Militarized masculinities in the home: ‘I’m not your army buddy - I’m your wife'

ABSTRACT

There is a scarcity of scholarly attention to women’s perspectives of militarized masculinities in the home. As a result, we used semi-structured interviews to examine the perspectives of 16 women partnered with members in combat arms occupations in the Canadian Armed Forces on militarized masculinities in the home. We used poststructural feminist theory and feminist methodologies to inform our approach. Through a critical discourse analysis of the interviews, we identified that displays of militarized masculinities are discursively positioned as problematic in the home and around family. Our findings suggest that the home is a space where militarized masculinities are contested.

KEYWORDS:

• Militarized masculinities
• gender
• combat arms
• military

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was approved by the Department of National Defense’s Social Science Research Review Board and supported through the Military Family Resource Centre. This work was further supported through the first author’s receipt of a doctoral award by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada under award #752-2020-2576; and by the first author’s receipt of an Ontario Graduate Scholarship under award #010-027-650.

Notes on contributors

Michelle E. E. Bauer

Dr. Michelle E. E. Bauer is a SSHRC-funded post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics. Her current academic projects explore children’s perspectives on play-related injuries and safety topics, and she examines child and family safety from interdisciplinary and social justice standpoints.

Audrey R. Giles

Dr. Audrey Giles is a Full Professor in the School of Human Kinetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, at the University of Ottawa. She conducts research primarily with Indigenous communities in northern Canada. An applied cultural anthropologist, her research focuses on the nexus of gender/culture/place in injury prevention and health promotion.