as one of the greatest obstacles to their career development. However, unlike the Portuguese, if Dutch women have to choose between work and the family, they give a clear preference to the latter. This is probably related to the positive economic climate in the country (which makes it easier for Dutch women to leave and later to reenter the labor market), but also to features of the global value-system such as the strong Dutch maternalistic ideology, associated with an individualistic work ethic. As far as men are concerned, Dutch officers not only reveal a more positive attitude toward gender integration (especially those men in support functions) but they also have a more rationalistic discourse concerning women and the problems caused by their presence in the military. Although there are not many differences between Portuguese and Dutch males in terms of motivations to join the military (postmodern factors are prevalent), their arguments reveal a rather different value pattern. In many senses, Dutch officers have a modern individualistic and efficiency-based discourse that contrasts with the Portuguese focus on natural and traditional arguments. This again matches overall organizational orientations towards modernity. But beyond variation at the national level, there is a striking resemblance between the negative consequences or hardships associated with the participation of women in the military, which are mentioned by the interviewees, and those identified in the literature on gender relations in atypical contexts. Notwithstanding the different rationales used to justify problems caused by gender integration, or even the various response patterns, there is a certain level of cross-cultural stability of cognitive models of gender, visible in a set of other issues: ●
Women officers in the two countries report symbolic and material obstacles to integration that reproduce well-known patterns of segregation of women in atypical occupations: performance pressures resulting from excessive visibility, social isolation, and role encapsulation. Very few,
Interpersonal dynamics of integration 191
●
however, identify these problems as discrimination in a negative sense. On the contrary, they feel far greater resentment about the existence of positive discrimination, both in the form of special policy measures and in the paternalistic attitudes of higher-ranking men. Female integration strategies tend to be conservative: a majority responds to organizational and cultural constraints in a conformist manner, trying to play down their difference and creating distance from the women’s group. They tend to criticize other women who adopt supposedly inadequate integration strategies or those who accept favoritism, rather than criticizing the organization, which issues the policies associated with positive discrimination. This is particularly clear with regard to the question of different physical standards. The objectivity of measures is rarely questioned, whereas men’s perception of relative deprivation is interpreted as understandable.
Most problems described by men relate more to men’s attitudes or organizational deficiencies than to women’s supposed inadequacies. Therefore, the diagnosis of the absence of structural changes may be seen as consistent with the reproduction of well-known mechanisms in the global dynamics of gender relations. To be sure, the results also show that there are inconsistencies, ambiguity, and paradoxes, which point not only to the complexity of individuals’ adjustment to structural arrangements but also reveal the way whereby the “gendering” process at the individual and interaction levels is often more flexible and contradictory than what might be predicted. One of these contradictions refers to the impact of policies aimed at promoting gender integration, especially in the case of the Netherlands, where, unlike Portugal, these policies actually exist. Throughout the interviews, both men and women made puzzling references to this topic. There is not only a general tendency to minimize the importance of several policy measures, but some of them were even looked at with suspicion. This is true of the strong resentment against positive discrimination, perceptions of inequity derived from different physical requirements, the ambivalent evaluation of part-time measures, resistance to women mentors, devaluation of the importance of courses aimed at promoting gender equality, etc. These references suggest a disturbing possibility as far as the evaluation of organizational policies and programs aimed at promoting gender integration is concerned: that the efficacy of policies will be limited by the way in which individuals interpret them; or more, that policies aiming at formal integration may turn out to work against social integration. Cultural values regarding masculinity and femininity as well as those concerning women’s social roles can work as countervailing forces in the process of women’s integration in the military, even when all other conditions are favorable.
Age
27
50 28 39 39 50
HN8
HN10 HAF2 HAF3 HAF4 HAF7
Portuguese women officers PE1 31 PE5 39 PE6 PE7 PE8 27 PM1 35
27
HN4
Dutch women officers HA1 24 HA3 33 HA6 40 HA7 41 HA8 27 HN2 37
Code
Lieutenant Captain Lieutenant “Alferes” Lieutenant First lieutenant (Captain)
First Lieutenant Captain Lieutenant Colonel Captain Captain Lieutenant Commander (Major) Lieutenant Senior Grade (Captain) Lieutenant Senior Grade (Captain) Captain (Colonel) Captain Lieutenant Colonel Captain Major
Rank
Table 7A.1 List of interviewees
Appendix
Parachutist Veterinarian Administration Administration Administration Medical service/Physician
Administration Intelligence analyst Electronics Helicopter pilot Administration
Logistics/Supply officer
Weapons engineer
Medical service/Army academy Logistics/Personnel management Logistics/Central staff Communications Logistics/Signal battalion Administration/Personnel management
Function/unit
Married/1 Married/2 Single/0 Single/0 Single/0 Married/3
— Married/1 Married/0 Single /0 Married/0
—
Married/0
Married/0 Married/0 Married/0 Single /0 Single /0 Married/3
Family status/Children
25 24 27 26 27 30 27
PM6 PM10 PAF1 PAF2 PAF4 PAF5 PAF10 PAF12
33
27
50 27 54
51
HN5
HN6
HN7 HAF1 HAF5
HAF6
Dutch male officers HA2 50 HA4 30 HA5 42 HA9 26 HN1 45 HN3 28
24 31
PM3 PM4
Lieutenant Colonel
Major First lieutenant Captain Lieutenant Captain (Colonel) Lieutenant Senior Grade (Captain) Lieutenant Commander (Major) Lieutenant Senior Grade (Captain) Commander Captain Major
Second lieutenant First lieutenant (Captain) Cadet Second lieutenant Second lieutenant Lieutenant Lieutenant Lieutenant Lieutenant Cadet
Marines Intelligence (Ground defense air base) Communications
Administration
Logistics
Logistics Infantry Personnel officer Signal battalion Administration/Supply officer Weapons engineer
Administration (Naval academy) Administration Navigator Meteorologist Engineer Air force police Pilot Pilot
“Marinha” Psychologist
(Table 7A.1 continued)
Married
Married/2 Married/0 Married/1
—
—
Married/2 Single /0 Married/2 Single Married/2 Married/1
Single/0 Single/0 Married Single/0 Married/0 Single/0 Married/0 Single/0
Single/0
Age
42
27 48 36
Position
PM12
PAF3 PAF7 PAF9
Policy makers Code
HPM3 HPM4 HPM5 PPM1 PPM2 PPM3 PPM4
Lieutenant Alferes Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant Lieutenant Commander (Major) Second Lieutenant Commander (Lieutenant Colonel) Lieutenant Lieutenant Commander (Major) Lieutenant Commander (Major) Lieutenant Colonel Major
Rank
Pilot Physician Pilot
Administration
“Marinha” Logistics
Marines Naval Engineer
Parachutist Parachutist Cavalry Engineer Commander of vessel
Function/unit
Deputy Director of Personnel – Ministry of Defense (NL) Equal Opportunities Officer – Dutch Army President of the Committee on Women in the NATO Forces (NL) Representative of navy women at the CWINF (NL) Appointment Officer/Department of Personnel – Dutch Navy (NL) Senior Official – Ministry of Defense (NL) Director General of Personnel – Ministry of Defense (P) Director of Military Academy (P) Chief-of-staff of Air Force (P) Lawyer/Personnel Department – Navy (P)
29 45
PM9 PM11
HPM1 HPM2
27 40
PM5 PM8
Portuguese male officers PE3 20 PE4 22 PE9 51 PE10 35 PM2 30s
Code
Table 7A.1 Continued
Married/0 Married Married/2
Married/1
Married/0 Married/2
Single/0 Married/2
Single/0 Single/0 Married/2 Married/1 Married/1
Family status/Children
Table 7A.2 Interview guidelines A. Personal/institutional identity [Motivation to join/meaning and perception of the Military] Let us start at the moment when you first joined the . . . ●
●
● ●
When did you first decide to join the Armed Forces? Have you ever thought of joining this occupation before then? Describe to me how you came to decide to join. What were you doing then? What were your options? Have you thought of having another profession? Which one? Is anyone in your family a service member? Did you discuss your decision with him/her? What were the reactions of your family/friends to your decision? Why did you decide to join? Why did you choose this branch? What was your image of the service/military at the time? What did you consider to be the positive features of . . . ? And the drawbacks? To women: did you have any hesitation about joining because of your sex? What were your first impressions?
B. Training and education ● Describe to me your training experience. Have you a specialization? How did you come to select this particular one? ● To women: In basic training do you think you were treated any differently because of your sex? Were you excluded from any aspect of training? ● Is there any part of your training that you would like to see changed? Do you think that there is a particular type of woman/man who is most likely to succeed in basic training? Is there a particular type who is unlikely to succeed? ● How many men/women were there at your class in the Military Academy? (Develop experience in Academy) C. Employment and career development ● Could you describe your employment history? Where do you work now? Do you like your present job? ● How many men/women work with you at your present job? Have you ever faced problems with your peers because of your sex? With your superiors? With those under your command? Do you know anyone who has experienced discrimination? ● In your unit, do you think male and female soldiers are expected to achieve the same standards? If you compare their performance, what would you say? ● Do you think women and men are better suited for particular roles in the . . .? Are there some functions where women/men are more likely to succeed? ● In your unit, how well do you think male and female soldiers work together as a team? ● Do you prefer to work with men or with women? [Future Perspectives and Expectations] ● How do you evaluate the development of your career until now? How did initial expectations match reality? ● Where would you like to work in the future? ● Where do you see yourself in ten years time? ● Do you think of leaving the . . . ? Why? Under which conditions would you leave? (Table 7A.2 continued)
Table 7A.2 Continued D. Leadership and rank relationships ● Is it different to command/train men and women? How? ● Does your supervisor equally encourage female and male soldiers to succeed? ● Do you think there is any difference between men and women in terms of their leadership/command styles? Which ones? E. Gender relations and women’s integration ● What do you think are the main characteristics of a man/a woman? ● During the time that you’ve been in the . . . , have things changed? Did women’s presence produce changes? Was the institution prepared to accommodate women? Did women adjust? Did men adjust? How? F. Fraternization, socialization, and culture Do you socialize more with men or with women? ● What do you think about the fraternization rules? ● Sexual harassment ●
G. Deployments and combat ● Have you ever been deployed to missions abroad? Would you like to? Can you describe to me your experience(s)? ● Are there any differences between garrison and deployment situations in terms of gender relationships? Can you give me examples? ● Would you like the chance to serve in combat? H. Family issues ● Are you married? Do you have children? Do you expect to marry and have children? If you had a daughter/son, would you encourage him/her to enter the Military? ● How do you feel about the part time leave? Have you/would you consider that possibility? Which are the advantages/and the disadvantages? ● How do you do to conciliate work and family life? I. General issues ● Tell me about one good/bad experience in the Military ● What do you think would have to happen to attract more women to the Armed Forces? Are these things likely to happen? ● If you had to do it all over again, would you enter the . . . What would you have done differently? ● Reaction on policies ● Why do you think women leave the . . . ? Do you think it is good to recruit more women? ● Sometimes there are measures of positive discrimination toward women. What do you think about it? ● If you had to define policies . . .
Conclusion
The issue of women in the military has always been and is likely to remain one of the most controversial in the study of military institutions. It has been a focus of political conflict whenever questions such as citizenship rights, conscription, or wartime mobilization have been discussed; it is also an extremely sensitive topic in debates of cultural conceptions of gender or women’s social status. Policy debates but also supposedly scientific perspectives on this issue have often reflected ideological and normative points of view. Positions range from those who vehemently oppose the presence of women in the armed forces, to those who accept women’s presence in some areas, to those who welcome full integration. Within the multiplicity of perspectives, some “strange quasi coalitions” have been identified (Battistelli 1997c: 31; Kümmel 2002a: 617). This is the case of the apparently surprising convergence between those who manage war and those who oppose it: between military conservatism and pacifist feminism, both opposing the military participation of women. Feminist theories on women and the use of military force reflect this controversiality. Opposite views exist with regard to the general question of the legitimacy of military force as well as with regard to the distinctiveness of women’s status in war and peace. Positions range from revolutionary feminists’ defense of the “right to fight,” to pacifist, antimilitarist, radical standpoints; from Ruddick’s “maternal thinking” to Tickner or Elshtain’s refusal of the “discriminatory” equation of women with peace. Most confrontations regarding the military participation of women or the roles and functions they should perform, “operationalized” this controversy by opposing citizenship concerns to military efficiency. Although rationales have varied on each side of the divide and the strict opposition between “rights” and “readiness” has been considered a very inaccurate way of dealing with the problem, the debate is pervasive and persistent. Democratic values concerning civil rights and citizenship are set in opposition to military readiness and efficiency, as if endorsing one set of values would involve a full rejection of the other.
