Collective agreement as investment in women in the Swedish Armed Forces A critical discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

How organizations engage with gender equality is crucial to them being perceived as fair and attractive employers. As recruitment and training of personnel is a core function of the military organization, it is relevant to investigate this from a gender critical perspective. The aim was to critically examine how a military organization operates in respect of equality of pay between women and men by means of a collective agreement, as an example of how the organization tries to address gender inequality. A qualitative analysis using Bacchi’s ‘What is the problem represented to be’ (2009) analysis of policy documents was conducted. The analysis focuses on how the actual issue is problematized and what is left unproblematised, and the key findings are that efforts to achieve gender equality within the Swedish Armed Forces are counterproductive and result in perpetuating deficiencies in the organization’s work with wider gender-equality issues. Despite external pressures, there is a structural reluctance and inability within the Swedish Armed Forces to seriously engage with addressing the organization’s gender-equality issues. As resistance to gender-equality work is usually implicit, this study’s strongest contribution to the field is that such resistance can be identified as being explicit and therefore more easily challenged.

KEYWORDS:

• – Gender equality
• Equal pay
• WPR
• Military

Introduction

Equal pay for equivalent work for women and men should be a matter of course in societies who claim social equality and democracy. Nevertheless, pay differences persist between the genders in most professions in Sweden (the Union for Professionals, 2020) as well as in the U.S. (Blau & Kahn, 2000), in the UK (Chevalier, 2007), in Germany (Lang & Groß, 2020) and beyond. In Sweden, a country regarded as having one of the world’s highest equality scores (Powell, Ah-King, & Hussénius, 2018; European Institute for Gender Equality, 2017), the statistics have suggested that in 2016, women on average received 88% of men’s salaries. Although this is also attributable to women and men holding different professions with different salary levels, statistics indicate that within most professions, the salaries are lower for women than men (Swedish National Mediation Office, 2020). To achieve a more equitable assessment of salary levels, the Swedish National Mediation Office (2017, 2020) applied a standard weighting method to account for women and men working within different professions and sectors, having different educational backgrounds, ages and working hours. Following the application of standard weighting, the information indicated that women received 95.5% of men’s salaries at the same point in time. The remaining pay difference is 4.5%. It is an unjustified difference in pay (Swedish National Mediation Office, 2017). Three year later, the same measurement showed that the unjustified pay difference was 4.2% in favour of men (Swedish National Mediation Office, 2020).

According to the Swedish National Mediation Office, 2020, p. 567), a wage survey is to be conducted annually with the aim of detecting, rectifying and preventing unjustified pay differences between genders. In conjunction with this, employers are to create an action plan that stipulates specific salary adjustments and other requisite measures. The plan shall comprise a cost estimate and schedule based on the objective of implementing requisite salary adjustments as soon as possible, but no later than within three years (Swedish Government, 2020). Before 2017, when the study’s object of analysis was presented, wage surveys of this type were to be conducted every three years. However, the law was amended to prevent and counteract discrimination in professional life (Kumlin, 2016).

In 2016, the Swedish Armed Forces had not conducted a wage survey since 2010, which was based on wages in 2008 (Nilsson, 2016), despite repeated pressure from unions. Finally, the Union of Civilian Employees in the Defence Forces reported the Swedish Armed Forces to the Council Against Discrimination and won the case (Council Against Discrimination, 2016). Furthermore, the Equality Walking Delegate stated that ‘the failure of the Swedish Armed Forces stands out as an embarrassment in this light’, and believed that the Council Against Discrimination should order the Swedish Armed Forces to pay a SEK 2 million fine (Persson, 2016). Following years of pressure from several union organizations and the threat of a fine, in 2016 the Swedish Armed Forces resolved to implement its first centralized wage survey in eight years.

In conjunction with the collective agreement that was reached within the Framework Agreement on wages for state employees (RALS) 2016–2017, a special investment was made to increase women’s salaries in the Swedish Armed Forces. This study analyses the collective agreement using the Bacchi framework, ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR), a method that critically examines how the problem is presented and problematized.

