Gendered Culture in Peacekeeping Operations

Abstract

This article examines the way that gender values and norms underlie the definition and development of peacekeeping missions, and how, in turn, these might contribute to changing prevailing gender regimes within military forces. The article starts with a revision of the gendered nature of the military, brings in the topic of changing professional identities in modern armed forces, and proceeds with an examination of key issues and contradictions in contemporary discourses on gender and peacekeeping. Based on empirical evidence from a variety of research projects conducted since the early 1990s, and with a special focus on the role and integration of women soldiers in peacekeeping, it questions the extent to which peacekeeping missions, and specifically what has been labelled a new gender regime in peacekeeping, have the potential to challenge previously dominant conceptions and practices of gender roles in military culture. The article stresses the idea that only a context-sensitive analysis will allow us to adequately account for and understand the gender dimension of peacekeeping culture.

Notes

Dana Britton, ‘The Epistemology of Gendered Organizations’, Gender & Society, Vol.14, No.3, pp.418–34.

Ibid., p.419.

Ibid., p.420.

Joan Acker, ‘Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations’, in Judith Lorber and Susan A. Farrell (eds), The Social Construction of Gender, London: Sage, 1991, p.167.

Robert Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987.

Ibid.

Carol Cohn, ‘Wars, Wimps, and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War’, in Miriam Cooke and Angela Woollacott (eds), Gendering War Talk, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993, pp.227–46; Mady Segal, ‘Gender and the Military’, in Janet S. Chafetz (ed.), Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 1999, pp.563–81.

Sharon Macdonald, Pat Holden, and Shirley Ardener (eds), Images of Women in Peace and War. Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspectives, London: Macmillan, 1987.

Helena Carreiras, Gender and the Military. Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies, London: Routledge, 2006; Carreiras, ‘Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies’, in John Buckley and George Kassimeris (eds), Ashgate Research Companion to Modern Warfare, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010, pp.201–22.

Donna Winslow and Jason Dunn, ‘Women in the Canadian Forces: Between Legal and Social Integration’, Current Sociology, Vol.50, No.5, 2002, pp.641–67; Christopher Dandeker and Mady W. Segal, ‘Gender Integration in Armed Forces: Recent Policy Developments in the United Kingdom’, Armed Forces and Society, Vol.23, No.1, 1996, pp.30–47; Gwyn Harries-Jenkins, ‘Women in Extended Roles in the Military: Legal Issues’, Current Sociology, Vol.50, No.5, 2002, pp.745–69.

Charles Moskos, John Allen Wiliams and David R. Segal, The Postmodern Military. Armed Forces after the Cold War, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Cheryl Hendricks and Lauren Hutton, ‘Defence Reform and Gender’, in Megan Bastick and Kristin Valasek (eds), ‘Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit’, Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, Geneva, 2008, pp. 1–24 (at: http://www.dcaf.ch/publications/kms/details.cfm?ord279=title&279=gender&ing=en&id=47394&n); Johanna Valenius, ‘A Few Kind Women: Gender Essentialism and Nordic Peacekeeping Operations’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.14, No.4, 2007, pp.510–23.

Winslow and Dunn (see n.10 above), p.641.

Mady Segal, ‘Gender and the Military’, in Chafetz (see n.7 above), pp.563–81; Helena Carreiras and Gerhard Kümmel (eds), Women in the Military and in Armed Conflict, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2008.

Sandra Stanley and Mady W. Segal, ‘Military Women in NATO: An Update’, Armed Forces and Society, Vol.14, No.4, 1988, pp.559–85.

Jeanne Holm, Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution, Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993.

Brian Mitchell, Women in the Military, Flirting with Disaster, Washington, DC: Regnery, 1998; Martin Van Creveld, Men, Women and War. Do Women Belong in the Front Line?, London: Cassell, 2001.

The challenge this meant to the military establishment is well illustrated by a famous statement of a former US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, who said, ‘the influx of women has brought greater change to the U.S. military than the introduction of nuclear weapons’, quoted in Berenice Carroll and Barbara W. Hall, ‘Feminist Perspectives on Women and the Use of Force’, in Ruth H. Howes and Michael R. Stevenson (eds), Women and the Use of Military Force, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993, p.19.

Karen O. Dunivin, ‘Military Culture: Change and Continuity’, Armed Forces & Society, Vol.20, No.4, 1994, pp.531–47.

Carol Cohn, ‘Wars, Whimps and Women. Gender in the Construction of US National Security’, unpublished manuscript, University of California, 1999.

Connell (see n.5 above); Connell, Masculinities, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995.

Connell, Masculinities (see n.21 above).

Fabrizio Battistelli, ‘Peacekeeping and the Postmodern Soldier’, Armed Forces and Society, Vol.23, No.3, 1997, pp.467–84; Helena Carreiras, ‘O que Pensam os Militares Portugueses do Peacekeeping?’ [What do Portuguese soldiers think of peacekeeping?], Estratégia, Vol.10, No.14, 1999, pp.65–95.

Laura Miller and Charles Moskos, ‘Humanitarians or Warriors? Race, Gender and Combat Status in Operation Restore Hope’, Armed Forces & Society, Vol 21, No.4, 1995, pp.615–37.

