Gender Ideologies and Military Labor Markets in the U.S. (Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy)
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However, in the US context, the strong connection between personnel needs and equality in the services meant that integration policies remained selective. Upheld exclusions functioned to limit women to those jobs for which not enough qualified personnel were available, namely support jobs on middle and lower ranks.
Jobs in high demand, particularly in ground combat, but also in leadership, were protected from female competition. These patterns of inclusion and exclusion were sustained by a diversifying spectrum of military gender ideologies: A purely functional approach to military gender integration in terms of personnel needs is however problematic for various reasons:.
Gender ideologies and military labor markets in the US
Congressional power relations, the relationship between political and military leaderships, as well as broader socio-political environments define when and how integration is promoted and with what effects. Militarized international institutions, such as NATO or the UN Security Council, have constructed a link between gender violence and international security. A prominent example is UNSC Resolution which calls for mainstreaming gender into every aspect of UN missions in order to avoid human rights abuses and sexualized violence in peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction.
It is this third level of context that has raised particularly tricky questions for feminists about the adaptations of feminist knowledge for the purposes of powerful military institutions. These foreign policy contexts have to be addressed when evaluating recent developments in the US military:. Pro-integration arguments began to differ greatly from those of the s, as they claimed that traditional concepts of femininity could be utilized for strategic gains, e.
Increased practical difficulties with upholding combat exclusions were finally acknowledged. The systematic inclusion of women into efforts to improve contact with the civilian population and gather intelligence on the ground, e. Thus, gender equality and the empowerment of women remain causally linked to American national security interests. Feminist analysis has shown that such framings can in fact be detrimental to broader equality issues.
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These critiques have also been applied to gender mainstreaming mechanisms in international institutions. Additionally, some women, particularly white, educated women have benefitted more from the growing institutional attention to gender issues than others. These findings have made feminist positioning on military gender integration ever more complex.
The times when standpoints could easily be separated along the lines of equality ethicists Stiehm and peace ethicists Ruddick are definitely over. But this is not all bad news. Acknowledging these complexities takes the pressure off to exclusively identify with either side. Feminist theory and practice, as a pluralist project, certainly has room for both and feminists will continue to do both, critically engage with military institutions and support equality for women within them. Feminist disagreements over these issues will go on and likely never be settled.
Meanwhile, a rights-based approach might still be the safest bet for those wishing to make a non-militaristic point for military gender integration. Saskia Stachowitsch is a post-doctoral research fellow and lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna.
Coalition force member maintains security during a presence patrol in the Farah province of Afghanistan By DoD photo by Sgt. After , portrayals became more positive again, but this time faith, heroism, and patriotism were more dominant themes than professionalism and competence. A growing number of articles suggested that the military should utilize traditional gender stereotypes, e.
Military growth and strategic changes smaller fast-deploying force, flexible units, stationing of support with combat troops increased the necessity for flexible deployment of the female workforce and fostered these positive, if ambivalent images. This trend continued into the s, but new images were added: Increased dependency on women, also in combat positions, and the bureaucratic problems that legal exclusions raised for commanders in a long and arduous deployment provided the military background for this.
Though recruitment conditions and strategic factors were important in the formation of military gender images, they did not translate one-to-one into media representations. Domestic and global political power relations were equally relevant. The Clinton administration, for example, modernized military gender relations after the end of the Cold War; the Democratic majority in Congress enabled the enforcement of these initiatives. This favored positive portrayals of military women and gender integration.
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While the strategic vision of the Bush Jr. The UN Security Council, NATO, and other international organizations mainstreamed gender into their peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction projects on the basis of an assumed link between gender relations and international security.
Saskia Stachowitsch Find more information about: How women were portrayed depended strongly on recruitment environments, but also on geo political conditions. Avoiding the rancorous debates of , where there was no veto, the US and the Soviet Union, as well as Britain, France and China, became permanent members of the Security Council with veto power. Census Bureau Exclusions were, however, upheld and limited women to those jobs for which not enough qualified male personnel were available, particularly in specialized non-combat support jobs on lower and middle ranks. He ranked number nine in international relations.
In this context, equality in the services was tied to the objectives of interventions in the Arab world. Please read our comments policy before commenting. Shortened URL for this post: Her areas of research are gender and the military, private security, and feminist international relations.
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Click here to cancel reply. Media portrayals of military women reflect recruitment conditions, but political power relations and foreign policy contexts matter as well. Media portrayals of military women reflect recruitment conditions, but political power relations and foreign policy contexts matter as well Share this:. Figure 1 — Female participation in U.
Census Bureau Exclusions were, however, upheld and limited women to those jobs for which not enough qualified male personnel were available, particularly in specialized non-combat support jobs on lower and middle ranks.
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