The Swedish Armed Forces agreed to tackle the challenges of recruiting women into the organization (Österberg & Rydstedt, 2018; Strand, 2019). To attract more minorities to work in the Swedish Armed Forces, the institution has explicitly used focused advertising campaigns in various media, depicting women as having a distinct primary role (Swedish Armed Forces, 2020). But what does the gender equality work look like in the organization and does it correspond to what the organization conveys to the outside world?

The purpose of the study was to critically examine how a military organization works to establish equal pay between women and men by means of an agreement, as an example of how the organization tries to address gender inequality. This pertains to collective agreements on pay levels, which was forced after an interval of several years and signed by both employers and employees.

This article makes two contributions: first, it shows how opposition to gender equality can be expressed in structured bureaucratic documents and contributes to the understanding of how Bacchi’s model can be used in military decision-making. Secondly, it is also a contribution to critical military studies and organizational research with a problematizing perspective. As such, it is a contribution to the field of feminist analysis of the pay gap and institutional production and reproduction of the problem, as the results of the study can be used to highlight inequalities that are otherwise quite implicit.

Previous research

Implementation of gender equality initiatives tends to fail or to not have sufficient power to be implemented. This has been noted by Acker (2000) who believes that gender-related barriers are often neutralized, which means that gender equality is not taken seriously enough. Acker (2006) developed the theory of inequality regimes, which she believes exist in all organizations where they contribute to the creation and maintenance of inequality based on class, gender and race, where not everyone has the same opportunity to control the organization’s goals and resources. Inequality regimes can be described as different practices, processes and actions that maintain, among other things, gender inequality. Acker (1990) believes that organizations are based on structures and patterns that in themselves are based on notions of differences between women and men. Thus, applying inequality regimes, it is possible to analyse the organization’s reproduction of inequality and this can lead to a better understanding of the reasons why gender equality initiatives tend to fail. Acker states that inequalities can be differences in wages, as the object of analysis in this study highlights. The fact that inequality in the organization is kept invisible is a requirement for maintaining the power relations in an organization. Since the privileged often do not see their privilege and this is a contributing factor to the maintenance of inequality regimes (Acker, 2006).

Amundsdotter, Ericson, Jansson, and Linghag (2015) point out that men fail to see their privileges and that they sometimes oppose equality as it is perceived that this will lead to the sharing of influence, status, resources and power. These can be seen as mechanisms behind failed gender equality initiatives and in the research overview below, a number of mechanisms will be presented. First on a general level and then, to contextualize the study, about what it looks like in the military organization.

There is existing research on general pay differences between men and women in various contexts, such as the police (Luo & Schleifer, 2020) and academia (Monroe & Chiu, 2010). There is also research on explanations for the gender pay gap and how to abolish it (Saari, 2013). Wage surveys have proven to be functional for reducing pay differences in many different professions (Coron, 2020; Crump, Logan, & McIlroy, 2007). Edelman, Krieger, Eliason, Albiston, and Mellema (2011) are of the opinion that vague legislative wording causes employers to feel uncertain about what is expected of them. Fredman (2016) posits that unclear legislation creates a tendency for employers to focus solely on measurable goals. There is also a risk of organizations endeavouring to meet only the minimum requirements of legislation by focusing intensely on well-formulated documents (Ahmed, 2007). In a large bureaucratic organization such as the Armed Forces, it is natural to formulate documents for implementation of various undertakings, including gender equality. Even if these documents are necessary for implementing policy, the documents themselves are not sufficient since they must be implemented. Sometimes intangible issues such as gender equality, are challenging for the structural organization.

What Fredman (2016) and Edelman et al. (2011) describe are the different results of quantitative gender-equality, which pertain to the percentage of men and women in various positions, which is easy to define, measure and monitor (Wahl, Holgersson, Höök, & Linghag, 2018). A balance between the concepts is needed in order to attain gender equality. However, it is vital that all objectives be specific and measurable for there to be an impact, particularly on issues about gender equality (Hart, Crossley, & Correll, 2018). Reports are prepared annually by, among others, the Swedish National Mediation Office (2017; 2020), as well as salary statistics from Statistics Sweden (2020), which present pay levels from a gender-equality perspective. Despite the focus on gender equality, studies indicate that gender inequality is perpetuated by men basically having a stronger position in the labour market (Rothstein, 2012), and the role of women as divergent from men. This construction of men as the ‘norm’ is a commonly occurring problem in working life in general, as well as in male-dominated organizations such as the Swedish Armed Forces (Edwards, Hearn, Hearn, & Popay, 1998; Powell, 2018).

