Arts and Social Sciences, Irving K. Barber Faculty of (Okanagan)
DSpace
UBCO
Franck, Billie
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
This thesis focuses on gender integration in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) based on veteran female combat arms soldiers' experiences. I argue that the military institution presents itself as progressive and gender neutral but is, in fact, a gendered institution with distinct organizational thinking that maintains gender segregation. The federal government's goal of increasing the number of female soldiers employed in the CAF to 25 % by 2026 is too broad and does not address the systemic issues rendered invisible when institutional change is desired. The division of labour, based on military occupations with the least number of female soldiers, exacerbates the social relations and the organizational logic, which maintains the low representation of female soldiers. I focus on the combat arms occupations because these occupations have historically had the most resistance to female integration and have the most prestige and proximity to the fighting. I treated the disembodied soldier as a universal category that is abstract and gender neutral and used to determine types of bodies acceptable for different military occupations. Therefore, I argue that the ideal soldier is, in fact, heavily gendered towards male bodies, masculinity, and male heterosexuality. This ideology shapes views on what bodies are most qualified to do the work of combat, fighting, and sacrificing for the nation. And only when the idea of females doing combat enters the conversation do we see the social relations and gender assumptions that maintain the CAF's gender order and foster a culture harmful to female soldiers. For example, the underlying sexualized culture in the Forces is conducive to more severe incidents of sexual harassment and assault (Deschamps, 2015). Therefore, for cultural change to occur, we need to see a fundamental shift in the CAF's thinking of the ideal soldier and show what social relations surrounding work as a soldier will look like.
“THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!” GENDER INTEGRATION IN THE CANADIAN ARMED FORCES WITH A FOCUS ON THE EXPERIENCE OF FEMALE SOLDIERS IN THE COMBAT ARMS by Billie Franck B.A., The University of British Columbia, 2015 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) February 2023 © Billie Franck, 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: “THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!” GENDER INTEGRATION IN THE CANADIAN ARMED FORCES WITH A FOCUS ON THE EXPERIENCE OF FEMALE SOLDIERS IN THE COMBAT ARMS submitted by Billie Franck in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. Luís LM Aguiar, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Supervisor Carolyn MacHardy, Emeritus Supervisory Committee Member Bonar Buffam, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Supervisory Committee Member Jessica Stites-Mor, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University Examiner iii Abstract This thesis focuses on gender integration in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) based on former female combat arms soldiers' experiences. I argue that the military institution presents itself as progressive and gender neutral but is, in fact, a gendered institution with distinct organizational thinking that maintains gender segregation. The federal government's goal of increasing the number of female soldiers employed in the CAF to 25 % by 2026 is too broad and does not address the systemic issues rendered invisible when institutional change is desired. In this thesis, I aim to demonstrate the social relations and the organizational logic that maintains the low representation of female soldiers. I do this by unpacking the division of labour based on military occupations with the least number of female soldiers. I focus on the combat arms occupations because these occupations have historically had the most resistance to female integration and have the most prestige and proximity to fighting. I treated the disembodied soldier as a universal category that is abstract and gender neutral and used to determine types of bodies acceptable for different military occupations. Therefore, I argue that the ideal soldier is, in fact, heavily gendered towards male bodies, masculinity, and male heterosexuality. This ideology shapes views on what bodies are most qualified to do the work of combat, fighting, and sacrificing for the nation. And, only when the idea of females doing combat enters the conversation do we see the social relations and gender assumptions that maintain the CAF’s gender order and foster a culture harmful to female soldiers. For example, the underlying sexualized culture in the Forces is conducive to more serious incidents of sexual harassment and assault (Deschamps, 2015). When we consider the military institution as a gendered process, the interactions between males and females reproduce the social relations that see males as fighters and females as iv support. I look at female soldiers' strategies to navigate the CAF culture to shed much-needed light on how power operates in the “in-between” military spaces. I define “in-between” military spaces as not purely military or civilian interactions; or the tension between formal and informalities, the state of being on the verge of something new but not quite there yet (Blanchfield, 2021; Marinaro, 2022). Within these spaces, I concentrate on the more nuanced interactions of humour captured in phrases such as “that's what she said” or “just joking” to observe how humour functions in maintaining the social relations that disproportionately affect female soldiers. I argue that humour serves as a conduit for power for male soldiers and superiors to impose their will. However, humour is also a tool for resistance enabling female soldiers to posit new ways of being that challenge the concept of the ideal soldier. For my methodology, I used constructivist grounded theory, where I gathered data through interviews and documents as well as had participants draw a response to two questions—draw a soldier and draw the experience of being a female soldier. The drawing a response allowed for a different researcher/participant interaction and different data to develop. Emergent from the data was recognition of the gender hierarchy that infiltrates soldier interactions and highlights the power dynamics camouflaged in daily interactions. For systemic change to occur, we need to rethink and reimagine a military beyond gender assumptions, and which restores the absent female, reframes her work and blows up the concept of the ideal soldier. My contribution to the literature is that the ideal soldier underpins and prevents systemic CAF organizational and cultural changes. Therefore, for cultural change to occur, we need to see a fundamental shift in the CAF’s thinking of the ideal soldier and show what social relations surrounding work as a soldier will look like. I identify humour as an activity demonstrating one strategy to create change. v Lay Summary My research addresses the goal of increasing female soldiers in the CAF with more attention given to the combat arms military occupations, which have the least number of female soldiers. I argue that female soldiers’ experiences navigating the complexity of gendered military processes, the ideology of being a soldier, and then ‘inhabiting’ that status use humour to endure it. This understanding will disrupt the popular narrative females do not want to join. However, for cultural change to occur, we need to see a fundamental shift in the CAF’s thinking of the ideal soldier and show what social relations surrounding work as a soldier will look like, starting and using humour. vi Preface This thesis is in support of a Masters of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of British Columbia. I carried out all the research and analyzed all data. My methods required human participants and so I obtained approval from the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board. My Ethics Certificate number is H18-01196. vii Acknowledgements I offer my enduring gratitude to the faculty, staff and fellow UBC students who have inspired me to continue my work in this field. First and foremost, I am incredibly grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Luís LM Aguiar, for his invaluable advice, continuous support, and patience during my MA study. His critiques, thorough feedback and penetrating questions, taught me to question more deeply my thinking and writing; I also appreciate his dedication to students and his commentaries on the neoliberalization of education. Special thank you to Dr. Carolyn MacHardy, who fostered in me an interest in art history, and how powerful a visual image or performance piece can be in cultivating understanding and knowledge. Thank you to my committee member, Dr. Bonar Buffam, for his insightful comments and suggestions in improving this thesis and my work in general. Dr. Shelley Pacholok provided excellent literature resources and shared time with me to discuss women and the workplace. I thank her for her time and intellectual generosity even if she was not an official member of my supervisory committee. Land acknowledgements: I am a member of settler society and a settler who lives, studies, works, and raises a family on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. Part of who I am, and my love of the outdoors is because I grew up and enjoyed the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Ininew peoples and the homeland of the Métis Nation. As I reflect on raising a family and growing up, I cannot ignore the intergenerational trauma caused by settler society, specifically residential schools in my home communities, where children and families were robbed of life, love and cultural knowledge. viii Therefore, I am even more grateful for the opportunity to study, write my thesis and take thinking breaks in these beautiful lands of the Syilx Nation. Thank you to my participants, to my family, friends and best friend for the conversations that helped make sense of the experience of being a female soldier. To my partner, Federico Angulo, thank you for your love, support, perspective and introducing me to espresso and ice cream. To Amy Franck and Danelle Hueging, thank you for your experiences and the many hours of discussions, side conversations and laughs, which helped me work out ideas found in my research. To my mom, Debra Taylor, for the countless hours editing my work. To my kids - Jackson, Noah, and Riley - thank you for being welcomed distractions with your smiley faces, laughs and your genuine excitement for all things that I do. ix Dedication I dedicate this work to my fire team partners of family, friendship and love. Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Preface ........................................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... vii Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... ix Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... i List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... iv List of Drawings .............................................................................................................................v List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................1 1.1 Outline of Chapters ......................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Approach .......................................................10 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Literature Review.......................................................................................................... 10 2.3 Sceptical Curiosity and Choice ..................................................................................... 25 2.4 Female Soldiers and CAF Organizational Change ....................................................... 30 2.5 Reconfiguration and the Gendering Process ................................................................. 32 2.6 Gender and The Ideal Soldier ....................................................................................... 43 2.7 Theoretical Framework of Humour .............................................................................. 49 2.8 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 3: Methodology..............................................................................................................58 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 58 3.2 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 58 ii 3.3 Methods......................................................................................................................... 63 3.4 Recruiting Research Participants .................................................................................. 64 3.5 Online Recruitment ....................................................................................................... 65 3.6 Interview protocol ......................................................................................................... 67 3.7 Document Review ......................................................................................................... 74 3.8 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................ 75 3.9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 78 Chapter 4: Fitting in, Sticking out, Blending in—the Ideal Soldier ........................................81 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 81 4.2 Institutional Logic and Practices: The Military Gaze ................................................... 83 4.3 Making Sense of the Ideal Soldier. ............................................................................... 90 4.4 A Real Fighter? A Real Fighter. ................................................................................... 97 4.5 Navigating Competing Identities being Feminine and Being Soldier ........................ 100 4.6 Carrying a Heavy Load—More Ways than Known ................................................... 106 4.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 112 Chapter 5: “Laugh It Off—Is That an Order, Sir?” ..............................................................115 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 115 5.2 Positions of Power: Humour’s Function ..................................................................... 117 5.3 Resistance ................................................................................................................... 128 5.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 136 Chapter 6: Conclusions .............................................................................................................138 6.1 Research focus ............................................................................................................ 138 6.2 Key Findings ............................................................................................................... 139 iii 6.3 Main contributions ...................................................................................................... 142 6.4 Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research ............................................ 144 References ...................................................................................................................................145 Appendices ..................................................................................................................................158 Appendix A - Drawings .......................................................................................................... 158 A.1 Drawing – response to “draw the experience of being a female soldier” ............... 158 A.2 Drawing – response to “draw a soldier” ................................................................. 160 Appendix B - Research Documents ........................................................................................ 169 B.1 Interview guide ....................................................................................................... 169 B.2 Consent letter .......................................................................................................... 173 B.3 Copywrite letter ...................................................................................................... 177 iv List of Figures Figure 1: Recruitment Poster ........................................................................................................ 66 v List of Drawings Drawing 1: “A constant challenge” .............................................................................................. 85 Drawing 2: “Gender didn’t matter – fitting in” ............................................................................ 92 Drawing 3: “‘Grey Man’—Blending in and sticking out”............................................................ 94 Drawing 4: “If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training” ........................................................................... 98 Drawing 5: “Helps me separate women” .................................................................................... 101 Drawing 6: “The military gaze and resistance” .......................................................................... 135 vi List of Abbreviations ADATS M113 Canadian-operated anti-aircraft and anti-tank missile carrier system CAF Canadian Armed Forces CAQDAS Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software CF Canadian Forces CGT Constructivist Grounded Theory CHRC Canadian Human Rights Commission CMS Critical Military Studies CO Commanding officer CQ Cultural Intelligence DEU Distinctive Environmental Uniform DND Department of National Defence ERA External Review Authority EEA Employment Equity Act FAQ Frequently Asked Questions FMP Field Message Pad GT Grounded Theory MABGIEE Minister’s Advisory Board on Canadian Forces Gender Integration and Employment Equity MND Minister of National Defence MP Military Police NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NCO Non-Commissioned Member SHARP Standard for Harassment and Racism Prevention SSE Strong, Secure, Engaged SWINTER Servicewomen in Non-Traditional Environments and Roles Trials TBG Token Black Guy WO Warrant Officer 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 2022, four years left on the clock; four years left for the government of Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to complete their set goal of increasing female soldiers from 15% to 25% by 2026 (Department of National Defence, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, 2017, p. 12). The latest update shows the number is holding steady at 16.3% (Department of National Defence, “Statistics of women”, 2022). While I mulled over this number, I considered what does this goal actually mean? Why does it matter that only 16% of the CAF are female? Is it possible that they simply do not want to join? After all, the CAF follows equitable hiring practices in line with the Employment Equity Act (EEA) (Eastwood, 2019, p. 4). For instance, the CAF fitness assessment, called the FORCE evaluation, has one minimum standard applicable to all CAF members, no matter gender or age (CF Morale and Welfare Services, 2022). So, perhaps this goal represents the desire to make systemic changes and make the forces more inclusive for females. In reality, increasing the number of female soldiers will give the appearance of change. And I argue that these changes rest in the non-examining of the concentrations of male and female soldiers in specific occupations. That is, change to the levels projected and aspired by the government will leave some military occupations untouched and unchanged by CAF’s goal of gender integration. Therefore, in this thesis, I offer a different perspective and approach to understanding gender in the military. I do so by looking inside at the complex arena that is the CAF and discussing the combat arms occupations in the army. The latter occupations have 3.9%, the least number of female soldiers in the CAF (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2022). My research enters the realm of the grey and muddy waters of interactions and relationships to draw upon the experiences of combat arms female soldiers to uproot gendered 2 notions and practices of soldiering1 resting in hegemonic masculinities counterproductive to reaching the stated goal of an inclusive workplace in the military. The CAF is a workplace that has historically denied female entry and framed female military service as male support. A workplace that is working hard to celebrate female service by singling out remarkable soldiers, whilst never addressing the entrenched division of labour actively working to keep females out of military service or marginalizing them to specific sectors of the military. This research is important because it develops Canadian content in the academic area of military sociology. The latter is a relatively small area in comparison to the discipline of sociology (Ouellet, 2005, p. 2). Nevertheless, my research adds to critical military studies by raising questions of power relations and constructs of identity within the military. In 2014, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) website regarding women in the Canadian Armed Forces stated: “While the number of women who choose to serve in the Canadian Army’s combat arms2 appears low, there are no systemic barriers or impediments preventing women from doing so. As the CAF is an all-volunteer force, ultimately the choice is theirs (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2014). As of 2020, female soldiers represented 16.3% of the total force (Department of National Defence, “Statistics of women”, 2022), and 3.9% of the combat arms (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2018).3. These numbers do not just appear low - they are low. Essentially washing their hands, the CAF denies that as an institution it contributes 1 I define soldiering as a verb that generally describes the actions/ training and characteristics of soldiers, which are embodied when doing the work of a soldier. This also means that soldiers dress like soldiers, work as a team and share in the work 2 The Canadian Government defines combat arms as “a collective term used to describe the four combat-focused occupations within the Canadian Army: armour, artillery, infantry and [combat] engineer” (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2014). 3 I choose to use the 2018 statistic because more recent statistics do not break down numbers by occupation, only elements. 3 to the low numbers of women enrolled. Here’s how the Canadian government explains women’s low numbers: With respect to the employment of women, combat arms are considered one of the most non-traditional CAF occupational groups. There is what we call having a ‘military factor’ which influences the interest and propensity of individuals to join the CAF, and also to select service in the combat arms. The ‘military factor’ comprises the unique conditions and requirements of military service distinguishing the CAF from any other profession in Canada. Some of the challenges associated with a military career include deployment, separation from family, relocation, and the general rigours of military life. These realities may discourage some women and men from considering a career in the CAF, and in particular, the combat arms (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2014, para A8). The positioning of the combat arms as a non-traditional occupation and role for women by the CAF means that women lack the “military factor” because of traditional gender roles (which are/were presupposed), and thus the choice not to join the combat arms is solely theirs. The CAF attribute the low number to women and their self-disqualification from joining the army. This is a nice and typical way of deflecting responsibility and placing low numbers on the choice individuals themselves make. How (dis)ingenuous of the Canadian Military! In this thesis, I hone in on one of the stated challenges - the general rigours of military life – even if it is undefined. In this way, military life becomes a site of inquiry, considering the External Review Authority’s (ERA) report, conducted by Hon. Marie Deschamps, which identified that the highly sexualized culture of military life is a barrier to women enrolling in the military (Deschamps, 2015). Therefore, reason stands those general rigours of military life must involve the culture of the 4 military, which is highly sexualized. But again, missing is the institutional influence in creating the conditions and social relations preventing female soldiers’ success, or standing in the way of females joining the CAF. Therefore, my study focuses on the experience of female soldiers in combat arms occupations because the division of labour and concentration of workers within the forces are reflective of the gendered organization of work and “inequality regimes” (Acker, 2016, p. 443). That is, the concentration of female labour is in the lower echelons and in supportive roles, resulting in limited power and control over resources (Acker, 2016). However, when female soldiers are combat soldiers, navigating the culture of the combat arms within the forces and society, requires a unique gender fluidity; a fluidity that allows soldiers - female soldiers - to blend in, fit in, stick out and make change. The theoretical framework in this study enables me to push for real changes in practice within the institution of the CAF and on behalf of the soldiers it employs. My hope is to contribute to the undoing of embedded gender knowledge (Charmaz, 2008) within the CAF so that people look for interpretations beyond simplistic logic woven in policy and practice. For example, I urge readers to critically examine the practice of using a phrase like “just joking” as a means of excusing behaviour or communicating knowledge and exercising power. I challenge readers to consider the dynamism of occupational access in the CAF and question individual choice as an explanation for female underrepresentation in the CAF. As well, I consider the idea of fitting in as it relates to occupational access. My point is to examine the military as a dynamic organization, one that can benefit from voices traditionally excluded and marginalized within it. 5 In this approach, I rely on the experiences of female soldiers, the information from the Canadian Armed Forces, and personal experience4. This thesis represents my desire to join the conversation5 and discuss why there are so few female soldiers in combat arms military occupations. By combat arms occupations in the Canadian military, I mean three individual occupations whose primary role is to engage in combat (Forces, n.d.); the individual occupations are Artillery, Infantry and Armoured (Forces, n.d.). In joining this conversation, I aim to disrupt the status quo of the dominant culture’s view on this topic. My initial interest rests in the Canadian Armed Forces different approaches to addressing the low number of women in the military complimented by my personal experience within the Forces. However, my issues in this study are twofold: (1) in looking only at the numbers/percentages of the total the Forces identifies as female, the military tends to overlook drawing attention to the occupations with higher concentration of males than females. (2) In addition, focusing on goals targeting number increases within the military does so while at the same time reproducing processes of power, and engaging in generalities that do little to change the gender order at different levels of the CAF. I used the following terms to form the basis of my analyses of gender integration into the Canadian Armed Forces. Sex is a “biological identity and can be divided into the main categories of male and female” (Corrigall-Brown, 2020, p. 166). Gender refers to “the entire array of social patterns we associate with men and women in society. Gender exists along the continuum of 4 I use my personal experience of military experience in the combat arms; I embrace my positionality and use it too to inform my methods of interviewing, build rapport and analyze data. I expand on this area in my methodology chapter. 5 By conversations, I am referring to the military’s effort to change the culture, though mandatory gender-based training (GBA+, 2022); the external review conducted into sexual misconduct (Deschamps, 2015), the class action lawsuit (CAF-DND Sexual Misconduct, n.d.) and social media posts. 6 masculinity and femininity” (Corrigall-Brown, 2020, p. 166). The perceived differences between the main sex categories are based on biological differences, while gender is based on social constructions. Henceforth, I refer to the homogeneous group of soldiers as soldiers and use the sex terms female and male to represent two categories of soldiers, mimicking how the CAF statistically and culturally depict soldiers within the forces. Sex segregation, the amassment of women and men in “different occupations, industries, jobs and levels in workplace hierarchies” (Reskin as cited in Kimmel & Holler, 2011, p. 219), is exemplified in the Forces by the concentration (or fortification) of males and females in specific military occupations. I aim to show the emphasized differences and gender relations that maintain and contribute to a hostile work environment in the CAF. I use the concept of the ideal soldier to highlight the tension of performing soldiering and one’s gender within the military institution, which is set on maintaining the gender order through the division of labour and the domination of women in the CAF. By using the concept of the ideal soldier,6 I examine the historical understanding of this gendered concept to deconstruct what it means to be a soldier. I also examine key moments in the history of females in the Canadian Forces to ascertain the immense staying power and influence of the social arrangements that are gender and its reproduction. One overlooked area in military sociology is humour and how it functions in everyday activities or practices of military service. At times, humour maintains power relations where it reproduces harmful working environments and hides male aggression and malice. Yet, the fascinating aspect of humour is that it is an instrument that can disrupt the status quo and posit 6 The ideal soldier is based on the concept of the ideal worker, by Joan Acker. The ideal worker, according to Acker, is based on gender and racial characteristics 7 new ways of soldiering. Therefore, by zeroing in on relationships within the CAF7, I argue that female soldiers’ experiences with navigating the complex ideology of being a soldier and then “inhabiting” that status, use humour to endure and disrupt the popular narrative that females simply do not want to join. I approach this study using constructivist grounded theory and collect data using interviews and participants’ hand-drawn images of the “ideal soldier” as a response. Through these methods, I am the guide and the guided, as the raw images allow for the curiosity and inductive reasoning that is a staple in grounded theory (Charmaz, 2008). I opted to enhance the collected data by using drawing as a method because the experience in highly structured environments cannot be directly confrontative (Harel-Shalev et al., 2017). However, the experience is “often expressed in a symbolic, etonymic (i.e. a specific situation) narrative, and in color, shape, texture and size, rather than based on abstract verbal concepts” (Harel-Shalev et al., 2017, p. 510). As participants drew cognitive maps of military work, their images represented the experiences of female soldiers. Whereas I, as the interviewer, could only observe and ask clarifying questions that had very little to do with my interview questions, and very little to do with pre-existing frameworks (Charmaz, 2008). In the next section of this introduction, I identify the chapters composing it while at the same time summarizing, briefly, what each contains in relation to the topic of this thesis. 1.1 Outline of Chapters Chapter two details the relevant and related scholarly literature, alongside theoretical approaches applicable to my research. This chapter is divided into sections that inform my topic and covers “sceptical curiosity” as a means of detailing nuanced forms of power. I use “sceptical 7 “[W]ays that people, groups, and organizations are connected and divided” (Connell, 2002, p. 54). 8 curiosity” to question military power. I draw upon C. Wright Mills (1959), military sociology, and theories of gender to understand the current and past institutional views of gender. In connection to the latter, I review past research and introduce the concept of the ideal soldier based on Acker’s (2016) concept of the ideal worker. Lastly, I specifically look at humour, which is a part of the culture of the Canadian Armed Forces (Deschamps, 2015). Moreover, I consider how humour can be a conduit of power within a gendered system, Humour can also be a form of resistance, to which the concept of fumerism (Willett & Willett, 2019) lends a fresh understanding. Overall, this chapter situates my research and marks a starting point to analyze my data and discuss results that highlight forms of power in the murky waters of female soldiers’ military interactions. Chapter three details the method of inquiry where I used a constructivist ground theory approach. Two methods used to gather qualitative data were interviews and hand drawn images so that participants “visualize[d] their experience and narrate[d] it by constructing meaning” (Shih & Schrøder, 2022, p. 5). Through the process of drawing, the participants relate their experiences to the military institution. Much like Shih and Schrøder (2022, p. 6), I see drawing as a different medium from oral or written language; moreover, it enables different enactments of participants’ experiences. Key military documents, or documents on military matters are reviewed here as well. These methodological approaches provide insight into gender integration in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and the combat arms female soldiers’ experiences in this segment of the military. The research describes female soldiers’ day-to-day activities of fitting in, for example, as well as career aspiration and progression, humour and resistance. All the above enhances our understanding of gendered integration, linked to the socially constructed 9 concepts of soldier, femininity, and gender within the hyper-masculine combat arms occupations of the military. Chapter four is the first analysis chapter. Here I argue that the ideal soldier is based on male bodies. I also discus women’s navigation of fitting in while simultaneously sticking out in an overwhelming male institution. In this process the female soldier experience demonstrates traits that are often associated with men and masculinity, and through the methodology of the use of the hand drawn images, the “inhabiting” of the ideal soldier illustrates the general rigours of military life that is unique to the female experience. The function of humour in the CAF occupies chapter five. Here I draw upon participants’ examples of humour to cope with the institution’s legacy and focus on unit cohesion to frame and direct female soldiers to “accept” certain behaviour and attitudes. This ordering on social practice and behaviour leaves female soldiers’ little choice but to laugh it off since the alternative (i.e., call the behaviour out) would be worse. The concluding chapter summarizes key findings in the thesis, outlines my contributions to the literature and suggests areas and aspects of the military for further study. 