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All these discussions are important elements in the social and political history of women’s military participation and reveal the extent to which the military is a “privileged observatory” of gender dynamics and of the fascinating process through which history is frequently transformed into nature and cultural contingencies into natural categories. According to this perspective, the military can be considered an “exaggerated instance” of global social trends, a setting where gender and sexuality are enacted in ways that are more obvious both to insiders and observers than is the case in other organizations. The integration of women in the military reveals a “critical situation,” when a pre-existing order is questioned, threatened, or it deviates from its main organizing principle. This helps explain the paradoxical nature of the debates and the process of women’s military participation alike.
Factors affecting WMP: a synthetic account of empirical results The history of women’s military participation shows that they have systematically been excluded from warfare as warriors or have participated only in exceptional circumstances. However, it also shows that when they have been involved their participation has often been made invisible in the historical account of military institutions. And yet, as clear as these exclusion and omission patterns are, so too is the evidence of women’s systematic presence as combatants in revolutions, liberation wars, and partisan warfare as much as in auxiliary roles in regular international wars during the twentieth century. But again, in all these cases, at the end of the war they were expected to give up military roles and return to their traditional domestic sphere. Historical evidence points to the durability of received cultural images of gender relations. However, when, in the early 1970s, women began to join the armed forces with an explicitly military status, new questions started to be raised: to what extent had these changes contributed to revert the historically dominant patterns? What factors explained variation in women’s military roles, cross-nationally and over time? Despite the growing body of social science literature on this topic, it was necessary to wait more than two decades to see the first steps being taken in the comparative study of women in the military. In this book I have tried to contribute to this comparative effort and to find some of the missing answers. Taking the existing interpretative models of factors affecting women’s military roles as a starting point, I proposed a more accurate definition of “women’s military participation.” At the macroanalytical level this variable was operationalized around various dimensions referring to both quantitative and qualitative indicators: besides structural variables such as the overall representation of women in active duty forces,
Conclusion 199 occupational sex segregation, and rank distribution, policy variables have been considered regarding segregation practices, formal limitations in occupational and hierarchical terms, and also implementation of social policies. The comparison between NATO countries along these various dimensions revealed some fundamental features concerning women’s military roles. At the turn of the century, women’s numerical representation in the armed forces ranged from total absence (as was the case of Italy in 2000) to 14 percent in the United States. However, despite a notable increase in representation levels, global percentages still pointed to a token situation: women represented less than 15 percent of the active military forces in every country. The occupational distribution of military women revealed a strong cross-national segregation pattern. Available data showed that more than two thirds (70.4 percent) of military women were concentrated in support and medical functions, 17.5 percent in technical areas, and only 7 percent occupied positions in the more operational areas. Due to their very low absolute numbers, women had an extremely limited representation in the various ranks. Despite the absence of legal limitations to their hierarchical progression, female representation in the various ranks and promotion conditions were still limited in formal and informal ways. Although in a few cases the possibility of women’s conscript recruitment was foreseen in the case of general mobilization or war, all countries had incorporated women on a strictly volunteer basis. Despite the fact that most of them did not impose formal quantitative limitations on women’s recruitment, representation levels had been conditioned by both formal mechanisms (rank restrictions, establishment of maximum ceilings), if only in a few cases, and more extensively by informal practices and arbitrary decision making regarding women’s recruitment and assignment. There were, however, other cases where recruitment difficulties forced the military to define recruitment “goals” in terms of female representation. There was also great variation between countries in terms of social policies aiming at eliminating discrimination and promoting gender integration. Those countries that had made more progress in terms of representation and occupational and hierarchical desegregation were also those where specific policies concerning the conciliation of work and family, equity monitoring, and sexual harassment had been implemented. In other countries these policies were totally absent. All these variables have been used to build an index of gender inclusiveness that classifies the NATO countries in terms of the degree to which they integrate women in the armed forces. Without aiming at a complete test of the explanatory model, I then moved to test the plausibility of some hypotheses that relate identified explanatory factors to the various
200 Conclusion degrees of gender inclusiveness. The results of this “large N” analysis can be summarized as follows. As far as time effects are concerned, results show that, against existing expectations, a longer presence of women in the ranks does not imply a consistent increase in their relative numbers. Although time is positively correlated to the overall degree of gender inclusiveness, this is only true for the group of countries that score higher in inclusiveness. This means that time is positively related to the integration process only when other conditions are met. Data support the idea that time, by and in itself, does not automatically foster gender integration or contribute to eliminate existing discriminations in terms of occupational or hierarchical segregation. The hypothesis “the greater the percentage of conscripts in a country’s active forces, the lower women’s numerical representation,” was confirmed. As expected, evidence showed that the organizational format of the armed forces affects representation: the more a force relies on volunteer personnel, the higher is the percentage of women. Inversely, the closer a military body is to the mass army-format, the lower is female representation. Some “external” variables related to the social-economic and political structures seem to have a negligible influence over numerical representation of women in the military but a significant impact on their global integration. Still, one must distinguish between those factors that concern women’s “simple presence” in the system, which are not responsible for relevant variation in the qualitative status of military women, and those referring to women’s “qualified” presence, which relate significantly to gender inclusiveness in the military. Against expectations, indicators of women’s simple presence in the system, such as women’s labor-force participation, do not relate either to women’s representation or to gender inclusiveness. Instead, indicators of women’s qualified presence such as the tested “Gender Empowerment Measure” reveal a stronger relationship. In sum, this analysis has showed that WMP clearly reached higher levels in countries more exposed to the democratization of gender relations in society at large and to external political pressures to achieve gender equality in the military. Likewise, gender inclusiveness is higher where the military has opened up to society due to organizational shifts toward professionalization and where gender equality policies have been implemented in the armed forces. Contrarily, and regardless of the moment when women joined the military, in countries where those external influences have not been felt with the same intensity, where the military remains closer to a mass army-format, where women have not reached a qualified position in the social structure, there are lower levels of gender inclusiveness in the military. This points to potential spillover effects from society into the military organization. Given these results, I hypothesize that change toward greater gender equality in the armed forces will not occur automatically as a consequence of time or the increase in relative numbers. It will probably depend much
Conclusion 201 more on the extent to which external variables, such as women’s “controlling” presence in society at large will determine policy orientations and decision-making processes within the armed forces. Results of the comparative case study confirm this hypothesis but introduce interesting “nuances.” Data show that the causal process may be more complicated, especially when it comes to evaluating the impact of policies on gender integration. Portugal and the Netherlands have a different performance in terms of WMP. Looking closely at indicators of the situation of women in the respective armed forces revealed that their different positions in the ranking results not so much from quantitative representation or hierarchical integration, but from occupational structure and the existence of specific policies aiming at gender integration. Portugal presents a more segregated pattern in terms of service and occupational distributions, with a much lower representation of women in operational functions. Comparatively, the Netherlands has a much more balanced distribution of women in the various branches and within the occupational structure. While in the former country the process of women’s recruitment has been marked by a dominantly instrumental approach, consistent with a general lack of policies (a model referred to as “ex-post pragmatism,”) the Netherlands has, from the very beginning, issued plans of affirmative action which developed into active policies aiming at managing diversity in the armed forces. I have tried to show that these different approaches are consistent with global social and organizational conditions, namely those regarding the impact of ideologies of gender equality on military policies and the organizational move toward the professionalization and “civilianization” of the armed forces. However, there were also puzzling features in the identified gender incorporation patterns. Notwithstanding the different policy approaches, the two countries showed an unexpected tendency to converge in some aspects where one might have expected major differences: relative numbers and hierarchical distribution. Having started 10 years later, Portugal performed better than expected, showing a surprising tendency to accelerate integration, even if only in the formal dimensions of inclusiveness. A few indicators were surprisingly positive, considering both the absence of policies and a more institutionally oriented military: representation of women has grown rapidly, formal restrictions have been eliminated in a short period of time, and the number of women applying for a military career is still high. Contrarily, the Netherlands performed worse than might be expected, considering the efforts to promote equality at the global governmental and military levels and the prevalence of a clearly more civilian oriented “postmodern” military structure. Not only do women not feel attracted by the military, but attrition prevents them from reaching higher hierarchical levels. Due to the existence of a more competitive opportunity structure
202 Conclusion for women in society at large, earlier progress in gender integration in the armed forces has not been easily sustained. These results support the previous conclusion regarding the effects of time over gender inclusiveness: apparently time has not helped correct the observed numerical imbalance and uneven rank representation in the Netherlands. But the same results do make us rethink the conclusion regarding the impact of policies, or at least reconsider the conditions under which their efficiency may be blocked. In the case of Portugal, the absence of policies does not seem to have affected formal integration – at least thus far. However, it is also true that, because of a delayed professionalization process, Portugal has not felt the impact of recruitment shortages that have had such an effect on personnel management in the Dutch military; nor has it felt extensively the impact of “erosion” factors that may determine women’s options in the future. In the Netherlands, the existence of policies, which determine a more positive climate regarding the integration of women, does not seem to be sufficient to keep them in the forces. The analysis of the interviews revealed information that helps solve the puzzle by shedding light on the importance of structural and cultural factors on individuals’ attitudes and decisions. It showed how cultural values concerning gender relations and the social roles of women may limit or jeopardize the supposedly positive effects of policies, thus functioning as countervailing forces in the process of WMP. If military men feel overly pressured by institutional policies or these are interpreted by both men and women as sources of inequity, blatant resistance to women’s integration “may fade only to be replaced by more subtle, covert forms of discrimination and hostility” (Yoder et al. 1983: 334). Organizational policies that discourage negative behaviors against military women may not be as vital as some have supposed for the failure or success of the integration process. This hypothesis, which calls for further research (specifically designed to evaluate the impact of policies on integration), coincides partially with those perspectives that stress the limits of formal policies in redressing cultural entrenched stereotypes (Katzenstein and Reppy 1999a). According to this standpoint, the real problem is the clash between aspects of military culture that promote intolerance and official policies on gender integration, and not necessarily the lack or inadequacy of policies. However, the existence of contradictory findings, that is, accounts of situations where institutional policy seemed to help change negative attitudes of male soldiers toward women (Yoder et al. 1983; Rosen et al. 1996), warns against linear conclusions. It suggests instead the need to analyze the conditions under which the efficacy of policies may vary, considering both external contextual variables (e.g. institutional anchorage; articulation or conflict with policies of other gender regimes) and internal features (flexibility versus rigidity, stability versus volatility, coherence, coordination, forms
Conclusion 203 of implementation, and control), as well as their different impact on global patterns or interactional patterns. In any case, the present results support the idea that policies may be a necessary but not sufficient condition to ensure the sustainability of the process of gender integration in the military. These conclusions should help readdress a number of issues discussed throughout the book.
