Monash GENAD REPORT

International Peacekeeping, 2010

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.

Australian Defence Force Journal, 2013

With a renewed focus on the treatment of women in the ADF, including through the conduct of reviews in 2011-12 by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Ms Elizabeth Broderick, it is worth reflecting on the role that gender plays in military operations and operational planning, and its link to capability building and sustainment. This is not a modern form of affirmative action - gender perspective, analysis and mainstreaming plays a real part in NATO's crisis management planning process and the conduct of operations and missions designed to support areas of crisis and conflict.

A methodology to assess how well NATO member and partner states are integrating the principles of UNCSR 1325 (the Women Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in their military operations

Revista Direito e Sexualidade, 2023

The article is primarily aimed at studying and analysing social relations, roles, and dynamics in the field of civil-military cooperation and gender policy. The authors analyze various social stereotypes, political decisions, legislation, and its impact on gender equality and interaction between civil society and the military. In turn, empirical data is used to confirm or refute hypotheses about gender imbalances, challenges and achievements in these areas, but this research is focused on social analysis and understanding of current challenges in the chosen field. The research presupposed the use of various scientific methods, but its base was formed by general and special scientific and philosophical methods. Particular emphasis was placed on the formal-legal approach that facilitated in-depth analysis of international legal statutes, doctrinal perspectives, and rulings from the European Court of Human Rights concerning gender policies embedded within the framework of civil-military cooperation. The authors conduct a theoretical legal examination of civil-military cooperation within the framework of human rights defense, elucidating its distinctive features. Additionally, the paper places considerable emphasis on gender equality in the context of armed conflicts and civil-military cooperation, drawing upon international legal perspectives and scholarly methodologies.

Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2018

While gender-responsive Security Sector Reform (SSR) is increasingly recognised as being key to successful SSR programmes, women continue to be marginalised in post-conflict SSR programmes, particularly defence sector reform. By focussing on developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kosovo and Colombia, this article explores the paradox of women's marginalisation in defence sector reform and post-reform defence structures in places where women were active combatants during the preceding conflict. This article refers to examples of women's engagement in combat to challenge some of the reasons given for women's marginalisation, including reference to women's skillset, aptitude and interests. The article adopts a feminist institutionalist approach to show how SSR helps security sector institutions construct and reconstruct gender power relations, reinforce gendered dynamics of exclusion, and determine gendered outcomes. It concludes by drawing attention to the transformational potential of SSR to alter gender power relations, and thereby enhance the security of women and the sustainability of peacebuilding efforts.

A Feminist Theory critique.

2020

The research applies a gender-perspective on three case-studies: the N.A.T.O., the U.S. Army and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), in order to understand both the legislative framework and the reality of gender inclusion and discrimination in the three cases investigated. This mixed-method aims to reveal the approach of the international organization N.A.T.O. and of two of the most important armies in the world towards gender issues, such as women's inclusion and rights in the military, LGBT integration/exclusion and sexual harassment. In the conclusive part of the paper we provide some personal thoughts arisen during the research.

European Journal of International Security, 2020

Twenty years after the passing of Resolution 1325, the participation of women as military personnel in peacekeeping operations remains limited. Women currently comprise just under five per cent of military personnel in UN peacekeeping missions, and the UN consistently calls for more. We contend the low numbers of female military personnel in peacekeeping reflects a lack of gender mainstreaming in national militaries globally. This article introduces the problem of sidestreaming, the practice, deliberate or unintentional, of sidelining women and relegating them to specialised spaces in international peace and security while attempting gender mainstreaming or increased gender integration. Drawing on empirical evidence from national militaries we show how and where sidestreaming occurs with the result being that women remain clustered in gendered and low-status spaces in national militaries and in specialised spaces in peacekeeping operations. This has a negative effect on retention an...

Land Forces Academy Review

This article presents a conceptual analysis of the main terms used in the analysis of the gender perspective. Given the various approaches to the gender perspective, a clarification of the meanings of the terms is needed, especially since they have lately been defined in terms of military acceptance as well. This content is part of the Military Gender Studies (MGS) Project, whose aim is to develop a model of gender perspective in the military, which will be taught in the European Military Institutions through an Army Handbook.

The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military, 2017

WHY A HANDBOOK OF GENDER AND THE MILITARY? This Handbook is rooted in three observations. The first is about the significance of the relationships between gender and the military, about just how fundamental an understanding of gender is to comprehend military forces, institutions, activities and effects, and in turn how important these are to comprehend how gender works as a social construct and a social force. The second is about the complexity of these relationships, for the connections between gender and the military are not necessarily obvious or straightforward (though they might be) but are moulded by a plethora of contexts, activities, people, social processes and practices. The third observation underpinning this Handbook is about the fluidity and dynamism of these relationships, for they are never static or inevitable but rather change over a range of timescales, are prompted by military transformations, are subject to shifts in gender politics and are influenced by developments from the local to the global in geopolitical and economic events and circumstances. The relationships between gender and the military, then, are never incidental, straightforward or static. The purpose of this Handbook is to capture and explore something of this significance, complexity and dynamism. If the relationships between gender and the military are significant, what does that actually mean? Significant in what ways? Significant to whom? Why? In this introductory section, we argue that the significance stems from three major