10 Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Approach 2.1 Introduction This chapter details the relevant and related scholarly literature corresponding to my research. It also discusses the theoretical approach most appropriate to the study of the CAF. I divide the chapter into sections informing my topic. I begin addressing the institutional views of gender captured in past research studies. As well I indicate the gaps in the scholarly literature my research covers. The following sections tackle gender and the theoretical underpinnings of this thesis. Here, I evoke my “sceptical curiosity” to outline a more nuanced look at forms of power and raise questions about military power. These questions include access to resources, decision-makers, or the ability to make decisions on behalf of the military, soldiers, and Canada. I address the concept of gender by outlining the contributions to the field that look at gender's fluidity and the social relations that shape military interactions and relationships. In a separate but connected section, I discuss the ideal soldier based on the ideal worker (Acker, 2016), the culture of the Canadian Armed Forces, and humour as a conduit of power and means of resistance. Overall, this chapter highlights forms of power, which lie in the murky waters of military interactions, at the same time shifting focus to the role of the institution in maintaining and reproducing the ideal soldier. 2.2 Literature Review One attempt to understand gender integration through social policy was researched by Lieutenant-Commander N.G. Gautreau (2014). Gautreau (2014) approached gender integration from the concept of wicked, defined as “more of a problem that is highly resistant to resolution. Wicked problems involve fundamental differences between stakeholders, who typically have deeply held convictions about the correctness of their own position” (p. 9). Gautreau draws upon 11 Winslow, who aptly discussed the CAF’s approach to female military service from the point of view of the institution, stating that the “male identity of the organization is strongly evident through sexualized behaviours and norms, such as male attitudes of paternalism, sexist male talk, joking and innuendo, and sexual harassment, in the day-to-day environment of work” (Winslow as cited in Gautreau, 2014, p. 19). In Gautreau (2014)’s article, the connection is made that policy rooted in gender-neutral assumptions actually produce more inequalities and a strategy of assimilation for integrating female soldiers fails to optimize diversity and potentially hinders operational effectiveness. This research identifies how the culture of the CAF is around masculine ideals that impede the success of the CAF and suggests that the CAF look at different bodies to prepare for modern day warfare (Gautreau, 2014). However, the idea of a “wicked” problem states that stakeholders are vested in their own correctness, so the issue that I have with optimizing diversity and looking at different bodies, is with its reliance on leadership (i.e., stakeholders) to make change. Policies may reflect a change which comes from leadership, how that policy is implemented requires leadership to design and lead the change. My view is that the leadership required for implementing change has a vested interest in keeping the status quo. To exemplify the disconnect that comes from leaders invested in their own correctness, I look at years 1989 – 2015 in which the CAF organizational changes took the form of policy reform, training addressing appropriate conduct, denouncing discrimination based on race and gender, and discussing forms of harassment. The major structural change for the CAF was that in 1989, the final occupations restriction was lifted, and females could now join any occupation. This signaled to the CAF that gender integration was complete, highlighting the need for different perspectives as the CAF leadership only understand barriers and integration from their 12 point of view. This is demonstrated in the statement put forth by the CAF in 2014 in a Backgrounder: Since all restrictions on the employment of women in the CAF have been removed, gender integration is now considered to be a ‘fait accompli’. There is no developed research agenda in the area of women's service in combat or ‘front line’ roles. We are unaware of any post-integration issues with the employment of women in the combat arms. That said, the CAF actively seeks to increase the representation of women. The CAF continually monitor current trends in the representation, recruitment, and attrition of women by conducting surveys, consulting with advisory groups to identify any issues and challenges, and applying the recommendations put forth in the CAF Employment Equity Plan. (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2014, para. A2) No post-integration issues and gender integration is complete. This is the claim. But it contradicts peer-reviewed research (Taber, 2017, p. 8) and the information regarding sexual harassment and under reporting (Deschamps, 2015). It is also problematic since the Minister’s Advisory Board on Canadian Forces Gender Integration and Employment Equity (MABGIEE) report (National Defence Minister’s Advisory Board 2001/2006) rated the CAF Employment Equity Plan as a ‘pass’ but its implementation as a ‘fail’ (Report Card) (Taber, 2017, pp. 7–8). Therefore, without further research drawing from different perspectives, gender became invisible to the leadership; however, the gendering processes of the military were still operating, just displaced and invisible. The continuation of this specific culture was entrenched in a history of female soldiers providing support to male counterparts. Female soldiers were also viewed as physically and mentally “inferior” and disruptive to military unit cohesion. This history matters because female 13 soldiers did not begin in the combat arms with a fresh start/blank slate like their male colleagues. Instead, they began and carried a history of being sidelined or framed as inferior. And as such Davis argues that the CF [Canadian Forces] has not embraced gender-based analysis, and military policies and practices continue to consider women as a homogenous female category that is oppositional to male rather than diverse and socially constructed[…]. That is, for the most part, policies and practices do not address the many instances in which gendered outcomes are based upon complex gendered assumptions and interpretations rather than fixed and immutable categories of man/woman, male/female, which are perceived to produce relatively predictable motivations, behaviours, and outcomes (2009, p. 444). The CAF approach to female integration in the 1990s, according to Trachy (2001), was rooted in “sameness.” That is, in order to be integrated into combat arms the physiological differences of men and women were placed in dichotomous hierarchies where female ability was seen as weakness. The reluctance to include female combat arms soldiers in the CAF was seen as an attempt to counter difference through different treatment, resulted in perceived special treatment. The organizational change is seen in the CAF’s approach to gender integration as a whole and not occupation specific; yet the combat arms occupations were the last of the occupations to have female soldiers and had the most resistance to female unit integration. The approach the Army leadership took to achieve gender integration was treating men and women the same; thus, reinforcing the male norm (Trachy, 2001, p. 80) because women needed to operate under the policies that allowed male bravado to prevail, wear the same kit designed for one type of male body and informally required females to prove that they could do the job. In a sense, gender integration was complete for the CAF—women were added, which was more reconfiguration of 14 social relations than structural change. In other words, elements of the CAF have been rearranged or altered but lack the fundamental change that affects how the whole military institution functions. The result of adding female soldiers meant that female soldiers needed to prove capable of doing the job like a man since the ideal was constructed around the male body and masculinity. Connecting female soldiers to combat is an institutional challenge female soldiers maneuver daily. Winslow and Dunn conceptualized space between the legal and the social understanding of integration in the CAF. They focused on how “externally imposed human rights legislation [led] to change” (Winslow & Dunn, 2002, p. 643) within the CAF and full integration of female soldiers in combat arms. The study drew mostly from documentary research supplemented with 20 open-ended interviews with CF personnel (Winslow & Dunn, 2002, p. 643). They state the integration has two parts, the legal standard and the social. The latter is based on government legislation and Canadian law, while the former is on acceptance of women as equals. Their main argument is that the combat arms resemble civilian occupations the least; thus, emphasizing and holding up of traditional male oriented military organization’s values and attitudes—in particular, models of the warrior (Winslow & Dunn, 2002, p. 644). This results in female integration resistance. Winslow and Dunn (2002) connect the social aspect of integration where different occupational groups within CAF have different attitudes toward female integration. The paper ends with promoting integration by influencing attitudinal changes within the Forces through a series of policy changes, diversity training, and a call to military leaders to embrace female soldier integration. Winslow and Dunn’s recommendations were an effort to change the culture through changing policies and educating practices. 15 The unified goal of increasing females in the CAF is of particular interest because it fails to acknowledge that different occupations have different social relations, which contribute to the overall culture of the CAF. For my research, understanding that combat arms are least like civilian occupations opens the door to looking at the uniqueness of specific occupations and how those occupations shape who or what is the ideal soldier. Moreover, approaches to integration have shaped the military culture, influencing attitudes towards female soldiers and integration, which I turn to Karen D. Davis’ studies (2007) to unpack further. Lieutenant-Commander (Retired) Dr. Karen D. Davis says, “from their [female soldiers] initial participation, women in the combat arms have represented relatively sudden and permanent change to an extensive history of an exclusively male cultural domain” (Davis, 2007, p. 84). Davis draws upon her previous military experience as an Oceanographic Operator (Ocean Op) prior to women being permitted into the combat arms. She uses her experience to contrast the female soldiers’ experiences in the combat arms. Davis, like many of the studies outlined, speaks of change in the Forces for the integration of females to the military. “At every step of the journey, the integration of women, now referred to as gender integration, has met some resistance ranging from skepticism in reference to the ability of women to do the job to social resistance to the very idea of women in the military, and ultimately women in combat roles” (Davis, 2007, p. 69). She contributed significantly to the knowledge of gender integration in the CAF, and most interestingly she interviewed male and female soldiers at various ranks. Davis also reviewed relevant documents and policy proposals and initiatives. I gravitate towards Davis’ more recent works as she employs a method of tracing the historical and current perceptions by using cultural intelligence (CQ), which is a “meta-competency that facilitates understanding, perception and adaptability within multicultural ethnic and organizational context” (Davis, 2009, 16 p. 432). Cultural intelligence is the “ability to interpret and adapt effectively to the unknown” (Davis, 2009, p. 436); it focuses on “knowledge, cognition, motivation, and behaviour – that lead to cultural adaptability” (432) which relies heavily on mindfulness as a link. Mindfulness, much like the sociological imagination (Mills 1956), acknowledges the importance of knowledge not only of other cultures but also of self and the way in which assumptions about one’s own culture and status in that culture influence perceptions and understanding of others, behaviour toward others and the messages, both explicit and implicit, that are conveyed by one’s behaviour (Davis, 2009, p. 433). By using CQ and connecting the organizational understanding of gender, Davis opens the military to gaining knowledge surrounding gender diversity and strengthening the cultural competences. The two points I build on from Davis are: the successful negotiation of the CAF culture by female soldiers in the combat arms as an underdeveloped area (Davis, 2009, p. 445) and the connection between attitude and behaviour, as it calls for a reflection of one’s own beliefs while drawing attention to how it informs one’s actions. I would be wrong to ignore the recent revelations of rampant sexual misconduct and harassment in the CAF. Therefore, I use the 2015 External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces investigation as a starting place to examine the cultural relations that enable such behaviour. The research on culture is vast and as a result I have chosen to rely on the 2015 External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces, by Deschamps, the External Review Authority (ERA). The ERA conducted an in-depth review of policy and the culture of the CAF, which drew data from surveys, focus groups and interviews, as well as policy reviews. I think it's prudent to draw from this study because of the amount of 17 data collected and the recommendations addressing the CAF's mechanics beyond policy. I utilize one of the key findings that describes the CAF culture as having: “an underlying sexualized culture…that is hostile to women and LGBTQ members, and conducive to more serious incidents of sexual harassment and assault. Cultural change is therefore key” (Deschamps, 2015, p. i). I build upon the recognition of a distinct set of social relations that inform behaviours and actions, shaping the experience of LGBTQ and female soldiers in the CAF culture. Culture is defined in the ERA report as the “ways in which, over time, people who work or live within a particular organizational and institutional setting develop a shared set of understandings, which allow them to interpret and act upon the world around them” (Deschamps, 2015, p. 12). The important step in creating actions for change is by first identifying the pervasive power and intensity of the culture (Deschamps, 2015). And, as I have discussed above, there are several competing hierarchies that soldiers navigate where power operates and intensifies. Even though the military has taken steps to create change through policy, gender-based training and independent investigations of sexual-based offences, attention must turn to avenues of power that maintain an underlying sexualized culture. Consequently, the continuation of a goal of increasing female soldiers in the CAF seems tone deaf when the environment is a hostile workplace and sexually-based offenses are prevalent. Based on the testimony of Hon. Marie Deschamps given on 22 February 2021 in the House of Commons where she stated “my report is already more than six years old, since I held my interviews in 2014. As I listen to the comments, I have the impression that today little has changed” (2021, pt. 1125). She supports her claim by highlighting the failed implementation of her 2015 report recommendations, which urged the creation of a sexual misconduct response centre as the primary authority to receive reports; and establish a central and unified database for 18 collecting disclosure details (House of Commons, 2021, pt. 1125). The lack of implementation indicates another form of reconfiguration disguised as systemic change and begs the question of why and what prevented the CAF from implementing the two recommendations. For insights that echo my research, Dr. Maya Eichler says the military's effort “did not make the link between sexual misconduct and military culture, specifically, the role of gender and masculinity in it” (House of Commons, 2021, pt. 1230). She says that the “culture of the military is the outcome of a long history of legally sanctioned sex and gender discrimination against those who don't fit that male norm” (House of Commons, 2021, pt. 1230). The lack of change or increase in female soldiers indicates that policy reviews, training, and military-led initiatives have little effect on cultural change. This is partly due to past approaches, which asked leaders first to recognize pervasive power and then implement change that will dismantle their privileged positions, dimmish their power, and disrupt the social order. The social order to which has been a bastion for hegemonic masculinity, power, and privilege. Moreover, the uniqueness of military work is part of the social order, which requires aggressiveness, intense training, and experience with hostile situations. So, the challenge now lies in identifying parts of the culture that need changing, or more so what can training/preparing for hostile situations look like so the Other does not have to fight in order to fight. For this answer, I draw upon the ERA report’s 10 recommendations to improve the CAF environment; with the most relevant to my thesis being that senior CAF leadership must acknowledge how serious the sexualized culture is and put the work in to set the example for subordinates and peers (Deschamps, 2015). However, this recommendation is just that - a recommendation - and the details to undergo the cultural change need to be sussed out. Therefore, to make the necessary changes we need to look at certain aspects of the CAF culture. 19 The ERA report alluded to one which is of particular interest: “This sexualized culture is manifested through the pervasive use of language that is demeaning to women, sexual jokes and innuendos, and low-level harassment” (Deschamps, 2015, p. 13). Thus, new soldiers are socialized into a culture that has been normalized and therefore extremely difficult to change (Deschamps, 2015). In an effort to incorporate the research recommendations and observations, as well as connect it to Davis’s research on CQ, I focus on the social phenomenon of humour as it functions in the CAF. Connecting CQ and the ERA’s observation of humour in the CAF, I set my focus and connect leaderships’ status in the CAF to how it influences perceptions, understanding of others, and behaviour toward others (Davis, 2009). Therefore, when a gender-based lens is applied, we can see the social relations surrounding soldier interactions, including humour as a strong influencer in explicit and implicit messages conveyed by one’s behaviour or in “joking around” (Davis, 2009). A main focus of mine is to investigate the day-to-day interactions of soldiers, as well as the effectiveness of any gender-based training and leadership-driven activities, which fall short of change because soldiers do not take it seriously when training is conducted in-house (Deschamps, 2015). Supported by the ERA, Deschamps (2015) pointed out SHARP (Standard for Harassment and Racism Prevention) training lost its luster after a few years. “This seems to be due to the fact that while experts were hired to carry out training in the early years, this did not continue over time” (Deschamps, 2015, p. 81). In the end, the ability to make changes to the “male-gendered environment” with its “militarized hyper-masculinity” (Gautreau, 2014, p. 24; Taber, 2018, p. 101; Davis, 2009, p. 450), requires looking at the social relations around soldier interactions. Such interactions maintain and reproduce fundamental differences between males and females. Much like Connell’s (2002) definition of gender as a set of social relations around 20 reproductive organs, the understanding of soldier is constructed around the body, not only the reproductive organs, but also a specific type of strength and unit cohesion. My interest lies in how female soldiers navigate the social relations and the results of dealing with assumptions about their bodies in the day-to-day lives of female soldiers. Nancy Taber’s (2017) research on the military looks at an embedded warrior ideology which values a militarized hypermasculinity that denigrates and discriminates against women (Harrison 2002) while men, through a ‘patriarchal dividend’ (Connell 1997, 64) that is militarized, are viewed as ‘real fighters’ (Taber 2009, 34) and ‘unencumbered warrior[s]’ (Taber 2009, 29) within a ‘combat masculine heterosexual warrior identity’ (Davis 2013, 243) (Taber, 2017, p. 4)8. As female soldiers enter and exit the CAF, they do so in opposition of those who are viewed as the real fighters. This means that female soldiers must navigate a culture that sees inherent difference in female and male bodies, which places them in a dichotomous relationship where tough and strong able-bodied men are heroic protectors of the weak—women, children, and ultimately the Nation (Taber, 2017). The social relations surrounding women and men’s roles are starkly contrasted in the combat arms (Davis as cited in Taber, 2017) as the social relations align real fighters with male bodies performing maleness/masculinity through uniquely military values. These include values revolving around accepting unlimited liability, embracing a spirit of self-sacrifice and dedication to duty without regard to personal fear or danger, or family, and 8 This is a direct quote form Taber’s (2017) article, in which she has refenced Harrison (2002), Connell (1997), Taber (2009), Taber (2009) and Davis (2013). 21 soldiers demonstrating discipline and teamwork skills and possessing a fighting spirit (Taber, 2017). While these values are viewed as universal for all soldiers, the overlay of gender furthers this conversation because the warrior culture is based on “assumptions that women and men are different; men are strong, women are weak; women are protected, men protect women; women are emotionally unstable, men are more stable for fighting in war” (Taber, 2017, p. 4). Stuart Hall writes that institutions position individuals and/or groups to which they are subjugated (Hall in Parker, 2012b). In this way, it becomes a normalization process, where we see and experience ourselves as the other, resulting in compulsion to and conformity to the norm (Parker, 2012b, p. 546). If this forms the base of military service in the combat arms, how female soldiers traverse the landscape of the army is of great importance. I further draw upon Nancy Taber (2018) because she clearly distinguishes femininity and masculinity as separate from sex within the context of the CAF. Taber (2018) provides great insight into the performance of gender and seeks to understand how the institution ‘deals’ with bodies that do not perform acceptable forms of masculinity and femininity. She focuses on “problematizing men’s service through the lens of masculinity [which] can help in understanding how gender operates for men and women, as well as for those who do not fit that binary; this, in turn, can help inform cultural change” (Taber, 2018, p. 101). By focusing on masculinity, Taber (2018) looks at the results of marginalizing those who do not perform acceptable gender, which often results in the feminization of the other. This is very helpful in understanding the CAF landscape that reproduces a culture privileging hegemonic masculinities (Taber, 2018, p. 101). Taber (2018) helps align my research and see the different social relations surrounding female 22 soldiers and how they navigate their gender performativity in relation to the privileged culture of male soldiers. To help make sense of navigating the CAF culture and performativity, I consider the research by Febbraro (2007) who studied Canadian Forces’ female leaders’ experiences and perspectives in the combat arms. She sought to provide insight on issues around gender and leadership. To do so, she interviewed eight female officers in leadership positions in the combat arms with an average of four to six years of experience. The results of the study highlighted the balancing act that female leaders do to avoid exhibiting too masculine or too feminine leadership styles or characteristics. To do otherwise—veer to one side or another—would call into question their leadership effectiveness. As well, the research identified organizational policies and practices that could aid gender integration such as: Over-accommodating/not singling women out (by the CAF or the media), which interestingly includes giving female soldiers support positions as a means of accommodation for work/life schedules. But this type of support worked against their career because it was viewed as special treatment and a real fighter would put military duty before self (or private responsibilities). Another example of institutional singling out is when issues and strategies of gender and inclusion are assigned to female soldiers because they are female. Febbraro’s study participants advocated for female leaders to not be assigned the gender/diversity advisor roles, which did not require any specialized qualifications, thus giving the impression that they were qualified solely based on their sex and gender being woman/female. This is an example of the gendering process as there are few female soldiers in leadership roles. That is, it links the role with the only female soldier thereby implying that gender and inclusion is a female issue. 23 The participants in Febbraro’s study went on to list solutions to some of the gendering processes they experience. The list includes: providing suitable equipment/kit for women, adopting gender-neutral standards (especially occupational standards), and allowing gender integration to occur more “naturally” as opposed to pushing or over-accommodating women. The participants felt that the CAF was “doing all it could to integrate women effectively in the combat arms” (Febbraro, 2007, pp. 127–128). Furthermore, the views of the participants reflected two perspectives on cultural change: integration and assimilation. Early female combat arms soldiers needed to adapt or assimilate by relinquishing some of their group identity to move towards the dominant group culture (Berry as cited in Febbraro, 2007, p. 131). Participants also expressed how the military needed to change to accommodate women, but women too needed to adapt to the military/combat arms integration processes. In sum, a change to the existing system is seen as the minority group changes and influences the majority group to change as well (Korabik as cited in Febbraro, 2007, p. 131). The issue I have with the above is the idea that female soldiers need to change too (Febbraro, 2007). To me, this sounds a lot like choice. I understand that individuals have agency, but what’s being suggested is that female soldiers need to accept the gendering process including an element of sexism, sexual harassment, and for some, sexual assault. Febbraro’s study highlights the need to focus on the combat arms, leadership and the complex gendering processes that accompanies institutional change. Where I differ from Febbraro is in understanding that integration needs to move beyond the individual soldier’s choice and male/female separation and move towards understanding the institution’s role in perpetuating a harmful CAF culture that limits members’ potential. Major Lise Bourgon (2007) also conducted a study of the CAF and, amongst other things, argues that the key for successful gender integration in the CAF is an adoption of different 24 practices of flexibility that put its people first. She states that the work-life balance (or rather imbalance) is directly related to the female representation in the forces. She lists how the military is unique and suggests that flexible workdays and different leave policies could help women in the military. Bourgon (2007) suggests addressing the underlying problems that sub-groups face comprehensively and beyond legislative change. For example, in 1989 the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal directed the CAF to remove all restrictions relating to female employment (except for submariner), which barred females from entering combat occupations (Bourgon, 2007). I include Bourgon’s study because it draws upon the concept of work-life balance, while advocating for in-depth review of sub-group struggles. Here the work-life balance is based on the CAF’s desire to become an employer of choice; this desire would aid in retention and integration of female soldiers. I use this CAF desire as a doorway to connect to the combat arms for female soldiers’ navigation of the culture(s) of the military. Bourgon’s study also identified “three of the top five reasons for women to leave the military [which]can be directly linked to their family responsibilities” (2007, p. 12). Therefore, I see a connection between Bourgon and Febbraro’s study as participants noted that the mission comes first over accommodation of woman (such as flexible workdays); however, if accommodating policies compromises the mission overall, then the adaptation of CAF for women or female soldiers was out. In the history of females in the CAF, females have been accommodating and flexible for the purpose of the organization. For example, policy requiring them to remain (while in the forces) single resulting in more short notice moves (Dundas, 2000). Historically, males with families were seen as less flexible and gained special treatment in the form of not being selected for relocation over a single female soldier (Dundas, 2000). While this may be an oversimplification, I use it to point out the female soldiers’ attitude to fit in; where 25 accommodation based on work life balance in the form of family, has been a given at times for male soldiers, but is seen as a privilege for female soldiers (by Febbraro’s participants), a privilege that is really a hinderance questioning their commitment as soldiers. Therefore, the desire to appear flexible, and embody the self-sacrificing “mission comes first” attitude is the driving value that is contributing to the compulsion to the normalized conformity unequally affecting female soldiers. There is a link being made that female soldiers will need to have more flexible-work accommodations because of work-life balance and the connection to the family. While this may be true, males too would benefit from this policy. And as social relations reveal themselves when connected to the warrior culture that holds the unencumbered soldier as ideal, the social relations attached to femininity (raising a family, motherhood), result in female soldiers being linked to the encumbered and thus a lesser soldier. The issue is not that female soldiers need to adapt to the military/combat arms—they have been for 70 years with every reconfiguration of gender over every decade. The issue rests in the social relations surrounding the ideal soldier and the power/knowledge in that image which exceeds the boundaries of policy and into the nuanced realm of day-to-day military interactions. 2.3 Sceptical Curiosity and Choice I have outlined the relevant research conducted on gender integration in the Canadian Armed Forces and I aim to further that research from the discipline of sociology and situate my topic within the subfield of military sociology. The latter gained status in the postwar period, especially with C. Wright Mills’ (1956) attribution of military leaders as one constituent group in the emerging power elite in postwar US society. In The Power Elite he argues that the concept power elite represents a complex web of economic, military, and political power; power elite is also a means of interpreting what is going on at the “topside of modern American society” 26 (Mills, 1965, p. 278). Furthermore, as the elite groups’ power increased, so did their ability to push special interests that benefited them; resulting in the decreased ability of the ordinary citizen to voice concerns or opinions (Mills, 1956) and a concentration of power over resources, power that was independent of economic class. The arguments in the book unleashed a series of research undertakings seeking to confirm or deny Mills’ analyses and conclusions (Moskos, 1976). In this work and subsequently, the military was conceptualized as apart from society with its own institutional framework and logic. It was theorized as a total institution in the Goffman sense (Goffman, 1961, p. 4). But the institution (the military) as a microcosm of society was found wanting for its inward-looking analysis as if institutions existed and functioned exclusively in their own terms and dynamics. Sociologists identified and established links between the military and society. It is in this period that military sociology increasingly engaged in the study of armed forces and society (Moskos, 1976, p. 55). It is also then that analysis turned towards investigating and examining individuals in the military including different categories of soldiers (Moskos, 1976). But these soldiers were rarely gendered, or more accurately almost always conceptualized from an androcentric perspective. Other studies took place in military sociology, including research incorporating (or not) racialized and ethicized bodies in the institution (Ouellet, 2005). In addition, focus on the growing military industrial complex, militarism and the militarization of society, expanded interests in this subfield (Ouellet, 2005). In these research initiatives, gender is often ignored, an afterthought, or indeed muted since the male soldier is perceived as “ungendered”. On the back of this discussion, I see the CAF embodying characteristics of Canadian civil society where social relationships, actions and identities are continuously shaping and shaped by the surrounding structures and cultures of Canadian society. That is, the “military does have a 27 distinct culture, as would any profession studied, but that it is [also] consistent with the culture of the broader society that it defends” (Segal, 2007, p. 10). The military contains institutional “traits” (Carreiras et al., 2016, p. 2) such as hierarchies, discipline and levels of security/secrecy that contribute to its functioning, and often exhibit a ‘distinct culture’ and practices (Althusser as cited in Garner, 2004, p. 386). However, while identifying and recognizing the distinctiveness of the military culture, one must resist the view that this distinctiveness is beyond an understanding of the non-military specialist and that functioning takes a dimension of its own within the military apparatus. Segal warns: “[I]n modern nations, where the military frequently plays a less central role, it is likely to affect the lives of a large proportion of the population through its impact on economic, political, familial, and educational institutions” (Segal, 2007, p. 2). This signals a process of greater influence and intricacy beyond a state institution and which some argue ties into maintaining and reproducing the ruling class ideology. This view is associated with Louis Althusser (1971) who divides the capitalist state apparatus into ideological and repressive attributes and functions. He locates the military firmly in the repressive functions of capitalist state organization. Garner (2004), however, argues that the distinction between ideological and repressive is not as clear cut or attributed to specific institutions as Althusser assumes and articulates. For Garner (2004), any state apparatus, be it military or educational, can embody both functions of repression and ideology for the maintenance of ruling class control. Hence, Garner proposes studying this interplay (of different functions) so that we “go further than mere observation” in our studies (p. 386). For all Althusser’s insights, gender and gendering processes within repressive state apparatus remained foreign to him. Althusser casts a shadow over this thesis but so do feminist theory about gender and performance within institutional frameworks and contexts. 