The Swedish Armed Forces – one of Sweden’s largest government agencies and also one of the most gender-segregated institutions – has had female employees working in various positions, primarily within its volunteer organizations, since the early 1900s. It was not until 1980 that women were allowed to apply for selected military positions and from 1989 onward, there have been no formal obstacles against women applying for any of the positions in the organization (Sundevall, 2011). Since then, numerous measures have been taken by the Swedish Armed Forces to attain gender equality within the organization and the Swedish Armed Forces has agreed to tackle the challenges of recruiting women into the organization (Österberg & Rydstedt, 2018; Strand, 2019).

Bringing about change in large organizations takes a long time and the most difficult task is effective modification of values (Alvinius & Holmberg, 2019). Goffman (1961) described institutions, on the whole, as a gathering place for numerous kindred individuals that are cut off from the rest of society, which results in a closed system where individuals are limited in their freedom of action. It is thought that politicians prioritize issues such as gender equality and staff policies just as highly as they value the Swedish Armed Forces’ ability to perform its primary assignment – armed conflict (Persson, 2010; Ydén, 2008). Over the years, military organizations have developed narcissistic and acquisitive attributes, which are exemplified by, for example, the justification of actions and the inability to act. Within the framework of acquisitive qualities, the requirement that employees be loyal and committed to their employer, which in its ultimate form entails risking their own lives (Coser, 1974; Ohlsson, 2020), is highlighted.

Despite being accustomed to obeying orders and directives in a hierarchical organization such as the Swedish Armed Forces (Andrzejewski, 1954; Weber, 1948; Ydén, 2008) the intentions and wills of various commanders have an impact on outcomes, since decisions from a higher authority tend to be filtered in large organizations (Larsson, Sjöberg, Vrbanjac, & Björkman, 2005). Efforts to bolster gender equality are typical issues that tend not to be regarded as sufficiently meaningful in male dominated organizations (Andersson, Johansson, Lidestav, & Lindberg, 2018; Ringblom & Johansson, 2020). Attempts to improve gender equality can also be described as an exercise of power that meets resistance, manifested as opposition, both openly and covertly.

Gender equality work can be resisted through repressive, pastoral and regulatory means. Repressive resistance is clear and direct, which also reflects the organization’s power structure. Pastoral opposition is where gender equality is said to be valued by the organization yet very little is achieved due to core activities being prioritized. Finally, the regulatory form of resistance can be described as the spread of responsibility in the organization, which means that the power for change is constantly shifting (Amundsdotter et al., 2015; Verloo, 2018).

There is also a resistance to changing the military organization’s acquisitive and narcissistic nature. This highlights that the normative changes required by society are the most difficult to adapt to and apply within the framework of the military organization. The normative changes include values modification and if this adaptation should fail, it could weaken the legitimacy and attractiveness of the military organization (Alvinius, Holmberg, & Johansson, 2019). It is known that this type of process often fails (Acker, 2000), but on the other hand, we know less about how it works in practice. This article highlights a case of a failed gender equality initiative that is analysed to identify assumptions and mechanisms and shows what happens when a failure occurs.

The purpose of the study is to critically examine how a military organization works to establish equal pay between women and men by means of an agreement, as an example of how the organization tries to address gender inequality. This pertains to collective agreements on pay levels, which were forced after an interval of several years and signed by both employers and employees.

Method

To review the agreement that was analysed, qualitative document analysis was applied, in the form of a strategy of constructivist policy as formulated by Carol Bacchi (2009). Bacchi’s method for policy analysis, ‘What’s the problem represented to be’ (WPR), is well suited for answering the purpose of the study, as it deals with how the actual issue is problematized. In this study, it was chosen to critically examine a collective agreement, which is also compatible with this method, as it impacts and regulates many individuals. Bacchi posits that policies are created based on the concept of handling an expressed problem, while the problem has underlying constructs about what is problematic, known as problem representation. This is also a product of the prevailing dominant discourse in society. The implied problem representations of the policy in turn impact the opportunities for processing and resolving the problems that emerge, which have long-term consequences for the target group. Bacchi asserted that this results in the expectation that the target group’s self-perception should match the policy, as well as the manner in which the target group is to be treated in the institution (Bacchi, 2009).