Feminist theories, gender interests, and women’s military participation Against most normative feminist theories, this book underlines the need to situate historically the analysis of gender relations. It contends that gender does not have an epistemological or ontological primacy in explaining social reality (no more than any other category of social analysis). However, it also tries to highlight the fact that the military can be considered a gendered organization, not only because it is structurally patterned through gender lines, because it is male dominated, or because it is ideologically conceived in terms of gender divisions – even if most of these features are present – but mainly because characteristics associated with hegemonic masculinity and femininity (Connell 1987) have some degree of “explanatory power” in the production, allocation, and control over material and symbolic resources. In this sense, this research departs from essentialist perspectives of gender, which tend to conceive women as a group with common interests. These perspectives ignore the social struggles around the definition of interests as precarious products, socially identified and mediated, subject to change and dissolution. Empirical evidence show that women in the military do not act as a group with common interests. In fact, conflict among women regarding both the definition of an ideal professional role and of adequate integration strategies is overwhelming. My research points to the existence of multiple definitions of interests, framed by structural and interactional contexts and constraints. For instance, the “practical” interests of women who seek more rights and use “voice” to assert their claims seem to be at odds with those of women who identify as their interest the preservation of female identity and believe that it may be accomplished by resorting to “accomplice” integration strategies. This does not deny the possibility that some women’s gender interests be identified or that groups are formed on the basis of perceived common goals. As mentioned in Chapter 3, women’s groups have fought, in various instances, for a number of identified interests such as the right to serve in a variety of military functions. However, the dominance of conservative answers to integration dilemmas, the hostility toward “feminist” action, and the conflictive pattern of female interaction suggest that these women do not share a common “strategic” interest in
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subverting dominant patterns of gender inequality in the military, as some feminist theories assume. A nonessentialist and relational view of gender relations also militates against those proposals that try to identify supposedly “objective” women’s interests with regard to military participation. Due to their predominantly normative focus, these perspectives fail to account for the state of play of gender relations in the military. This is the case of some radical feminists’ contention that it is in women’s interests to oppose the military, seen as a basic patriarchical institution. Sharing with Marxist feminists a vision of gender as a global system of domination of women by men (patriarchy), these approaches “demonize” men as a supposedly unitary category responsible for the victimization and oppression of women. By doing so, they fail to acknowledge and explain the variety of women’s experiences in the military (including their willingness to join or not to join the armed forces), the way how local gender regimes may depart from the global pattern, as well as the variety of men’s positions regarding power hierarchies and their potentially divergent “interests” regarding women’s military participation. The same can be said about pacifist and maternal feminism’s equation of women with peace and their consequent dismissal of women’s military participation. Likewise, there seems to be little evidence to support the opposite, but equally essentialist, revolutionary feminist contention that women have a fundamental interest in participating in armed struggle whenever it becomes necessary to fight against unfair social, economic, or political orders. While underlying the importance of policies, namely their relation to formal integration, this research also warns against the linear and simplistic liberal feminist presumption that gender inequalities can be erased by direct political action such as legislation and positive action. In the United States, feminist activists in the military have engaged in an influence-seeking, liberal-like, interest-group type of protest (Katzenstein 1998), fighting for better laws, policies, and education. They have had a significant impact on policy decision, driving military authorities to open up positions to women, change policies on academy admission, keep sexual harassment on the agenda, etc. However, these forms of protest did not have great influence over the transformation of cultural meanings that ensue when these issues are discussed. According to Katzenstein, “the low reliance on discursive politics . . . has detracted from the power of uniformed activists to challenge the authority of the institution” (Katzenstein 1998: 170). Nevertheless, accepting the importance of “discursive politics” should not imply an understanding of gender only (or mainly) in terms of discursive differences or symbolic systems of meaning, as poststructuralist feminists claim. While empirical results suggest that cultural values and norms may have an enormous impact on framing the objective reality of
Conclusion 205 organizational policies, as well as individual behavior and options, these are always situated options framed by context. From the point of view of the interest reasoning, the idea that the definition of interests may relate to a “controlling presence” confronting conditions of choice in the system is not only theoretically more attractive but it also seems to have empirical support. The finding that women’s qualified presence in society has a strong relationship with the level of integration of women in the military (if compared to women’s “simple” presence which does not), suggests that change toward greater gender inclusiveness may be fostered by an increase in women’s controlling presence in the social and political realms, independently of what concrete definitions of gender interests arise.
Military organizational change and women’s motivations Studies on military organizational change and gender diversity have shown that there is a clear relationship between the organizational format of the armed forces and the representation of women. The more the armed forces are based on conscript forces, the lower the presence of women, and vice versa. Besides confirming that finding, this research showed that all-volunteer systems of military service tend to be more gender inclusive than conscript systems. But one question that remains to be discussed is how organizational models affect both the acceptance of women and women’s motivational patterns (to join or leave the military). Despite the fact that there is no direct overlap between army-format and the global “institutional” or “occupational” organizational trends described in the original Moskos model, the institutional orientation has been identified with larger mass armed forces and limited women’s employment, while the occupational trend has been associated with smaller volunteer-based militaries, increased female representation, and greater career opportunities to women. Likewise, the predicted changes in military organizations toward postmodern features imply that greater cultural acceptance of diversity will favor greater formal integration of women (Moskos et al. 2000). Within this framework, looking at the role of women is considered to be a particularly revealing way to understand the trend toward postmodernism. While in the modern period women were typically excluded from service, in the late modern period separate corps were generally abolished, though restrictions persisted and the numbers of women remained small. In the postmodern period, in turn, pressures have grown to incorporate women into all assignments, including combat roles. While recognizing that those states that have made more formal commitments are more likely to carry out integration, the authors also note that “de jure policies do not automatically translate into de facto opportunities, and domestic
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interest groups know they must use both legal and political instruments to ensure that they do” (Moskos et al. 2000: 270). Although the model does not include any prediction regarding individuals’ propensity to enlist in the military, it implicitly assumes that greater acceptance of women (at least in formal terms) may increase the attractiveness of the military activity and thus foster women’s willingness to join. However, empirical evidence is contradictory in this respect. Previous studies have highlighted a paradox: against the predictions of the occupational thesis, women have often adopted institutional motivations to join the armed forces. It has been hypothesized that to the extent that those orientations are diluted at the organization level, women’s commitment will suffer. Likewise, the dilution of these characteristics and values in “modern” or postmodern type of forces may result in a decrease of attractiveness. Additionally, if young women are driven by postmaterialistic values, which are at odds with perceived organizational institutional or occupational orientations, their willingness to join or stay in the armed forces may also be affected. The congruence or distance between perceived organizational values and individual expectations is thus crucial. This problem, which has been largely neglected in studies of organizational change in the military, reveals tensions that are likely to affect not only the future of gender integration, but also global personal management policies in the military.
Social change and the future of WMP Addressing the problem of change with regard to the presence of women in the military is a risky endeavor. Three decades is a short period in terms of institutional time. If general conclusions, such as those proposed here, must always be interpreted with caution, this is even more so when it comes to drawing possible scenarios and trends. The conclusions of this research entail a somewhat pessimistic view regarding whether greater gender inclusiveness in the military will contribute to change or “shake” the gender regime of the armed forces. To be sure, once normative perspectives are put aside, empirical results do not allow for optimism. Above all, there is evidence that women are still tokens in the military and are likely to remain so in the near future. Besides minority status, gender “inappropriateness” in a profession that is normatively defined as masculine still accounts for women’s lack of organizational power and influence. But most of the problems military women have to face – performance pressures, blocked mobility, social isolation, or sexual harassment – result from tensions that are not revocable “by decree” and that exist also beyond the military context. Two main aspects are worth underlining: first, the persistence of a shared cognitive model that supports gender asymmetries; second, the disproportionate share of work and family responsibilities between men and women.
Conclusion 207 With regard to the former, a puzzling conclusion of most studies on gender relations is the durability of the asymmetry of representations of maleness and femaleness (Amâncio 1992, 1994), which remains relatively untouched by objective changes in men’s and women’s activities. Although rationales to explain gender differences may vary, this cognitive model – in which stereotypical male characteristics are associated with the abstract, universal notion of individuality while female stereotypical traits are “particularized” and identified within the private space of family and emotions – is still prevalent. Additionally, research has shown that men and women generally share the normative assumptions of the model and reproduce them in their behavior. Therefore, the reproduction of practices that institutionalize gender inequalities, despite possible strong pressures for change, can be partially explained by the fact that most women share with men the dominant and asymmetric cultural model of gender relations. A similar process has been identified in the military. Women’s military activities have changed during the past decades, as they have been formally integrated in military structures in unprecedented ways. The index of gender inclusiveness shows that, despite the observed heterogeneity, some countries have reached high levels of integration. However, even in such cases – for example, the Netherlands – cultural resistance to women’s presence is among the factors that are pushing women away from the military. Besides, the way in which men and women officers make sense of the difficulties of gender integration, as well as women’s conservative responses to integration dilemmas, help sustain the idea that it is the ubiquitous existence of that asymmetric cognitive model that prevents structured conflict to emerge. With regard to the latter aspect, the conciliation of work and family, this research has confirmed previous findings that relate patterns of women’s presence in the labor market and problems in women’s career advancement to their options regarding conciliation between family and work. General research has shown that despite change toward greater equality between men and women in the share of domestic responsibilities, the latter still undertake a disproportionate amount of both housework and childcare. Women who choose or are constrained to combine both roles do often face “structural ambiguity”: the choices in one sphere depend on the opportunities, incentives, and obstacles posed in the other. Interview data in this research has provided information to evaluate how this factor – the conciliation between two “greedy” institutions – may condition military women’s career advancement. While Dutch and Portuguese female officers have reached a very similar objective situation in terms of their share of organizational power (i.e. similar hierarchical representation), differences in attitudes and values are striking. This seems to happen not only because the perceived opportunity structure is different – situation in the external labor market; characteristics and requirements of military
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missions – but also because women’s values regarding both the meaning of the military profession and family, differ considerably. More institutionally motivated and committed to the ideal of career development, Portuguese women tend to subordinate family to work; the Dutch, on the contrary, more driven by a postmodern conception of the military profession and clearly more receptive to the general ideology of maternity dominant in society at large, tend to adopt the opposite attitude. Still, in both cases, the potential role conflict is acknowledged and women officers seem to accept that, if they choose to pursue a career, they may have to adapt to lower professional expectations or otherwise decrease their career investment. Considering that other works have also shown that marriage and maternity affect military women’s propensity to reenlist and condition their professional ambitions, we may expect this pattern to be reproduced in the future. Even in the case of Portuguese women, the contradiction between, on the one hand, the symbolic orientation toward career development and gender equality and, on the other, the reality of female subordination in the domestic sphere, raises skepticism as to whether value orientations toward modernity will be followed by congruent modern practices. The idea that policies may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for integration – i.e. that their impact, while positive on formal integration, may not always be so on social integration – suggests that conditions for change do not depend strictly on formal organizational policies. Greater inclusiveness in WMP will probably depend on change regarding women’s controlling presence in society, its impact on cultural conceptions of gender relations, and on a more balanced distribution of domestic and paid work between the sexes. This conclusion may sound disappointing as far as the possibility of eliminating obstacles to gender integration in the military is concerned. It certainly is if one shares the view that “the perception that women’s subordination persists despite profound changes in their economic and political activities suggests that status does not depend on reaching a fixed position in the social order” (Higonnet et al. 1987: 2). However, there is no reason to believe that equality will be achieved or perceptions will be changed in the absence of formal equality and fair representation. If reaching objective positions in the social structure does not guarantee equality (i.e. is not a sufficient condition for), not reaching them will certainly ensure the reproduction of inequality.
