Non-Commissioned Officers and Attitudes towards Military Women in the Norwegian Air Force : “It’s always nice when there are girls around” (original) (raw)
PhD Dissertation from The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences , 2015
As a result of dramatic changes in the arrangement and missions of the Norwegian Armed Forces, and consequently in competence, gender and identity politics, traditional thinking on what are considered to be valuable persons, skills, abilities and bodily characteristics is being challenged. Yet, what is challenged by some may be guarded by others. As such, a social struggle over what kind of skills and characteristics should be required from military personnel, and who should be allowed in the military profession has been observed. This dissertation investigates what is at stake in the struggles over who can take part in the military profession/field. This investigation is both important and necessary in order to understand how both men and women experience and perceive their own and others’ value in the organization, and to which interests the activities and struggles of different agents contribute. Theoretically, the study is based on Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual framework supplemented with Norbert Elias’ figurational perspective, as well as feminists’ development of Bourdieu’s theories. As a methodological consequence of this perspective, the military profession/field is approached from two analytical levels (macro- and micro-level), which are interpreted in an interactive perspective. Data was gathered through a multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork consisting of participant observation, interviews and collections of written material. Written material, such as management documents, previous debate and research literature, is used to provide insight into the macro-level. This includes the extensive changes in extra-local power relations and management ambitions which have followed the end of the Cold War, and which engage individuals at local military sites to act and struggle as they do. Social interactions at local military sites (micro-level) were investigated through 72 days of participant observation spread over 12 months including 65 interviews. The participant observation took place at different sites where selection, education and training of squad leaders to the Army and the Home Guard were the main concern. Twenty-five interviews were recorded from 22 officers, and 40 interviews recorded from 34 officer candidates at the Army’s Officer Candidate School. 32 interviews were with women, 33 with men. Two research questions were developed to fix the direction and limit the content of the micro-level investigation: 1. What is required from men and women respectively to do an officer role appropriately? 2. How do men and women with different forms of capital respond to different formal and informal requirements in the military field? The result shows that officer candidates are encouraged to become normative role models with “the right attitudes” for their subordinates to imitate. Doing the job as a normative role model (officer) appropriately is dependent on the ability to embody power resources and obey regulation impositions at the same time. Accordingly, the study supports Belkin’s (2012) claim that military masculinity is structured by contradiction, and that the military compels soldiers/officers to embody masculinity and femininity at the same time. This claim is based on an understanding, developed from Bourdieu (1998) and Skeggs (2004), where masculinity is seen as a belief system that comes with impositions of accumulating power resources and striving for dominance, victory, honor and recognition, through which one is classified as masculine. Femininity is understood as a form of regulation that is based on morals and shame, and used to establish control over women and troops through an emphasis on appropriate culture, attitudes and style. The contradictory requirements that apply to the officers are reflected in the culture being referred to as 1) a performance culture in which the “power of example” is used as a pedagogical method to encourage winning instinct and accumulation of power resources, such as physical fitness, and 2) a feedback culture in which buddy evaluations and buddy rankings are actively used as a pedagogical method to socialize the officer candidates into the norms accepted in the social fellowship. The requirement to embody power resources and become a winner and a leader results in internal competition and struggles for positions within the local hierarchy. Considering the requirement to obey regulation impositions, the field was characterized by a voluntary submission and adaption to the requirements, as well as a struggle to maintain (reproduce) the field’s traditional criteria for valuation, in particular physical prowess. It is concluded that systems of classification constitute a stake in the struggles that oppose individuals in the social interactions that take place in the field. It is argued that being classified as soldier/officer vs. murderer, civilized vs. uncivilized, appropriate vs. inappropriate, constitutes a stake in the struggle over soldiers’ culture, attitudes and style. Moreover, it is shown that women, in particular small-sized women who might join the military to disprove the stereotype of being “cute and petite”, jeopardize the belief system on which the military’s capacity for legitimating personal claims to authority and a powerful and masculine identity is based. Women, in particular the “cute and petite”, enter the military field with bodies that stand in direct contrast to skills and qualities associated with military requirements, and as a consequence they put the classification of the military profession as masculine, tough and physically demanding at stake. Accordingly, women also challenge the belief system on which the production of fighting spirit is based.