Reengineering Gender Relations in Modern Militaries: An Evolutionary Perspective

Abstract

This article presents an evolutionary framework for understanding the sexual assault of women in the military. We specify the evolutionary underpinnings of tensions among heterosexual males, among heterosexual females, and between males and females and discuss how these tensions have played out in the strongly gendered context of warrior culture. In the absence of cultural interventions that take into account deep-seated conceptions of women in the military as unwelcome intruders, sexual resources for military men, or both, military women operate in an environment in which sexual assault may be deployed to enact and defend traditional military structures. We discuss how unit norms are likely to affect the choice of strategies by men and by women and how the resulting behaviors—including celibacy, consensual sex, and sexual assault—should affect horizontal and vertical unit cohesion. The framework is intended to guide future data collection in theoretically coherent ways and to inform the framing and enforcement of policies regarding both consensual and non-consensual sex among military personnel.

Keywords:

• evolutionary theory
• gender dynamics
• military sexual trauma
• rape
• sexual assault
• sexual coercion
• warfare

Acknowledgments

The authors thank John Orbell for his many valuable contributions to launching this project; 1Lt Andrea Wolfe for input on Air Force policies and practices; the Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences for hosting the Evolutionary Perspectives on War Conference in October 2008, where the authors conceived this project; and Dropbox and Skype for providing essential long-distance collaboration tools.

Notes

1. The application of evolutionary theory to social behavior continues to provoke lively debate. Although misconceptions persist, most scholars who follow these debates closely have moved beyond “straw man” characterizations toward more substantive discussion. Increased attention to gene–environment interactions has made it clear that neither biological nor environmental factors should be treated as deterministic (see Hrdy, 2000; Hubbard, 1990; Thornhill & Palmer, 2000, for contrasting perspectives). Claims that evolutionary theory is untestable have also become less tenable as studies testing hypotheses derived from evolutionary thinking accumulate (e.g., Buller, 2005; Gowaty, 1997; Wilson, Daly, & Scheib, 1997). Buss and Malamuth (1996) provided a useful integration between feminist and evolutionary perspectives.