The study’s object of analysis is collective agreements on pay levels within the framework of RALS 2016–2017, which was signed by both employers and employees of the Swedish Armed Forces. The agreement was chosen because it was the first of its kind after the survey of wages in the Swedish Armed Forces was carried out following an interval of several years. It is an agreement that spans two years and which impacts all of the approximately 20,000 employees of the Swedish Armed Forces. The discourse that was highlighted in this study is the discourse of hidden resistance to gender equality. The Swedish Armed Forces are alone in having the power to make changes to the highlighted problem. The discourse analysis supports the theory of hidden structures in the collective agreement and sheds light on prevailing power relationships.

The study’s design is inductive and interpretative in nature, which also entails that I, as the researcher, may be limited by my personal notions of what can be researched. The significance of reflexivity cannot be sufficiently emphasized and, as Bacchi (2009) states, cannot explore my own hidden problem representations that could impact the research. As a woman and officer, I am in proximity to the field that is being studied, which on one hand complicates using the WPR approach due to my having been for many years a part of a culture that created the agreement that was analysed. On the other hand, it facilitates the work due to my organizational experience and familiarity together with my ability as a researcher to stand outside and look at the organization with the help of theory.

To analyse the material, three of Bacchi’s (2009) six Discourse Analysis questions were chosen, which best match the purposes of the study. The questions offer a structured approach and are presented below. In addition, each question is elaborated on in the results/analysis section:

How is the problem of collective agreements represented?

What assumptions form the basis of this representation?

What does the representation leave unproblematised?

Results and analysis

How is the problem of collective agreements represented?

With this question Bacchi (2009) intends to identify the implied problem representation in the specific document. A document such as a policy, or in this case, a collective agreement, handles a specific topic that in itself is based on assumptions about what the problem is and, thereby, how to rectify it. The underlying problem representations can be found in the document’s manner of dealing with what is expressed as being a problem. Consequently, it is of interest to analyse the proposed solutions expressed and how to deal with gender equality in the collective agreement.

The collective agreement that was analysed primarily deals with guidelines on pay structure, where the demographic, both military and civilian women in the Swedish Armed Forces, was identified as requiring a particularly urgent focus of resources. According to Acker (2009), the pay gap between men and women is a typical issue of inequality in organizations. In the survey on what type of investments are required, the collective agreement’s framing of the problem was revealed. According to previous research, the surveys have proven to be functional in the elimination of pay gaps in many different professions (Coron, 2020; Crump et al., 2007).

Women are (despite investments) not equal to men in the Swedish Armed Forces and are paid less than men. Acker (2006) believes that gender is often a factor that affects the difference between men’s and women’s wages, which means that wage setting often benefits men, which contributes to inequality. Furthermore, the collective agreement points to a need for special investments in women. It revealed that it will take a long time to effect equal pay, which confirms the above and is illustrated by the following quote.

The Parties are unanimous that a high level of ambition over time means that dedicated work on equal pay be sustained over several years.

(Swedish Armed Forces, 2016, s. 1)

In accordance with the Swedish National Mediation Office, 2020, p. 567), the Swedish Armed Forces are responsible for implementing requisite pay adjustments as soon as possible, but by no later than three years (Swedish Parliament, 2020). That women constitute, and have historically always constituted, a minority in the Swedish Armed Forces makes it reasonable to call into question the expected timeframe for rectifying this problem. If the pay of the majority had been less than 100%, the question would have tended towards a greater set of financial problems. The calculated time for rectification is a selective truth and can be regarded as inherent resistance in the organization (cf. Holmberg & Alvinius, 2019). At the same time, the problem of unequal pay in general and gender-unequal pay in particular, is described as largescale, which highlights that many salaries in the Swedish Armed Forces are not objectively based.

The next few years will require multi-level investments in the organisation with the aim of increasing knowledge and creating conditions conducive to objectively based salaries over time, which also includes the gender-equality perspective.