Notes
1 Women in the military: a global overview 1 In one of the most encompassing inquires on the nature of this distinction, Elshtain has convincingly demonstrated how the stereotypes of “just warriors” and “beautiful souls” are undermined by the reality of female bellicosity and sacrificial male love (Elshtain 1995). 2 Because of these multiple and often contradictory interpretations, figures such as Boadicea and the amazons “raise rather pessimistic questions for the enterprise of finding historical or mythological embodiments for feminist ideals” (Macdonald 1987: 6). 3 This blindness of historians to women’s military roles is also explained by the prescriptive character of most military history, which “remains a history of battles” (Hacker 1981: 645). As Macdonald puts it: “Much of written history is the record of warfare – of conquest and revolution, of battles fought and treaties signed, of military and political tactics, of great leaders, and of heroes and enemies. In this history, women rarely figure” (Macdonald 1987: 1). 4 This is an important element to understand the exclusion of women from military specialties in the Bundeswher until 2000. 5 It has been noted that the number of women has always been higher (and also more accepted) in the less institutionalized military formations, more in resistance than in regular armies (Iskra et al. 2002). 6 Women’s participation in the revolutionary movement (the civil war of 1918–20 and in the occupied USSR during the Second World War) has become a model for similar insurgent movements, particularly in the third world (Griesse and Stites 1982: 7). 7 In the antifascist resistance, the Partigiani, there was a female corps composed of 35,000 women, recognized as combatants (Bravo 1997; Spini and Ismani 1997: 131). But, here again, there was much resistance to giving women combat jobs; among those who fought very few became political commissioners. Besides, there was no such requirement on the part of women. According to Bravo, “the problem of the division of work shows the coexistence of egalitarian will and old prejudices in the way how the resistance world conceived women’s relation to politics” (Bravo 1997: 121). 8 Joan Scott notes that women’s contribution to the war effort (their “good behavior”) was often used by politicians as the reason to enfranchise women, a far better justification in their eyes than appearing to give in to the militant tactics of the suffragists (Scott 1987: 24). 9 Various aspects have been highlighted to justify this perspective: the temporary nature of the industries involved, the fact that women were hired in certain sectors that were temporarily reclassified as appropriate for women,
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18 19 20
Notes
and the fact that they were barred from highly skilled and supervisory positions and given incomplete training (Higonnet and Higonnet 1987: 35). The challenge this meant to the military establishment is well illustrated by a famous statement of John W. Vessey Jr, a former US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, who said, “the influx of women has brought greater change to the U.S. military than the introduction of nuclear weapons” (Carroll and Hall 1993: 19). Cf. Chapter 5. Medium threat is defined as “the situation in which the society is not threatened with imminent extinction or invasion by superior military forces, but there is a moderate to high probability of military action on its soil in the near future” (Segal 1995: 762). It should however be noted that Segal is fully aware of this problem and suggests that the various possible combinations of variable values be tested on many cases both historical and contemporary. Cf. Chapter 2. Cf. Chapter 3. While the importance of analytically distinguishing both levels – strictly numerical/quantitative aspects and more qualitative dimensions of participation – will also guide the selection/utilization of independent variables (e.g. simple indicators such as “percentage of women in the workforce” versus more complex measures of gender equality), it will specifically be taken into account to define dimensions of women’s participation in the military, that is, to conceptualize the dependent variable. Cf. Chapter 5. One of her statements, in particular, provides additional support for this supposition: “In general, it appears that demands for military personnel seem to be the single most important factor in women’s military involvement, with cultural values supporting gender equality also contributing to women’s sustained inclusion when the nation is not threatened” (Segal 1995: 760). Cf. Chapter 4. Cf. Chapter 4 for the definition of institutional/occupational trends in the armed forces (Moskos 1977; Moskos and Wood 1988). The database refers to year 2000. The survey was conducted with the support of the Committee on Women in the NATO Forces.
2 Gender relations, gendered organizations, and the military 1 This helps to explain the exaggeration of gender differences to be discussed further ahead. Cf. also Gherardi 1994. 2 Here, the concept of hegemony is used in a Gramscian sense, meaning “social ascendancy achieved in a play of social forces that extends beyond contests of brute power, into the organization of private life and cultural processes” (Connell 1987: 184). 3 Another example of this type of dynamic is the two-token situation, where dominants may develop strategies (like setting up invidious comparisons or treating two women as an automatic pair) that undermine solidarity between two women, defeat possible alliances, and foster distance and competitiveness. Structural circumstances like pressures from the dominant group may thus result in what otherwise could be seen as prejudicial response of women to each other (Kanter 1977: 237–8). 4 Kanter refers briefly to the articulation and interaction effects between the various factors but does not elaborate on this argument. 5 One should nevertheless recognize that many of the subsequent criticisms focus on and isolate one element of Kanter’s model, relative numbers, leaving
Notes 211
6
7
8
9 10
11 12
13
14 15
16
17
untested how this variable associates with the other two: opportunity structure and power. The process of gender typing of occupations entails both a normative definition of what is considered appropriate work for men and women, evoking negative consequences for deviant behavior, as well as a numerical dimension, operationally defined by the ratio of women to men workers (in the occupation as a whole or in the immediate work groups) (Yoder 1991: 182). Of course, one must acknowledge that the “invention” of an exclusive language, rich in acronyms, jargon, and metaphors, fulfills a variety of functions which are not only related to gender. Madeleine Morris has stressed the way the language of military culture allows soldiers and sailors to comply with authority and safely ridicule superiors, complain about tasks, or distinguish themselves from outsiders (Morris 1999: 57). Nevertheless, this process may not be simple if dominant members feel overly pressured by institutional policies: “In this case, blatant anti-token expressions may fade only to be replaced by more subtle, covert forms of discrimination and hostility” (Yoder et al. 1983: 334). As defined by Blalock: the degree to which the presence of minorities is seen as threatening by the dominants (Blalock 1970). By work organization the author means everything from the kind of machines designed to do the work, and how much strength they require to operate, or how far one is expected to be able to reach to use them, to the number of hours a day or week people are expected to work, to the structure of the work day, and to career tracks that do not have ways to incorporate childbearing. The United States seems to be an exception since it has a high degree of gender integration but excludes homosexuals. Synthetically, this meant that military members could no longer be asked about their sexual orientation (don’t ask), people should keep their orientation to themselves (don’t tell), and private lives should not be investigated by commanders (don’t pursue). It is also curious and simultaneously ironic that the battle for homosexuals’ rights emerged in a conservative institution like the military before it did in other civilian settings. As noted by Margaret Cruickshank, “to the dismay of some gay and lesbian activists, the military issue has turned out to be a major battleground for gay rights in the early 1990s” (Cruickshank 1994: 15). Initially the term referred to relationships between men of different ranks. After women joined the forces, the meaning of the concept has been broadened to include male–female relationships. As reported by Treadwell, already in 1940 the existence of breast pockets in military uniforms created a vexing situation for the military. On the one hand designing different uniforms would contradict military uniformity; on the other hand, the breast pocket might draw attention to women’s busts. After heavy debate it was decided that women’s uniforms would not have breast pockets (Treadwell 1954). A story reported by Barkalow and Raab is a good example: at the rock and roll dance at West Point in 1976, the year women were admitted for the first time, the school’s administration “were reportedly perturbed by the sight of mirrorimage couples dancing in short hair and dress gray trousers” and a rule was established that women cadets could dance at the events only if they wear skirts (Barkalow and Raab 1990: 53). Hillman also notes that the absence of women in the decision-making process about clothing and regulations governing appearance has had ludicrous consequences as in the case of the Air Force Academy’s quest to find a singlesize bra that it could issue to all entering women (Hillman 1999: 77). In a study
212
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of the first women to join the Portuguese armed forces, similar situations were found as, for instance, the building of some dozen bidets aligned inside an open space on the women’s sanitary premises (Carreiras 1997a). 18 Collective sexual assault by servicemen on their women colleagues during a US. Navy convention in Las Vegas in 1991. 3 Social and political dilemmas of women’s military service 1 The opportunity for career improvement is thus limited even if we admit that for most women working part-time means that they can be more relaxed about job change, job reduction, or even job loss than their husbands (Crouch 1999). 2 The author argues that structural ambivalence is a defining feature of women’s position in modern societies and regards a social state in which a person faces contradictory normative expectations of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. 3 It should, however, be noted that despite these problems, dual-career couples might actually benefit the institution if compared with couples where one member is a civilian. As sustained by Segal, it may be easier to coordinate assignments within the institution than to consider civilian employment opportunities. Besides, these couples are likely to be more committed to military life and able to understand better each other’s job requirements (Segal 1988: 91). 4 This is, of course, not to mention the diversity of labels that have emerged to qualify specific feminist perspectives. A description provided by Caroll and Hall is impressive: “African-American or black feminism, third world or ‘women of color’ feminism, womanism, Jewish feminism, ecofeminism, anarchofeminism, cultural feminism, spiritualist feminism, lesbian feminism, pacifist feminism, postmodern feminism and conservative feminism” (Carroll and Hall 1993: 12). 5 Some even believe that the “anticipated victory of movements to end gender bias in the militaries of a number of states (. . .) should have a major impact on world politics” (Murphy 1996: 521). 6 The case of Switzerland is particularly striking: when women gained the right to vote in 1971 this was associated with the decline in the citizen–soldier ideal (cf. Pateman 1988: 211). 7 Curiously, the same happened with some pacifist groups on the basis of the argument that even a moral decision to give up guns depends on the ability and freedom to use them. 8 Interestingly, a similar assumption is also at the base of other proposals that assume that women’s presence in the armed forces could generate a structural transformation, not as a consequence of some distinct peacefulness, but due to their usually subordinate position in society, which supposedly determines less aggressive organizational behavior (Bystydzienski 1993).
4 The military institution and social change 1 Bilgin, Booth, and Jones stress the fact that different scholars had already underlined the multidimensional nature of the concept, noting that a reductionist approach to security had earlier critics from within the realist ranks (Bilgin et al. 1998). 2 This is evident in the current debates on the position of women and homosexual personnel in the services. 3 Countries with conscription systems were Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Notes 213
4
5
6
7 8
9 10
11
12
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. For structural comparison other countries with all-volunteer forces were also analyzed: Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States. “The military was undergoing a strange sort of crisis: not the noisy turbulence of the latter years of the Vietnam War, but a quiet malaise, a sense that the recruits were being bought at the margin of the labor market, that officers were driven by careerism, and that reasons for military service had become obscured. The heart of the matter, it seems, was a paralysis in the definition of the essence of the military organization” (Moskos and Wood 1988: 3). Nevertheless, the signalled conceptual problems have given rise to an extensive literature aimed at clarifying the concept of military profession and at evaluating the applicability of the I/O model and its revised versions. This is the case of various proposals that explicitly focus on the notion of the military as a profession. A good overview of different models can be found in the special issue of Current Sociology on the military profession in Europe (Current Sociology 1994). The issue includes an extended bibliography on the topic. The way in which the term postmodern is used in this proposal has very little to do with general academic conceptions of postmodernism. The authors recognize that there is probably only one area of overlap: the predictions of cultural relativism and a breakdown of traditional lines of demarcation between civil society and military. They note that “the framework for analysis (. . .) is not postmodern at all” and even that the editors and chapter authors of the book “are quite orthodox positivists”(!) (Moskos et al. 2000). In this sense, there is a conceptual stretching which may cause more confusion than clarification of the described tendency. One of the most devastating critiques of gender-integration efforts in the American military was Stephanie Gutman’s book The kinder, Gentler Military: Can America’s Gender-Neutral Fighting Force Still Win Wars? (2000). Important contributions for this debate during the last three decades, including complete and extensive revisions of the contrasting arguments, are Binkin and Bach 1977, Goldman 1982, Marlowe 1983, and Segal 1983 and among the most recent, Simon 2001. Interestingly, the author also notes that such concerns are rarely voiced with regard to differential standards by age (Segal 1999: 576). However, contrary to what happens regarding women, a gay’s capacity to serve is rarely seriously questioned. As pointed by Cohn, in this case the threat to military effectiveness is seen to come mainly from the difficulty in maintaining unit cohesion and morale among heterosexual soldiers, should openly gay soldiers be allowed to serve (Cohn 1999). Arguments have been encompassing, from the fear that sexual harassment or fraternization will undermine unit cohesion; that straight men will not take orders from gay officers, because they do not respect gay men; that straight men’s discomfort with openly gay men will lead them to commit acts of violence against men in their own units; or simply that the male bonding upon which unit cohesion depends will be impossible with gay men present. Connell has sustained this idea, noting that “no average physical or psychological difference between the sexes has the slightest bearing on the efficiency of production in an age of numerically controlled machine tools, automatic data-processing and mechanized agriculture. Thus there is no sacrifice in the total abolition of the sexual division of labor” (Connell 1987: 280). Concretely in the United Kingdom this position is consistent with a continued exclusion of women from submarines and other classes of vessels in the Royal Navy.
