Something is Working—But Why? Mixed Rooms in the Norwegian Army

Abstract

In a qualitative study of masculinities in the Norwegian Armed Forces, we found the expected sexual harassment and some more unexpected episodes of what we name solidarity masculinity. But we also uncovered some possible and surprisingly positive effects of male and female conscripts living together in so-called mixed rooms. The rooms seemed to function in a way that promoted mutual understanding, de-sexualization and reduced sexual harassment. Our findings gained a lot of attention in the media worldwide, and they have also been tested empirically by other Norwegian researchers using quantitative methods. Although their findings strengthen our hypothesis that “something is working” inside these mixed rooms, we are doubtful about the validity of some of their findings and how they interpret them. We doubt that what is experienced by putting young women and men in the same room for 7–8 weeks can tell us much about the possibilities of breaking through the glass ceiling for women in male-dominated organizations, or speaks in favour of higher quotas for women in male bastions. The effects of these rooms might best be understood as a kind of gender-positive secondary socialization in cultures where gender equality enjoys a high standing. Strong leadership, common goals, and equal positions also seem to be needed in order to get the desired effect of reduced stereotypes. This finding is in line with the contact hypothesis postulated by Thomas Pettigrew in his studies of integration. To our knowledge, our study is the first on mixed rooms in the Armed Forces, despite the fact that they have been in use in Scandinavia for almost 25 years.

Keywords:

• Masculinity cultures
• gender equality in the armed forces
• gender-mixed rooms
• glass ceiling
• sexual harassment
• tokenism
• de-sexualization

Notes

1. We have had contact with personnel in the Swedish Armed Forces, at the Swedish Defence University, and researchers in the field.

2. The second reason has to do with a system that has not yet adjusted to the new gendered reality, which will become even more highlighted since military women often cohabit with or marry military men.

3. All citations from the interviews have been translated by the authors.

4. http://kjonnsforskning.no/nb/node/7846

5. Take the results of recruits running 3,000 metres, for example. The women who are among the 20 per cent best will finish the distance in between 12 and 14.5 minutes. The best performing 20 per cent of the men will take between 10 and a little more than 12 minutes (Aandstad, 2015).

6. The index is published at http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/bsri.html among other sites. It has also undergone a number of critical examinations.

7. Finseraas et al. (2015) underline that the conscripts were not aware of the purpose of the study. We do not feel certain that the conscripts did not understand that “something about gender” was going on.

8. Personal information from FFI.

9. The number of refusals is not known, but are “few” according to personal information from FFI.

10. We do not claim that our two cases are proof in themselves that Yoder is right in her critique of Kanter, but rather that the cases illustrate the problems that Yoder highlights.

11. This does not necessarily mean that women and men behave fundamentally differently towards their children, or that children of same-sex couples will not benefit from two parents who are both strongly involved in their socialization.