(Swedish Armed Forces, 2016, s. 1)

A long era of male dominance in the Swedish Armed Forces has resulted in women still being treated unequally to men (Linehagen, 2018; Sundevall, 2011). Society requires that institutions adapt to existing requirements, such as by integrating gender equality. However, despite a hundred years of women serving in the organization, the Swedish Armed Forces has not succeeded in integrating women to any great extent (Linehagen, 2020). Previous research indicates that modification of values is the most difficult to implement in a society (Alvinius & Holmberg, 2019). Acker (2006) inequality regimes allow us to understand that the failed integration of women in the Armed Forces may be due to it being kept relatively invisible. In this way, the power relations in the organization have been maintained.

In the collective agreement, the Swedish Armed Forces admits to an unobjective pay structure and provides a proposal for processing this.

The investments of the next few years in equal pay will be specifically monitored by the parties with the aim of evaluating the investments and verifying the desired effects, particularly from the perspective of recruiting and retaining women.

(Swedish Armed Forces, 2016, s. 2)

The proposal is focused on a special investment and assessment to achieve the desired effect of recruiting and retaining women. The problem is handled with a focus on the Swedish Armed Forces’ requirements rather than women receiving equal pay. Focus is shifted from a perspective of fairness for female employees to one of organizational recruitment. In this manner, one problem is resolved by identifying and fundamentally resolving another problem. The problem actually pertains to another need – the challenge of recruiting personnel – and this is confirmed by several studies (Österberg & Rydstedt, 2018; Strand, 2019). This shift in focus is also a concrete example of how the organization’s inequality is preserved invisibly (Acker, 2006).

The Swedish Armed Forces are also explicitly regarded as an acquisitive and narcissistic organization (Alvinius, Ohlsson, & Larsson, 2018; Coser, 1974; Ohlsson, 2020). The organization’s work with value modification is often mentioned as an intangible issue and something that requires a long time to effect, due to being part of an accepted organizational culture. To elaborate on these issues, the Swedish Armed Forces has taken a number of measures, such as the formulation of fundamental values and a code of conduct, the establishment of Equal Treatment Officers and equality planning (Swedish Armed Forces, 2015b). Despite the efforts, organizational culture is difficult to change in the short term (Schein, 1996). However, salary issues, as addressed by the collective agreement, are not a modification of intangible values. This is ultimately a tangible issue that the Swedish Armed Forces could have changed in a very short time with a single decision: an infusion of funds to equalize the salaries in the organization. Nonetheless, this was not implemented. This could be interpreted as resistance to gender equality in an organization that passes itself off as actively working on the very same issue.

What assumptions form the basis of this representation?

The problem is presented in question one: women have lower pay than men and therefore are not treated equally to men in the Swedish Armed Forces, and this will take a long time to rectify, despite the investment in women through the collective agreement. The aim of this question – question two – is, in accordance with Bacchi (2009), to both identify and analyse the implications that provide the basis of the problem representations, proceeding from the assumptions and conceptions they build upon. What the term implies is not always self-evident and in order to understand the material, it is meaningful to distinguish recurring key terms and the meanings they convey. It is also beneficial for the material to shed some light on the ways in which people are categorized and the purpose of such categorizations.

The term ‘employee’, that is, staff of the Swedish Armed Forces, is the primary concern of the agreement and the basis for the drafting of the agreement. The agreement proceeds from men being the norm, while women are handled separately as the tokens they are in the male dominated organization (Kanter, 2006). Women are mentioned separately and it is clear that they are the deviation from the norm. The only time that men are mentioned is in relation to women, which further reinforces the divergent role of women, reinforcing men as the norm.

At the annual salary revision, the parties allocated funds for investments in women with the aim of instituting, at the armed forces level, an average salary for women that corresponds to a minimum of 95 percent of men’s salaries.

(Swedish Armed Forces, 2016, s. 2)

The above was confirmed in previous research about work life for the general public and, particularly, in military organizations in Sweden and abroad (Edwards et al., 1998; Powell, 2018).