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5 Gender integration in the armed forces: a cross-national comparison of policies and practices in the NATO countries 1 This Committee, a structure within the Military Committee of NATO, was created in 1973 and existed on an ad hoc basis until July 1976 when it was formally recognized. A support office was created in 1997 and given permanent status on the international military staff at NATO headquarters at the end of 2000. 2 Some reviews of the situation of women in the armed forces of the NATO countries have been done in the past (Klick 1978; Stanley and Segal 1988). After more than one decade some major changes have occurred concerning women’s military roles and a new and more complete assessment is needed. 3 The survey was conducted in seventeen of the existing nineteen NATO nations in the year 2000. Iceland and Italy were not included in the sample, the former because it does not have armed forces and the latter because it started female recruitment that same year. In fact, women had not yet been incorporated in the Italian Armed Forces at the moment when the organizational survey was conducted. This is why I decided not to include the case of Italy in the analysis, especially when dealing with statistical data. Nevertheless, I try to mention it in terms of initial policy definition regarding recruitment or education of future women soldiers. 4 In Germany, the year 2000 signaled a major change in policies regarding military women. Following a European court decision (Court sentence of January 11, 2000, Tanja Kreil, Case C285/98), all existing occupational restrictions were lifted. Since this happened after the data-collection phase of this research, and from the point of view of the representation of women did not cause immediate changes, I preferred to consider the German situation prior to legal change. 5 This raises the problem of perceptions of inequity, since male conscript soldiers frequently take the favorable conditions under which women accomplish conscript service as an unfair advantage. 6 Harrell and Miller note, for instance, that “a common scenario is the commander who refuses to choose a driver or aide of the opposite sex because of the fear of potential rumors or sexual harassment charges” (Harrell and Miller 1997: 30). 7 In fact, this refers to the previously existing male tests. 8 Law of December 19 1986, modifying criteria for physical tests. 9 A study conducted by the British Army has shown that, controlling for maternity and pregnancy related illnesses, the most frequent reasons for women being downgraded are musculoskeletary problems (CWINF 2000); in Denmark similar problems have been reported. 10 Data on this variable have been particularly difficult to obtain. Many countries do not have systematized information on the functions that women occupy and thus national delegates have failed to provide it in the survey. Methodological problems related to the complex issue of classifying occupations also exist that harm the accuracy of comparisons. Nevertheless, after multiple attempts to obtain this information through additional personal contacts and by using multiple sources, it has been possible to collect data regarding thirteen of the seventeen NATO nations that employed women in their forces in 2000. There was no data available for France, Poland, and Turkey. Germany is not included because available percentages refer exclusively to the medical service. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to obtain information regarding percentage of women within the various occupational areas.
Notes 215 11 For example, referring to the US case, Harrell and Miller mention that “although drill sergeant is a position completely open to women and is coded to reflect a gender neutral assignment policy, the position is often coded to be filled by someone with an infantry skill coding, which is closed to women” (Harrell and Miller 1997: 30). 12 Until 2000 no woman had served as fighter pilot, para-ranger, or marine commando. According to official sources, “This is only due to the fact that no women have been able to meet the standards” (CWINF 2000). In Belgium the absence of women from some areas has been interpreted as the result of limited number of jobs and/or to women’s preferences (CWINF 2000). 13 In Portugal the remaining limitations in Army combat arms were eliminated in 1996 while Spain opened up all functions in 2000. 14 “Of primary concern was the possibility that women might, unknowingly, expose their unborn child to levels of contamination, routinely found in the atmosphere of our submarines, above those considered safe and the substantial medical risks to an unborn child associated with the very high pressures to which divers are subjected” (CWINF 1999). 15 The European Court of Justice has given its ruling in the case of Mrs Sirdar, a former Army Chief, who challenged the services’ policy on the exclusion of women from certain posts on the grounds of combat effectiveness. Her application to transfer to the Royal Marines was rejected on the grounds of women’s exclusion from the Royal Marines because their presence could be a detriment to combat effectiveness. 16 Due to assignment policies, several positions remained closed, such as infantry, armor, certain artillery posts, Special Operations Forces (SOF), Army aviation, combat engineers, air force SOF rotary pilots, combat controllers, pararescue, tactical air command and control, antiair warfare, and certain ordnance and assault amphibious vehicle maintenance posts in the Marine Corps. 17 Up to 1999 dating was allowed between officers and enlisted personnel in the Army as long as they were not in the same chain of command. Starting in 2000, the DoD decreed that there would be an absolute ban on dating between officers and enlisted persons. In this regard, the Army would follow the fraternization rules already existing in the other services (Moskos 1999: 21). 18 Country scores and variable weighting are displayed in Table 5A.4. 19 Even if in some cases it could be argued that the actual overregulation of procedures regarding, for instance, sexual harassment does not necessarily facilitate integration and may, instead, have negative collateral effects, it is assumed that the absence of institutional channels and rules to identify and solve those problems does not eliminate them or their damaging consequences for the overall process of gender integration. 20 Here, a note of caution is required. The complexity of processes and variables interacting in the social, economic, and political spheres – which may, under specific conditions, affect gender integration in the military – makes the systematic evaluation of its impact over the military participation of women too ambitious a goal to pursue here. Besides the use of aggregate data at a macroanalytical synchronic level, such an objective would require a certain accumulation of concrete case studies and cross-time analysis, sensitive to both historical specificity and social change in the various countries. The analysis developed here is affected by a strong multi-colinearity problem, that is, the fact that independent variables are related to each other. This is the reason why no multiple regression analysis has been done. Nevertheless, exploring analytic directions that may bring some light to the global dynamics at work appears as a reasonable objective in terms of the necessarily partial contribution this research aims at giving to the global process of knowledge building in this area.
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21 These arguments are often used by senior military officers and policy makers to interpret the asymmetric position of men and women in the armed forces. 22 To classify the strength of the correlation, I follow Bryman and Cramer (1992), who adopted the following criteria: below .19 – very low; between .20 and .30 – low; between .40 and .69 – moderate; between .70 and .89 – high; and between .90 and 1 – very high. 23 It is important to note that, in spite of an official start in 1972, real perspectives for the amplification of women’s roles only happened 10 years later, in 1982, with the publication of the document Thirty Measures for Military Women. This may, at least partially, explain the anomalous position of France in the plot. 24 GDI is a composite index measuring average achievement in the three basic dimensions captured in the Human Development Index – a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living – adjusted to account for inequalities between men and women. It includes the following indicators: “life expectancy at birth,” “adult literacy rate,” “combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrolment rate,” and “estimated earned income” (cf. UNDP 2001: 242–3). It varies between 0 and 1. 25 GEM is a combined index measuring gender inequality in three basic dimensions of empowerment – economic participation and decision making, political participation and decision making, and power over economic resources. It includes the following indicators: “seats in parliament held by women,” “female legislators, senior officials, and managers,” “female professional and technical workers,” and “ratio of estimated female to male earned income” (cf. UNDP 2001: 244–5). It varies between 0 and 1. 26 This does not rule out the hypothesis that there may be a relation between this economic determinant and changes through time concerning the extent to which a country’s armed forces have used female labor force, but this is a hypothesis to be tested against time-series data. 27 For this indicator I have used data for 1999 from the United Nations Development Report (UNDP 2001). 28 As defined in Chapter 3 following Jonasdottir (1990). 6 Portugal and the Netherlands: military and social contexts 1 Portuguese military observers have integrated various UN missions, but in a very limited way: UNOGIL in Lebanon in 1958, Namibia in 1989, ONOMUZ in Mozambique, UNAVEM II, UNAVEM III, and MONUA in Angola. 2 Eventually, this led later to the withdrawal of Portuguese soldiers stationed in the Kosovo region in order to ensure Portuguese military presence in East Timor. 3 Conscription is not explicitly ruled out. Formally it has been suspended, not abolished. Conscripts constitute the bulk of the reserve force but they will be called to duty only in extraordinary circumstances (Van der Meulen 2000: 106). 4 In 1998, the Dutch armed forces succeeded in reemploying almost all departing short-contract personnel (Dekker 1998: 11). 5 Applicants leaving in the period between the conclusion of the selection procedure and the actual call-up. 6 Information analyzed in this section was obtained from bureaucratic sources and interviews with policy makers in each country (cf. Table 7A.1 – List of interviewees). 7 The MARVA was established in 1944 in view of a predictable men shortage during the so-called liberation of the Dutch Indies. Women were recruited with the slogan “Free a man for the fleet.” In 1948 the corps strength was of about
Notes 217
8 9 10 11 12 13
14
700 women, employed in the administrative section, as cooks, tailors, and drivers (Bolscher and Megens 1991: 180). A dozen nurses had already participated in the Portuguese expeditionary corps during the First World War, but that was a very exceptional situation. The exact numbers were the following: 1,204 for the army, 662 for the navy, and 1,557 for the air force. Apart from some short prospective essays written by officers in the framework of promotion courses in military institutes, there was only one sociological study at this time: Carrilho 1990. This measure is not meant to be used instead of subcontracting to civilian firms but merely to give military men and women the same opportunities which are available in civilian life. Interview with Colonel Leijh (The Hague, Ministry of Defence, June 14, 2000). There was a female lieutenant colonel in the past within the group of parachutist nurses recruited during the colonial war, but she left active duty in the early 1990s. In 2002, some women were following specific courses to become major. The survey included Belgium, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. In Portugal it was coordinated by the “Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento.”
7 Interpersonal dynamics of gender integration: the case of the officer corps 1 This result is not surprising. Previous studies have already revealed this strong institutional pattern among Portuguese women soldiers (Carreiras 1997a). 2 A number of factors indicate, however, that this result should be carefully evaluated: the limited number of interviews, which does not allow for generalization; possible linguistic or interviewer effects; and, above all, the existence of some bias regarding the occupational fields of the interviewees since more Portuguese than Dutch come from operational areas.