28 The complexity of the military structure and the understanding that it possesses a distinct culture paves the way to questioning forms of power—forms of power that exist beyond the hierarchal formations of rank and discipline as a means of looking at knowledge production and identity. This form of critical analysis is rooted in critical military studies (CMS)—a way of “approaching military power as a question, rather than taking it for granted, critical military studies more readily engages in a “sceptical curiosity” about how it works – often through a variety of social and domestic political agendas that may bear no relation to the role of protecting the nation from foreign threats” (Basham et al., 2015, p. 1). Cynthia Enloe (2015) uses a critical feminist approach to analyze the “taken for granted knowledge” or what is routinely ignored within the military (p. 3). She coined the term “sceptical curiosity” to mean one’s critical approach to military power, and its character, representation, application, and effects. Therefore, “critical military studies as a sceptically curious endeavour also acknowledges that our very conceptions of military power, militarism, and militarization are themselves open to critique and reimagining. It is in prioritizing the “in-between” – the neither exclusively military nor singularly civilian – that critical military studies can expose such tensions and problematize military power in its multiple manifestations” (Basham et al., 2015, p. 2). Henceforth, I carry “sceptical curiosity” throughout the investigation in this thesis and begin at the claim that females simply do not want to join as reason for low female representation. In the CAF, 16.3% of the soldiers identify as female and make up 19.4% of the officers or leaders and 3.9% (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2022) are in the combat arms. These are low numbers. But my interest lies in how the CAF has explained them, as females not wanting to join, implying that it is an individual choice. Therefore, choice is the CAF’s choice explanation for the low number of females of the total forces as well as in the combat arms 29 occupation. Examining choice as explanation allows me to draw upon several writers to help address power and question masculine/patriarchal power interwoven within the institution. While familiar with social choice theory, I respond to Schwarz’s call to action, where “sociology’s task is to expose and demystify this illusion of choice, which serves to grant legitimation to inequalities and pass judgment on members of the working class for their allegedly voluntary ‘choices’” (Schwarz, 2017, p. 6). As such, I view choice differently in that, I follow power, inequality regimes and gender, rather than individuals and class stratification. I use choice as a form of privilege and power, which is influenced by gender and structures. Where individuals do not have equal access to opportunities to make a choice, nor are the root causes for both behaviour and social institutions, who make their decisions of their own volition (Hechter, 2019). Therefore, I align my research more with Bourdieu’s argument that choice is illusionary and a result of complex, patterned interactions between the choosing subject, context and objects available to choose from; between habitus and field (as cited in Schwarz, 2017). I, however, borrow from Schwarz (2017), the idea that choice and the culture of choice is as an everchanging social phenomena, where how people choose and how choice is ascribed can further our understanding. By doing so, I recognize that females have agency in joining the CAF, but Schwarz proposes that there is more at play in that individual perceived action when we look at how choice is framed. Choice moves from the individual female soldier and onto the CAF, which has restricted career options, limited potential, and shaped the culture of the military to which affects how one chooses a military occupation, or chooses to join or chooses to stay in the military. To move beyond individual choice or agency and unpack the framing of choice, I first need to examine the historical changes and legislation which affected female soldiers’ military careers and occupations. 30 2.4 Female Soldiers and CAF Organizational Change I begin with a brief overview of the historical changes introduced within the CAF. I review the CAF history of female soldiers to preface the theoretical concept of “reconfiguration,” which addresses the institutional views and practices that reinforced the gender order, and the specific military culture. Therefore, I argue that integration initiatives by the CAF are more reconfigurations of the same social relations giving the appearance of change, rather than addressing systemic issues. The historical significance of those involved in ‘procuring’ women’s right to participate in the CAF, began over 70 years ago. While females have been involved in military action in Canada since 1885 (Dundas, 2000, p. 17), their status as soldiers have only had official9 recognition since 1942. This was in the middle of WWII and helped address “manpower” shortages (“Manpower” Problems, 1954). The ‘procuring’ indicates the military’s inherent power with influences from the military and power elite, gatekeeping, and ensuring the maintenance of gender hierarchies. There are three elements a soldier can belong to, and this is associated with the type of environment within which the work gets performed. These elements are Land (for the army), Navy, and Air. In the Army element, the term combat arms is used to group military occupation(s) primarily responsible for engaging with the enemy. Early definitions would classify occupations directly involved in combat as active duty, combat duty or the front lines. In essence, the combat related occupations have remained the same and denote direct engagement 9 Official meaning that their status as soldiers fell under the code of service discipline and were recognized as a sub element of Canadian Forces. However, they did have different streams of administration and were paid 80 percent of a male soldier’s wage (Stacy, 1955, p. 126). 31 in fighting between two armed forces - on land - with the primary function to engage in combat (Crouthamel, 2014). All new soldiers begin at the lowest ranks and work their way to the next rank level by completing training and on the job experience. As a soldier progresses in rank, they do so in responsibility too, and as a result are eligible for leadership positions that involve training, leading soldiers, and strategic planning to accomplish tasks and missions. While all soldiers may currently start at the lowest level and work their way up, that has not always been the case for female soldiers. Moreover, the few that did progress did so while simultaneously overcoming institutional resistance and barriers. According to CAF website, Canada “was one of the first military forces to allow women to serve in all occupations” (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, retrieved 2022). However, the willingness or the reluctance to allow female soldiers to do so does need to be traced because women’s service in the military has been continuously called into question since the Second World War (Davis, 2009; Dundas, 2000). Female soldiers continuing presence in the military and the expansion of their role was precipitated by external forces, including the political influence exerted by the Minister of National Defence, the Royal Commission, The Status of Women Canada (1971), the Canadian Human Rights Act of 1978 and, ultimately, the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms” (Dundas, 2000, p. 105). Additionally, many women pushed for change demonstrating their will and ability. However, early demonstrations of this were met with a but, for female participation was constructed as a means of alleviating the manpower shortages (Dundas, 2000, p. 42). “While the women were ‘serving that men may fight,’ they sometimes had to fight in order to serve!” (Dundas, 2000, p. 56). Furthermore, female soldier ability was repeatedly questioned in relation 32 to male soldiers and their participation, and acceptance of their contributions was treated as a footnote to the larger goal of target recruiting and male career progression. By drawing upon Crouthamel, I have discussed above the informal hierarchy based on proximity to combat, which has been disadvantageous to female soldiers since their military service and potential has been curtailed due to discrimination based on sex and gender—it shaped their fitting in. The history of women in the Forces is celebrated in the forces (Forces, n.d.). and they are placed on a pedestal for blazing the trail for other women. According to the CAF, there is nothing standing in their way, not even “perceived” physical limitations (Taber, 2017, p. 8). But downplayed in this account is the CAF’s imposed barriers to their service, which remain to this day. By exploring the influences of the CAF, which shaped the circumstances surrounding female soldiers, I demonstrate how the “tradition[s] of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living” (Marx, 1852, para. 2). That is how the past has created the conditions that affect female soldiers today. 2.5 Reconfiguration and the Gendering Process Tying together the concept of choice as complex patterned interactions, and the CAF history of organizational change to include female soldiers, highlights how structural change has not occurred; therefore, the same social relations still exist and continue to reproduce inequality—it’s camouflaged and appears natural. Therefore, to further the discussion I introduce the concept of reconfiguration that incorporates differentiation and segregation, which occurred as females/women have entered previously male-dominated occupations (Acker, 2016). Therefore, the type of occupation restrictions imposed on female soldiers, becomes central to my thesis as those restrictions have been framed as integration and progressive by the CAF. Furthermore, large organization’s structural placement has consequences to females, because 33 when females are in top positions, they are exposed as tokens or are crowded in dead-end jobs at the bottom (Kanter as cited in Acker, 1990). Ackers’ 2016 article builds on Kanter’s work by making the connection to “systematic disparities between participants in power and control over goals, resources, and outcomes; workplace decisions such as how to organize work; opportunities for promotion and interesting work; security in employment and benefits; pay and other monetary rewards; respect; and pleasures in work and work relations” (Acker, 2016, p. 443). By drawing attention to Acker’s work, I connect to the importance of what occupations females are employed in, highlighting the patterns of interactions that reproduce the social relations that question female military service and frame inequality a choice. In Acker’s (1990) article, “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations,” she argued that organizations are not neutral, rather they are gender processes rooted in gendered assumptions, informing documents, culture, and the division of labour. “Their gendered nature is partly masked through obscuring the embodied nature of work. Abstract jobs and hierarchies, common concepts in organizational thinking assume a disembodied and universal worker. This worker is actually a man; men's bodies, sexuality, and relationships to procreation and paid work are subsumed in the image of the worker. Images of men 's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations” (Acker, 1990, p. 139). “Connected,” is Joan Acker’s conceptual insight into how institutional organizing justify gender difference based on biased characteristics. Connected is a means at looking at the whole organization, seeing patterns or webs of interconnectedness rather than individual silos to produce knowledge. When examining the military, I too, examine the organization like Acker, who views “organizations as gendered processes in which both gender and sexuality have been 34 obscured through a gender neutral, asexual discourse” (1990, p. 140). She further suggests “gender, the body, and sexuality are part of the processes of control in work organizations” (Acker, 1990, p. 140). I have summarized Acker’s (1990) key components of the processes of control or the gendering process, which is apparent in five interacting processes: 1. The construction of divisions based on gender or alongside gender. 2. The construction of signs and symbols that explain, express, reinforce or sometimes oppose those divisions. 3. The interactions between women and men, women and women and men and men are enactments of dominance and submission. 4. These processes help to produce gendered components of individual identity, which may include consciousness of the existence of three aspects of gender, such as, in organizations, choice of appropriate work, language use, clothing, and presentation of self as a gendered member of an organization (Reskin and Roos 1987 as cited in Acker, 1990). 5. Gender is implicated in the fundamental, ongoing procreating and conceptualizing processes of social structures. Thus, gender is socially constructed and is a constructing agent; where in organizations gender as the constructor is less obvious or is a sublayer that goes unnoticed in the daily activities of work (Acker, 1990). The connected sublayers of gendering processes within organizations are important to my thesis because I explore female soldier experiences, involving organizational interactions with less obvious forms of gendering through hierarchies, divisions, signifiers and interactions. 35 To exemplify reconfiguration, I looked at the current mandate of the CAF “providing advice and support to the Minister of National Defence [MND] and implementing Government decisions regarding the defence of Canadian interests at home and abroad (Department of National Defence “Strong Secure Engaged” (2017). The CAF vision for the country is to have an “agile, multi-purpose combat-ready military, operated by highly trained, well-equipped women and men, secure in the knowledge that they have the full support of their government and their fellow Canadians” (Department of National Defence “Strong Secure Engaged” (2017). C. Wright Mills (1956) discusses the power elite as it relates to the post war American society and military. He draws a connection between the increasing politicization of the military exercised in the form and identity of Military generals. This is a transformation of military leaders who have gained (willingly or otherwise) more control over American life than ever before. They have gained more power—power in the form of influential political relevance making the military structure a permanent part of the US political structure. For Mills, this has led to a military definition of reality where all political or economic actions are gaged through a military lens of reality. He uses the term military elite to describe a group of commanders who have transcended the military and entered the higher circles of society and joined higher networks of elites: businessmen, ultra-rich, politicians, celebrities, and religious leaders. He uses the concept of the power elite to investigate institutional hierarchies intersecting with similarities of personnel, official relations with one another, and social and psychological affinities resulting in understanding of personal and social bias of power elite unity (Mills, 1965, p. 280). In other words, he shows the composition of the power elite within society and how power circulates at the top and is maintained and reproduced. Mills’ (1956) argument rests on the organization of power, history and hierarchies within different elite circles that form the government and shape 36 the country’s viewpoint to one that involves military force, protection, and affirmations of citizenship through military service. My point here is to draw attention to why it matters to female soldiers the scope of influence over soldiers and Canadian society becomes clear, where understanding rests in power—the power to make and influence decisions on behalf of the country. Without attention drawn to this area, little disruption is done to the gender order of the CAF, which exemplifies a constructed division alongside gender. In highlighting the hierarchical structure of the military landscape, I focus on the role of the combat arms, which is a collection of occupations that metaphorically make up the top portion of the pyramid; because, tactically speaking, all military efforts (in war) support combat and the occupations that are specifically designed to engage in combat. Therefore, combat arms occupations deliver the violent/ forceful action on behalf of the CAF, CAF leadership, government, and the Canadian people. Captain Alex Buzoiu who appears in a promotional video recruiting advertisement for the infantry, states: The role of the infantry in relation to other arms, may it be combat or not, is the centrepiece. So around it, the infantry will provide the bulk of the ground forces, but they are always collaborating, may it be with armoured units, artillery units, air force units, and even logistical support non-combat units in order to achieve that. So, the infantry provides the combat presence, and often provides most of the leadership presence. (Forces, n.d., https://forces.ca/en/career/infantry-officer/) The ultimate form of power is coercion by violence (Mills, 1959). Whomever controls the military has access to all its coercive power. But within the military most coercive power lies in the largest element, with the most soldiers, who fulfill the combat presence. Therefore, if the combat arms occupations hold the most coercive power, holds most of the leadership presence of 37 that power, where female soldiers have very low representation (3.9% of the combat arms occupations (“Women in the Canadian Armed Forces”, 2016)), and thus limited access to the military elite power and influence, then once again they remain the exception in the decision-making process, share partially in the glory and continue to be support for those who do the fighting. I have looked at the elite position the military holds in society and who occupies the upper echelons of the military. I have also acknowledged the hierarchical power structure visible in the rank system of the military. However, I recognize the different systems of power that run parallel to the rank system and point out that positions hold more power within the Forces. The rank structure and military positions are power structures within the CAF that follow a classical hierarchy,10 but I draw your attention to the informal hierarchy of military occupations based on the proximity to combat (Crouthamel 2014). For instance, Crouthamel (2014) described the attitudes of soldiers stationed at the front lines (in WWI), and who did not directly engage in fighting. These soldiers humorously displayed their attitudes in trench newspapers or in conversations and letters home, which gave said personal pejorative nicknames or seriously described the disconnect between the front lines and the home front. This exemplifies another type of status or division within the military hierarchy, one that is connected to how close a soldier is to combat and implies one’s willingness to engage in combat. However, this connection is disproportionately advantageous to male soldiers because females have been denied entry into combat occupations. Exemplifying Acker’s gender processes, the interactions 10 I define classical hierarchy, first by the structure, much like a pyramid where there is a small central governing body, each level of management has lots of control and a narrow scope, and there is very little input from the bottom up; second aspect is connected to Weber’s (1904-5) “iron cage” of rationality, encompassed in bureaucracy and control over emotions (McIntosh, 1997). 38 between males and females produce pattern behaviour that capture organizational life where: Men are the actors, women the emotional support (Hochschild 1983 as cited Acker, 1990, p. 147). Meaning, female soldiers are not seen as real fighters in formal hierarchies, but support for those who do fight, since historical occupations that allowed access to fighting was not an option for them. In other words, female soldiers have been denied the opportunity to fight, framed as support and at the same time are seen as not wanting or willing (in other words choice) to do dangerous, tough work—combat work. While males have always been connected to dangerous work because they have always had access to it, and so seen as the ideal soldier. This is the social order of the CAF and by tracing the flow and scope of power that is associated with the type of military service, juxtaposed with the history of female soldiers, I can begin to examine ideological difficulties armed forces have in coping with women (Enloe, 1983, p. 10). Yet, there are still high ranking, influential female soldiers and support occupations are necessary to the function of the military—so what if there are only a few females in the combat arms? Cynthia Enloe rhetorical question ‘why feminists should study the military?’ comes into play when connected to Mills’ concept of the power elite. Echoing Mills, Enloe says the military provides the state a means of control through force, if need be. She writes that the “claim that the state isn’t a genuine state unless it has its own instrument of organized coercion—an army—carries a lot of weight, even in a society not usually considered highly militaristic” (Enloe 1983, p. 11). But what Mills lacks in recognition of gender, Enloe abundantly supplies by investigating the military with a materialist feminist methodology focusing on the material conditions of the military as an organization. The conditions and dependency are rooted in a legacy of constructed gender hierarchy, involving masculinity and femininity. That is, females and racialized bodies were “used to solve their [the military’s] nagging problems of manpower availability, quality, 39 health, moral and ‘readiness”” (Enloe, 1983, p. 9). She seeks to expose the operations and character of the military by focusing on those women most subjected to military exploitation (Enloe, 1983, p. 9). I draw upon Enloe’s concept, the “military as an organization” (1983, p. 7), to discuss the history of females connected to the military. This history originates in ideas of camp followers who were females labeled as: wives, whores, maids, male servants, women who invoke the image of the society outcast, poor but tenacious, one that preys on unfortunate soldiers to make a living, an intruder of a man’s world, a tag-along with a “dragging skirt in the battlefield mud” (Enloe, 1983, p. 2). When I connect this general history of female service, how much of this knowledge has been maintained and what does it look like in the modern-day CAF? For Enloe (1983) the camp follower represents a flexible and temporary division of labour between males and females, where women served so men may fight. Importantly, is the power the commander not only had over male soldiers but over the camp followers as well. Camp followers were only ever permitted to the short-term margins of the military, where their use value was tied to the commander’s tolerance of them; and if they were seen to provide the services, do menial jobs and keep troops satisfied, they could stay. Women followers were discredited when the commander decided they slowed the march or disrupted the troops’ cohesion and disabling them as an efficient fighting force. These two attitudes resonate well into the 1990’s in the CAF, which has been a means of ensuring a particular social order and contributes to a specific military culture. To exemplify sustained attitudes as well as the construction of signs and symbols that reinforce division in the gendering process, I look at the years 1939-1965, which are the early years regarding female soldiers’ inception into the CAF. The early formation and admittance of female soldiers created separate divisions of the elements; therefore, the Navy had the Women's 40 Royal Canadian Naval Service, the Army had the Canadian Women's Army Corps, and the Airforce had the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division (Stacy, 1955, pp. 124–127). The women’s divisions were considered part of the forces that fell under the same service code of conduct, but they were treated as separate entities and were thought to have a higher cost associated with servicewomen due to the perceived need that female soldiers needed segregated living quarters, lower pay, training, clothing, and health standards. The most striking feature was that you could not have children and or be married. The Canadian Women’s Army Corps is the land element of the military. The male counter was the Canadian Army, which was the area of the forces that had the combat arms occupations or in WWII had the front-line soldiers and did the direct ground fighting with the enemy. While there were different occupations and specific structures in general, the women’s corps provided support in the form of administration for the army. In 1943, organizational change was implemented and female soldiers gained official CAF recognition. Before this date women were denied entry on the grounds that uniformed women could cause social disruption within the ranks. It was also argued that catering to women’s needs was an ineffective way of spending the limited military budget, and that the volunteer paramilitary organized women’s corps and were training in functions that the military did not intend to assign to women. Female soldiers demonstrated their willingness to serve by persistent action in the paramilitary organized women’s corps. However, female soldiers’ roles were constructed to free men for combat and fill manpower shortages. Female soldiers were restricted from combat roles or roles directly supporting combat. After World War II, the demobilization occurred and all women’s divisions were disbanded. However, the years after the war were tense due to the emergence of the Cold War and once 41 again females were targeted to meet recruiting targets. Again, female soldiers were met with resistance. The cycle continued and the integration of female soldiers were undertaken through limitation, which means that female soldiers were recruited with an intake cap and the CAF was careful not to take positions away from male recruits. This placed female soldiers “at the ready” in reserve forces so that the “army staff could have at their disposal all possible manpower” (Dundas, 2000, p. 97). The military leadership determined that the employment of females should be basically to release male military personnel. Female soldiers could now be recruited into occupation vacancies in which it was hard to recruit males for. Single males and females made the same basic pay. However, only single women could enlist and the initial contract for female soldiers were limited to a 3-year term (Dundas, 2000, p. 102). Female soldiers’ roles were still largely administration and support in the form of radio and switch-board operators, clerks, stenographers, dispatch riders, and supply personnel, nursing assistances, but also employment in anti-aircraft units. Organizational change did occur through the expansion of military occupations available to female soldiers, however, they were still restricted from combat and seen as incapable fighters, whose primary role was with the family. The takeaways from this era are the gender ideology, which treated sex and gender as one and the same, policies and resistance were situated on physical capabilities and social norms on what women should or should not be doing. I also point out that female soldiers were not freely welcomed in, rather, they experienced resistance and only when framed by the power elite were females permitted, but only temporarily with restriction. My intent is to show the sustaining attitudes and practices that did not consider female soldiers as real fighters, evident by linking manpower shortages, being reserves or used to free male soldiers for combat. 42 Understanding how important ensuring a particular social order is to the military culture is key, as the military is more than just another patriarchal institution (Enloe, 1983, p. 10). It is afforded a special kind of privilege and influence, which permits the exercise of power denied to other institutions (Enloe, 1983, p. 10). For instance, 1950s-1989, the military used bona fide11 reasoning to restrict female soldiers entering combat occupations. My point, however, is that the military was allowed to impose restrictions and then prove the concept as the government launched studies and trials while the restrictions were still imposed. Even after three decades, in 1989 the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) forced restrictions to be lifted, because the bona fide logic initially used, failed to be proven. However, the ripple effect for female soldiers is still being felt as the government goal of increasing female soldiers is at a goal set in the early phase of integration and after 10 years the Commission (1989-1999) was not satisfied with the progress the military made regarding integration and efforts to include females (Davis, 2009, p. 442). And still today (30 years later) the number of females has increased painfully slow in combat arms, from 1.9% in 1999 to 3.9.% in 2018. Thus, the military can use its status in relation to the state to define national interests, such as the type of bodies it needs to fill manpower shortages, but restrict others and determine where those bodies go, all under the guise of operational effectiveness or unit cohesion. And I wonder why there is reluctance to look at the specific relations and culture of the combat arms where there is low concentrate of female soldiers compared to medical or administrative occupations. Moving forward by looking at current military initiatives, I turn to the government increasing female soldiers as a means to increasing operational effectiveness by linking the 11 Bona fide logic was rooted in unit cohesion where female soldiers would disrupt all male units, strengthen and operational effectiveness. 43 involvement of women to sustained peace and successful peace negotiations (Eastwood, 2019, p. 6; “Gender equality: a foundation for peace” 2017). While Canada’s defence policy of Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE) outlines the long-term vision, there is a connection being drawn to female soldier involvement in peace processes that typecasts them in a stereotypical role, and is counter to combat roles (2017). The report, Gender Equality: A Foundation for Peace, reads “[t]his and other evidence shows that when women are put in key roles in peace operations, peace processes and military deployments, the effectiveness of the missions and processes increases considerably” (“Women, Peace and Security”, 2017, p. 3). This initiative is a great step in recognizing and incorporating the unique perspectives females have in community building/stability. According to the same government website, “Women accounted for 24% of Canadian police deployed to peace operations in 2015-2016, exceeding the UN goal of 20%. Meanwhile, women accounted for 13.5% of the Canadian Armed Forces personnel deployed to UN and NATO operations. The Chief of the Defence Staff set a target of increasing the number of women in the Canadian military from 15% to 25%, which will make more women available for deployment to international peace operations” (“Women, Peace and Security”, 2017, p. 9). However, my issue rests in the ability to see female soldiers as fighters too, as males should also be responsible for peace. So, when Canada takes future combat missions (such as the Afghan combat missions) will female soldiers also be seen as effective fighters contributing to the operational effectiveness and doing more than serving or peace making? 