The collective agreement is explicit in that women are not worth a 100% salary. With such a foundation, it becomes clear that the fundamental assumptions that key terms are based on do not result in increased equality, which according to the agreement, was a primary concern. In Acker’s (2006) terms, it could instead be described as a reproduction of inequality and provide an explanation for why gender equality initiatives tend to fail. To state that women are not worth a salary equal to that of men is in direct contravention to the political objectives and laws that are applicable in Sweden (Swedish National Mediation Office, 2020, p. 567).

The real survey of wages conducted in 2016 following an eight-year interval revealed that women are paid less than men in the Swedish Armed Forces. It can be assumed that prior to the survey, it was already known that women’s salaries in the Swedish Armed Forces were lower than those of men due to the unequal pay practices in the rest of society – a topic that is reported annually (Swedish National Mediation Office, 2017; 2020; This makes it conceivable that no survey of wages was conducted because it would prove the existence of considerably unobjective pay differences between men and women in the Swedish Armed Forces.

Another angle to the issue is that the Swedish Armed Forces had not assumed that the organization’s salaries were unequal, since it had not conducted a survey of wages for several years, despite explicit legislative requirements. It can be presumed that the Swedish Armed Forces rested on the belief that the organization’s salaries were equal and that it was not until the survey of wages was necessitated by union organizations, that they realized this was not the case (Council Against Discrimination, 2016). It can also be interpreted as the Swedish Armed Forces assuming that there was no problem. Several studies indicate that inequality is not regarded as a significant problem in male-dominated organizations (Andersson et al., 2018; Ringblom & Johansson, 2020). The pursuit of gender-equality issues in an organization that does not consider itself to have any problems in that regard, or which refuses to distinguish between men and women, is an impossible task. According to Acker (2006), the privileged in an organization often do not see their privilege, which contributes to the maintenance of inequality regimes.

The term gender equality is interpreted in the document as conveying something worth striving for, something that the Swedish Armed Forces is working towards and what the organization should look like. At the same time, it is clearly expressed that ‘gender equality’ does not constitute a core activity, but a limited investment for a certain period.

It is also noted that efforts to enact equal pay are not isolable to salary reviews, but also applicable to new employees or other pay structures.

(Swedish Armed Forces, 2016, s. 1)

This can be interpreted as gender equality being somewhat forced. Women have, for a considerable time, worked in the Swedish Armed Forces, but only within limited areas. Additional positions have gradually opened up and as of 1989, there have been no formal obstacles against women applying for any of the positions in the organization (Sundevall, 2011). This can be compared to what Acker (1990) writes about organizations’ patterns and structure, which in turn is based on notions of differences between women and men. Even though the Armed Forces has opened to women and become more inclusive over the past forty years, structure and patterns are deep. Because despite legislation, organizational monitoring and well-defined guidelines in numerous documents, there is still a need to point out in a collective agreement that equal pay is a right that not only applies to this pay rise investment in women, but also to the new female employees during the period. Although the limit is 95% and not 100%, which is self-contradictory, since 95% of men’s salaries does not constitute equal pay.

What does the representation leave unproblematised and what remains invisible, and how can the problem be understood differently?

In question two, the assumptions that provide the basis for the representation have suggested that there was no assumption on the part of the Swedish Armed Forces. The alternative is that the Swedish Armed Forces were unwilling to shed any light on the assumption that the institution’s women received lower pay than its men. Both of these assumptions leave several aspects unproblematised, which are addressed in question three. Bacchi’s (2009) aim with this question is to shed some light on what is not problematized in the material. When drafting problem statements, certain knowledge is taken for granted and the perspectives that are left unproblematised are suppressed in some manner.

One argument that remains unproblematised in the collective agreement is the limitation of 95% women’s salaries. What is behind the setting of this particular number? Why the figure is below 100% is left completely unproblematised. This does not correlate to either the Swedish Armed Forces’ advertising campaigns, which at the time of creation of the collective agreement was sharply focused on the recruitment of a greater percentage of women (Swedish Armed Forces,2015a), nor to what the collective agreement states per se, that investments were being made in equal pay from the perspective of recruitment and retention (Swedish Armed Forces, 2016). Connections can be made to hegemonic masculinity, which legitimizes the gender order that prevails in the organization, as it explicitly justifies men’s superiority (Connell & Messerrschmidt, 2005), here with the justification for higher pay for men than women within the organization. Ackers’ (2006) inequality regimes emerge here, and it becomes clear that the creation and maintenance of inequality is persistent. And that not everyone has the same opportunity to control the organization’s goals and resources.

