{"title":"Creating a new pathway for change in the military using gender as process","authors":"Jessica Williams, Sophie Yates, James Connor","doi":"10.1111/gwao.13049","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Militaries have consistently struggled to integrate women into the profession of arms despite concerted, decades-long attempts at reform. We argue that this patchy progress is due in part to a conceptualization of gender as “category”, which has limited power to explain gendered inequalities. We propose that gender as process approaches must also be used to understand the current state of gender relations within militaries. A gender as process approach recognizes the dynamic, enduring, and complex set of gendered practices and systems that affect everyday interactions and social relations. Using this frame, militaries can develop an understanding of how these processes operate—particularly, as a form of resistance to gender equality in these “extremely gendered organizations”—and can develop improved strategies for change. We use the Australian Defence Force as our case study to illustrate how gender as category approaches dominate reform attempts and how the gender as process approach offers new insights on how to promote gender equality in the military.</p>","PeriodicalId":48128,"journal":{"name":"Gender Work and Organization","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/gwao.13049","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Gender Work and Organization","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwao.13049","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Militaries have consistently struggled to integrate women into the profession of arms despite concerted, decades-long attempts at reform. We argue that this patchy progress is due in part to a conceptualization of gender as “category”, which has limited power to explain gendered inequalities. We propose that gender as process approaches must also be used to understand the current state of gender relations within militaries. A gender as process approach recognizes the dynamic, enduring, and complex set of gendered practices and systems that affect everyday interactions and social relations. Using this frame, militaries can develop an understanding of how these processes operate—particularly, as a form of resistance to gender equality in these “extremely gendered organizations”—and can develop improved strategies for change. We use the Australian Defence Force as our case study to illustrate how gender as category approaches dominate reform attempts and how the gender as process approach offers new insights on how to promote gender equality in the military.
期刊介绍:
Gender, Work & Organization is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal. The journal was established in 1994 and is published by John Wiley & Sons. It covers research on the role of gender on the workfloor. In addition to the regular issues, the journal publishes several special issues per year and has new section, Feminist Frontiers,dedicated to contemporary conversations and topics in feminism.