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Index
Note: Page numbers in italics indicate figures and tables. abduction 43–4 Abzug, B. 67 accomplice, woman as 182; integration strategies 203 Acker, J. 20, 30, 31 Adams, J. 37, 47 adultery 52 African Americans, attempt to exclude from armed forces 52 air power, development of 15 Albercht-Heide, A. 70 Algeria, women during colonial struggle in 64 Almeida, A. N. 162–3 Alpern, S. B. 6 alternative forms of military service 83 Amâncio, L. 27, 28, 207 amazons 5, 209 n.2; as metaphor for unmarried Athenian women 6 America/American: corporation (Indsco), case study of 32; enlisted women, study of 37; Rosie the Riveter 10 Ammendola, T. 72 Amrane, D. 9 Angola: Dutch colonial wars in 138, 140; MONUA in 216 n.1 antagonism 179 anti-democratic regimes 73 archetypes/archetypal: of femininity 43, 169; of masculinity 43, 44, 45, 179 Ardener, S. 46 Arkin, W. 41, 42, 43, 45, 46 armed forces: and masculinity 41; in the three eras 83; type of demands made on service members 58
army, mass: character of force 121; decline of 74, 75–7 assertiveness 181 assignment policies: arbitrary decision making 199; combat 89, 146; dual-service couples 59; neutral 215 n.11; occupational, conservative and discriminatory 106; positions remaining closed 215 n.16; women to support roles 88 assimilation 35, 180, 182 Association of Nicaraguan Women Confronting the Nation’s Problems (AMPRONAC) 63 Australia 16; all-volunteer forces 213 n.3 Austria, conscription systems 212 n.3 authority, control, and coercion 26 Bach, S. 8, 59, 84, 87, 91, 95, 213 n.8 balanced groups 34 Bananas, Beaches, and Bases 66 Barkalow, C. 47, 211 n.16 barracks: environment 91; and latrines, separate 52 Battistelli, F. xvii, 20, 43, 44, 82, 83, 182, 197 Beccalli, B. 40 Belgium/Belgian 75, 98, 101, 215 n.12, 217 n.14; confidential counselors 113; conscription systems 212 n.3; Economic Recovery Act, 1984 101; enlisted women in officer’s categories 111; female recruitment 118; lifting restrictions 107; maximum quotas eliminated 102; physical evaluation 104, 105; regulations in field of sexual
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Belgium/Belgian (Continued) harassment 113; scores in terms of gender inclusiveness 122; women’s preferences 107 Benecke, M. M. 50, 51 Beverly, A. 44 Bilgin, P. 212 n.1 Binkin, M. 8, 59, 84, 87, 91, 95, 213 n.8 biology and social behavior, link between 41 Bird, S. 38 Blalock, H. 20, 211 n.9; hypothesis, intrusiveness 39; minority-sizeinequality hypothesis 38 Bloom, A. R. 9 Boadicea 6, 209 n.2 Bochkareva, M. 8 body, sexuality, and sexual orientation in military culture 50; see also sexuality Boëne, B. 77 Bolscher, A. 148, 149, 151, 152, 216 n.7 Booth, B. 115 Booth, K. 212 n.1 Bosch, J. 149, 152, 153, 157 boundary heightening 34 Bravo, A. 9, 209 n.7 Britain see United Kingdom Britton, D. 20, 31 Brownmiller, S. 12, 43, 44 Bryman, A. 216 n.21 buddy system 42 Bunster, X. 9 Burk, J. 77 Buzan, B. 73; study, People, States and Fear 73 Bystydzienski, J. M. 212 n.7 Cambodia 138 Campbell, D’A. 8, 10 Canada: all-volunteer forces 213 n.3; female soldiers 8, 98; gender occupational policies 108; Human Rights Tribunal 109; physical evaluation 104, 105; promotional campaigns to attract or retain female soldiers 104; recruiting women 103, 117; regulations in field of sexual harassment 113; score in terms of gender inclusiveness 122; “spillover” from civilian social policy to armed forces 112; women in support roles 117; women officers 111
Carreiras, H. 49, 140, 148, 150, 154, 211 n.17, 217 n.1; Portuguese military women 85 Carrilho, M. xiv, 139, 140, 147, 148, 217 n.10 Carroll, B. 62, 209 n.9, 212 n.4 cathexis 25, 26, 30, 40 Centro de Investigaça– e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES) research centre xiv Chafe, W. 10 Chafetz, J. S. 56 Chantal, N. 39 Chapkis, W. 66, 67 childbirth 161 childcare 55, 56, 58, 153, 167, 207 China, women during colonial struggle 64 citizenship: and democratic society, role of military in 88; and military efficiency, opposition between 87; need to reconsider traditional notions of 71 civilian/s: infrastructures 15; personnel, use of 83; roles 13 civilianization 78, 80; major trend in Dutch armed forces 137 civil society, equal rights discourse 87 Clance, P. R. 35 Clin, M.-V. 6 Clinton, attempt to lift ban on homosexuals in military 50, 51 coal miners 37 cohesion: of all-male groups, disruptive effects in 92; and morale of military units 89; and performance, causal relationship between 92; two components of 93 Cohn, C. 40, 42, 45, 49, 51, 52, 90, 213 n.10 Cold War period 73 Collinson, D. L. 30 colonial wars 137; transformation of Portuguese armed forces 141 combat assignments, female involvement in 88, 89 Committee on Women in the NATO Forces (CWINF) 97, 209 n.20; Annual reports of 100, 101, 106; organizational survey 99 conformists 179; women 182 Congress, women in 67 Connell, R. W. 20, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 45, 180, 203, 209 n.2, 213 n.11
Index 251 conscript/conscription 76; culture, excesses of 153; ending 77; erosion of fundamentals of 75; ratio 121; recruitment systems 102; systems, countries with 212 n.3; of women 102 controlling presence 205 Corbett, G. J. 51 Coser, L. 57 countries: all-volunteer forces 213 n.3; proactive orientation in discrimination and sexual harassment 113; rankings, gender-related development index and gender inclusiveness in military 124 Cramer, D. 216 n.21 Crimean War 7 “crisis tendencies” in gender order 29–30 Crouch, C. 55, 56, 212 n.1 Cruickshank, M. 211 n.13 Cuba, women during colonial struggle in 64 culture/cultural 13, 15, 21; acceptance of diversity 205; conceptions of gender or women’s social status 197; constraints and officers’ responses to gender integration 169–89; entrenched stereotypes, limits of formal policies in redressing 202; resistance to women’s presence in nontraditional functions 49, 59; support to traditional divisions of labor 16; values about masculinity and femininity 31, 191; warfare 52 Current Sociology on military profession in Europe 213 n.5 Czech Republic 101, 102; female recruitment 118; legal occupational restrictions, non-imposition of 108; rank restrictions 110; study in 107; women concentrated in logistics field 108; women not admitted in enlisted categories 112; women officers 111; women soldiers 98, 99; women’s preferences 107 Dahomey, women warriors 6 D’Amico, F. 50, 51 Dandeker, C. 72, 73, 74, 75 Davies, M. W. 30
“defeminization” of women marines 53 Dekker, A. E. 143, 144, 216 n.4 de Léon, P. 63 della Porta, D. xiv democratization of gender relations in society 200 Den Helder 149 Denmark/Danish 214 n.9; conscription systems 212 n.3; conscript model 101; enlisted women in officer’s categories 111; female soldiers 98; lifting restrictions 107; physical evaluation 104, 105; promotional campaigns to attract or retain female soldiers 104; recruiting women 117; regulations in field of sexual harassment 113; servicewomen, serving in almost all operational specializations 107; “spill-over” from civilian social policy to armed forces 112 deterrence 74; logic of 73 Devilbiss, M. C. 49, 92 differential evaluation 175–7 disaffection 179 discrimination 174; against women, gays, or lesbians 93–4 Dobrofski, L. R. 41, 42, 43, 45, 46 domestic and sexual asymmetries 26 Dowling, C. 35 Dransart, P. 6 dress codes 53 Dubois, P. 6 Dunivin, K. O. 47, 48 Dunn, J. 2 Dutch: airmobile brigade 138; and allied territory, protection of integrity of 138; armed forces 216 n.4; conscription 216 n.3; couples, division of family commitments 164; defense policy definition 139; female officers, share of organizational power 207; male officers, attachment to family 169; male soldiers’ reaction to WMP, typology of 183; maternalistic ideology 190; postmodern reasons, stress on 190; professionalization of the military 138; resistance to forms of institutionalized childcare 164; societies in terms of women’s social participation 4; women 162; Women’s Corps (VHK) 148;
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Dutch (Continued) working woman, not globally favorable to image of 164; see also Netherlands; Portugal and the Netherlands Eastern European countries 102 East–West tension 70 economy 23, 24, 65, 144; domestic life and 29, 30; state of contraction or expression of 14 Edgerton, R. B. 6 educational levels, women and increase in 84 effectiveness, criteria used to measure 95 Elfin, M. 56 Ellis, G. 56 Elshtain, J. B. 5, 71, 197, 208 n.1; critique of association between women and peace 71 emotionality 89 emphasized femininity 181, 182 encapsulation 171 England 8, 10, 39 Enloe, C. 66, 67 environmental degradation 73 equal opportunities for men and women in Europe 163 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) 67 Eurobarometer report 163 European Court of Justice 99, 215 n.15; decision, Tanja Kreil, Case C285/98 214 n.4; on EC Equal Treatment Directive 108 European network for the division of unpaid and paid work between women and men 163 European Research Group on Military and Society (ERGOMAS) xv “European Study Group” on attitudes to family issues and women’s role in society 162 European University Institute (EUI) xiii, xiv Eurostat data 161, 163; proportion of employed women 160 Fagan, C. 162 Fairhurst, G. 38 family: policy 24; responsibilities 167; structure 13, 14; and work, conciliation of 55, 56, 112, 115, 153, 162–4, 168, 190, 199, 207
Feld, M. D. 89 female conscription 8; and citizenship concerns, associations of 102 female employment 56; and attitude toward gender roles, study 164; rates in Europe 161 female involvement in military operations: in First and Second World Wars 8, 118; historical heritages, time effects, and relative numbers 117; studies on 11 female participation: in labor market 13; in paid work 164; in Western industrialized democracies 22 female stereotypical traits 207 femininity: association with peace 71; collective significance 28; conception of masculinity and 22, 27, 67, 191, 203; emphasized 28, 180, 181, 182; of female recruits, maintaining 53; in gendered organizations 31; in symbolic matrix 42; tests 53; in typology of military woman’s integration strategies 178 feminist movement: antimilitarist 66; Marxist 204; revolutionary, defense of “right to fight” 197, 204; theories on women and use of military force 62, 197, 203–5; three branches of 62 “feminization” of military 54 Fenner, L. 88, 89 Finland, conscription system 212 n.3 Firestone, J. M. 54 First World War 9, 10, 117 Floge, L. 37 France/french 10, 75, 101, 214 n.10, 217 n.14; conscription systems 212 n.3; female soldiers 8, 98; gender inclusiveness score 120; maternity 58; maximum quotas, elimination 102; recruiting women 117; resistance movements 9; Revolution, feminist supporters of 63; women in national service 101 Fraser, A. 6 fraternization 52 Gabriel, R. 91 gays and lesbians: ban of 51, 53; debate over presence of 50; see also homosexuality GDP per capita 124 gender: associated belief systems 27; defining, institution 40; differences
Index 253 on management of “legitimate violence” 71; differences, reasserting 49; diversity, studies on military organizational change and 205; equity monitoring 24; global theory of 2; granting, institution 40; harassment, “second generation” 54; inappropriateness 34, 39, 206; inclusiveness 119; incorporation patterns, explaining 117–26; integrated units 96; integration in armed forces, cross-national comparison 97; interest, and women’s military participation 203–5; neutrality 30, 39, 68; numerical unbalance 171; order and gender regimes 26–9; organization 25, 31; physical requirements and evaluation 90, 104, 105; politics 29, 60; regime in military 23, 50; relations in organizations 30–40; relations, three fundamental structures in 25; segregation rule 55; skewedness 46; structured hierarchies 26; typing process of 39, 211 n.6 Gender and Power 25 Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) 200, 216 n.25 Gender-related Development Index (GDI) 124, 127, 216 n.24; see also UNDP genocide 73 Germany 8, 10, 107, 108, 118, 214 nn.4, 10, 217 n.14; conscription systems 212 n.3; constitutional restriction on use of guns by women 99; family programs, absence of specific 112; female soldiers 8, 98; feminization of medical service in 100; gender inclusiveness score 120; “maternalistic” orientation 164; women in support roles 117 Gerson, K. 56, 57, 168; study women’s decisions on work, career, and motherhood 56 Gherardi, S. 5, 209 n.1 “glass” ceilings 102 global trends: domestic asymmetry and power 26; family matters 112; military mission reorientation 74; societal analytical dimension 82–4; sociological 2; women’s social and political participation, factors 12–23
Goldman, N. L. 8, 64, 213 n.8 Great Britain see United Kingdom Greece 101, 102, 107; ceilings on women’s representation 102; conscription systems 212 n.3; conscript ratios, high 122; enlisted categories, women not admitted in 112; family programs, absence of specific 112; female recruitment 118; female soldiers 98, 110; gender inclusiveness score 120, 122; partial segregation practices 104; rank restrictions 110; women officers 111 greedy institutions 57 Greenham, all-female protest camp at 71 Griesse, A. E. 8, 9, 209 n.6 Guenter-Schlesinger, S. 54, 113 Guinea-Bissau, Dutch colonial wars in 138 Gulf War 9, 138; American and English servicewomen 109 Guns, N. 152 Gutman, S. 213 n.7 Hacker, B. 7, 209 n.3 Hall, B. W. 62, 209 n.9, 212 n.4 Haller, M. 164 Haltiner, K. W. 76, 77, 84, 121 Hammond, J. 37 Hardwick, L. 5 Harrell, M. C. 103, 214 n.6, 215 n.11 Harries-Jenkins, G. 12 Harris, H. 9 Harris, R. J. 54 Hayden, R. 44 Headlee, S. 56 hegemony/hegemonic masculinity 27, 42: concept of 209 n.2; and emphasized femininity, fit between 28; and femininity, characteristics associated with 203; institutionalization of 169; order of gender 5 Hélie-Lucas, M.-A. 9 Helmer, J. 92 Herbert, M. S. 46, 48, 50, 52 Herek, G. M. 50 hierarchy/hierarchical: distribution of military personnel in NATO 132; representation 110–12 Higonnet, M. R. 10, 11, 208, 209 n.9 Hillman, E. L. 53, 211 n.17