The Swedish Armed Forces do not seem to have subjected themselves to scrutiny, as they did not consider being a modern equal-pay employer, but required additional pressure to conduct a statutory survey of wages. This could be comparable with the total institution that Goffman (1961) mentioned, since the Swedish Armed Forces seem to have continued living the notion that they are different than the rest of society. Holmberg and Alvinius (2019) argue that the Armed Forces themselves attribute an exclusivity, that they stand above or alongside other organizations, based on their monopoly on violence. In recent years, however, this has been challenged and questioned (Norheim-Martinsen, 2016).

The aforementioned facts are also connected to what is left unproblematised: how to proceed with the distribution of the funds generated by the investment in women. All that is offered is a description that the funds are aimed at instituting an average salary for women that corresponds to a minimum of 95% of men’s average salaries. Furthermore:

In cases where any of the special funds earmarked for women are not deemed to work toward the achievement of their purpose in the particular unit, the funds are to be reverted to the institution.

(Swedish Armed Forces, 2016, s. 2)

The interpretation of how these funds are to be distributed and pursuant to what strategy is left wide open, entailing that the actual problem is not remedied. The only inferable strategy in the agreement deals with what to do if the funds are not utilized and that they are to be returned. This shows the military organization as a greedy institution which demands women be content with a lower salary than their colleagues, and the whole agreement is an example of organizational resistance (Holmberg & Alvinius, 2019). Since the agreement only regulates that funds that are not used must be returned to the organization, it makes it clear that the focus on the core operations is greater than on its personnel. Feaver (1998) believes that military organizations have a tendency to withdraw from civilian regulation when it comes to decisions that do not concern the core operations, which indicates that the issue of gender equality is a special interest and not worth spending time on. According to Acker (2000), gender-related barriers are often neutralized, which means that gender equality is not taken seriously enough. The Armed Forces’ failure to issue directives for further handling of funds is a clear example of this and has a kind of slowing effect in the gender equality initiative.

The free interpretation of the distribution of salary funds is left up to each individual unit. It also remains unproblematised what each individual unit should do if it turns out they were allocated sufficient funds to allow for distribution to bring the salary levels of women up to 100%. Although this can be interpreted as an imperative to distribute the funds to achieve a 100% level, the requirement is only for 95%, which makes it an acceptable amount to settle on, after which the remaining funds are returned. In the hierarchical institution of the Swedish Armed Forces, people are accustomed to obeying orders and directives (Andrzejewski, 1954; Weber, 1948; Ydén, 2008), but not necessarily legislative requirements, particularly those that incur a cost to the organization. What is left unproblematised in the agreement could have consequences – such as various units adopting their own interpretations – and despite the basic intention of investing in women, women’s pay remains unequal. That the intention and will of different leaders has an impact on the outcome is a known issue, due to the filtering of decisions in large organizations (Larsson et al., 2005).

How any future plans for monitoring women’s pay should be formulated ultimately remains unproblematised.

The parties are also unanimous about developing templates to monitor developments in payroll expenses over time.

(Swedish Armed Forces, 2016, s. 2)

The agreement states that there is a plan to not only continue monitoring salary levels, but to develop salary templates as well. But how this will be achieved is left open to free interpretation. The imparted ambiguity creates wiggle room to allow for anyone who so desires to leave things completely as they are. There is a considerable risk that nothing will be done, due to the prioritizing of core operations and due to how equal pay is not regarded as a core operation. The process and (lack of) action is a description of the inequality regime that prevails in the organization, which maintains inequality (Acker, 2006). What is needed instead is a set of well-defined guidelines on the work ahead. What does the plan for the future look like? When should pay levels in the Swedish Armed Forces be equal? The research indicates that objectives must be specific and measurable to have any effect, particularly in terms of various gender-equality issues (Hart et al., 2018). One reasonable approach for implementing equal pay in the Swedish Armed Forces within a short period of time would be for the organization to suspend pay increases for men. Although the privileged are often blind to their privilege (Acker, 2006), the financial costs from such a move are not particularly clear and it would probably entail an excessive social cost if the organization were to choose such a course of action.