Pierangelo Isernia and Gianpaolo Lanzieri, ‘I Soldati Italiani Amano il Peacekeeping? Un Modelo delle Determinanti della Sodisfazione per le Missioni di Pace’ [Do Italian soldiers love peacekeeping? A model for explaining satisfaction in peace missions], in Teresa Ammendola (ed.), Missione in Bosnia. Le Caratteristiche Sociologiche Dei Militari Italiani [Mission in Bosnia. The Sociological Characteristics of Italian Soldiers], Milan: Franco Angeli, 1999, pp.191–237.

Maria Grazia Galantino and G. Ricotta, ‘Il guerriero e l'umanitario. L'ideologia del militare e la sfida del peacekeeping’ [The humanitarian and the warrior. Soldiers’ ideology and the challenge of peacekeeping], in Ammendola (see n.25 above). See also Fabrizio Battistelli, ‘The Social Features of Peacekeeping: The Italian Experience in Bosnia’, paper presented at the conference ‘Lessons from Bosnia, Portugal, the European Union and NATO’, Instituto de Estudos Estratégicos e Internacionais, Lisbon, 1998.

Carreiras (see. n.23 above). On US soldiers, see Laura Miller, ‘Do Soldiers Hate Peacekeeping? The Case of Preventive Diplomacy Operations in Macedonia’, Armed Forces and Society, Vol.21, No.4, 1997, pp.415–50

Battistelli (see n.23 above), p.469.

Isernia and Lanzieri (see n.25 above).

Henry F. Carey, ‘Women and Peace and Security – the Politics of Implementing Gender Sensitivity Norms in Peacekeeping’, in Louisse Olsson and Torunn L. Tryggestad (eds), Women and International Peacekeeping, London: Frank Cass, 2001, pp.49–68.

Ibid., p.63.

Ibid.

Judith Hicks Stiehm, ‘Women, Peacekeeping and Peacemaking: Gender Balance and Mainstreaming’, in Olsson and Tryggstad (see n.30 above), pp.39–48.

Ibid., p.47.

See at: www.un.org/womenwatch/ianwge/taskforces/wps/national_level_impl.html.

Donna Bridge and Debbie Horsfall, ‘Increasing Operational Effectiveness in UN Peacekeeping. Toward a Gender-Balanced Force’, Armed Forces & Society, Vol.36, No.1, 2009, p.121.

Ibid, p.122.

Christine Williams, Still a Man's World: Men Who Do Women's Work, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995; Janice D. Yoder, ‘Rethinking Tokenism: Looking Beyond Numbers’, Gender and Society, Vol.5, No.2, pp.178–92; Britton (see n.1 above).

Miller and Moskos (see n.24 above); Maria Luisa Maniscaldo, ‘Operazione Diverse della Guerra: Il Ruolo delle Donne’ [Operations other than war: women's role], in Fabrizio Battistelli (ed.), Donne e Forze Armate [Women and Armed Forces], Milan: Franco Angeli,1997, pp. 286–96; Carreiras (see n.24 above); Louisse Olsson and Torunn L. Tryggestad (eds), Women and International Peacekeeping, London: Frank Cass, 2001.

Gerard J. DeGroot, ‘A Few Good Women: Gender Stereotypes, the Military and Peacekeeping’, in Olsson and Tryggestad (see n.30 above), pp.23–38; Kari H. Karamé, ‘Military Women in Peace Operations: Experiences of the Norwegian Battalion in UNIFIL 1978–98’, in Olsson and Tryggestad (see n.30 above), pp.85–96.

Cheryl Hendricks and Lauren Hutton (see n.12 above), p.4.

Quoted in ibid.

Karamé (see n.40 above).

Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein, ‘A Comprehensive Strategy to Eliminate Future Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations’, UN doc., A/59/710, 23 Feb. 2005.

DeGroot (see n.40 above); Cordula Dittmer and Maja Apelt, ‘About Intervening in Vulnerable Societies: Gender in Military Peacekeeping of the Bundeswehr’, in Carreiras and Kümmel (see n.14 above).

Dittmer and Apelt (see n.45 above), p.71.

DeGroot (see n.40 above), p.133.

Valenius (see n.12 above).

AnnTickner, Gender in International Relations, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992; Radcliffe Richards, ‘Why the Pursuit of Peace Is Not Part of Feminism’, in Jean B. Elshtain and Sheila Tobias (eds), Women, Militarism and War, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990, pp.211–25.

DeGroot (see n.40 above), p.24.

Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism & UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004.

Paul Higate and Marsha Henry, ‘Engendering (In)security in Peace Support Operations’, Security Dialogue, Vol.35, No.481, 2004, p.484.

Ibid., p.485.

Liora Sion, ‘Peacekeeping and the Gender Regime: Dutch Female Peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol.37, No.5, 2008, p.562.

Ibid., p.566 (emphasis original).

Claire Duncanson, ‘Forces for Good? Narratives of Military Masculinity in Peacekeeping’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol.11, No.1, 2009, p.76.

Ibid., p.77.

Britton (see n.1 above), p.428.