254
Index
history: blindness to women’s military roles 7, 118, 209 n.3; of women’s military participation 198 Hoellinger, F. 164 Holden, P. 46 Holm, J. 11, 59, 67, 68 homosexuality/homosexuals 27; acceptance of 83, 146; in military 42, 92; United States, official ban on service 50 Hoof, H. V. 144 housework 56, 207 Huinink, J. 56 Human Development Index 216 n.24 humanitarian interventions 54 human rights abuse 73 Hungary 102; enlisted categories, women not admitted in 112; female recruitment 118; legal occupational restrictions, non-imposition of 108; rank restrictions 110; segregated basic training 104; women employed in administrative, personnel, and medical positions 108; women soldiers 99 Huntington, S. 77; hypothesis, military isolation from society 78 I/O model see Institutional/Occupational model Iceland 214 n.3 images/imagery: masculine or masculinistic 42; of women 36–7, 44; women-as-the-other 43 Imes, S. A. 35 imprimatur or masculinity 41 incest taboo 26 index of gender inclusiveness in NATO 97, 114–17, 133, 199; country sources 115 Indsco, case of 36 industrialization 55 inequity 175–7 Inglehart’s postmaterialist outlook 84 Institutional/Occupational (I/O) model 78, 79, 80, 81, 84, 213 n.5; dichotomy, classic 82; in policy making 86; and postmodern trends 145–8; and women’s professional identity 84–6 institutional and interpersonal violence 26 Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE) xiv
integrationist 184 Interuniversity Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUS) xv interview guidelines 195–6 intrusiveness 39, 40, 47; levels, diachronic analysis of 48 Ireland, all-volunteer forces 213 n.3 Isaksson, E. 63 Iskra, D. 16, 17, 209 n.5; Segal’s model and its subsequent revision by 17 Ismani, F. 9, 209 n.7 isolationism and divergent character of military institutions 77 Israel 8; combatants during war of independence 9 Italy 9, 10, 118, 214 n.3, 217 n.14; absence of servicewomen 99, 199; admission of women into armed forces 69; conscription system 212 n.3; family programs, absence of specific 112; female soldiers 98; feminism and antimilitarism 69; resistance movements 9 Jacobs, M. 162, 163, 164 Jancar, B. 9 Janowitz, M. 21, 80, 81; civilianization thesis 78; decline of mass armies 76 Japan, all-volunteer forces 213 n.3 Jeanne d’Arc 6 Jinga 6 Jonasdottir, A. 20, 60, 61, 62, 216 n.28 Jones, J. 68 Jones, K. B. 68 Jones, R. B. 212 n.1 Jurik, N. C. 37 Kanogo, T. 9 Kanter, R. M. 32, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 46, 47, 172, 209 nn.3, 4, 5; identification of four group types 34; interpretation of effects of numerical balance 37; model of tokenism 20, 32, 33, 34–7, 38, 173 Kaschak, E. 44 Katzenstein, M. F. 94, 95, 96, 202, 204 Kelleher, C. M. 75; study by 76 Kier, E. 92, 93, 94 Kirk, I. 5, 6 Klick, J. E. 214 n.2 Knüppel, W. 163 Kosovo crisis 140 Kümmel, G. 22, 197; revision of Segal’s model 17
Index 255 labor: division of 25, 76; female segregation in market 57; market, monitor system 144 leadership styles 167; less authoritarian 78 Leijh, Colonel 217 n.12 Leithauser, M. 16 Leonard, P. J. 7 liberal feminism 62, 64; gender inequalities and direct political action 204; and radical positions, clash between 67; on women soldiers’ role 88 liberation movements 9, 10 list of interviewees 192–4 literature on sexual harassment in military 54 Lorenzi-Cioldi 27 Lorsch, J. 93 loyalty tests 35 Luxembourg 107; approach to issues of harassment and gender discrimination 113; enlisted women in officer’s categories 111; family programs, absence of specific 112; female recruitment 118; female soldiers 98; women’s presence 110 McCoun, R. 93 Macdonald, S. 5, 6, 10, 11, 42, 43, 53, 209 n.3 macho 184 Mahoney, C. 37 male officers: motivations for joining military 166; perspective of 182–9 male soldiers: bonding 89, 91; numerical dominance in military 42; resistance to women in military 170 Manigart, P. 104 Maniscaldo, M. L. 49, 91, 92 Marand-Fouquet, C. 63 Marine Corps and submarines, practical restrictions to employment of female soldiers in 157 Marlowe, D. H. 41, 42, 88, 213 n.8 marriage: between military men and women 59; limiting women’s professional ambitions 58 Martin, P. Y. 30 Martin, S. E. 37 Maruani, M. 39 masculinization 180, 182
maternal thinking 197 maternity leave 112 Mayer, K. U. 56 Megens, I. 148, 149, 151, 152, 216 n.7 men: average higher levels of physical strength 90; dominant responses to WMP, by country 186; perception of unfair and unequal treatment 175; protest over physical standards 49; and women, ritual of differentiation between 41 Men and Women of the Corporation 32 Merill, D. 37 Mexico 16 military 13; academies 1; and challenge of organizational restructuring 137–48; companionship embedded in “team” archetype 42; conservatism 197; culture 20; effectiveness and gender integration 86–96; effectiveness study by Dandeker and Segal 95; efficiency 95; as gendered organization 40–54; institution and social change 72; mind 77; nurses during First and Second World Wars 85; organization structure 20; professionalism, development of 77; readiness versus civil rights debate 52; service, changing patterns of 75–7; socialization and masculinity 41; sociology 78; sources of normative conceptions of gender 40; structure and personnel accession policies 121–3; technology 15; unionization 146; variable 14 military women: concentrated in support and medical functions 105; exclusion from combat arms 106; and family 57–9; integration strategies, typology of 178; motivations 205–6 Milkman, R. 10 Miller, L. 49, 51, 91, 92, 103, 214 n.6, 215 n.11 Mills, C. W. 77 Mitchell, J. 11, 88 Mobilizing Women for War 10 models of organizational and professional change 77–82 “modern” or postmodern type of forces 206 Molineux, M. 60, 61, 67
256
Index
Morris, M. 53, 211 n.7 Moskos, C. 20, 45, 48, 49, 58, 59, 78, 79, 82, 83, 88, 91, 92, 146, 209 n.19, 213 nn.5, 6, 215 n.17; analysis of change within American military 78; institutional model 83, 205, 206; and Janowitz, dispute between 80–1 motherhood 36; glorification of 70; as political status 66 Mozambique 140; Dutch colonial wars in 138 multinational “peacekeeping operations” 74 Murphy, C. N. 212 n.5 Nakayama, T. K. 50, 52 Namibia 216 n.1 naming of equipment by women’s names 43 Napoleonic wars 7 national territorial defense, priority shifting from 74 NATO see North Atlantic Treaty Organization navy, women in NATO countries 100 Nef, J. U. 7 Netherlands 75, 101, 142, 146, 217 n.14; armed forces’ openness to society 147; confidential counselors 113; conscription system 212 n.3; conscript ratio in 142; cultural resistance to women’s presence 207; defense white paper 138; enlisted women in officer’s categories 111; in Euro-Atlantic model “advanced/ extensive inclusiveness” type 137; family-oriented, maternalistic ideology 164, 168; female labor-force participation, part-time work 162; female recruitment 103, 118, 143, 149, 153, 155; female soldiers 98, 148, 154; integration of women 152; interviews, men and women officers 165; liberation of Dutch Indies 216 n.7; lifting restrictions 107, 156; LUVA 148; MARVA 148, 216 n.7; measures for conciliation between family and military life 153; measures to improve position of Dutch armed forces on labor market 143–4; men shortage 216 n.7; MILVA 148; Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment 153, 162; NATO
test-case toward gender integration 151–3; numerical imbalance and uneven rank representation 202; organizational identification 145–8; performance in terms of WMP 201; physical evaluation 104, 105; Policy Letter on Equal Opportunities within the Defense Organization 152; rank distribution of military women 157, 158, 159; regulations in field of sexual harassment 113; scores in terms of gender inclusiveness 122; social trends and situation of women 160–4; “spill-over” from civilian social policy to armed forces 112; total active armed forces in 141; values, gender roles, and conciliation between work and family 162–4; women’s economic mobilization 160–2 Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), women employed in industrial sectors 66 New Zealand, all-volunteer forces 213 n.3 Nicaraguan revolution: aftermath 64; involvement of women in 63 Nielsen, V. 102 Nightingale, Florence 7 noncombatants 5 noncommissioned army officers 142 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries 1, 16; index of gender inclusiveness in 114; milestones in process of gender integration 134–6; Military Committee of 214 n.1; models of gender incorporation in 116; occupational distribution of military personnel 106, 130–1; organizational survey 23, 98; policies concerning gender-equality monitoring and sexual harassment 112; servicewomen, ranks 110; women’s military participation 3 Northern Ireland 217 n.14 Norway: conscription system 212 n.3; conscript model 101; female recruitment 102, 103, 118; female soldiers 98; lifting restrictions 107; promotional campaigns to attract or retain female soldiers 104;
Index 257 regulations in field of sexual harassment 113; servicewomen, serving in operational specializations 107; “spill-over” from civilian social policy to armed forces 112; women officers 111 nuclear technology 15 nuclear weapons 73; proliferation of 70 numbers/numeric: dominance 47; effect of 37; imbalance, negative consequences of 38; positive effects of balancing 38; relative numbers 32, 33; skewedness of one’s group 34 nurses 7, 149 objectifying women, process of 43 occupation/occupational: assignment policies, conservative and discriminatory 106; distribution of military personnel in NATO forces, average 106; distribution of military women 199; female-dominated 39; and hierarchical distributions 24, 155, 200; image of ideal worker 49; inappropriateness 40; maledominated 39; orientation 145–6; restrictions and occupational distribution of personnel in NATO 130–1; segregation and employment of military women 105–10, 200; sex segregation 25; sex typing 25 occupationalism 80 officer/s: corps 165; rank, women’s limited representation 158; trained in military academies 85 ONOMUZ in Mozambique 216 n.1 operations other than war (OOTW) 54 opportunity: structure, discrepancies in 32; for women in military 14 organization/al: analysis, interest theory 2; challenges and military profession 75–86; change and dominant military professional 140–3; dynamics and structural features to account for people’s responses 32; format measured by conscript ratio 126; institutional or occupational orientations 206; as locus of gender 30; policies of gender integration 190, 191; and societal sexism 39; structural divisions along gender lines 31, 40;
structure and individual orientations 166; survey of NATO nations 23 Orloff, A. S. 61 Osburn, C. D. 51 out-of-area operations 138 overachievement 177 over inhibition 35 overregulation of procedures 215 n.19 pacifist and maternal feminism 70, 197 Pankhurst, E. 70 parental leave and allowances 112 Partigiani 209 n.7 part-time employment 56; pattern of female recruitment in labor market 28 Pateman, C. 65, 66, 212 n.6 paternalistic and protectionist attitudes 176 peace: association of women with 5, 197, 204; and organized violence, distinctiveness of women’s relation to 62; and war, distinctiveness of women’s relation to 69–71 peacekeeping missions 54, 138; commitment to 146; distinction between first and second generations of 74; women in 91 Peace Stabilization Forces (SFOR) missions in Bosnia 148 performance pressures 172, 190 Pernoud, R. 6 personnel reduction 142 Peterson, S. 69 Phillips, A. 20, 66 physical tests: debate 89–91; “gender-fair” or “gender-free” tests 104 physicians 37 Pierson, R. R. 63, 64, 70 Pinto, L. V. 139 Plantenga, J. 162 Poland 102, 107, 214 n.10; family programs, absence of specific 112; female recruitment 118; gender inclusiveness score 120; high conscript ratios 122; military, female representation in 100; rank restrictions 110; resistance movements 9; scores in terms of gender inclusiveness 122; women soldiers 98, 99, 110, 112
258
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poldermodel 162 pornographic posters 42, 171 Portugal 217 n.14; armed forces, women in 85, 99; attitudes toward female labor-market participation 163; commitments in NATO and European Union 140; conscription 141, 143, 212 n.3; conscript ratio in 142; contingent in Bosnia 140; cultural attitudes toward social diversity 147; Defense Concept 140; in East Timor 216 n.2; economic incentives for volunteer regimes 142; female officers 111, 158, 207; female recruitment 118, 143, 149, 151; female soldiers 98; former colonies of Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea 149, 161; gender inclusiveness score 120; gender integration, patterns and policies of 148–60; homosexuality 147; institutional motivations of female officers 166, 190, 217 n.1; interviews with men and women officers 165, 167; in Kosovo region 216 n.2; Law No. 22/91 141; legal occupational restrictions, absence of 108; male and female domestic roles 163; male soldiers’ reaction to WMP, typology of 183; military and social contexts 137; National Defense Law 147; occupational orientations among military personnel 148; organization identification 145–8; participation levels among married women 161; performance in terms of WMP 201; pioneer historical experience with female soldiers 149; professionalization process, delayed 202; rank distribution of military women 154, 157, 158, 159; as sexist and traditionalist 186; social trends and situation of women 160–4; southern European model, “moderate inclusiveness” type 137; survey of soldiers in Peace Implementation Forces (IFOR) 148; total active armed forces in 141; in UN missions 216 n.1; women in administrative, personnel, and medical positions 108, 158; women’s economic mobilization 160–2