2.6 Gender and The Ideal Soldier Before I proceed, a common foundation to discuss gender in the military falls into this perspective. “Men and women are typically viewed as binary opposites, separated by biology (sex) and socialization (gender)” (Taber, 2018, p. 101); this explanation provides a foundation 44 for my theorization. Over the past 70 years, it was assumed that one’s sex lined up with one’s gender and sexual orientation. For example, if your biological sex was female (meaning your reproductive organs were classified as female), you identified as woman and performed femininity and your sexual orientation was heterosexual (Marshall, 2008). This underlying assumption supported by policy, reproduced a “feminine ideal” (Davidson, 2001 as cited in Taber, 2009, p. 27) within the military structure, where mothers and married women were prevented from service, because it was believed that their most important duty, was motherhood (Taber, 2009). However, much has changed, and many theorists have challenged those assumptions by examining sex from gender and sexual orientation (Butler, 1990; Connell, 2002; Halberstam, 1998). My focus here is on understanding how gender is performed by female soldiers. This interest stems from the idea that gender is a social construct that is shaped by and influences social relations (how one behaves or interacts), which shifts focus onto gender relations rather than sexual differences (Connell, 2002). Gender, Connell writes, is: the structure of social relations that centers on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive distinctions between bodies into social processes. To put it informally, gender concerns the way human society deals with human bodies, and the many consequences of that ‘dealing’ in our personal lives and our collective fate (Connell, 2002, p. 10). For Connell (2002), the importance of the gender definition lies in the many different cultural context that gender patterns can appear; that gender arrangements are “always reproduced socially (not biologically) by the power of structures to constrain individual action, so they often appear unchanging. Yet gender arrangements are in fact always changing as human practice 45 creates new situations” (2002, p. 10). Therefore, the concept of the soldier is part of the CAF’s cultural context that houses the social relations to which individuals and groups of soldiers’ act. By looking at the enduring and extensive patterns within the social relations of the concept of soldier, the consequences of the gendered structure or order are visible through the experiences of the female soldier. To deconstruct the concept of soldier, I look at the social relations where continuing patterns of interaction contribute to the idea of the ideal soldier. This latter concept appears gender neutral as it becomes embedded into one’s identity, as well as a ubiquitous influence over all things military. The concept of soldier needs to be addressed as a constructed term to supplement the more dynamic understanding of institutions and agency. Hence, I turned to Connell’s (2002) theorization of gender and Acker’s (2016) concept of the ideal worker, which she argues is constructed around the male body. This builds on the notion of androcentrism (Gilman, 1989) and connects to the workplace where the ideal worker embodies the characteristics most desirable for a worker to possess. Therefore, I posit then the concept of the ideal soldier based on Acker’s ideal worker and the notion that the gendered processes of organizations are concealed partially by camouflaging the embodied nature of work; leaving behind the perception of a natural, inherent, universal worker, where bona fide logic is used to maintain mindsets of the ideal soldier being male, resulting in all soldiers measured against it. The ideal soldier invokes military specific images, such as strong, charismatic, successful military elite, and through different combat experiences signified in unique stories, and awards medals that can be displayed on uniforms—in other words a form of capital, military capital (Bourdieu as cited in Power, 1999). Acker further states that the “possibility that women might also obtain such skills represented a threat to that masculinity” (1990, p. 146). Hence, an underpinning of the ideal 46 soldier has elements of being female, much like Salzinger (2003) writes that the ideal worker is a woman, “particularly a woman who, employers believe, is compliant, who will accept orders and low wages” (as cited in Acker, 2016, p. 450). Meaning that the ideal soldier is an ongoing process, procreating and dependent on continuously constructing divisions of gender and enactments of dominance and submission. To help make sense of female soldiers doing combat and the ideal soldier’s dependency on constructing division, I turn to Halberstam’s (1998) female masculinity and their separation of gender from sex, masculinity from men, or in my case combat/fighting/war from male bodies. The premise of Halberstam’s work is based on seeing masculinity as a process or set of relations that are not dependent on male bodies. They argue that there are many forms of masculinity, and that we, as a society, spend a lot of time and money supporting the versions of masculinity that we know and trust even though we have trouble defining it but no problem recognizing it (Halberstam, 1998). These types of masculinities are called “heroic masculinities” which absolutely depend on the “subordination of alternative masculinities” (Halberstam, 1998, p. 2). The connection I make is that the CAF is dependent on heroic masculinity, encased in the ideal soldier. For Halberstam (1998) masculinity is connected to power, legitimacy and privilege, and is symbolically linked to the state and uneven distributions of wealth. The wealth in the case of the CAF is status and upward mobility to positions of power enabling decisions to be made and influence the military. “Masculinities and femininities work together to privilege certain gender performances, and certain genders, over others, within the CAF’s hypermasculine sexualized culture” (Taber, 2018, p. 104). This is where heroic masculinities or “hegemonic masculinity[ies] are adapted in the military which enables some to rein power over others” (Duncanson as cited in Taber, 2018, p. 105). This attaches to the ideal soldier and connects it to the power that status 47 holds. So, when the military calls on its leaders to be the ones to lead change, they are calling on those with a vested interested in keeping the culture the same, as their very existence is dependent on the subordination of the other, and the suppression of alternate forms of masculinity. In the end, Halberstam (1998) uses male masculinity as a counter example to show the alternate forms of masculinity and only when it leaves the body of white males, do we see the gender relations surrounding masculinity. Only when his happens, does it open the door to social change. To analyze how the military does gender, I highlighted the word soldier as a constructed term requiring unpacking since it is advanced as a gender-neutral term describing both male and female military personnel. I posit that the concept of soldier is rooted in androcentrism which embodies the idea the world is made for men, meaning that the concept of soldier implicitly approaches all things from the male perspective. Just as Gilman suggests “man was accepted as the race type without one dissentient voice” (1989, p. 185), in my research, male is taken as the ideal soldier and female explained or justified as “strange, diverse creature, quite disharmonious in the accepted scheme of things” (1989, p. 185). Following Gilman’s logic, the world is full of men and their principal work is any sort of human work; so, the military is a place for males to do distinct human work—here they become a soldier and males/men/masculinity become synonymous with the term soldier. Yet, under the threat of danger, war, sacrifice, death, sex, the male soldier becomes visible, meaning that men or male bodies are the only acceptable ones to undertake tasks that put them under this threat. However, the complexity of the concept of soldier emerges when females are given the ability to do human work in the military. Therefore, becoming a soldier—and so too under the threat of danger, war, sacrifice, death, and sex—is where issues of gender are highlighted and reproduced, but remain unvoiced. Yet, issues of 48 gender move to the foreground when issues of gender integration become a priority for the government. And so, the concentration of effort is placed on celebrating female soldiers, individually, instead of looking at institutional interference, invisible gendering processes and soldiers’ interactions within the CAF. Lastly, the idea that the gendering process constructs an antonym to the ideal soldier, one that is female, compliant, supportive for those who do the fighting and a threat to all-male unit cohesion. The interactions between males and females exemplify the idea that men are the actors and women the emotional support (Hochschild 1983 as cited Acker, 1990, p. 147). I use this to introduce an underlying tenant of the ideal soldier, which it is defined by what it is not, as well as maintained. If women are the emotional support in gendered processes, I theorize how that looks in the military; by first drawing upon Hochschild (1983) concept of emotional labour: to mean the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display; emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value. I use the synonymous terms emotion work or emotion management to refer to these same acts done in a private context where they have use value (Hochschild, 1983, p. 13). I loosen that definition to fit military situations where female soldiers were held responsible for unit cohesion or the failure of earlier integration attempts in the combat arms because they were said to affect unit cohesion (Dundas, 2000). However, that understanding has been reproduced and maintained, to which I argue is very much present but camouflaged. Much like the participants in Febbraro’s (2007) study noted that the balancing act between exhibiting the right amount of feminine and masculine leadership styles or characteristics, so their command effectiveness was not questioned. Moreover, the type of emotional labour done by female soldiers’ rests in their “ability to control their own feelings to achieve the desired effect in 49 others” (Corrigall-Brown, 2020, p. 296) in the CAF ensure fitting in and maintaining unit cohesion. I think by expanding emotional labour to include performed by female soldiers allows us to understand the gendering processes that occurs in the organizational culture of the CAF and its attempts to integrate females into the military. Reason stands that part of female integration into the CAF relied on forms of emotional labour; in the next section, I posit one form of that labour as humour. 2.7 Theoretical Framework of Humour The nature of humour has many functions, such as easing tension, enabling cohesion and coping of stressful situations, as well as being a medium for interactions and a communication tool (Meyer, 2000). Noticeably though, most discussions of humour do not apply a gendered lens, even though humour draws punchlines and laughs from sexuality and gender. Additionally, humour presents as the result of something, rather than a medium for something—the for something being power. Therefore, humour is a conduit for power, and when a gender lens is applied, humour or joking and innuendoes create a hostile culture for females through “subtle and not so subtle waves of insult and mockery [which] reinforce a cloud of associations that accompanies women in their working lives” (Willett & Willett, 2019, pp. 23–24). Creating climates that range from hostile to chilly, in the process making it difficult to speak up or protest or change the working conditions (Willett & Willett, 2019). Without gender equality, the comedic spirit will remain one-sided and reduced to gutter or primitive, even boorish types of humour that “reduce women to household drudges” (Eagleton, 2019, p. 99). Observable in the CAF, understanding the elements of humour, not the building blocks of a good joke, rather the pervasive nature of the very fluid process, we can see how humour becomes a tool. Where this very influential and often enjoyable form of 50 communication is absorbed into the social interactions of the everyday and is a socializing agent for powerful ideas. However, the “common failure to recognize the importance of humor for feminisms might be expected, given that all too often feminists themselves have been treated as a joke while humor has seemed to be an exclusively male terrain” (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 21). So, the gendered social relations surrounding the comedic effect disproportionately place females as the butt of the joke and consequently socializes acceptable actions for those involved or around. The overarching issues covered above are that the CAF culture remains intact, and that the suggestions to make cultural changes rely heavily on the leadership leading by example. This is proposed even if these “leaders” are unaware of their own socialization, particularly what is communicated through humorous language. I see the connection involving leadership as an entry way into discussing how the CAF joking transcends rank hierarchies, is hard to identify, and very tough to speak out against—because after –all, it is just jokes. However, joking or humour is a dynamic process that is present throughout the CAF and at times functions as a socializing process that acts as a “lubricant or an abrasive” (Martineau, 1972, p. 103) in social interactions. Humor is part of every social system and can be analyzed as one social process affecting the system; humor occurs in nearly every type of human interaction and can be analyzed as to how it influences each interaction pattern and the social structure emerging from it (Martineau, 1972, p. 103). The idea that humour is part of the everyday processes and that females are disproportionately affected by its conduit for power, illustrates how difficult it is to change the CAF culture. There are elements of humour which I classify into two silos: one, the origins of humour, in other words, why things are funny; and second, the function of humour founded on what is 51 being communicated with humour. As a point to note that the physiological response or symptoms or display of humour can be seen in laughing, smiling, giggling, chuckling or a sense of amusement or wonderment in what is being observed. Those responses also communicate agreement or enjoyment, but that may not always be the case. What we think is funny is a product of social construction. Eagleton aptly describes the theoretical origins of humour as “a sense of the ludicrous arises[ing] from subsuming an object under an inappropriate concept, or under a concept which is appropriate to it from one viewpoint but not from another. One may also achieve a comic effect by subsuming different objects under the same notion” (Eagleton, 2019, pp. 69–70). The origins can be broken down further: incongruity, superiority and relief through displaying symptoms of humour as a means to relieving tension, reducing stress and facilitating further interactions (Meyer, 2000, p. 312). Incongruity theory emphasizes cognition in individuals as they must have “rationally come to understand normal patterns of reality before they can notice differences” (Meyer, 2000, p. 313). This understanding of normal patterns leaves the door wide open for observing humour, when presented with a normal pattern deviation, such as pigs flying, or a female soldier in combat. “Such a crucial role for incongruity also suggests why humor is a social phenomenon, because much humor stems from violations of what is socially or culturally agreed to be normal” (Meyer, 2000, p. 314). When connected to the CAF with an overlay of gender, the normal patterns can be seen in low numbers of females in the combat arms, as they often are only one or two amongst male soldiers and that females were not traditionally considered for combat. Therefore, they are up against years of socialization that counters their work as combat soldiers, they do not fit the normal patterns of what constitutes an ideal soldier or what it means to be a woman. 52 Superiority theory consists of amusement derived from a feeling of superiority over another or a group. Humour arising not from just a physiological response from an incongruity or from something irrational or unexpected, but from seeing oneself as superior, right, or triumphant in contrast to one who is inferior, wrong, or defeated (Meyer, 2000). This type of humour can be displayed outwardly or kept within, but the point is that there is a sense of pride gained at the expense of another. Pointed out by Meyers (2000) is this type of humour can act as a social correction tool, used to maintain certain norms and exemplify the not acceptable behaviours. Those that deploy humour derive it from the origins, and attach a purpose, so the ripple effect extends beyond the individual interaction of the person telling the joke to those who the jokes are about, and those who hear or indirectly hear the joke. The result is that knowledge is transmitted through humour; values and norms are reinforced through humour; and what is funny can be inappropriate, dependent on viewpoint. In the words of Dr. Alan Okros12 who said: It's about power. It's using sexually and racially coded language to create and police social hierarchies about who is important and who is not. And it's about the death by a thousand cuts of an individual's self-worth, identity and sense of belonging. That's what's getting broken, not people feeling uncomfortable seeing an explicit picture or hearing an off-colour joke (House of Commons, 2021, pt. 1245). In the end, humour's basic function is to divide or unite, and with the overlay of gender, humour becomes a powerful tool that maintains the gendered order with sounds of laughter and smiles egging it along. 12 Dr. Okros is Speaking to the house of commons at the committee meeting, dated February 22, 2021, which was addressing sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces, including the allegations against former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance. 53 Nevertheless, there are different types of humour that challenge dominant ideas. For this, I liken humour as resistance to “dispersed resistance” or “everyday resistance” (Scott as cited in Lilja & Vinthagen, 2018), because these models capture the infancy of using humour to influence change. According to Scott, everyday resistance is, then, resistance that is quiet, dispersed, disguised or otherwise seemingly invisible... Scott shows how certain common behaviour of subaltern groups (for example, foot-dragging, escape, sarcasm, passivity, laziness, misunderstanding, disloyalty, slander, avoidance or theft) is not always what it seems to be, but instead resistance. Scott argues these activities are tactics that exploited people use in order to both survive and undermine repressive domination; especially in contexts where rebellion is too risky. (Scott as cited in Lilja & Vinthagen, 2018, p. 215) I use Scott’s definition to advance the idea that humour can be resistance because much like “everyday resistance”, humour is also used to critique, ridicule, and undermine the powerful/power – including that of patriarchy; it is a form of telling truth to power (Willett & Willett, 2019). So, can humour be used by the Other, those who are chronically the butt of the joke, to make meaningful change? Can humour be a form of resistance beyond the “can't beat 'em, may as well join 'em” attitude that originates in superiority theory? While Orwell (1968) said that every joke is a tiny revolution, perhaps through “everyday resistance” a joke can ignite the flames of change. Therefore, I explore humour as resistance and when resistance uses humour to challenge dominant ideas of females and female soldiers, perhaps tensions surrounding their service can ease and we (as a society) warm to the idea that females can do combat. 54 To begin, I draw upon Sorensen's general description of humour, which states: “everything that causes amusement, from a joke, story, play, skit, movie or book to a way of acting or a slogan in a demonstration. It can be based on irony, satire, parody, or ridicule” (2008 p. 171). Sorensen’s research is situated around humour as a serious strategy to nonviolence resistance, which they define resistance as "a response to power that challenges oppression and domination" (2008, p.170). Sorensen’s method involves a case study of the Otpor in former Yugoslavia, in which part of their strategy used humour to bring Slobodan Milošević down from power. The case study posited that humour is not resistance but, rather, part of the strategy for nonviolence resistance, which is either used very little or rendered invisible amongst the other factors in resistance (Sorensen, 2008). Their research echoes that of the functions of humour, as well as the type of reaction it enlists from people, meaning it’s a lubricant or an abrasion for social interactions, where individuals or groups do let their guard down, or it is used to reinforce harmful stereotypes that prevent speaking up. According to Sorensen, theoretically humour as nonviolent resistance can be understood in three different ways: (a) “Facilitating outreach and mobilization” concerning the relationship with people outside the movement; (b) “Facilitating a culture of resistance” within the resistance movement building solidarity and strengthening the individual’s capacity for participating in resistance; and (c) “Turning oppression upside down.” This function has the most powerful potential, because it changes the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. (Sorensen, 2008, p. 175) Of particular interest is the idea that humour can turn oppression upside down and change the relationship. I am interested in how this is exemplified (or not) in my research participants’ experiences. 55 Highlighted in Sorensen’s research was how humour was part of a larger strategy, much like the CAF’s attempt to change culture, by lifting restrictions of military occupations or updating maternity benefits that allow male soldiers access to the benefit too. My point is that these multiple approaches did shift the culture, to which humour was a part of, at the same time being part of the problem. My critique rests in strategies to change the CAF culture, which did not consider the insidious nature of humour in maintaining the status quo, or how humour is deployed by powerful leaders. Thus, my takeaway from Sorensen’s research is that humour also can be a tool to challenge power, alongside other strategies. I have outlined humour as a conduit of power and developed the idea that humour turns oppression upside down. I ask what happens when humour is used by those who lack power, power in the formal way of rank and position as well as in the gender hierarchy? To which I introduce the concept of Fumerism. Fumerism is the brainchild of Willet and Willet (2019), who combined humour and feminism as a method of addressing power in nontraditional locations and intersectional theories of domination to go beyond traditional hierarchies and inequalities. They used fumerism to explore “the micro-practices, engrained habits, cultural stereotypes, and implicit biases of everyday life—practices that make up the normal and normalizing codes of gender and other sites of oppression” (Willett and Willett, 2019, p. 36). They draw upon female comedians to demonstrate how humour can be used to dismantle the norms and practices that can be reinforced by humour (Willett & Willett, 2019). Thus, setting in motion “perpetual reversals of expectations and norms, a plurality of counter positions and shifting ground, rather than positing codes and rigid theory” (Willett & Willett, 2019, pp. 42–43). The key points of fumerism are that humour can be a tool of resistance, which presents different ways of being, while allowing people to joyously engage, relax and thus be more receptive to change. For the 56 purpose of my research, humour is also an instrument to disrupt the status quo and posit new ways of soldiering. Therefore, we must consider that humour as resistance begins in the earlier stages of changing a system. The idea that humour can be a tool to mobilize people and make lasting change, also means that humour by individuals helps individuals live within oppressive environments. While in the early stages of change, female soldiers navigated many hierarchies and competing identities, which in the context of the CAF culture is one’s self-worth, identity, and sense of belonging being eroded by coded language presented in jokes—likened to death by a thousand cuts. However, reason stands that resistance with humour can also restore self-worth, set in motion new ways of being and shift ground, because systemic change takes multiple approaches—which perhaps began with one tiny revolutionary joke. 2.8 Conclusion I have covered notions of gender connected to power and knowledge in the CAF, which deploys a series of tools to maintain a certain gendered order. I have broken down the CAF views on gender into the ideal soldier and the institutional organization of gender, with the key points being the ideal soldier and humour being part of the culture that is a conduit of power that disseminates information regarding soldiering. I make strong connections to the historical importance and the institutional influence in maintaining the gendered order. While many studies have looked at aspects of the CAF, the focus was on policy or the personnel rather than the set of social relations that surround the concept of the soldier, which the complexity is furthered with the overlay of gender. In the end, I have moved towards grounding my thesis in female soldier experiences as they navigate a system that demands a warrior ethic, a performance of heroic 57 masculinity, whilst making sense of femininity in a hypermasculine culture, all circulating while constantly proving that you can do the job of combat. By using the concept of the ideal soldier, I address the fluid sets of gender relations within a social structure—the military. Gender relations being a combination of gender “a matter of the social relations within which individuals and groups act” (Connell, 2002, p. 9); and relations, which are not just difference and dichotomy, but also patterns in our social arrangements, observable, for example in “hierarchies of power among men” (Connell, 2002, p. 9). By examining gender relations, I can ascertain the immense staying power and influence of those social arrangements, which are present in the everyday activities or practices of military service, housed in the institution of the military. Connected is the military culture, specifically the function of humour in maintaining gender relations where it reproduces harmful working environments and hides aggression and malice. However, the fascinating aspect of humour is that it is an instrument to question the status quo and posit new ways of soldiering. Therefore, by zeroing in on relationships, as defined by Connell (2002), I argue that female soldier’s experiences with navigating the complex ideology of being a soldier and then “inhabiting” that status and using humour to endure, will disrupt the popular narrative that females simply do not want to join. The next chapter will cover my methodological approach to investigate the female soldier perspective. I outline my methodology and describe gathering data initiatives using interviews and participants’ hand-drawn images. The chapter ends with a short discussion of my analysis and coding technique, laying the groundwork for my data analysis in chapters four and five. 58 Chapter 3: Methodology 3.1 Introduction The following chapter details the methodological approaches to my research. I describe the methods and the method of analysis, as well as explain my rationale for using the approaches herein contained. I gathered data from individual interviews and their drawings of power, humour and gender at work. These drawings are unsophisticated in technique but rich in interviewees’ detail on their conceptualization and understanding of power within the military and represented in the form of visual drawings (Cheng, 2013b; Harel-Shalev et al., 2017). Key military documents, or documents on military matters were also reviewed in this study. These methodological approaches provide insight into gender integration in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and the combat arms female soldiers’ experiences in this segment of the military. The research describes their day-to-day activities of fitting in, for example, as well as career aspiration and progression, and humour and sacrifice. All the above help enhance our understanding of gendered integrations linked to the socially constructed concepts of soldier, femininity, and gender within the hyper-masculine combat arms occupations of the military. I outline my approach to recruiting participants and my interview protocol; and I finish the chapter by discussing key texts and my data analysis. 3.2 Methodology This research interest stems from my experience as a soldier in the combat arms trade of armoured reconnaissance in the CAF, where I was one of the very few in this occupation. I spent 17 years in the army and progressed to the rank of sergeant; worked in many capacities such as, attending and facilitating training; domestic and foreign operations; and culturalization activities (defined as on and off duty socializing/indoctrination). While in the CAF, I observed the few 59 females in my occupation, the stereotypes that precedes females and the segregation and organizing based on sex. Additionally, I felt and witnessed close personal relationships that took place and the use of humour and sacrifice to forge cohesion fostering a common understanding of soldiering and way of thinking. Moreover, I reflect on the tension within my experience, one that I enjoyed but also am troubled by. I enjoyed the work, it was dynamic, physically demanding with times of intense training, as well as the camaraderie in working groups—I understood “the game,”13 and I was good at it. However, what was troubling was the type of culture it created, how it shaped and maintained toxic behaviour. The 2015 External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces report to change the military culture inspired me to join the conversation; the conversations presented in news articles,14 CAF-DND Sexual Misconduct Class Action, closed social media groups posts, and personal communication, where circles of colleagues are discussing their experience of the CAF culture. Therefore, I offer my research and theoretical conclusions to make sense of the everyday military culture grounded in the lives of female soldiers. Katrina Waite (2018) uses Bourdieusian reflexivity and concepts of field to discuss insider research, as well as her positionality shaping her strategic moves her workday, and explored research participants’ perspectives in depth; reflexivity and positionality shaping her strategic moves, is a common expectation of insider research as evident by researchers such as Patricia Hill Collins (1986) and 13 By knowing the game, I liken it to knowing the type of cultural codes, how to behave and what works in different social situations. Most of this is based on being physically fit and physically capable of doing the labour intense training and working as a team. And I reluctantly admit, taking a support or submissive role as a new soldier. This allowed me to be accepted into social and working groups as I was not a threat to cohesion or the cultural of masculinity. 14 News articles such as, the CBC News “Victims of sexual misconduct not treated in 'respectful manner' by military, says auditor”, (Brewster, 2018); “Canadian military falling short of targets for recruiting women” (CBC News, 2018); “Fewer than a quarter of military sex assault trials result in guilty verdicts: DND figures” (Brewster, 2017); “Military: Shorter skirts, disaster relief and highlighting medals as 'bling' might bring more women in” (Pugliese, 2020) and; “Canada’s first female infantry officer breaks silence on abuse” (Bethune, 2017). 60 Karen Davis (2007). Much like these researchers, I too embrace my insider position which not only provides me with a point of departure, but an ability to focus my area of interest, and establish rapport in asking interview questions that incorporate military jargon in evaluating the data by highlighting certain issues and processes in the data tied to my military experience and complemented by my sociological imagination (Charmaz, 2004; Pacholok, 2013). I also acknowledge that this research forced me to recognize my own compulsion to normalize the conformity and make sense of my own navigation of the ideal type of soldier, which could only be achieved temporarily and not without the expense of others (Becker, 1973). My research goals for studying the everyday, lived experiences of female soldiers are the driving force behind my decision to use constructivist grounded theory (CGT), with Straussian under tones, to generate and analyze data in my thesis. CGT is part of a larger methodological umbrella called grounded theory (GT), which overall aims to understand processes at multiple levels of analysis to make invisible processes transparent (Aldiabat & Le Navenec, 2018; Charmaz, 2004). According to Morse & Niehaus (2009), there are several variations of Grounded Theory including: Straussian Grounded Theory; Glaserian Grounded Theory; dimensional analysis; Constructivist Grounded Theory and situational analysis; therefore, it is no longer adequate to state grounded theory as a methodology without further qualification (as cited in Aldiabat & Le Navenec, 2018). However, Grounded Theory variations do have commonalities in their foundations of GT. These are: interest in interactions and processes; strategies of theoretical sampling; engagement in constant comparison, coding, and memo writing (Aldiabat & Le Navenec, 2018; Nagel et al., 2015). In other words, “despite epistemological and practice differences, grounded theorists of various persuasions assume that (1) theory construction is a major objective of grounded theory; (2) the logic of grounded theory differs from quantitative 61 research; and (3) the grounded theory emerges from rigorous data analysis, not from adopting preconceived theories” (Charmaz & Belgrave, 2007, p. 2). The main reasons I use Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) in my thesis are tied to epistemologically assumptions I accept. They are: (1) reality is multiple, processual and constructed—but constructed under particular conditions; (2) the research process emerges from interaction; (3) it takes into account the researcher’s positionality, as well as that of the research participants; (4) the researcher and the researched co-construct the data—data is a product of the research process, not simply observed objects of it. Researchers are part of the research situation, and interactions affect it (Charmaz, 2008, p. 402). From this perspective, knowledge is generated through data collection and the simultaneous analysis created by the researcher through the interaction with the research participant (Bryant, 2007). And, CGT asks not only the why, but the how and the what, leading to: understanding multiple layers of meaning of their actions. These layers could include the person’s (1) stated explanation of his or her action, (2) unstated assumptions about it, (3) intentions for engaging in it, as well as (4) its’ effects on others and (5) consequence for further individual action and interpersonal relations. Throughout the research process, looking at action in relation to meaning helps the researcher to obtain thick description and to develop categories (Charmaz, 2004; 2008). My motivation in using Constructivist Grounded Theory relates to how the research process is affected by the researcher in order to emphasize aspects of relativity and reflexivity (Charmaz, 2008) on my way to co-creating theory rooted in lived experiences of those researched. 