Concluding discussion

The purpose of the study is to critically examine how a military organization works to establish equal pay between women and men by means of an agreement, as an example of how the organization tries to address gender inequality. This pertains to collective agreements on pay levels, which were forced after an interval of several years and signed by both employers and employees. The study indicates that efforts on gender equality within the Swedish Armed Forces are counterproductive and result in perpetuating deficiencies in gender-equality issues. The study also confirms that Acker (2006) theory of inequality regimes is still relevant in maintaining the inequality within the organization. By problematizing collective agreements from the military organization, with their specific characteristics, the study contextualizes what this can look like in our time. Despite political decisions and Sweden’s high gender equality index, it is relevant. The reason is believed to be that the discourse of hidden resistance is part of the power structure and thus has an interpretive advantage, which is evident in the study. This is a decision with a good intention but which has the opposite effect and becomes prejudicial. Instead, acceptance of inequality and the same structure is reproduced.

There is a structural reluctance and inability in the Swedish Armed Forces to seriously engage the organization’s gender-equality issues. When legislation failed to help in this regard, the threat of fines was needed before a survey of wages from the gender-equality perspective was conducted. Previous studies on resistance to gender equality within organizations in general, and particularly within the Swedish Armed Forces, have identified resistance as being hidden and implicit (Amundsdotter et al., 2015; Verloo, 2018). This study’s strongest theoretical and empirical contribution to the argument is that such resistance is also identifiable as being explicit. The resistance to gender-equality is encouraged through decisions. The collective agreement, which is a governing document, is an undermining supplement against women as employees in the Swedish Armed Forces, which have resolved to pay lower salaries to one employee demographic.

Despite the Swedish Armed Forces’ broad efforts at recruitment aimed at attracting more women to the organization, its well-formulated gender-equality plans, influencers in units, and its well-established fundamental values and code of conduct, those at the highest echelons of the Swedish Armed Forces are unwilling to create equal pay within the very same organization. This constitutes an expression that is on the verge of hypocrisy. To encourage the recruitment of women and, first and foremost, retain women who have already joined the organization, the Swedish Armed Forces need to produce more, to do things differently and, most of all, to get serious. The odd, isolated investment in gender-equality will not suffice. Genuine and critical efforts at gender-equality must permeate the entire organization. Consequently, a relevant issue to develop further would be how to maintain a gender-equal wage formation. What is needed here is a proper articulation about how exactly development is to proceed – not just that it should be pursued. Furthermore, it must be brought to about that women have a 100% salary.

As to whether or not the Swedish Armed Forces were aware of the issue of pay levels in the organization, is cause for reflection. Either The Swedish Armed Forces lived in the belief that its salaries were not materially unequal, despite annual reports on unjustified pay differences in society as a whole, and despite legislation to reduce the pay gap between genders, which is a form of hidden resistance. Or the Swedish Armed Forces lived in the knowledge that that was the case and intentionally postponed the issue by refusing to conduct a survey of wages, so as to avoid the real cost increases that such a discovery would entail.

The Swedish Armed Forces’ motto is: ‘We defend Sweden, the country’s interests, our freedom and right to live as we choose’. Therefore, the focus of the Swedish Armed Forces’ work is to maintain a democratic society with equality for everyone. Despite this, persistent problems are manifested in governing documents such as the collective agreement that was analysed in this study. Consequently, some action research is required and more gender equality decisions should be highlighted in order to detect any hidden resistance to more fundamental issues, where Acker (2006) theory of inequality regimes can be used to advantage to make the creation and maintenance of gender inequality in the organization visible.

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

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Notes on contributors

Frida Linehagen

Frida Linehagen Lieutenant and PhD student Frida Linehagen is a Royal Swedish Navy officer and researcher in leadership during demanding conditions. She teaches and conducts research on leadership from a gender perspective at the Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership, Swedish Defence University and the Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety, Lund University. She has published several book chapters, articles and scientific reports in the field of military sociology.