“Mom Calling the Commanding Officer”: The Changing Relationship Between Mothers and Their Sons Serving in Israel Defense Forces

Abstract

Anchored in feminist theory, this article examines the relationship between mothers and their sons serving in Israel Defense Forces. A review of the feminist literature reveals that the military is one of the main sources of gender inequality and reproduction of traditional gender roles. The military plays a pivotal role in male socialization and encourages soldiers to distance themselves both physically and psychologically from their mothers and deny any feminine traits that may be attributed to them. Yet this qualitative study, which is based on 28 interviews with mothers and sons, reveals a more complex picture. Although the military does serve as a gatekeeper that distances mothers and reinforces hypermasculinized culture, the participants depict the mothers’ active involvement in the daily life of their soldier sons without any sense of inferiority in confronting the military apparatus. The mothers assume the role of psychologists, save the sons from entanglement with their direct commanders, and even organize their sons’ service route. The extension of maternal practices into the military realm blurs the binary conceptualization of “men in arms and women at home” and sheds more light on contemporary changes that have taken place in military–family relations in Israel.