62 I also draw upon Straussian grounded theory for the guidance and the ability to have a predetermined research problem (to which I call a focus), non-committal literature review (much like a draft literature review, where the literature does not shape the analysis rather helps situate the research, while the importance remains keeping an open mind when coding), semi-structured interview questions and structured coding (Alammar et al., 2018; Urquhart, 2013a). A key competent of GT is the desire for researchers of different GT variations to ensure that they remain open to new and emerging concepts. Therefore, the Straussian version and CGT allows for a non-committal literature review, which allows the emerging concepts to dictate the relevance of the literature (Urquhart, 2013a). So, the difficulty lies in using the literature “without letting it stifle your creativity or strangle your theory” (Charmaz 2006, p. 166 as cited in Alammar et al., 2018, p. 230) and to set this literature review “aside—bracketed—prior to the emergence of the core category during the primary research” (Thistoll, Hooper, & Pauleen, 2016, p. 632 as cited in Alammar et al., 2018, p. 230). For me, Straussian and CGT closely match my research design in capturing the everyday as it embraces subjectivity of the lived experiences of the participants (and the researcher), have the data ground the literature and theory to foster meaning derived from participants’ experiences, their conceptual drawings, and institutional documents. Constructivist grounded theory (CGT) does not minimize the researcher's role; instead, it calls for acknowledging prior knowledge and theories to subject them to rigorous scrutiny (Charmaz, 2008). This is the precipice that it rests on, the recognition of constructed realities, the embracement of subjectivity, which needs to be considered because as the researcher (I) makes decisions about the entire process: the categories, questions to the data, advance personal values, experiences, and priorities (Creswell, 2007; Smith, 1987). The researcher shapes the data, but it 63 is the researcher and the researched co-creating data and analysis. So, this becomes a way to ensure that the validity and value of the research align with scientific rigor and continues to be a contributing factor in the development of theory. In sum, I chose constructivist GT because it aligns with my research focus and targets feelings, the everyday, and the how and why of these aspects of social and professional life for women in the Canadian Military. It allows me to embrace my experience, co-create with participants in translating and transmitting our lived experiences into theoretical developments in understanding and explaining gender integration in the CAF. The next section outlines and discusses methodological techniques in examining gender integration in the CAF. 3.3 Methods Constructivist grounded theory is about the co-creation of data between researcher and participants in studying the meanings, intentions and actions of the latter "whether he or she [the researcher] observes them [the participant] directly, constructs life histories with them, engages them in intensive interviewing or uses other materials” (Charmaz, 2017, p. 503) to understand processes and ways of being. To do so, I use three main methodologies in gathering information: semi-structured interviews, drawing elicitation and document analysis. I conducted semi-structured interviews because I wanted some consistency, as well as the flexibility for participants to add more data (Alammar et al., 2018). My second method is drawing elicitation which can be likened to conceptual art,15 where the image produced is more abstract or without affiliation to a set style or medium; therefore, the focus then becomes on the ideas that are being 15 The use of the concept “conceptual art” is based off Kranjec’s (2015) understanding, in which he says it “is a kind of art with some identifiable characteristics, rather than a particular work of art connected to a formal historical movement” (para. 3). 64 presented—thinking in images16. By using this method, participants have a way to cognitively map17 multiple layers of meaning of latent gendered knowledge through visual representations of practices, experiences, and understanding of self. Lastly, I use document analysis to supplement my data with institutional policy reports regarding specific contexts and issues connected to the broader CAF culture (Rapley, 2007). 3.4 Recruiting Research Participants To gather participants, I established a criterion of participation; a person would be accepted if: they reached the age of majority in their province of residence; been released from the CAF; at the time of military service identified as female; had any portion of service occurring from 1990-2018; and needed to have combat arms occupational experience with either the reserve force or regular force. To help establish the criteria, I based my strategy on GT theoretical sampling of a similar group (Urquhart, 2013b)—female soldiers who have combat arms experience. This helped confirm the usefulness of the category as participants were able to speak to the cultural shift(s) in the military and bring forth their experience. The group of military occupations that make up the combat arms are infantry, armoured, artillery and combat engineer. Prior to 1990 women were not allow in the combat arms; by focusing on the events post-1990, participants provided insight into what does gender integration look like in the Forces and a better understanding of why today there remains so few females in the occupations. I interviewed soldiers who were released from the military, as interviewing current serving 16 “Art is thinking in images” -this original quote is from Victor Shklovksy’s 1917 essay Art as A Technique (Shklovsky, 1965). 17 “A ‘cognitive map’ is an internal representation of how individuals have made sense of the world around them. Humans use them to help them navigate the physical structure of places and to find their way—literally—in the world” (Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2019, p. 2). 65 soldiers required CAF approval. Overall, I felt I could still gain valuable insight with past female soldiers in the Canadian army and did so by recruiting nine veteran soldiers. 3.5 Online Recruitment I decided to recruit participants online because geographically speaking, my target audience is located across Canada. I requested my recruitment poster to be posted in a closed Facebook group: Canadian Service Women - Serving or Retired. I decided to use this platform because it offered more access to my specific target audience—former female soldiers with service taking place in the last 29 years. I chose to post in the already existing closed Facebook group because it had a member base of 729, which narrowed down my participant screening pool. My study did not rely on Facebook targeting advertisement (Kosinski et al., 2015) but did employ a similar rationale by using publicly available data to screen a segment of the population and recruit based on that information—essentially targeting a specific audience, which I did via the closed Facebook group. I gained access to the group by contacting the group administer, who posted my study’s information in the group; the post not only outlined the eligibility criteria, but it also asked interested parties to contact me directly and not share it publicly or comment directly on the post to maintain the ability to provide anonymity to potential participants. 66 Figure 1: Recruitment Poster 67 The trade-off for anonymity was visibility and the ability to ‘go viral’ (Kosinski et al., 2015, p. 544). Nonetheless posting online allowed the snowball process to assist in gathering participants (Kosinski et al., 2015). One person directly contacted me based on the poster, and the other eight were referred to me through personal networks. 3.6 Interview protocol To seek answers to my research focus, gender integration of the CAF, I collected data by conducting nine semi-structured interviews, seven of which were conducted via video chat using the platform of Facebook messenger. One interview was face-to-face and another over the phone. All interviews were conducted in English, at a preferred location suggested by the participant, with the longest interview lasting three hours. All but two interviews were conducted online, and thus participants choose their own location, and as the researcher I also choose my location. The outliers were conducted over the phone and in-person at a library. Each participant fit the criteria except one, who’s military service took place prior to 1990 and was employed in a support military occupation. I made this exception because this participant could speak to the preparations for and the culture prior to the integration of females in to combat arms occupations; her experience coupled with my research enriches the documents, two anthologies and one autobiography illuminating the military culture prior to female integration into the combat arms. She was also employed as a vehicle technician which was heavily male dominated and females doing the job were considered taboo. The remainder of the participants’ occupations were distributed amongst the military occupations that make up the combat arms: 2 in the infantry, 3 in armoured, 2 in artillery and 1 as a combat engineer. Nine participants were non- 68 commissioned officers18 and one commissioned officer19 at the time of service; and there were 4 who had regular Force service20, 4 who had reserve force service21 and one had both. The average length of service was 8 years with most progressing in rank to leadership positions. Two of the women came from a military family, the remainder had no connection or knowledge of the military. Four participants’ service took place in the early 1990’s and were among the first females allowed into the combat arms’ occupations; 4 had service in the 2000’s and one had service from the 1990’s to late 2000’s. Only one had children during her time of service. All participants spoke respectfully with reverence of their military service, but usually that statement was accompanied by a qualifying statement—a “but”—which indicated their exasperation of the military as an institution. Yet, they still spoke of empathy for the those who seem to have a complete lack of awareness of their privileged position and ignorance of their biased behaviour. All were hopeful and confident that further change will come. All interviews took place within approximately one week of contact. Prior to the interview, I provided participants with an outline of my research with example questions for discussion, the letter of consent, and the release form. All participants consented to interviews being voice recorded. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and confidentiality and anonymity assured throughout interviews. I wrote memos during and after the interviews; these memos are like self-notes (Becker & Richards, 2007; Charmaz, 2004), a form of personal written discussion 18 Non-commissioned officers (NCMs) are “the skilled workforce of the CAF performing technical, administrative, and operational roles in support of daily business or complex military operations. Through experience and professional development, our NCMs are increasingly challenged with leadership and technical advisory roles throughout their career” (Forces, n.d.). 19 Officers “lead personnel and manage resources under their command. Officers are often tasked as advisors, planning and analyzing the challenges faced in daily business or on complex military operations” (Forces, n.d.). 20 Regular Force service means that members of the CAF are employed full time and are ready to respond at a moment’s notice to threats, natural disasters, or humanitarian crises in Canada or abroad (Forces, n.d.). . 21 Reserve Force service means that members of the CAF are employed part-time and do not have a set Term of Service. Their main role is to support the Regular Force in Canada or abroad (Forces, n.d.). 69 with the data as a way to explore, clarify ideas and purposefully sample for developing emerging theories (Charmaz, 2004). I analyzed the data for dominant and reoccurring themes, contradictions, and gaps in my understanding; these research inklings were followed with subsequent interviewees for the purpose of data collaboration. Data collection also occurred through drawing elicitation to cognitively map multiple layers of meaning, in physically drawing a response to a question. Largely, this method proved fruitful for major reasons: it made visible experiences nuanced, much like that of participants in Antona’s (2018) study, where she used drawing to make available spaces that she felt were invisible to her, by making visible the “living and working environments of women who had experienced employment abuse” (Antona, 2018). She “attempt[ed] to understand fears, violence, emotion, pain and other often intangible feelings…by using drawing as a method” (Antona, 2018). Similar to Harel-Shav et al.’s study, used “drawings as a particular form of storytelling (Huss 2012; Shepherd 2012), which enable us to extend a narrative analysis, and reveal further silenced voices within the challenging spaces and culture of army life” (Harel-Shalev et al., 2017). For my analysis, drawing became a useful method in understanding the intangible and often hidden feelings of female soldiers’ experiences. Each interview began with the drawing elicitation, I asked a total of two drawing questions per interview. I asked one question then the participant drew their response22. The two questions I asked were “draw the experience of being a female soldier?” and “draw a soldier?”. Each participant drew on a blank piece of paper using a pen or a pencil or Conté 23. No other 22 I have received permission to use each hand drawn image, which was included on my research consent forms. 23 “Conté, also known as Conté sticks or Conté crayons, are a drawing medium composed of compressed powdered graphite or charcoal mixed with a wax or clay base, square in cross-section” (“Conté,” 2018). This drawing medium allows for bold lines to be soften and thus allows for a wider range of creative expression. This was only an option for the face-to-face interview participant, which she chose to use. 70 prompts or tips on what to draw were said—only words of encouragement as most doubted their drawing skills. I found it interesting that all participants drew, then responded on the first attempt, no one erased or discarded their entire drawing. There was confidence presented in their commitment to their first and only attempt at drawing the response. I gave the participants a chance to reflect on and add to their drawing (Guillemin & Westall, 2008). Only one participant added to their drawing, which she changed the “flow” and the tone of the drawing response. I then had each participant describe their drawing by discussing the images they drew and the meaning behind it. By using drawing as a response, I was guided by the participant because the nature of the raw hand drew images, needed an explanation. Therefore, the abstract question of drawing the experience of being a female soldier became less about artistic ability and more about the process of creating. For example, some participants drew soldiers, or scenarios involving soldiers doing and others drew symbolic images, like a poppy. The specific hand drawings connected to their explanations and my question, which became part of larger themes. This method became a phenomenological trigger for a narrative on the ideal type of soldier and the specific experience of being a female in the combat arms (Harel-Shalev et al., 2017). As well, it was a way to map out constructed realties within each participating individual, yet similar experience—a way to see how participants made sense of the gendering process in their everyday lives and overall experience (Cheng, 2013a). I used my semi-structured interview guide24 to focus each interview discussion and allow flexibility to explore narratives in areas of interest raised by the participants. I developed a series of open-ended questions and themes focusing on personal background and career progression (e.g. “what influenced you to choose your military occupation”), the culture of the CAF (e.g. 24 See annex A for complete interview guide 71 “the idea of sacrifice: do you/did you ever worry that as a soldier you are putting your life on the line for the country? Have you ever been denied this ‘opportunity’”?), and Military Culture—Soldier experience (e.g., “how do you think humour gets used in the military”). Participants were free to add as much detail to their responses, according to their interests and concerns. I chose to use video chat to conduct most of my interviews because participants were located across the country. In 2018 and 2019 when I conducted my interviews, video chatting was relatively new and Facebook messenger was most commonly used, this allowed familiarity with technology (Lo Iacono et al., 2016). However, further consideration went into privacy because third party companies had the ability to monitor information stored or observed on their servers. In accordance with ethical standards, I mitigated privacy risk by ensuring any materials (interview recordings or transcripts, field notes, drawings, correspondence) with personal data were encrypted to 128-bit encryption. Overall, conducting interviews online provided several key advantages such as: It is a way to overcome geographical and pandemic barriers in an affordable way (Hanna & Mwale, 2017; Lo Iacono et al., 2016). It also provides flexibility of time and space for both the interviewer and interviewee (Hanna & Mwale, 2017). The flexibility of space was a major factor for using video chat as it meant that myself and the interviewee could remain in familiar comfortable spaces without imposing on each other's personal space (Hanna & Mwale, 2017). However, the now private/public space of the background environment of the video chat needed consideration too to which—as the interviewer—I only had control over my space. Consideration went into what is being displayed, is there enough light, distracting background noise? Interruptions? These considerations were crucial as it fed the perception of privacy, beyond the confidential form–essentially privacy beyond the screen. The downside to conducting interviews using video chat is that body language may be compromised, such as eye 72 contact, which becomes virtually impossible to ensure as it is dependent on the positioning of the camera. With this in mind, I conveyed certain positive cues to my interviewees, including being at the center of the screen with good body posture to demonstrate attentiveness and convey that to the participant, that what she was saying was important to me. My interviews felt natural, and my participants seemed at ease while discussing the issues. Lo Iacono, comments on how video chatting can make it more difficult to obtain in-depth responses to sensitive questions (2016). This feeling was quickly debunked because of my insider status, and shared personal networks, such as working with the same people, or similar military occupations, which helped facilitate common and small talk subjects. I began each video chat by verbally outlining my research, expressing my research intent and my initial curiosity on the subject. I kept the introduction casual, and intermixed with participant/researcher anecdotes, where the participant was free to direct the pre-interview conversation—essentially enabling rapport almost immediately. After about 10 minutes, I would segue into the research questions. Conversely, a perceived awkwardness could also mean technical difficulties too, such as poor Wi-Fi connections, poor sound quality, choppy video or video freezing, resulting in a disruption of the flow of conversation (Hanna & Mwale, 2017). In at least two interviews I experienced significant Wi-Fi interruptions. But those participants seemed to be familiar with the difficultly and would move to better locations in their home. Even though I did experience technical difficulty, where I would need to interrupt the conversation and then restart the video chat, the participant’s comfort level with the intermittent Wi-Fi, seemed to be part of a general acceptance with technology that did not affect the established rapport. We were able to regain the flow of conversation immediately, often sharing a laugh about it. 73 Overall, the preparation of my interviews took into consideration sending and answering study and document-related questions prior to the interview. As well as having enough technical skill to have confidence to address technical issues, having a backup plan if they cannot be resolved and having all equipment tested prior to the interview. However, one noted drawback was the receiving of the hand drawn images. Some participants held up their drawing to the video camera, and I would take a screen shot, or they sent it to me via text or email. In this communication, the quality of the image suffered. This was an issue for publication since the image did not translate well onto my paper. My suggestion to researchers using this approach is to send a self-addressed stamped envelope to each participant ahead of the interview, include a return letter size envelope, with three sheets of thick blank paper to use. Once the interview is complete, still take a screen shot, but have the original25 delivered by post. The interviews were successful due to preparation, the environment, space, privacy, and the rapport. In comparison, and after the initial technical set up, video chat unfolded much like an in-person interview. By this I mean, I set up my voice recorder next to my computer, confirmed I had permission to record, and informed the participant that I was recording. I tested the recording sound quality before I conducted the interview. I decided to use an external device because one of my interviews failed to process when I stopped the recording when I used my phone recorder (this was not due to limited storage space). For this, I spent 30 to 40 minutes typing and voicing recording interview notes. After each interview, I took notes of my initial thoughts and reflected on the experience and what was said. Part of that reflection I included, was my physical reaction, 25 When receiving or using the original/or coped draw image, ensure that consent forms include copyright permission and details how the image will be used and confirm if they would like the image returned. 74 which I seemed more exhausted by video chat26, as opposed to over the phone or in person. Later, I transcribed the interviews, mostly within a month of taking place, and only when I conducted two in a month was this delayed. I transcribed the interviews verbatim and only modified the transcriptions if there were muffled or inaudible portions of the recording. Ultimately, video chat was an excellent option to conduct interviews with participants across Canada. 3.7 Document Review The final source of data are key documents published by the CAF. I thematically analyzed the documents for context, institutional framing, and experience of issues relevant to this study. The documents are the External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces (Deschamps, 2015). This is of interest because this report provoked a campaign to change a hostile environment towards women within the CAF. Essentially, an ideological shift in the government and the development of CAF wide initiatives to change the culture of the forces stems from this document. The second key document examined is Strong, Secure, Engaged (2017) outlining Canada’s defense policy for the next 20 years. My interest in analyzing this document is to ascertain the future of the CAF and the role women and men and other gendered bodies play in the military and the language used in the report to describe inclusion. 26 I bring attention to my reaction to video interviewing, as I completed my interviewing before COVID-19, which caused a rise in video conferencing. I connected my experience with the emerging observations of people experiencing fatigued after video chatting for work, remote work meetings and a substitute for face-to-face interactions during lockdowns. The term "Zoom fatigue" emerged as a phrase to describe the experience of exhaustion. The earliest peer-reviewed article noted in video conferencing that four possible explanations for Zoom Fatigue are: “Excessive amounts of close-up eye gaze, cognitive load, increased self-evaluation from staring at video of oneself, and constraints on physical mobility” (Bailenson, 2021, p. 1). 75 The third key document is a series of connected policy statements stemming from 1989 when women gained the right to enter the combat arms occupations. These documents included the history of females in the CAF, tracing the historical changes to the structure of the military and the gradual entry of females into restricted military occupations. Some of the connected documents are the Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada 1967; The Canadian Human Rights Act 1978/85; and the Servicewomen in Non-Traditional Environments and Roles (SWINTER) Trials. I examined these documents to contextualize the institutional thinking of the CAF and ascertain a shift in thinking. 3.8 Data Analysis I organized my interview transcripts; the participant drawings and the documents using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) and analyzed it using grounded theory coding philosophy. The GT philosophy is extensive. However, the end result is that I moved the data from the real or particular—that of the lived experiences of my participants to the more abstract and general—to that of a theoretical understanding of gender integration in the CAF (Saldaña, 2016). Before I expand on coding process and the methodological approach that I took to coding, the physical act, I used the CAQDAS program NVivo to help maintain a list of codes and provide space to define them. NVivo allowed me to take the organizational aspect further by efficiently storing, organizing, managing and reconfiguring my data to enable my analytical reflection (Saldaña, 2016). Using GT’s coding, and NVivo, the process of disaggregating the data in order to break it down into manageable segments and then identifying and naming those segments (Schwandt, 2001), was achieved. 76 When coding, I used a simple phrase or a gerund (Charmaz, 2008); this was a way of communicating how the participants described and I interpreted the everydayness of the military, which brought into focus the non-counted (Enloe, 2015). The non-counted being qualities, concepts, relationships or the interplay between items or concepts—nouns that cannot be counted. This also has an underlying meaning too. When I was focusing on non-counted, I was able to see how female soldiers were counted or not counted in relation to the military institution, combat arms units, military social settings, and more importantly how female soldiers navigate that experience. By coding using gerund alone or in a short phrase, I drew out multiple layers of understanding and it became a way to break the data into categories/themes to see processes (Charmaz, 2004) and relational connections. Charmaz (2004) describes this use: To begin I used open coding, I went line by line in the transcripts and asked: what is happening here? (cf. Glaser and Strauss 1967; Glaser 1978, 1992), (1) what process is at issue here? (2) under which conditions does this process develop? (3) how does the research participant(s) think, feel, and act while involved in the process? (4) when, why, and how does the process change? (5) what are the consequences of the process. From this I began forming categories by combining similar codes and then themes by combining similar categories; this helped in identifying the relationships or tensions with all the data and in theorizing. For example, I started with codes, such as Fucking around27, based on a sentence from the transcripts, because the coded data of fucking around, presented a different style of joking or humour, one that offered a different way of being, while easing tensions and creating 27 I must point out the language used here is slang or jargon that means while working and in the lulls of the day, your unit peer group passes the time by making jokes, cards, smoking, doing physical exercise (to name few). It means working on a task and you pass the time in an entertaining way. 77 belonging. I then connected similar codes to form a category—Resistance, which I decided to put into the theme of Female soldiers navigating. I applied a gendered lens to humour, as the type of humour female soldiers used or experienced indicated different ways power operated, which connected emerging patterns. When it came to coding the hand drawn images, I decided to overall code for affect: to code for emotion and focus on “the mood and the tone of images or the emotion suggested” (Saldaña, 2016, p. 57). As suggested by Saldaña (2016), I also relied on the “tacit and visceral capabilities of human reflection and interpretation,” trusted my intuitive, holistic impressions and employed a “personal response methodology” that he coined “organic inquiry” (2016, pp. 64–65). When coding the drawings, I coded in reverse order compared to coding narrative texts (2016); I started by looking at the whole image, rather than sections of it first. I looked at each drawing and freely wrote my initial reaction or my first impression, while taking note of facial expression, dress, spatial relationship with others and the environment. I expanded those initial notes by using descriptive codes to capture and catalogue detail or equipment—such as a drawn image of a rifle or the soldiers hair styled in a bun. I used general semiotics, as theorized by Saussure (1916), to connect a concept and a sound-image representing a unified linguistic sign (Parker, 2012a. I interpreted the meaning behind a drawn image, and considered how it connected to “bigger ideas, values, events, [and] cultural construction” (Freeman and Mathison as cited in Saldaña, 2016, p. 64). For example, one participant drew a poppy in response to the question of draw the female experience in the combat arms. This is an interestingly unique response because a poppy (the sign), means more than a flower in the military, it becomes the connection or a way of transmitting a concept/an emotion, which in turn needs more sound-images to understand the intended meaning. So, the 78 poppy can represent remembrance, but only that meaning becomes visible with context, connection to bigger ideas, values, and cultural constructions—and of course words. Lastly my image analysis creditability is checked by assessing it in relation to the participants reflection and description of it—thus becoming the co-creation or co-construction that Charmez speaks to. I provide context in the form of participants’ biographies and own reflection of their intended meaning, which is presented with the image (Saldaña, 2016). To present the drawn data, I included my interpretation, the participants biographies and explanation of the image and caption the drawn image28. In sum, my methodological approach of constructivist grounded theory allowed for a look into the invisible/constructed world of the military complete with laws of its own found in the flow of institutional culture. Thus, my use of drawing elicitation and interviews provided a visual and narrative discussion by looking at the everydayness, the taken-for-granted knowledge that flows through the CAF. 3.9 Conclusion My inquiry into gender integration has been an emotional one, but necessary. At times I felt that I had more questions than answers, but the difference is that I no longer ‘don’t know what I don’t know’ since I know more and therefore can do more. As a starting place, I begin with observations of humour’s functions, many symptoms and origins that were revealed when I coded the data, which conjured a sense of amusement. This involved laughing with my participants, or at myself, when I caught myself smiling at my computer screen. For this invoked my curiosity and my quest to capture that amused sentiment, which was rooted in the participants interviews. I started off by coding my data and using the words of the participants to capture 28 I have included all hand drawn images, see Appendix A. 79 what was going on. I found that between what was being said and how it was said to be important. Most often responses were said with a laugh or told with a note of sarcasm or irony that lighten the mood but did not dampen the message. The interplay between myself as the interviewer, and the participant demonstrated a release of tension that allowed for natural conversation and rich dialogue. As well exemplifies the importance of tone with the words spoken or the pictures drawn. To capture, the many interconnecting parts and the in-between space of soldier and institution, I have decided to structure my analysis like a story, which unified the participants’ individual experiences not into a monolith to speak for all experiences, rather a narrative that serves to address the institution of the military and exemplify a form of resistance. Overall, I approach my analysis by considering the processes that influence and shape the military institution, which in turn shapes and influences. This is cyclical, where finding the end or beginning is futile, because the point is not to blame but to understand. Therefore, my analysis weaves together a process of socialization that utilizes multiple tools to do so, but the interconnectedness of the system is of interest and the cycles of change do posit different understanding of who is a soldier. Thus, I offer glow sticks29 of hope, by arguing that the process of shaping and influencing is present in the lower echelons of the military too, and those Othered by the institution offer new ways of being, which in turn influences and shapes the institutional views and practices. Hence, my analysis addresses: chapter 5, the strategies female soldiers used to navigate the CAF culture; and lastly, chapter 6, the function of humour, as a conduit for power and a tool for resistance. The next chapter, chapter 4 will discuss strategies female soldiers used to navigate the CAF 29 A glow stick is a disposable fluorescent tube used in tactical situations to light the way at night. 80 culture, as women have been progressing and part of the CAF since 1943. While there were barriers, part of my analysis of integration includes how female soldiers maneuvered the gendered hierarchy within the culture of the CAF and their femininity all in relation to the ideal soldier. Of these strategies resistance was a part of, where different tools were deployed and used differently by female soldiers. 