Portugal and the Netherlands, comparative case study of 3; by occupational area and service, percentage of women in 156; occupational distribution of women in 156; policy approaches regarding sexual harassment at organizational level 174; by service, male and female representation in 155; support for women’s integration in armed forces 185, 190; values, gender roles, and conciliation between work and family 162–4 positive discrimination 175–7, 188 post-Cold War period, redefining strategic orientations 72–5 postmodernism 213 n.6; military organizations toward 82–4, 205 post-structuralism: feminists 204; thought 69 power 32; as efficacy 32–3 pragmatist 183 pregnancy 58, 59; leave 112; prohibition of dangerous work during 112 Prince, H. 37, 47 Pringle, R. 60 professionalization and “civilization” of armed forces 201 psychological characteristics, women’s 89 publicity 34 Queen Bee Syndrome 35 Raab, A. 47, 211 n.16 race relations literature 38 radical and socialist feminism 62, 66; criticism of war 68 rape 43–4 recruitment: appeals for short-term soldiers 145; policies in NATO 128–9 Reis, I. 149 religious fundamentalism 16 Reppy, J. 94, 95, 96, 202 representation and recruitment policies, global 98–104 Republic of Ireland 217 n.14 Research Committee on Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution of the International Sociological Association xv research design and techniques 23–4
Index 259 resistance 10; to female recruitment 88; movements in occupied Europe during the Second World War 9 Reskin, B. F. 39 Reynaud, E. 8, 58, 59, 65, 74, 101; case of French military 85 Richards, J. R. 71 Richardson, R. 149, 152, 153, 157 riddles and songs denigrating women 42 right/s: to fight 1, 197; versus readiness 86, 89; to vote 10 role encapsulation 34, 48, 190; consequence of tokenism 173 Rolinson, G. L. 50, 52 Rosen, L. N. 47, 96, 202 Rothschild, J. 30 Ruddick, S. 66, 68, 70, 197 Rupp, L. 10 Rustad, M. 37, 47 Santos, L. 139, 142, 144, 147 Schmitter, P. C. xv, 31, 50 Schwartz, F. N. 35 Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) xvii Scott, J. 209 n.8 Scott, W. J. 50 Sebesta, L. 69 second generation process of gender integration 117, 118 Second World War 10, 65, 74, 117; women in 8, 10 Segal, M. 2, 16, 23, 25, 40, 46, 50, 51, 53, 57, 59, 82, 84, 87, 89, 118, 121, 209 nn.12, 13, 17, 212 n.2, 213 nn.8, 9, 214 n.2; contributions during emergency situations 9; correlation between female activity rate and women’s military participation 21; cultural expectations 16, 167; gender integration in military 25, 48; model 16, 18; physical fitness tests 90, 91; sexual harassment 53, 54; women in NATO forces 100; women’s military roles, expansion and contraction 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, 44, 49, 167 segregation: pattern 56; spatial 52 Seifert, R. 44 Seitz, B. 64 selection and training 104; career development 24 Servizio Ausiliario Femminile (SAF) 8
sexist 182; and macho types 187 sexuality/sexual: assault 53, 54; harassment 53, 96, 174; jokes 171; of military personnel 113; politics 29; social relationships 26 Sharratt, S. 44 Shaw, M. 73 Shields, P. 48, 49, 58, 59; study on American military women 85 Simon, R. J. 213 n.8 Sinnett 47 Sirdar, Mrs, European Court of Justice case 215 n.15 skewed groups 34 skirts 53 Snavely, B. K. 38 society/social: change and future of WMP 206–8; construction of family and social values about family 16; dimensions, family and maternity 86; economic and political factors, impact on women’s military participation 123–6; experimentation and measure of effectiveness 94–6; factors influencing military policies on women’s integration 23; and gender regimes 25–30; isolation 190; issues, family policy, fraternization, and harassment 112–14; organization of armed forces, institutional versus occupational 79; perception of role of women 28; policy network 145; and political participation 12, 55; structures 13, 127 Society of Revolutionary Republican Women 63 The Soldier and the State 77 soldiers: wives or widows performing tasks 7; world of 41 Sorensen, H. 80, 81 South, S. J. 38 Soviet Union 8; Battalion of Death 8; resistance movements 9; women in armed forces 9 Spain 217 n.14; approach to issues of harassment and gender discrimination 113; conquistadores 6; conscription system 212 n.3; enlisted women in officer’s categories 111; family programs, absence of specific 112; female recruitment 118; female soldiers 98; gender inclusiveness score 120;
260
Index
Spain (Continued) legal occupational restrictions, non-imposition of 108; limitations in Army combat arms 215 n.13; physical tests and standards 104; women in administrative, personnel, and medical positions 108 Spini, V. 9, 209 n.7 Srebrenica 138, 146 Stahl, M. 81 Stanley, S. C. 50, 100, 214 n.2 status leveling 36 Steinberg, R. 39 stereotypes of maleness 46, 207 Stiehm, J. 11, 44, 51; analysis of protector/protected relationship 69; study of integration of women at US Air Force Academy 53 Stiglmayer, A. 44 Stites, R. 8, 9, 209 n.6 strategic orientations 20; perception of threat and mission definition 137 Stremlow, M. V. 54; sexual harassment or “first generation” 54 “structural ambiguity” in choices for women 48, 56, 57, 168, 207 submarine units: debates about women’s access to 52; restrictions on women’s employment in 108, 213 n.12 Sweden, conscription system 212 n.3 Switzerland 212 n.5; conscription system 212 n.3 symbolic matrix of femininity, peace, and passivity 42 Tailhook scandal 54 technological/strategic revolution, impact 77 technologization of warfare 45 terrorist and guerilla groups, women’s prominent role in 91 Third World countries, denigration of women in 66 Thirty Measures for Military Women 216 n.23 Tickner, A. 71, 197 titled groups 34 Tobias, S. 64, 65, 71 tokenism 47; as defined by Kanter 34; eclipse 34; intrusiveness, and asymmetric social status, negative
effects of 37, 38, 39, 171; responses to role encapsulation 36; rethinking 37–40 tradition/traditional: definition of masculinity 45; family values 163; female areas, higher concentration of women in 107; women’s involvement in social protest and civil war 63 traditionalist 183 Trainor, S. 16 Treadwell, M. E. 211 n.15 Tree Guineas 66 Turkey 102, 214 n.10; conscription systems 212 n.3; family programs, absence of specific 112; female recruitment 118; female soldiers 98; gender inclusiveness score 120; high conscript ratios 122; rank restrictions 102, 110, 112; scores in terms of gender inclusiveness 122 Tuten, J. M. 59, 87, 88, 90, 91 typology of military and society, three-fold 82 UNAVEM II and UNAVEM III 216 n.1 UNDP see United Nations Development Programme uniforms 52, 53 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) see Soviet Union unit cohesion and morale, effects of women’s presence on 91–4 United Kingdom 8, 217 n.14; all-volunteer forces 213 n.3; Army Nursing Service 8; exclusion of women from submarines 213 n.12; female recruitment 118; female soldiers 98; gender occupational policies 108; “maternalistic” orientation 164; physical evaluation 104, 105; positions on surface ships and aircrew roles opened to women 108; promotional campaigns to attract or retain female soldiers 104; regulations in field of sexual harassment 113; Royal Air Force (RAF) 108; Royal Marines 108, 215 n.15; Royal Naval College 149; scores in terms of gender inclusiveness 122; “spill-over” from civilian social policy to armed forces 112; suffragettes 70; women officers
Index 261 111; women performing support roles 117 United Nations: and NATO international and peacekeeping missions, women’s presence 110; peacekeeping mission in former Yugoslavia 138; role in world politics 74 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 216 nn.25, 27; “Gender Empowerment Measure” (GEM) 124, 125; gender-related development index (GDI) 124 United States 8, 10; Air Force attitudinal survey 47; all-volunteer forces 213 n.3; Army Research Institute for Behavioral and Social Sciences 91; Department of Defense, goal of “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment 54; extended field exercises (REFWAC), women in 91; female soldiers 58, 98, 199; Granaderio exercise in Honduras 91; historical changes 82; homosexuals 50, 211 n.11; marital status, differences between men and women in armed forces 58; MAXWAC, women in 91; National Organization for Women (NOW) 68; Navy convention in Las Vegas 212 n.18; partial segregation practices 104; physical evaluation 104; recruiting women 117; scores in terms of gender inclusiveness 122; service academies 53; sexual harassment and sexual assault scandals 113; “spill-over” from civilian social policy to armed forces 112; West Point, study of first class of women at 47; women in officer’s category 111; women performing support roles 117 universal conscription 75 UNOGIL in Lebanon 216 n.1 USSR see Soviet Union value/s: military necessity and readiness 87; orientations at microlevel of interpersonal processes 190; social order and 6; see also gender; society Van Creveld, M. 11, 88 Van der Meulen, J. 138, 139, 140, 145, 146, 153, 216 n.4
Van Doorn, J. 12, 76 Vasconcelos, A. d. 140 Vessey Jr, J. W. 209 n.9 Vietnam War 92, 213 n.4; veterans 65 Viganò, M. 9 visibility 34, 171, 190 voice 181 voluntary systems of military service 121 vote, women’s right to 65 Wall, K. 162, 163 warfare, association of men with 5 wartime changes in women’s roles 11 WASPs (Women’s Airforce Service Pilots) 8 Watson, S. 60 Weinstein, L. 50, 51 Westbrook, S. D. 92 Western European countries: feminists 11; historical changes 82; increase in recruitment of women 84; perspective of common security in response to perceived common threats 73; women’s military roles in 1, 16 West Point, first women to join 37 Wheeler, J. 56 Williams, C. 47, 52; study of US Marine Corps 53 Williams, J. A. 82 Williams, N. St J. 7 Winslow, D. 2 women: access to “atypical” or “inappropriate” occupations 39, 170, 190; access to combat arms 150; altered perception of roles in military 96; on battlefields 6, 7; career development and access to higher ranks, obstacles to 167; childbirth 66; citizenship 66; combat assignments 89, 146; conscript recruitment 67, 101, 199; controlling presence in society 127, 201, 205, 208; duty to state 66; economic status 10; ex-post pragmatism 150–1; family responsibilities 14, 28, 168, 169; in First and Second World Wars 65; image of 43–4; inadequacy or failure 188; institutional motivations to join armed forces 206; integration in military 165, 182; interests and
262
Index
women (Continued) the military 59–62, 69; in labor markets 29, 85; lack of organizational power and influence 26; in Latin America 6, 9; liberation movements 30; “market-oriented” approach 85; motivations 85; NATO forces 97, 99, 100, 101, 111; numerical representation in armed forces 199; officers, perspective of 166, 169; performance, evaluation of 172; physical requirements and evaluation 104, 105, 176; position in modern societies 212 n.2; positive discrimination 188; pregnancy 187; presence in organizations, conditions and constraints 32–4; presence in social and political system 127–8, 200; probability of reenlistment 58; recruitment and retention 105, 112; recruitment of, historical and legal frameworks 148; representing danger to military readiness 87; responses to organizational constraints 177–83; sexual harassment 181; sexual objects 43; soldiers, experience of 46–9; structural ambiguity of choices for 48, 56, 57, 168, 207; in tokenism 36–7; values on military profession and family 208; volunteer enlistment 101; warfare in historical perspective 5; wartime gains 10; “women-prejudiced-against-women” hypothesis 35; work, and family 55–9, 164; work, devaluation of 39
Women’s Equity Action League 67 women’s military participation (WMP) 2, 5, 13, 84; factors affecting 12–23, 198–203; in irregular partisan warfare 10; military variables 15; recruitment 72; representation and integration policies, position of 98–117; in revolutionary movement 209 n.6; situation, representation and integration policies 154–60 Wood, F. R. 20, 48, 58, 78, 79, 80, 86, 209 n.19, 213 n.5 Woolf, V. 66 work: behavior, three major factors that condition 32; ethic dimension of masculinity 46 work and family: commitments as competing, alternative commitments 56; Dutch women, preference 168; in late modernity, combining 55; responsibilities between men and women, disproportionate share of 206; see also family working mothers 56 world wars, women during 9, 10 Yoder, J. D. 20, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 47, 96, 202, 211 nn.6, 8 Young, C. J. 37 youth unemployment 124 Yugoslavia 9 Yuval-Davis, N. 9 Zimbabwe 16 Zimmer, L. 37
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