81 Chapter 4: Fitting in, Sticking out, Blending in—the Ideal Soldier “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. I don't say it [the split] should be 50-50. It could be 60 percent men, 40 percent women, or the other way around. It shouldn't be that women are the exception.” -Ruth Bader Ginsburg (June 16, 2009) 4.1 Introduction What does it mean that women are the exception? For the Canadian Armed Forces, the exception is observable in the low representation of female soldiers especially in the combat arms. Being the exception also means there are more barriers to having one’s voice heard and being solely evaluated on one’s merit. But I also think being the exception means blending in is harder. In an organization such as the military, blending in, thus being uniformed, is a priority from the beginning of one’s career. It is in that institutional desire to have conformity coupled with increasing female soldier representation, where my sceptical curiosity looks beyond affirmative action strategies and surface level changes that divide rather than unite female and male soldiers. I want to understand the gendering processes that constructs divisions (Acker, 1990) and social relations surrounding female soldiers, and how they deal with being dealt with, deal with fitting in whilst at the same time sticking out. With knowledge captured in participants’ interviews and drawings, the represented accumulation of the historical and their lived experience within the military institution’s dealing with bodies, can be seen. My findings show how the experiencing of military social processes continuously question female bodies, and their features in relation to women’s abilities measured against the ideal (male) soldier and masculinity. 82 In chapter two I covered broader themes of gender ideology, societal and government pressure, and military reluctance for/to organizational change, as well as stakeholders and gatekeepers’ vested interest in maintaining the status quo. These themes are part of a cycle that influence the CAF's institutional views and practices that in turn shape the understanding of who can be a soldier within the culture of the CAF. I draw upon the experiences of female soldiers to discuss the uniqueness of navigating the culture of the CAF with its embedded gendered order. Rooted in participants’ experiences, I argue that female soldiers deploy strategies that allow them to move fluidly within the gendered order of work in the CAF. In soldier interactions and historical reconfigurations of the CAF, female soldiers adjusted with multiple strategies allowing them at times to fit in, blend in or stick out. My analysis is anchored in the participant’s hand drawings, explanations, and experiences. In utilizing participants’ experiences, I want to pull apart the more nuanced and taken-for-granted knowledge that is embedded in their everyday. The drawings capture the sense of pride in military service, as well as a connection to an ongoing ideology that has been, from time to time, camouflaged. A gendered order is also evident in the drawings as are the effects of the social relations on one’s military service. The drawing responses illustrate female soldiers fight in order to serve (Dundas, 2000). This chapter, therefore, focuses on what/who is a soldier and what women must endure while negotiating between who they are as women and soldiers. I utilized the concepts of reconfiguration, the ideal soldier, and the gaze to discuss: Institutional views and practices; the military gaze; making sense of the ideal soldier; a real fighter? A real fighter; and navigating competing ideologies and carrying a heavy load—more ways than known. 83 4.2 Institutional Logic and Practices: The Military Gaze The CAF is a hierarchal structure. The very nature of the military is a structure of domination with inequalities built in and repeatedly reproduced over time (Crouthamel, 2014; Wooten, 2015). The inequality built in the CAF is “linked to inequality in the surrounding society, its politics, history, and culture” (Acker, 2016, p. 443). Inequality within organizations, defined by Acker, are “systematic disparities between participants in power and control over goals, resources, and outcomes; workplace decisions such as how to organize work; opportunities for promotion and interesting work; security in employment and benefits; pay and other monetary rewards; respect; and pleasures in work and work relations” (2016, p. 443). Moreover, inequality is linked to gender processes that run alongside the CAF power structure. This power structure is underpinned by the concept of the ideal soldier embedded in (Acker, 1990) structures of rank, positions, and rules and regulations supported by policies and procedures. The gender power structure is designed by men and to be used by them and to their benefit. The inequality built into the CAF’s fiber is exemplified with the bona fide logic that was connected to the history of female soldiers. This logic continues to hang over female soldiers’ heads in the form of questioning how female bodies affect military (all-male unit) cohesion as well as the outright surprise of female military service. As outlined in chapter 2, the fear associated with losing all-male cohesion moved from considering the effects on the total force in the 1940s to the combat arms in the 1980s. The gendered power system became more obvious when female soldiers’ perseverance paid off and they were allowed entry into the military in 1943, despite the CAF actively working against them. This was the first step in disrupting the system that determined how females integrated in military service (Acker, 2016). That is, the first step in disconnecting female military service from mothers sacrificing their sons or 84 supporting men/husbands as camp followers or civilian clerical staff or Red Cross nurses. Entry in the military meant a change in integration and thus began 70 plus years of reconfiguring gender segregation and restricting female soldier potential in military occupations. According to Acker (2017), organizations following traditional bureaucracies of hierarchal set-up are generally gendered, racialized, and the top positions within them are almost always exclusively occupied by white men. The CAF does not deviate from this practice as evident in the twitter picture that was posted 10 February 2021 at 9:58 pm by General / Général Wayne Eyre@CDS_Canada_CEMD. The image30 posted depicts eight older white men, in military uniforms, sitting around a long boardroom table. In the background there is a television screen with two attendees, of which one appears to be a civilian woman (as the person is not in a military uniform). The twitter account captioned the post “Conversations on diversity, inclusion, and culture change are not incompatible with our thirst for operational excellence. I count on my senior leaders to champion culture change. Diversity makes us stronger, inclusion improves our institution. We are #StrongerTogether – ArtMcD” (Eyre, 2021). The post was also featured in the Ottawa Citizen, “Military Tweet on Diversity Faces Backlash after It Features Eight White Male Officers” and noted he irony of a roundtable discussion on diversifying the military, where only men are present and women and people of colour are clearly absent. One twitter user even commented that the only female is on the TV screen (Pugliese, 2021a). The image visually drives home Acker’s points of how large and influential organizations reproduce images/norms of inequalities as they represent successful organizations and successful leaders (2016, p. 445). 30 The image can be found on twitter and due to copyright, I have not included the image. The image and post can be found at the following link: https://twitter.com/CDS_Canada_CEMD/status/1359743611349438464?s=20&t=t6bnDvWPtgEGC0MHLM7W-w 85 Even more telling of Acker’s (2016) point is the hand-drawn image, drawing 1, by research participant RL, who drew the experience of being a female soldier. Her drawing is based on her service from 1998 – 2010 as a non-commissioned member in the military occupation of armoured. Additionally, RL only spoke of adding to her drawing by suggesting that she would add a few soldiers standing around watching the soldier climb (Interview, Jan 2019). Drawing 1: “A constant challenge” Graphite pencil on FMP (field message pad) drawing from interview, held to camera, screenshot. (© 2019 RL, by permission). RL’s drawing speaks to the constant challenge felt in her experience and the relative ease of progression compared to male soldiers, which seems ironic viewed with the twitter image/post of top CAF leadership discussions of diversity (Eyre, 2021). I use RL’s drawing to unpack the institutional views and the resulting practices female soldiers endure. Regarding the above, I invoke navigation to acknowledge female soldiers’ agency in relation to the social relations they 86 experience in the gendered order of work, and the institutional practices shaping their military career. RL’s drawing depicts one element of the female military experience often likened to “death by 1000 cuts” (House of Commons, 2021, pt. 1235). In the case of the drawing 1, crawling on hands and knees up a steep hill, highlights the exhaustion and responsibility that comes with the female soldier experience. This experience is dismissed and missing in a round table discussion about diversity 11 years after RL’s military service. For RL “it [the contents of her drawing] represents a constant challenge, where it’s easier for men, where I do not get to progress with the same ease that men do” (Interview, Jan 2019). As visually disconcerting as her drawing is, the amount of empty space and lack of other bodies also denotes how lonely and isolating the experience is. But gendered and sexualized attitudes and assumptions of the past continue to shape the present and evolving situation for females and males affecting them disproportionally, so much so that females today remain the exception. Over the years, different power systems have benefited male soldiers and hindered females. While current efforts to reform CAF culture through improved policy and procedure should be encouraged, let’s not forget the legacy of doubt surrounding female soldier’s continuity in the gendered systems producing and reproducing inequality. Building upon RL’s drawing, and the idea that constantly proving yourself is embedded in the experience of being a female soldier, I turn to my interview with PS. I asked PS to describe this feeling of proving yourself. She began with a recent training example, in March of 2019, where a Major in the US military presented her established “Ten Commandments,” or “an aid du memoir” for women going into all-male military units like the marines. PS: 87 So she drafted this Bible for women and listed ten things to do. The first thing on the list was prove yourself. PS quips: ‘Coming from women’ and carries on saying: So, for me, that tells women that they were an exception. You're here, so you're going to have to convince everybody that you can do this. And that that is manifested by a whole bunch of people not believing you can do certain things. She likens it to a self-fulfilling prophecy because when you don't believe people can do certain things, you make it happen. You justify that, you don't give them the tools to succeed. And it also puts women in a bubble—an aquarium, a fishbowl where now everybody is watching to see if they can prove themselves. PS continues: And the country and the people believe it’s true. I mean that shows that they will find fault with you when they don't think you can do it. PS goes on to provide an example of what it is like to be constantly examined for ability and the internal pressure to prove yourself: It's like…it's like when you've got other people on parade and only one is a woman and she has a button undone. The Sergeant Major is going to remember that woman who had a button undone, and if it's a man, he'll never remember which one it was. Oh! but the woman did and that just proves his point that women cannot tie up buttons or button up their pockets. It's a silly example, but a million times a day women are faced with this scrutiny. And that's where battle fatigue comes from. 88 Billie: That's a huge amount of pressure; is it like being in a constant state of you're always on? PS: And, you have to deploy more effort to make sure that your buttons are never undone. Whereas the guy, it doesn't matter they’ll put their energy somewhere else and be recognized for it. It's undue pressure. But undue effort to be perfect and to not be highlighted as deficient because that would prove their point. Billie: Does it ever go away, even after you've won them over—you've gained some ground? PS: Oh, absolutely! It will change the mindset of a few of them. You will have converted them. But if you move to another unit, it will have to start all over again. If nobody has helped pave the way in the new unit, you have to keep working to convince all the others. PS continues: And if you have a setback for one reason or another, if you have any injury or you become pregnant, you have to start that all over again. That's how women get battle fatigue. After a while, they just can't be under that scrutiny. It's just too hard." (Interview, April 2019). PS’s explanation of proving yourself illuminates the constant challenge visualized in RL’s drawing. Two further points need to be made here: (1) The image posted by the CAF sardonically reproduces the continuous image of women in traditional bureaucracies as token or non-existent. (2) The soldiers directing how the military addresses the lack of diversity are the very people who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Recall Acker’s (1990, 2016) concept of reconfiguration based on the idea of “inequality regimes” which “are the interlocked practices 89 and processes that result in continuing inequalities in all work organizations” (Acker, 2016, p. 1). The military is no different as the historical institutional change did little to disrupt the gendered order of the CAF, thereby reproducing inequalities. From this point of view, the twitter image/post (Eyre, 2021) makes perfect sense. The lack of diversity and high-ranking female soldiers can be attributed to the combat restrictions and the policies enacted to counter the restrictions. Much like Acker and Kanter (1990) reasoned, females end up in the bottom and exposed as tokens at the top of larger organizations because of structural placement, based on images and characteristics of who should fill certain roles (Acker, 1990). For example, in 1997 a special program for selecting additional women to attend Canadian Forces Command and Staff Course31 was implemented as a measure to eliminate the barrier to equitable career development opportunities for female officers. However, the initiative carried a stigma that implied special treatment, lack of qualification, and the perception that the individual did not earn her seat (Goldenberg & AuCoin, 2007). I point this out because of the lasting effects that stigma carries and its impact on female soldiers as they do their job in the backdrop of proving themselves like all soldiers need to do in training assessments and annual reviews. All policy and procedures related to diversity are shaded through a white male lens of people who have not experienced being the exception and in need of disrupting the gendered order. Reconfiguration is how the military has tried to make changes over the years to be more equitable. However, to address and rethink the needed CAF cultural changes and the ideal soldier, I introduce the concept of the military gaze. The military gaze is based on the concept of 31 “Canadian Forces Command and Staff Course (CFCSC) is a one-year course offered through the Canadian Defence Academy to prepare new Lieutenant- Colonels/Commanders and senior Majors/Lieutenant-Commanders for senior staff appointments and command positions in the Canadian Forces (CF)” Goldenberg and AuCoin, “Special Program for Female Selection to Canadian Forces Command and Staff Course,” 157. 90 the gaze, which is the act of looking and seeing in socially organized and systematized ways, whereas looking is the learned ability that is socially constructed (Urry & Larsen, 2011). Meaning those gazing are looking in relation to themselves and things. So, what is seen is through a filter of “ideas, skills, desires and expectations, framed by social class, gender, nationality, age and education” (Urry & Larsen, 2011, p. 2). Gazing becomes a “performance that orders, shapes and classifies, rather than reflects the world” (Urry & Larsen, 2011, p. 2). My participants see and experience the military gaze as a power imbalance requiring them to undertake performativity of belonging defined by proving themselves in relation to the ideal soldier and blending in by “laughing it off”. RL’s drawing (drawing 1) evokes this observation, which is an exhausting burden to endure, leading many to say they are “battle fatigued” by it (PS, Interview, April 2019). According to PS, the constant fight to be considered equal, the unrelenting scrutiny of competence, the practice of “continuously proving yourself,” and the responsibility for group cohesion persist and pervade many female soldiers’ experiences. Henceforth, I argue that the CAF deploys a military gaze, even when it claims to be a genderless organization sensitive to both women and men within it. My participants’ experiences reveal otherwise. 4.3 Making Sense of the Ideal Soldier. Institutional views and practices have shaped the culture of the CAF and the ideal soldier. The process of shaping is more active, where the concept of the military gaze is better suited. As discussed above, the concept of the military gaze is looking and seeing, which considers the ideological influence and social relations of socially organized and systematized environments. Military gazing is looking and is a learned ability. Gazing is part of a process involving looking at oneself and things, as if through a filter of “ideas, skills, desires and expectations, framed by 91 social class, gender, nationality, age and education” (Urry & Larsen, 2011, p. 2). Therefore, female soldiers are seen in relation to how well they fit the ideal soldier tied to the years of framing male soldiers as fighters fit for combat. In other words, female soldiers are seen through 70 years of being the solution to manpower shortages, reserves, and force flexibility, allowing male soldiers to be freed to fight. They are also seen through a lens that frames females as women and mothers— sacrificing their sons to the war effort and subjects in need of protection (Taber, 2017). The competing gendered ideology of the ideal soldier and femininity converge on female soldiers’ service, making how they make sense and navigate these complexities of great interest. Missing from the grand narrative of female military service is how females see themselves endure the military gaze. While the military gaze and the ideal soldier is a large socializing agent, how female soldiers make sense of the ideal soldier is illuminated through their drawings of a soldier and the experience of being a female soldier. When asked to draw the experience of being a female soldier, MA drew (see drawing 2) a group of soldiers on a military parade wearing helmets; presenting a whole uniformed body where individual characteristics are invisible, and uniformity prevails. MA discusses the drawing: 92 Drawing 2: “Gender didn’t matter – fitting in” Graphite pencil on white paper, drawing from interview, held to camera, screenshot. (© 2019 MA, by permission). This is the first thing that comes to mind, helmets on. Parades—that was the only time where gender didn’t matter. That’s the first thing that comes to mind; being on parade doing the whole rucksack march thing, where it [gender] really didn’t matter. There weren’t very many times when it [gender] didn’t matter (MA Interview, April 2010). The idea that gender ‘doesn’t matter’ is more representative of times when MA felt the most blended in or camouflaged. Due to the conformity of a parade, as long as the soldier has the correct uniform, executes the correct drill movements, keeps up to the group, but does not show up male soldiers in the physical activity of a rucksack march, the scrutiny was eased because it can be hard to distinguish female-based signifiers in these situations. The scrutiny, which is based on the ability to perform gender, or the ideal soldier within a highly masculine, aggressive, competitive, and self-promoting culture, was less visible. Or was it? 93 When considering the military gaze, MA’s drawing shows the internalization of the gaze as in that moment on the military parade. She saw herself and was seen as a real fighter, a combat soldier. So, in a sense femininity and being seen as support for those who do the fighting was camouflaged, and in those moments, gender appeared not to matter. However, the performance and alignment with the ideal soldier was only temporary. For other male and female soldiers this was never the case. For example, I turn to Kelley Thompson (2019) and her account that these physical training activities were sites where she least fit in and exposed her as “weaker” calling into question her ability to be a soldier. My point is that the cyclical processing that happens with the ideal soldier and the military gaze where one soldier can feel alignment and see themselves as a soldier, but at the same time be viewed as a less than or an outlier. Building upon the cyclical processing, I introduce SJ’s drawings (drawing 3) depicting two interconnected thoughts. In drawing 3, the image on the left, SJ the soldier is shown fitting in, blending in, and in essence conforming to the ideal soldier. In an organization where the uniformity of a communal way of life (Taber, 2017) is prioritized, fitting in and being seen as fitting in, is extremely important. From her experience, she sees herself as conforming to the ideal soldier, and an aspect of the concept becomes part of her soldier identity. By drawing herself with feminine hair, and the same colour of pencil, with a thought bubble showing herself in line and looking the same, she posits a way of being that allows her to maintain her femininity as a soldier, but still performing soldiering in line with the ideal soldier. This image shows that the concept of the ideal soldier is masculine, but the fluidity of gender allows for her to dawn her combat boots and beret to become a soldier who can perform combat and fighting and thus temporarily removing maleness from soldiering. 94 Drawing 3: “‘Grey Man’—Blending in and sticking out” Conté on white paper, drawing from in-person interview. (© 2019 SJ, by permission). In contrast, the next image in the sequence shows the reality of SJ’s experience as she thinks she fits in (thus conforming to the ideal soldier). For her, the truth is she sticks out and based on the image; it is due to her gender, which ultimately results in her being an outsider. Notice the selection of a different colour to highlight sticking out, as well as the placement of her soldier compared to the evenly spaced and lined up soldiers. This echoes a study by Joanne Martin and Debra Meyerson (1998) “[who] found that the women [engineers] saw the culture of their work group as highly masculine, aggressive, competitive, and self-promoting” (as cited in Acker, 2016, p. 446). This is like the CAF culture in that “[t]he women had invented ways to cope with this work culture, but they felt that they were partly outsiders who did not belong” (as cited in Acker, 2016, p. 446). 95 Similar sentiments of not belonging in the study can be felt in SJ’s drawing, alongside the complexity of the military gaze. The red soldier, with feminine hair wedged between evenly spaced soldiers denotes how SJ is perceived by others or how she thinks she is perceived by others. The complexity of the gaze and the female soldier experience in SJ’s drawings show the “filter” in which she is seen and framed by gender and the military. In this instance, she performs soldiering based on the gendered order of institutional practices of seeing females as exceptions or solutions to shortages rather than fighters. Therefore, exemplifying the processes that aided in the production of gendered components of individual identity and contribute to organizational logic that maintains a division based on gender (Acker, 1990). SJ expands on what it feels like to blend in and embody the ideal soldier encompassed in her occupation of armoured reconnaissance. She adds: I spent a lot of effort trying to be like everyone else, blend in and be the ‘grey man’ so to speak. But in hindsight, it was literally impossible. You automatically stand out no matter what you do. Hopefully, in a positive way. And yeah, it can go either way. I think probably it was initially a negative way—like awe it’s a woman. Hopefully, I turned it around sometimes by drawing dicks [said while laughing out loud] (SJ Interview, March 2019). SJ’s served in the military from 2001 to 2017. And, much like RL and Perron (2017), she too signaled that the responsibility to change minds rested on her. She said “hopefully, I turned it around” (SJ Interview, March 2019). Blending in or fitting in with the guys feels like gender disappears. Gender does not disappear. The point is that this feeling is what enables the impression of blending in to align with the ideal soldier. SJ said: “Yeah, I definitely kind of… I'm very proud of myself because I felt like I was one of the guys in the end, which is sort of an 96 achievement in a way because, there's a lot of, it was great fun.” She acknowledges, “well it [being an accomplishment] shouldn't be, it shouldn't be. I guess in a way but feeling accepted is important to human beings” (SJ Interview March 2019). SJ goes on to describe a time she felt like part of the group, one of the guys and then not: So, like I felt I was one of the guys. But then there were these moments every once in a while, I was like no, I'm definitely the minority here. Like I was going into the mess hall [eating hall] in Afghanistan, and I was just like whatever just do my thing. And a fellow male soldier, was ‘you do realize that every single pair of eyes in this room this entire mess hall was looking at you.’ [laughing and SJ says sarcastically] ‘Fuck, why did you tell me that, you just ruined it. Here I was in a happy little bubble now everyone's looking at me’ (SJ Interview March 2019). Drawing 3, figure 1 and SJ’s comments, all suggest ignorance is bliss. The idea of blending in and sticking out, while she had earned her way, was proof of her merit to the core group of soldiers she works with. Yet, in the broader context of the military, she is seen as, “oh, look a woman,” rather than just another soldier. This exemplifies the pervasiveness of the military gaze reproduced by the military elite. SJ continues, that's what it felt like. You know in my mind I was not a minority. But to people that were not in my platoon or whatever, then to them, I obviously stood out. But I don't think that has to be a negative thing (SJ Interview March 2019). She is right. It does not have to be a negative thing, and it should not be polarizing. But the experience sheds light on micro-interactions that plague the culture of the CAF, slowly chipping away at female soldiers’ ability to do their job, as shown in the drawing of a long walk up a steep 97 hill. In some cases, women soldiers are donned with the responsibility of leading the way (as models of the institution). But you are doing so from the rear and without a road map. 4.4 A Real Fighter? A Real Fighter. The familiar path of CAF integration relies on female soldiers leading change by adopting to the cultural of the CAF, which allows them to “turn things around” (SJ Interview March 2019), and mold new generations of disbelieving soldiers (Perron, 2017) by doing soldier work, by doing combat soldier work. It is unpredictable and risky, and you may not be able to find your way back. To demonstrate what turning things around looks like or how one navigates being a trail blazer where doing the work means you also deploy forms of emotional labour to maintain cohesion or risk becoming the enemy. The next drawing (drawing number 4) is by LK who served in the CAF as an armoured reconnaissance soldier from 2003-2011. Her image deals with all the elements of soldiering by depicting a soldier walking on uneven ground, with her rucksack on, rifle in hand, and in the rain, which implies that it is grueling and tiring work. 98 Drawing 4: “If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training32” Blue ink on white paper, drawing from interview, photo of the drawing taken with smart phone and sent via email. (© 2019 LK, by permission). However, there is a smiling sun in the corner which was added at the end of the interview. The rain adds to the challenge and intensity of training, but the sun softens the tone or indicates tough, yet rewarding work. Still, there is a tension in this drawing that seems to connect to a legacy of doubt, and the history of seeing female soldiers as problematic. Subtlety present is “a ‘dualized gender system’ 32 While training is not designed around weather, there seems to be a lot of coincidences of when it does, so much so that, the saying goes if it ain’t raining, it ain’t training. 99 (Kovitz 2000, 39; see also Davis 2009) that emphasizes a binary in that women and men are perceived as opposites, with men’s bodies privileged as naturally fitting in the male space of the military. As women are not men, they are othered as an ‘enemy within’ (39) the CAF, as not only not belonging but as harmful to the mission” (Taber, 2017, p. 5). If female service is likened to being an enemy within, their performance of soldiering is in relation to countering that powerful framing. If the mission comes first and being seen as harmful to the mission vilifies you, any act of complaining or signs of being unfit would indicate not being a soldier, and worse the enemy. So, when LK said: I just want to change the tone a little bit. I thought about it [her experience] like raining, but then there is like, just, like a little bit of rays, a couple rays (Interview March 2019). She seems to indicate that her experience was not that bad or tough. But the change in tone is symbolic to internalizing the military gaze or a form of emotional labour that maintains it without disrupting military unit cohesion. Additionally, the tone change is representative of the love/hate relationship that Sandra Perron cited, in her autobiography, while she considered her new career position. She was ready for the exciting parts: the work, the training, the new physical challenges, but the hate portion was self-doubt, if she had “enough courage left…[to face] all those who were still against women in combat. In Gagetown, I[she] was the enemy” (Perron, 2017, p. 436). The work of a combat soldier is hard and labour intensive but the weight of being “the enemy” and the one responsible for change can be insurmountable. A simple tone change does not change the system but means more than words can say, as it protects the parts you loved and protects that part of one’s identity that gave you courage to join up in the face of adversary. 100 4.5 Navigating Competing Identities being Feminine and Being Soldier According to the military, the ideal soldier is genderless. But upon further examination, it reveals itself as male. The ideal soldier is based on the ideal man and what he represents in society, a person who is superior to both women and racial minorities. This gendered construction of the soldier as male becomes clear when the military needs to address female enlisting. Here, we see the clash in gender roles as female soldiers navigate daily being a soldier and a woman. The clash of roles due to omnipresence of the male soldier and the latter’s definition of military presence and work is evident in the social aspects of the role soldier’s display. For example, a formal setting where soldiers are expected to wear their dress uniforms (called Distinctive Environmental Uniform (DEU) and which function much like a suit), displays signifiers of social capital specific to the military. That is, attached to DEU are a soldier’s rank, awarded medals, occupation qualifications, and military insignia. Female soldiers have the option to wear the same uniform with a skirt or pants. TL portrays her preference below (Figure 5) and says this is her act of gender individuality in an institution of conformity to male identity and markers. I asked her to draw her idea of the female soldier experience. She responded: I feel like I don't know what it's supposed to look like because they do all the same stuff. I feel like I'm just going to draw like in her skirt DEUs. So, she's wearing her dress uniform with her skirt, with rank. 101 Drawing 5: “Helps me separate women” Black ink on white paper, drawing from interview, held to camera, screenshot. (© 2019 TL, by permission). Billie: why did you choose the skirt? TL: I think it's the only thing that helps me separate women[.] I guess because everything else is supposed to be equal, right—I'd say it's mostly equal” (Interview, February 2019). The implication of ‘supposed to be equal’ in TL’s verbatim above invokes a suspicion of the absence of gender-based discrimination regarding the different experiences of male and female soldiers in the military. I use female soldiers’ experiences of navigating the competing hierarchy’s roles in formal military occasions and social functions as means of seeing gender separate from the body. For example, at formal events that permit the bringing of a date or 102 spouse, formal attire of dresses and suits are expected. But for female soldiers, this isn’t as straightforward as it should be. SJ explains: Like I never ever wore the military skirt because that would totally make me standout, like clicking along in my high heels…I purposely [and] usually wore the dress (DEU) uniform specifically, so I would not stand out (SJ Interview, March 2020). But this option raises other issues that male soldiers need to worry about. SJ again: After a couple of times feeling weird in a dress - [because] you can't wear your medals and you don't have your rank – [I felt] stripped of all accomplishments. [Also] I don't [didn’t] want to be there as the wife [or more so mistaken for one], because I earned my seat at the table (SJ Interview, March 2020). SJ continues explaining the gender dynamics of military gallantry. None of it sits well with her since the military makes her feel uncomfortable with the etiquette of expectation and how this needs to be negotiated by female soldiers. SJ recounts her feelings on bringing her male partner to formal military gatherings: …and I did bring him, and he wore a suit or whatever. But he didn't like it because like he's with his woman and she's in a uniform and he isn't and he sticks out; he's you know, not on the team, right? It's different when you bring a wife… I felt like I appreciated where he was coming from. And then for me it was like, well I'm dressed ‘like a man’ with my man. This doesn't really feel very nice either (SJ Interview, March 2020). “Perhaps, I should've just been a lesbian. It would've been way easier; problem solved.” But SJ knows that in the military the question of female sexuality (i.e., she must be a lesbian) is always assumed at the outset. She also knows that being a lesbian in the military does not solve the problem of blending in and not sticking out. I followed up on this topic with SJ. 103 Billie: What if you had worn a dress? SJ: I think it would've been fine. I think my colleagues would have accepted me. Yeah, whatever. But I would have felt like I was ostracizing myself, sexualizing myself. Even though I wanted to be feminine, I didn't really want my comrades to be like she's so hot. You know, I don't want to be like…. I didn't want to look like that in front of them. I didn’t want to stick out—like they should have all wore dresses and that would have been fine [laughs all around] (Interview, March 2019). MJ describes her first experience at navigating different roles in the army and the ways she is examined in her work: I arrived on base after being posted, and [my Warrant says] we are going rappelling.33 I was like sweet. And he looked at me. So, I was like up down, up down [the rappel tower] all day and I can see, around after lunch, there were people starting to gather around. And at the end of the day my, Warrant pulled me aside and said, ‘good on you.’ I was like ‘what do you mean?’ I was having a blast, I was bruised, were going Aussie34 and doing everything, right? And I was like, ‘wow first day of work and I'm just fucking having fun’ (Interview, April 2019). Little did she know: My boss said there were people down there watching because I was the only woman who has rappelled off this building. The other four women that are here [are posted to the 33 Rappelling is to descend a vertical surface, like a wall, cliff or tower, by sliding down a rope with a device (harness) that provides friction. 34 Aussie or Australian-style, this is referencing a style of rappelling forward facing opposed to having one’s back facing the ground. 104 military base]. Everybody, everybody gets out of it35[meaning rappelling, which was part of assessing battle readiness/universality of service]. Nobody does it. And then that's how the word went around the base that there was a woman actually going up down, up down, rappelling, doing Aussie style, firing a rifle with blanks—crazy, right!…No one's ever seen that! (MJ Interview, April 2019) But this workplace activity slips into other spheres which increases the exposure of women in the military. MJ concludes: So, I'm coming into something that everything I do is watched, not just by my unit but everybody on the base. So, if you went out and partied with the guys you were a whore with the wives or if you went and drank with the wives, you were a fuckin, don't do that, because they want you to tell stories of their fucking husbands (MJ Interview, April 2019). MJ’s example helps broaden the understanding of the intense scrutiny women soldiers endure. At the same time, her examples highlight the expected competing gender roles women navigate, be it connected to the military or the extended societal behaviour contexts emanating from being a female soldier in the Canadian army. Most of my interviewees also spoke of the disbelief that accompanies female service in the combat arms. They spoke of the surprise reaction they received when they told non-military personnel that they were in the army. Surprise was the most common reaction, though admiration for their role seemed to also be expressed by non-military people. People's reactions to RL’s military service were, “what? I could never do that”. She cited one example: “I was giving a 35 This is referring to the yearly individual mandatory training used to assess universality of service according to DAOD 5023-0. MJ’s service in the 1990’s would have had different standards, based on the information at the time. This DAOD does change and is updated. 105 school tour [at my workplace], and my supervisor comes in and says ‘hey, tell them what you used to do’” (RL Interview, Jan 2019). RL is currently in healthcare. But people were surprised that she did not do the same work previously in the CAF. The surprise is a confirmation of assumptions and challenges as she was in the combat arms branch of the CAF. MJ believes people’s expectations of femininity are a factor in strangers’ reactions. She explains: If I’m dressed up somewhere…over the years, makeup on and stuff like that and you’re out and especially in a place where there isn’t a whole lot of military anyway, then you get a couple ‘Oh, really’?! (JM Interview, April 2019). Evidenced by how non-military town residents expressed surprise of my participants’ military service shows the lack of diverse imagery of who is a soldier. This is echoed by LK’s experience: “People mostly are very surprised, very surprised. My own husband doesn’t believe I was in the military [laughs]. It’s a long time ago now. I definitely changed a lot. But yeah, people are definitely surprised [that I was in the military]. They don’t expect [that of me]. They don’t expect it [at all]” (LK Interview, March 2019). Billie: Why are people surprised? LK: I'm not sure. I know, like my personality or that they would say how did you have time for this or that [since] I [am] a woman. I don't know why. I've had that surprised reaction from both women and men. Maybe it’s because now I'm like ‘oh, it's raining. I'm not going out there.’ Where's before it’s like camping. So, I think maybe they're surprised because I'm really like soft now [laughing] (Interview, March 2019). It is interesting how LK now conveys aspects of her being soft compared to the hard and extreme postures she adopted while in the combat arms. Her post-combat arms experiences are embedded 106 in a desire for an easier and more comfortable lifestyle. “What are strangers’ reactions to you being in the military?” I asked SJ. She replied: “I think they’re generally impressed, like more impressed than I think is justified.” She went on to add: “Well, if I had to guess, I’d say that I probably don’t fit the stereotype of what they think of as a soldier (SJ Interview, March 2019). SJ insightfully confirms the stereotype of the soldier is as female. This is evident in the type of reactions she gets when people find out she used to be a soldier. This reaffirms my argument that female soldiers are viewed through the male gaze, not just by military men but civilian men and women too. The next section discusses the effects of the male gaze and how female soldiers are responsible with the changing of the culture of the CAF in order to blend in. 4.6 Carrying a Heavy Load—More Ways than Known In the context of this thesis, blending in is a mixing together to form a uniformed whole where the original elements disappear in order to form this new whole. But when a female soldier blends in, it is at her expense—her identity, or in some cases her safety. I introduce examples of unit cohesion maintained when sexual harassment is ignored, and advice is given to shut up since staying quiet is the best option. The heavy load female soldiers endure is embedded in the microaggression that question their capabilities of fighting and doing combat while they do their job. Where the changing mindsets and maintaining unit cohesion rests on female soldiers, which comes at a personal cost. Take this one incident MJ describes from early in her career: I had one master[corporal/bombardier] and he was married and had kids. He just loved me and he stalked me and he did everything; I did everything I could do to tell him ‘no.’ [But] it fell on deaf ears—always. And, like I'm talking…like he'd be knocking on my room door every day, every night, following me around (MJ Interview, March 2019). 107 On one training exercise, where the unit would be working day and night in the field, meaning living in tents, with limited amenities such as showers and meals, MJ describes her interaction with the master bombardier, a junior leader, in her unit peer group and a senior leadership. We're two months in a fucking tent, [and] no one's taking me fucking serious. He came into my tent, and I was in my sleeping bag on the cot. So, he held the sleeping bag down so I couldn't get my hands up. Yeah. And you know, I got up, I got out of it. There were enough people who stirred in the tent for him to fucking turn around and get out. I mean don't get me wrong, he was hammered. This was when we were drinking all the time in the field and everything like that. But he was a bad drunk anyway (Interview, March 2019). MJ goes on to describe a healthy working relationship she had and could turn to for help. This relationship was with the maintenance crew rather than with officers. She explains: I had a really good friend who was in the maintenance section. I'll never forget the warrant officer (WO)36 because [of] all my supervisors—everybody—no one said anything. No one did anything. So, I used to hang around with the maintenance guys because I felt safe [with them] (Interview, March 2019). MJ describes how the WO asked her to retell the constant harassment she faced from the master bombardier. MJ: And I was in there and I was talking to the WO, one night we were all just sitting around having a drink and he made me tell him a story and made me tell everything that was going on. And he looked at his guys who were sitting at the table and he said that never happens again. And his guys said, ‘yes WO,’ and then the next night we were all drinking 36 Military rank equally to a senior management position 108 in the mess tent. And, of course, he [the master bombardier] comes walking over and he sits beside me puts his arm around me, he gets all mushy, mushy. He was a big guy and tall too, enough for me that I could hold my own against him. And if he was to start to swing, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with him in that way. I'm telling you those three maintenance guys picked him up and beat him within an inch of his life (Interview, March 2019). The master bombardier went to the hospital and was sent home from the training exercise. What is disappointing in MJ’s retelling is that her unit and peer group did not support her and that the unit cohesion the military desperately protected was jeopardized because of a master bombardier’s actions; but MJ was made to feel like it was her responsibility to maintain, that it was her responsibly to protect her unit member, the very member that was making the working conditions unsafe. MJ again: not one fucking person who was in my unit helped me out or [spoke up on] what was going on. It was the maintenance guys who fucking saved me from that. No repercussions for [the master bombardier or the maintenance guys]. And even when we were back [to base] after the exercise and we [her and her unit] were all home. We [MJ and members of her unit] were at the junior ranks [club] and of course he [the master bombardier] comes in again. There's no [consequence] he hasn't gotten in trouble. He hasn't. There's no paperwork, nothing; he hasn't done it, he hasn't. I mean he's, he's already assaulted me. He's already tried to sexually assault me. He's just done everything. And he came into the mess hall [the junior ranks club], we we're shooting pool and he came over again put his arm around me and I broke the pool cue over his shoulder. The MP [military police] came, still he did not get into trouble. He did not get written up. He did not get anything. 109 He got a posting to Ottawa to get rid of the situation. And you know, I didn't press charges. I wasn’t going to press any charges. If I hadn’t just got my hook [a promotion in rank], then maybe I would have said something. But I was so early in my career. I wasn't going to fucking say what was going on. Two hundred guys on exercise with me and my fucking sergeant majors and my officers everybody telling me to shut the fuck up until some WO [outside of her unit] said ‘boys, that's not right.’ (MJ Interview, March 2019). She justifies her silence at being young and in the early stages of her career where challenging someone in a position of authority would have meant career suicide. As well, the fear of losing the handful of good guy friendships and being ostracized, prevented her from reporting the harassment. MJ also describes a time she witnessed a violent assault on a female soldier. So, her recount really speaks to a time when she experienced the fragile status of her acceptance and what blending in meant for female soldiers. Her case highlights how powerful group acceptance is a motivator to staying quiet, especially when you are the exception. Staying quiet, to stay in, staying quiet to blend in, staying quiet, so you can do the job you signed up for, staying quiet to stay safe. This becomes part of the experience, unique to female soldiers, as we see the gender order at work; where 200 colleagues (including senior leadership) bore witness to her fight, her safety while still doing her job, and stayed quiet. The heavy load here is the realization that one needs to develop their own strategies to endure the military institution’s gender order. While this incident is from the early days of females in the combat arms, I am interested in the pattern of staying quiet to protect one’s tenuous status and ability to blend in. Fast forward 15 years when SJ describes a time she also shut up: 110 I tried hard not to lose a sense of being feminine even when I was in the army because I like me. I didn't want to have to become a man [to be in the combat arms]….Well, there is… this I'm sure you've heard it many times… this really obnoxious saying the guys say: Women only join the army either to be a man, to beat a man, or to escape a man. And I always laugh because it's socially the easiest thing to do, but obviously that pissed me off—well maybe not obviously (JS Interview, March 2019). I appreciate both accounts for the way they describe shutting up. What strikes me is the complexity of the social interactions that take place for one to do their job. The heavy load here is one reminiscent of questioning unit cohesion being jeopardized because of female entry. Rather, we see the ripple effects of the cohesion studies where female soldiers entered the field of the combat arms knowing the gender order, knowing how their presence was seen, and were framed as the bodies that disrupted unit cohesion. We see in these interactions how the female soldiers “through the lens of constructing gender identities and meanings at the gender‐body nexus, that… negotiating physical competence,…and managing men co‐workers' reactions are invented as creative responses to gender‐related job demands” (Yu & Jyawali, 2021, p. 620). MJ and SJ recounted the privileged spheres that female soldiers entered to which they needed to become quickly accultured. This was less about job performance and more about negotiating and dynamic displays of gender identities. The second part of the equation is connected to how sticking out based on not matching the ideal soldier’s gender so that every move is observed in relation to proving how being a female and a soldier is problematic. So, the need to have perfection while learning is the pressure, and the need to be exceptional—which means no mistakes, no room for errors. 111 PS, during the interview, made an observation that diffused the polarization of affirmative action strategies that place male and females at apposing ends. Her comments show that there is a third entity in the military institution's equation. While individuals occupy key positions within, the total force and influence is represented in the structure of the CAF. She described a promotional video for the Military Police, which aired on International Women's Day and was shown at a conference celebrating top 20 women in the defence department of the CAF. The video’s message contrasted with the conference’s intent; the video message describes Canada as a great place to live because we allowed women to serve in the military. PS pointed out the video showed the benevolence of the Canadian military with such phrases as: “We allowed them way back when?!” Rather than given credit to women and progressive organizing to pressure the military to “remove the barriers to employment of women!” (PS, Interview, April 2019). I became sceptically curious about the framing of female military service. The data shows an alternate history of female soldiers where their collective willpower and strength in influencing change within the military is not recorded and acknowledged. At the same time, I am repeatedly made aware of the immense influence of the military institution in constructing and protecting a culture that treats female soldiers as the enemy when they challenge elements and practices of the status quo within the military. Consider that the video celebrating the institution’s role as a champion of the ages against gender segregation, does not at all jive with the fact that the military made it quite difficult for women to join. In fact, the video’s content more accurately exemplifies the reconfiguring of gender segregation rather than institutional reform for inclusivity. PS went on to describe more of the conference: 112 And in the goody bags, they gave us five books...about men, only about men! One book looked at 150 years of relationships between the U.S. and Canada and it's all on men except for one part with a picture of Hillary Clinton as the wife of President Clinton, not as the presidential candidate. And they put a sewing kit in the goody bag! (Interview, April 2019). The sewing kits are signifiers or relics of female gender roles that contrast with female military service. Essentially, these kits are forms of patterns of segregation that promote female-stereotyped patterns connected to military and societal behaviour (Acker, 2016, p. 446), resulting in frustration for PS. Echoing Mills’ (1959) sociological imagination that the private struggles are connected to public issues, and so the private frustrations of one are, in fact, part of the larger CAF’s issues. The heavy load seen here rests on female soldiers’ responsibility to maintain cohesion which in fact maintains the division based on gender (Acker, 1990). But at what cost? Seen in MJ’s retellings, that it was personal safety, which affirms this fundamental process of gender and control. Exemplified are the signs and symbols of male and female roles that reinforce dominance and submission, which are seen in aggressive sexual acts or innocently in books and sewing kits. My point is that the heavy load of female military service encompasses distinct kinds of struggles/barriers before they can even get to the work of combat. 4.7 Conclusion In this chapter, I addressed the military’s approach to integration and looked at the actions and historical policies that shaped today’s events. Under the guise of integration, the military took steps to change the institution to include female soldiers. However, those changes did not disrupt the social relations surrounding female soldier service. The results were in line 113 with Acker’s concept of reconfiguration. Reconfiguration was an important concept in this chapter because institutional views and practices were shaped by the past social relations that framed female soldiers as solutions to manpower shortages, freed male soldiers to fight and support to male service. When female soldiers were permitted to do combat work, they did so under the gaze of the ideal soldier and disrupters of units, all-male unit cohesion. Resembling the social relations surrounding camp followers (Enloe, 1983), I used it as a door to discuss how females are seen as invaders of a man’s world and success is framed as preferential treatment, which could disrupt unit cohesion of an all-male unit. The chapter also addressed the concept of the military gaze since it shapes how female soldiers are seen and see themselves in relation to the ideal soldier to which they are ordered, classified and measured against. Females work hard soldiering to be accepted by their peers. Surrounding female combat service was a legacy of doubt that was revealed in a tone change in a drawing. But this tone change was a way of protecting oneself as showing too much dislike for hard grueling training, could indicate not a fighter or worse, an enemy within. Lastly, I discussed female soldiers carrying a heavy load. By this I meant that they had the added responsibly of changing the CAF culture, while doing combat soldier work. Most telling is the staying power of ideology. One of the continuously reproduced and damaging barriers for female soldiers is that they need to still prove themselves that they can be a real fighter as well as assume the responsibility for maintaining cohesion and changing the culture of the CAF. I discussed the female experiences of fitting in, blending in and sticking out, as strategies for navigating and enduring the gendered order of work in the CAF with competing identities of what it means to be a soldier and a woman. 114 In the next chapter, I look at humour as a conduit of power that socializes soldiers and shapes their interactions. However, I will also outline how humour is a form of resistance and can be an avenue to create cultural change. 115 Chapter 5: “Laugh It Off—Is That an Order, Sir?” The “incident involved an inappropriate message allegedly sent to a younger female soldier by [former Chief of Defence Staff, General] Vance. Vance has told Global [TV News] he did not remember sending the message, but, if he had, it could have been as a joke” (Pugliese, 2021b). 5.1 Introduction Staring at me, reflecting on the words of my participants and my own experience, I am confronted with the paradox of humour. Times of great mirth and amusement have come from sharing a laugh with fellow soldiers. At the same time, I have experienced pain and humiliation as a target of such amusement and “humour”. What does it mean to be told to “laugh it off?” What does laugh it off imply? Is laughing it off a mantra that pays short shrift to the issue at play and which one is expected to –having heard it – ignore and forget it? How does the request to “laugh it off” hide power dynamics that hurt and reproduce inequality of treatment and expectations? For me, humour exemplifies a constructed symbol in the form of language which is one tenant of the gendering process that is part of the gender institution of the CAF (Acker, 1990). Humour, I argue is a mechanism of power and control “that are patterned through and in terms of a distinction between male and female, masculine and feminine” (Acker, 1990, p. 146). For example, when the leadership of the military use specific language to give direction or discipline, they also shape the organization's culture and reinforce the distinction between males and females. When colloquial phrases or colourful language accompanies direction or discipline, that phrasing becomes part of the culture, which a leader can use to unite or divide their subjects. 116 My point is that secondary or implied information is communicated when superiority, humour or sexual innuendos accompany, i.e., discipline, orders, acknowledgments or speeches. This chapter is my journey into interrogating laughing it off and unfunny joking where the symptoms of humour like laughs, smiles, and sarcasm are used largely on female soldiers’ acquaintances to “let sleeping dogs lie” when joking becomes unfunny and inappropriate but “necessary” to maintain unit cohesion. Female soldiers are expected to don their “thick skin” and “laugh it off” because, after all, “it was just a joke”. The uniqueness of humour is also a form of resistance. Due to “its irrationality, humor has an ability to affect relationships in surprising and unpredictable ways and undermine traditional sources of power, such as the police and the military, which are firmly based in rationality” (Sorensen, 2008, p. 185). Depending on how humour is used, it functions differently and can be a tool that uses the adversaries’ strengths against them, and transforms them into weaknesses (Sorensen, 2008). In this chapter, I examine humour as a means of enforcement when used by soldiers in positions of power and resistance through humour. To do so, I analyze aspects of the military culture that encourages “laughing it off” to benefit unit solidarity and camaraderie. Jokes are often an excuse for poor behaviour (Eagleton, 2019). They can also be a tool to shape the behaviour of those invoked as targets in “making” the joke work. In the following pages, I question what it means to laugh something off, what gets laughed off, and why someone would choose to do so. This discussion forms the bedrock of my analysis as the complexity of standing up to offensive behaviour that is delivered through humour in a hierarchal structure like the CAF, illustrates how powerful ideologies are reproduced. Humour is a form of oppression that is mobilized against the Other, the outcast, and used to keep others in their place (Ferguson, 2019). Ridicule, wit, and humiliation are significant components of the military’s method of 117 correction and instruction (Crouthamel, 2014; Perron, 2017; Razack, 2004; Thompson, 2019). In the military, humour keeps soldiers in line, with some (female soldiers) asked to do much more to remain and keep themselves in line. At the same time, humour can be a form of resistance too. It becomes more than just females adopting the same male strategies of ridicule (Willett & Willett, 2019) to exist; instead, it becomes about using self-directed incongruity humour to present different ways of soldiering, including female sexuality and female biology. 5.2 Positions of Power: Humour’s Function This chapter begins with some context for the joke by General Vance. His “joke” surfaced because of the CAF’s initiatives to change their culture and improve the integration of women. The initiatives were based on the suggestions made to the CAF by the External Review Authority (ERA) and involved taking concrete steps to reduce incidents of sexual harassment and assault. The CAF doing so “will help create a more inclusive organizational culture that respects the dignity of all its members” (Deschamps, 2015, p. viii). The desire to make cultural changes resulted from recommendations made by the ERA which reported that sex is used to enforce power relationships and punish or ostracize a (female) member of a unit. The ERA found that members appear to become trained and generally de-sensitized to the sexualized culture of the CAF as they move up the ranks. It also found that senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs)37 were responsible for imposing a culture where no one speaks up nor reports sexual misconduct. In this context, sexual jokes and innuendos are a big part of the highly sexualized CAF culture (Deschamps, 2015, p. ii) and a contributing factor to sexual misconduct. Needless to 37 According to US Army Command Sgt. Maj. John Wayne Troxell, senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “NCOs are the doers, they provide inspiration, purpose, motivation, direction and discipline to the troops they lead, and they are also responsible for the individual training of those in their charge”(Jim Garamone, 2019). 118 say, this culture is hardly conducive to the CAFs institutional efforts to include female soldiers in military service. Humour is complex and has the unique ability to unite and divide groups and individuals (Meyer, 2000). As pointed out earlier in this thesis, humour can be categorized into two silos: First, the origin of humour answers the question what is funny and why it is so. It can be divided further into jokes stemming from superiority, incongruities and “the other.” The second silo is in the message communicated through humour - depending on the origins - becomes a method to unite or divide, ease tensions, smooth awkward situations, or make situations exceedingly difficult for an individual or groups of people. In the case of General Vance’s comments with which I open this chapter, the information communicated is dismissed since it is seemingly an innocent comment. Sorensen (2008, p. 182), points out the humorous mode is connected to a perception of innocence and playfulness contrasting sharply with the serious issue of oppression. By claiming innocence is the intent of the joke, issues of oppression, injustice and vulnerability are hardly recognized and indeed dismissed as inconsequential. So, to qualify a joke as “just joking” after the fact, is to both dismiss the seriousness of its contents and to highlight the extra (undue) sensitivity of those whom the joke is targeted to in “making it” funny. My analysis in this chapter is on the importance of humour and how it operates in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). What cannot be ignored or dismissed is the significant impact humour has had on the integration of female soldiers. Through harmful assumptions (i.e., stereotypes) about gender, I argue humour is “one arena in which widely disseminated cultural images of gender are invented and reproduced” (Hearn & Parkin, 1987, as cited in Acker, 1990, p. 140). The CAF is an institution that appears gender neutral (Gautreau, 2014); but structures are directing and have 119 more power and influence than a passive neutral entity implies. No individual is responsible since it is the collective actions of historical, structural inequalities rooted in class, race, gender, making it possible for highly discriminatory and hyper-masculine ideals of what a soldier needs to be and do in order to prevail. However, the traditional power structure of the military reinforces a soldier’s position of power, and the use of that power over subordinates. Thus, humour is a means of reproducing specific knowledge resulting in female soldiers adopting a ‘laughing it off’ attitude so that they are not ostracized and can continue to do the job they signed up for. Humour disseminates power and shapes the behaviour of those in the CAF. This process reproduces unequal social relations and informs female soldiers how to be in accordance with the gender hierarchy of the military. Lorenz (1963, p. 253) writes that humour performs two functions: it forms a bond while at the same time drawing a line between those “in” on the humour and those “outside” the humor. Humour has been found to give people unity and hope in the face of obstacles. It also may conceal malice or allow the expression of aggression without the consequences possible from direct confrontation. Humour is both a “lubricant” and an “abrasive in social situations” (Martineau, 1972, p. 103). If we agree that power relationships are also enforced through sex, then it stands to reason that sexual joking, and a sexualized culture, enforces power relationships and punishes those who speak up or do not go along with the “humour”. This is because organizations [have] many circuits and trajectories existing and manifest[ing] at different nodal points within the webs of discursive practice that constitute the organization and its broader fields. Exploring these different circuits and nodes provides us with opportunities to expose other relations of power and how these operate to produce, reproduce, or even transform specific discourses and practices that are central to everyday routines and 120 understandings within organizations (Thomas, Mills, & Helms Mills, 2004 as cited in Dick, 2008, p. 328). Therefore, humour’s paradox and aggression without consequence, resonates with the ‘just joking’ seen in the General Vance incident (Pugliese, 2021b). At the same time humour’s process exposes another outlet for those behaviours. Understanding the different knowledge that is communicated through humour, Meyer’s (2000) theory of use is instructive when considering humour’s role in the construction of CAF culture. “Humour serves as a disseminator and an enforcer of norms” (Carroll, 2014, p. 76), as well as a “means of identification, clarification, and differentiation” (Meyer, 2000, p. 311). The theory of use outlines how knowledge is transmitted through humour; values and norms are reinforced through humour; and what is funny can be inappropriate, dependent on viewpoint (Meyer, 2000, p. 311). But what happens when humour is deployed, and what kind of effect does it have on the individual or groups of people it invokes to make the joke/humour “work?” On this, Meyer offers additional insight into the theoretical uses of humour by breaking it “down into two basic functions: unification and division” (2000, p. 311). Unification and division are part of strategies that can bring together or gain support from an audience or divide oppositions, or “the Other’s” dissenting voices (Meyer, 2000). When humour is used to communicate a message, it functions much like the gaze, which the institution or individual soldiers can use to identify, clarify, enforce, and differentiate (Meyer, 2000). Therefore, the CAF’s jokes and humour are part of the gendering process transmitting messages to individual soldiers and groups through pictures, memes, leadership speeches, news statements or conversations. For example, when I asked the participant MA, who was an artillery soldier, if having two kids delayed her career? She responded: 121 Oh, yeah. I actually used to get comments: ‘if we wanted you to have kids, we’d have issued them’ (Interview, April 2019). As MA’s comment hangs in thought, consider what is communicated in this example of a sarcastic comment? Through language, the enacted gender process influences MA’s interactions amongst her peers and superiors; it reinforces gender divisions underpinning her soldier identity as not the ideal soldier that does combat. Analyzing the CAF as a gendered organization, I view humour as one of the control mechanisms of soldiers and a means of maintaining divisions within the military. The rank and position of a soldier will determine the joke's scope and "acceptance". Take for example the case of the former leader of the CAF, General Vance, and his joke, which was a sexual comment made to a subordinate female soldier (Pugliese, 2021b). In referring to it as a “joke,” Vance sought to absolve himself of any wrongdoing, and instead placed blame on the target of the joke for misunderstanding the joke or for overreacting to his joke. In adopting this attitude, Vance seems to imply that sexual commentary to female soldiers is not misconduct at all, or indeed that discrimination in jest, is allowed. This implied “defense” is unifying all those who see their “ability to joke” being policed and taken away. Thus, the problem lies in the receiver of the joke (who cannot take a joke or does not understand joking around), not the joke itself nor with the teller of the joke. For example, General Vance’s defense communicates to female soldiers that they must adopt a thick skin because in the institution of the CAF, male soldiers are allowed to use sexual jokes to unite and reinforce cohesion within the institution. And since jokes unify, they are part of a functioning culture that make male soldiers “feel safe” and trusting of each other. The female soldier in the CAF, where their belonging is always tenuous, need to “shut up” 122 and play along since group cohesion is much more important than (female) soldiers’ individual feelings, experiences, and personal safety. During the interviews, the participants said they internalized the sexual culture of the CAF. They did so because they could not do otherwise, and so learned to cope with it. SJ “trained” herself to cope. Coping with a sexual culture is arduous work, work that shouldn’t be necessary in an institution, especially one as important as the CAF. SJ: “I definitely like trained myself to think a lot of things are OK because it's easier to laugh about things than make a big deal about things” (Interview, March 2019). The training of oneself was necessary to be accepted into the group and maintain the cohesiveness of the group rather than be the one who sought to disrupt it by drawing attention to oneself and run the risk of being labeled as weak and a non-team player. For LK (Interview, Feb 2019), ensuring cohesion meant that to a certain “degree, at least, like the humor and stuff” she and others had to adopt more masculine outlooks or viewpoints and act more “male-like.” This meant playing by their informal rules and inserting themselves as quickly as possible into the group as to not make men feel uncomfortable by having a female in their midst. But this means internalization of said culture shapes future behaviour. For LK, the military has a sexualized culture which “you don't even think about it when you're in. It's just like a normal culture” (Interview, Feb 2019). RL continues: It’s hard to stand up to offensive behaviour, and for women they have the added pressure of being labelled a whiner. And so, females must internalize the sexualize culture. RL: It’s a way to show you are worthy of acceptance, kind of like a mob mentality…it’s especially hard your first two years[because you are new to the CAF, new to the culture, low in rank and authority]. 123 According to RL, acceptance and proving oneself was tied to “an attitude that you have to just go with it or not let things bother you. Brush it off” (Interview, Jan 2019). In a culture where humour is used to cope with sexual impropriety, aggression without consequence is only for the joke teller, especially if he holds a position of power. Everyone else within his range and within that culture “trains” themselves to laugh it off as the alternative to do otherwise exists without consequences, reprimand or ostracization. In this milieu, it is the receiver or hearer of the joke that bears all the consequences. SJ explains how this plays out: Well, there is this [and] I'm sure you've heard it many times. This really obnoxious saying guys [would say] women only joining the army either to be a man or to escape a man. I always laughed this off because it was socially the easiest thing to do. But [it] obviously pissed me off! (SJ Interview, March 2019). Here again one can see that social cohesion rested with women “laughing off” inappropriate sexual jokes and innuendo. In this way, humour is gendered in relying upon females to “work” at accepting it so that uniting of the group prevailed. Bourdieu’s habitus concept helps us understand the connections and interplay between institutions and individuals in the past and present. Habitus is a: Way of describing the embodiment of social structures and history in individuals that make up and operate through dispositions, internal to the individual, which both reflects external social structures and shapes how the individual perceives the world and acts in it. Although the social structures embodied in habitus do not determine behaviour, the individual is predisposed to act in accordance with the social structures that have shaped her, because, in effect, she carries those social structures with her (Dick, 1999, p. 48). 124 Above, I explained that humour communicates knowledge and norms of unity and boundary-making. I also showed how female soldiers are implicated in this double process and on which they have little control except to train themselves to cope and get on with the job of being a soldier. Moreover, humour such as General Vance’s, communicates the embodiment of social structures and history shaping one’s actions in the combat arms, the military, and the occasional social spaces within the confines of the military world. By participating in perceived humorous interactions, the tension between one’s subordinate status, with the personal desire to fit in comes to light under the military culture of conformity and the historical logic of maintaining unit cohesion. This is evident in SJ’s self-reflection about “participating” in joking around by both turning the joke onto itself as in “hopefully I turned it around sometimes by drawing dicks,” and the tension of playing along: “I know I'm sharing the same immature sense of humour” since she is “joke[ing] about things like dicks went a long way towards earning the trust from my comrades” (Interview, March 2010). But this “immature sense of humour” is a form of coping too. It eases tensions to the fact that since “awe, it’s a woman!” engages this type of humour as lubricating the social interactions between male and female soldiers. “Since sex and sexual behaviour are fraught with so many norms and stereotypes, they too are a natural breeding ground for humour. It is because of our gender stereotypes regarding manliness that we find it so hilariously funny” (Meyer, 2000). Make no mistake, female soldiers are not above sexual based humour. The issue lies in the imbalance where female soldiers do not, and cannot speak up when humour is not funny, is offensive or worse, constitutes sexual misconduct. The habitus embodied in the “socially easiest thing to do” situations contribute to the CAF culture of not speaking up, and as I have argued, 125 rests on female soldiers “shut[ting] up and put[ting] up” because being ostracized is far worse than not being liked. MJ provided an astute observation on what being ostracized could mean: When you’re working you know, back in the day, we were four or five months at a time in the field. How could you [speak out?] I would have jumped off a bridge because you wouldn't [survive]. No one would have spoken to you. Everybody would have done anything in their power to get you in shit and make you fail (MJ Interview, April 2019). Being ostracized by the group meant you could not do your job, you could not do the job you were “goddamn made for” (Perron, 2017, p.61). The job that hailed to you, the job you had such pride and love for, you could not perform. MJ rhetorically asked, “how do you stop them from slamming my gender [meaning all female soldiers too], but still stay in a trade where I don't get a shovel in the back of the head?” (MJ, Interview, April 2019). The decision to not speak out (formally or otherwise) wasn’t due to fear but to being smart. MJ: “I wouldn't call it fear. I call it smart because I'd rather call myself smart or adaptable other than scared” (Interview, April 2019). The point here is that female soldiers adapt by finding ways to cope and survive in the CAF. They make decisions to maintain unit cohesion for their success but do so in an inequitable work environment. RL says: “Oh yes, I would act like it is not a big deal when something offensive would happen. Yeah sure, whatever… please accept me” [said sarcastically and mockingly] (Interview, Jan 2019). MJ again: “You get very jaded by it [the culture]. But you also have to suck up some of it [being the discrimination] in order to survive” (Interview, April 2019). MJ said the culture is better and improving since she joined and now has been released. However, I think it is important to stay curious and look at the micro-interactions and other avenues of power. I argue that what has happened is a reconfiguration so that the culture appears 126 changed, whilst the reproduction of segregation practices continues through the micro-interactions of humour. And because jokes and humour are interpreted as said in good fun, it can perpetuate the abasement of female soldiers’ self-worth or perpetuate a sexual culture detrimental to women’s work and belonging in the military. The origin of what is funny can change with time, occupation, and age. But if the hierarchal structure and the gendered power system keeps female soldiers as outsiders (in this case study), then humour remains a tool to convey aggression/power plays without consequence. George Meredith, an early 19th century Victorian novelist, discussed comic literature and claimed that: a good deal of comedy…, revolves on the battle of the sexes, and plays a vital role in elevating women from 'pretty idiots' to admirable wits. What he [Meredith] sees as the lack of comedy in the East springs in his view from the low status of women in that sector of the globe. Where women have no freedom, he insists, comedy is bound to be absent. There can be no genuine civilization without sexual equality, and there will never be comedy where civilization is not possible. In the absence of such civility, the comic spirit is 'driven to the gutters of grossness to slake its thirst’, where women are reduced to household drudges, the form of comedy tends to be primitive; where they are tolerably independent but uncultivated, the result is melodrama; but where sexual equality thrives, the art of comedy flourishes alongside it (Eagleton, 2019, p. 99). For Meredith, according to Eagleton, humour without equality between the sexes will remain discriminatory and unevolved. In the military, this unevolved culture means that female soldiers are often subjected to derogatory jokes, as bystanders, or subjects. 127 MJ said that there are “extremes, extreme [examples of poor] humour,” and “the military can be very degrading [with its] homophobic and very racist jokes” (Interview, April 2019). But these types of jokes are rarely objected to since the teller offers the caveat that “it was just a joke.” This “admission” disarms the receiver of the joke who then has little choice but to laugh at the joke or laugh off the “caveat.” SJs recounts this type of humour with a story of TBG (token black guy). She explains with a case while deployed on a domestic operation: There was a black guy in our section, and it was like people were just constantly making jokes about it, like, they call him TBG for token black guy. I mean he always laughed about it and it was funny and we all liked him. And I was chatting about it one day [with her section commander] and I was like, ‘well, he seems like he has a really good sense of humor about it; I don't think I'd worry about offending him’. He [the section commander] said ‘well, if you think about it, he doesn't really have any choice. He has to think it's funny and laugh along with everybody else, otherwise he'll totally ostracize himself38’ (Interview, March 2019). SJ continues: I don't know how to file that [the TBG realization] because for me as the woman in a situation like that, I would rather people just joke about it and laugh about it than be bitter about it or something. People are joking with you; you feel like you're buddies. Willett and Willett (2019, pp. 36–37) write: “Our assumption is that power does not only operate through the hierarchies or inequalities located by traditional or intersectional theories of domination. It also operates through the micro-practices, engrained habits, cultural stereotypes, and implicit biases of everyday life— practices that make up the normal and normalizing codes 38 To note, he may have protested but not recorded, since the account here is 2 times removed from ‘him.’ 128 of gender and other sites of oppression”. In this case study, I argue that humour cannot produce group cohesion since there is a power imbalance within the constitution of the military. In addition, these different systems of domination run parallel to the formality of hierarchy, power, rank and position whereby female soldiers are put into positions that continuously demand that they don their thick skin and dismiss their objection for the maintenance of unit cohesion. Joking and humour, sociological research tells us, are symbolic tools that represent gendered processes within organizations (Acker, 1990, 2016) rather than being only about conformity and cohesion. It is also about resistance even if the latter is at the micro scale and individualist. I turn next to examine the use of resistance through jokes and humour as told by my research participants to critique the military elite and patriarchal power in the everyday military existence. 5.3 Resistance The beauty of the concept of habitus is that it allows for agency even if actors are embedded in the social structures that condition their social existence. In other words, there is room for change as people organize their lives even if they are not entirely free from the circumstances of the past. Humour is a conduit for power, and I have outlined the process that repeatedly relies on female soldiers “donning thick skin” and “laughing it off” to make it work. Individuals, regardless of gender “perpetuate these norms through practices that operate behind our backs and without knowledge of our complicity. Just as ridicule and humor provide an arsenal of tools that can reinforce these norms and practices, so too can this arsenal tear those conventions down” (Willett & Willett, 2019, pp. 36–37). “Laughing it off” attitude carries forth the ability to joke and make fun of things and builds a form of provisional cohesion to deal with stressful situations. This is clear in the 129 interview data. Interestingly, “joking around” is also the ability to resist dominant gender roles that female soldiers need to move in and out of; joking or “fucking around” “makes men feel safe”, it enables female soldiers to fit in, do their job and informally posit new forms of soldiering. When a female soldier can “give a joke as much as they can take one”, it could be an act of resistance. In 1945, Orwell wrote “every joke is a tiny revolution” (as cited in TenDyke, 2007, para. 1). If female soldiers can use humour deliberately, it can be a form of resistance. However, the culture of the CAF emphasizes obedience to authority, where hierarchy is sacred, and “reinforces the chain of command, and strengthens organizational morale, cohesion and operational effectiveness” (Taber, 2017, p. 3). Therefore, the very nature of the military culture reinforces a culture that does not challenge authority and makes it hard to speak against, let alone develop a strategy to challenge oppressive actions. As Sorensen (2008, p. 179) says, a culture of resistance builds upon some degree of an us/them divide. Although such kinds of divides are often considered problematic, in an oppressive situation there must be a difference between those who are oppressing and those who are resisting. You need to name what it is you consider oppressive in order to be able to fight it. Many nonviolent resisters try to separate between the oppressor as a person and the oppression he is committing, thus the humour will attack the oppressive system, but not the oppressor as a person. Humour and its role are not only in “fitting in” but also working at identifying and highlighting the troubling practices within the military. For female soldiers who are often the butt of the jokes or the one’s staying quiet, humour can be used to point out the incongruities of the oppressive actions by the institutions. Female soldiers can use humour to turn things around. What happens in this action is: (A) The humour used is confrontational; it provokes, mocks, or ridicules, which 130 escalates the conflict and puts pressure on the oppressor. (B) Although an increased pressure raises the chances of repression, paradoxically the use of humour reduces fear within the resistance movement. (C) Humour reduces the oppressor’s options for reacting in a way he can later justify. Dick (2008, pp. 328–329) points out that researchers often tend to favour intentional forms of resistance and make the mistake that “subjective resistance does not constitute effective opposition simply because this is not translated into actual action”. Subjectivity based on or influenced by personal feelings or opinions is a “site at which discourses intersect, sometimes being reproduced, but at other times producing contradictions, challenges, and new discourses and forms of self-consciousness” Dick & Hyde, 2006 as cited in Dick, 2008, pp. 328–329; (Chan, 2000). That site is part of the female soldier’s habitus, and humour is part of the intersecting discourses; curiously though, the production of contradictions provides an avenue for resistance with humour. As Meyers (2000) noted, one source of humour lies in incongruities which are areas of contradictions and out of place ideas. Therefore, “as Foucault’s genealogies suggest, such changes may, in the longer term, produce radical social transformations” (Dick, 2008, p. 329). The resistance participants show is the “inversions and inflaming[of] the passions that fuel social awareness and activism, this humor can produce climate change” (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 26). Change in the social environment that is often overlooked is the subjective resistance, and which for Willet and Willet is evident through a combination of feminism and humour called “fumerism”. They elaborate on this term: Cultural theorists provide support for our feminist account of transformative strains in humor by suggesting a source of humor’s pleasure that does not stem from feelings of 131 superiority or in-group/out-group hierarchies. Such humor instead prompts a sense of community from a loosely defined sense of mutual belonging rather than a recognized shared identity. The “unity” of this felt sense of belonging—of laughing together—occurs though suspending and rendering more porous reified positions of identity (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 35). Willet and Willet further argue that: [F]umerist comedy can make visible histories of identities and struggles for recognition and identification, but as moments of dislocation and transformation. In other words, the moment of laughter may jolt one out of habitual habits and cognition and open up fresh possibilities (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 35). Therefore, sprouting from comedy can be a new kind of community, one based not on homogeneity or rigid identities but rather on a shared dislocation out of customary lines of identity. The joy of fumerist comedy is not in having one’s preconceived identity and views confirmed, but in being startled out of one’s customary alignments toward a more promising future” (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 35). Fumerism is a take on the old idea of the past that see humour as an ease of tension and social lubricant. It is a form of action that highlights moments of crisis, and identifies ridicule as man’s most forceful weapon, though Willet and Willet (2019) insist it can be feminist too. To illustrate fumerism and resistance humour in this study, I turn to MJ who uses the sexual taboos of female sexuality and biology to build cohesion with her unit and “tear down the norms” of expected behaviour. MJ: 132 [It] was back before they even had porta potties. Like we never, never… you took a shovel and away you went, right? And then it came down you don’t do that anymore. So, you know that's even worse because what the fuck am I going to do with all this stuff. Here she was alluding to the packaging/products that are used for menstruation. And now the guys give me a hard time because you got to keep your garbage and you just drop it off once you get resupplied. Ah, geesh it was, I was a mess [said sarcastically, while laughing out loud]. MJ carries on by telling of a time when she was working on the ADATS M113 Canadian-operated anti-aircraft and anti-tank missile carrier system and was checking the radios for serviceability. The radios had two settings intercom and over the radio, which meant that to speak locally within the vehicle, select intercom, if you wanted to transmit to all vehicles on the same frequency, select over the radio. So, I'm like on my Sargent’s headset, we're fucking around [while] everybody was throwing up [supply requests over the radio] because the supply request had to be done by 1300 every day, so you can get resupplied at night. And I was fucking around. And I said, I thought it was on intercom so everybody in the 113 could hear me, but I was on radio. I said: ‘yeah, fuck Sarge[slang for sergeant]. I need like 24 packs tampons and like four or five dildos and maybe a couple of batteries.’ Then I get this whack on my shoulder and then I turn around the guys were laughing, and I take off the headset and I'm like ‘what? What!’ They were like, ‘you were transmitting.’ I got hauled off and in trouble for that. But at least it lightened my guys, and we could at least talk about fucking menstrual cycle for Christ's sake. Back in the day… I mean even now, I mean the guys 133 it's like how can you be [put off by talking about menstruation]? It's part of life. (MJ interview March 2019). According to Willett & Willett (2019, p. 39), “[Foucault defines] an aesthetic practice—of ridicule and improvisation to draw attention to the arbitrary aspects of social norms”. For example, the “Cynics would use the philosopher’s technique of reductio ad absurdum, but instead of pointing out the fallacies of arguments, they exposed the absurdity of what would pass for common sense” (as cited in Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 40). The absurdity shown in the conversation with SJ who added “should've just been a lesbian, it would've been way easier; problem solved” (Interview, 2019)—said sarcastically, as the question of female sexuality in the form of lesbianism is always in question, and as if that would solve the problem of blending in and constantly sticking out. Another example of absurdity is MJ’s method of discussing trust and living conditions: I walked [said with a pre-emptive chuckle] into a bunch of 18-year-olds and I stood in front of the class, usually, you know, you start with the what, when, where, why, how. And then I said ‘how many people here masturbate?’ And it was all guys of course. And 18 year olds. And one person raised his hand and he looked like he’s a little bit older. But everybody else was all ‘hee, hee, hee, hee,’ and shy and scared. And I said, ‘you know what, I’ll remember you [you being the person who put his hand up], but all you other guys you're all lying. Now I don't trust you guys.’ I said, ‘because if you can't even be honest enough to say you’ve masturbated and get all embarrassed. Me being your supervisor, if you get embarrassed through talking about that, how are we going to get together living together for seven months in the field. That just doesn't work’ (MJ interview, 2019). 134 Fumerism turns the tables and allows for mocking the mockers, and affords women the role of trickster rather than “trick” (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 28). In other words, by turning the tables or turning things around, female soldiers can present different ways of being and shift power dynamics. The gendering process in organizations, where divisions along the lines of gender view males as dominant, the ideal soldier, and females as subordinates, or support for those who fight, fosters interactions ripe for superiority humour. Where mocking mistakes are typical, pressure to demonstrate you have earned your career advancement and that you are a team player that keeps cohesion by “laughing things off”. SJ says: Because there's that perception, I think, women do need to prove themselves. Work a little bit harder to prove themselves at least initially. Maybe not. But every time there's new people you gotta like prove yourself. And not just with doing your job but also [socially]that that you can make jokes—with dicks. I'm not going to get offended, and I'm not going to run and scream harassment, which is like again about that stigma about hard, how hard it [harassment] is to bring it up. For SJ, jokes about dicks are an inside joke amongst her peer group and go a long way in reducing people’s fear (Sorensen, 2008). “The power of humor is not in the level of aggression, at least not in an oppressive situation, but in the courage it takes and in the ambivalence between the innocence and the clear serious message. The provocation can be camouflaged behind the innocence” (Sorensen, 2008, p. 181)—the innocence of participating in the joke. Of the participants’ drawings, SJ was the only one to incorporate humour. In section 4.3, I discussed SJ’s drawing to exemplify the complexity of the military gaze on the female experience. However, I covered up the third element of her drawing to focus on the polarized 135 views of fitting in. More suited to this section of my analysis is the third element, which she drew a penis with an equal sign followed by four male soldiers laughing. Through a humorous process female soldiers eased tensions and reframed their service to be seen in alignment with the ideal soldier. Drawing 6: “The military gaze and resistance” Conté on white paper, drawing from in-person interview. (© 2019 SJ, by permission). SJ, who exemplifies fumerism in her drawing of a penis, acted as a trickster and creating a mentally of resistance. Moreover, I bring your attention to the placement of the third image, as it is under the group of soldiers who cast SJ as an anomaly, but where she suggests allows her to fit in even though she sticks out: 136 Having a good sense of humour, [which] was really important for fitting in. Yes. And specifically having a sense of humor that made men feel like they were safe around you. You could joke about things like dicks, went a long way towards earning the trust from my comrades (SJ interview 2019). Consider joking with peers and individually positing new ways of soldiering as part of the long walk up a steep hill that will turn things around for female soldiers. What began as a tiny joke can help restore the sense of belonging. The belonging that was eroded by the harmful CAF culture can improve the institution’s framing of female soldiers and challenge the concept of the ideal soldier. 5.4 Conclusion In my analysis, I have addressed the military’s approach to integration as a whole and looked at the actions and historical policies that have shaped the events of today. One of the continuously reproduced damaging barriers of the past is how female soldiers need to still prove themselves and assume the responsibility for maintaining cohesion. This shapes actions and interactions and forms part of their habitus, which includes the flawed bona fide logic of the CAF. I have looked at humour as a conduit of power that perpetuates discrimination and sexual harassment because it is a way for aggression to prevail without consequence. Humour is also a means of communicating knowledge. When humour is used with aggression without consequence specially to justify or excuse action, the power imbalance from the traditional military hierarchal structure and the gendered power structures illuminates how humour and joking become a process of reproducing inequality. The inequalities have relics in the history of female soldiers because their acceptance was hinged on unit cohesion and maintaining cohesion of all-male units. The real work needs to begin with the CAF recognizing how those historical 137 practices shape behaviour, and efforts to see how male soldiers continue to benefit. Part of the effort must include empathy, empathy to walk the military in a female soldiers’ boots. The insidious part about humour is that it is a lubricant for social situations and eases tensions, intended or not. Humour can mask malice or aggression or redirect situations that place the onus on female soldiers to maintain cohesion and keep jokes funny. The results of those tensions leave female soldiers with little choice but to “laugh it off.” The move to laugh it off is a strategic one that participants used to avoid being the victim; the strategic move was done so they could continue to do the work they signed up for, and still enjoy and benefit from being part of the group. This move enabled female soldiers to not hold in anger since “you may be a victim, but you will have your revenge, and a clever one at that” (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 30). Well, maybe not revenge (yet). But the idea to use wit is part of fumerism to posit acts of resistance that female soldiers do and can do in everyday interactions. For female soldiers, the everyday discourses that surround military service can be wearing, through resistance that is present in the mico-practices of humour in pranks, fucking around and re-telling stories with satire that mocks the incongruities of those interactions, are important in making change. The quiet rage of female soldiers is rising; armed with humour, those inequalities that keep humour reductive and focused on the tired tropes of sexuality, which position females as the butts of jokes, are in their crosshairs. Henceforth, humour is a form of resistance and not just a conduit of power, which is to be used by female soldiers to mock the mockers and turn things around “by drawing dicks.” 138 Chapter 6: Conclusions The following chapter synthesizes the major points covered in my thesis based on my research focus and the experiences of female soldiers interviewed. I provide a snapshot of my key findings, including female soldiers' strategies for navigating the CAF culture, a culture underpinned by the concept of the ideal soldier and the processes of gender, which are fundamental tenants of the military institution. In addition, I show that humour is both a conduit of power and a site of resistance in the military context. Soldiers, in both aspects, are directly implicated. This chapter discusses my methodology and how my use of constructivist grounded theory uniquely presents participants' views on what it means to be a soldier and female in the Canadian Armed Forces. I use interviews and drawings by soldiers to evoke their experiences and concepts of soldiering and rank in the CAF. I also present below a section on the limitations of my study. This chapter ends with suggestions for future research interests arising from this study. 6.1 Research focus My research explores the experience of being a female soldier within the combat arms occupations, a branch of the Army within the Canadian armed forces. I utilized an arts-based method of drawing and interviews to examine combat work within the military institution with extensive sexual harassment and pursuant of cultural change and integration goals of increasing the number of females enlisted in the CAF's total forces. This study draws upon female combat arms veterans and highlights the complexities of gender and the competing challenges that often overlap experiences around doing combat work. By examining the complexities of service for female soldiers, we gain access to the invisible hidden and ignored spaces and voices in CAF-driven analysis. It enables me to move beyond recommendations and research centred on the 139 individual, choice, and support, which results in military change resting on female soldiers' ability to fit in or laugh it off. Hence, I explored humour analytically, cultivating an understanding of humour's functions within the gendered institution of the CAF. I focused on humour as a conduit for power. I examined various messages communicated in different situations, for instance, when individuals use humour in positions of power or everyday conversations with peers. I began to understand humour as a fluid process that takes different forms depending on social relations, which opens the door to learning how humour can be resistance and a means of presenting new knowledge that counters the ideal soldier narrative. 6.2 Key Findings I began my research by questioning the government of Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces' goal of increasing female soldiers from 15% to 25% by 2026 (Department of National Defence “Strong Secure Engaged” 2017, p. 12). I also viewed this goal alongside the CAF's desire for cultural change based on the External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces (Deschamps, 2015). Lastly, I questioned the CAF's statement that no barriers to females existed, and that choice was the reason for low numbers. I questioned the idea of choice as females not joining or staying in and moved to examine the CAF as a gendered institution. Here, I found that within the military, there are gendering processes that maintain structures of dominance, and due to structure placement, female soldiers continued to be the exception. By exception, I mean low female representation in male-dominated military occupations, which limits their access to resources and a voice. I refer to Acker and Kanter, who uncovered that in large organizations females are primarily located in the lower ranks, in support roles and less prestigious work, but are exposed as tokens at the top (Acker, 1990). I found that historical occupation restrictions and multiple attempts to include female soldiers resulted in 140 reconfigurations of gender divisions and enforcement of gendered processes, which have made little systemic change. My thesis concentrated on the female combat arms soldier experience to provide a deeper understanding of embedded gendered knowledge that gives rise to practices of “gender-neutral” or “beyond” gender in the explanations of the CAF. Female soldiers' status in the CAF has been tenuous since the military was forced to integrate. Thus, I focused on the status of female soldiers and how it has changed over time, where the combat occupations of the military were the last to integrate female soldiers and, at the time of writing, had the least number of female soldiers. As a result, I questioned the military's efforts to create cultural change by emphasizing that leaders must lead the way. My thesis questioned these efforts as the leaders who must lead the change have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I focused on how influential the military is as an institution and how it has shaped female soldiers' experiences, which shed light on more nuanced barriers that affect their service. Furthermore, I considered low female soldier representation as being framed as choice, where females do not want to join. I found that these “explanations” are platitudes and tokenisms to pre-empt criticisms from social groups calling on greater accountability and transparency on CAF operations and institutional practices relating to their employees. My analysis addressed the military's approach to integration as a whole and looked at the actions and historical policies that have shaped the present. One of the continuously reproducing and damaging barriers for female soldiers is that the onus to change the culture of the CAF rests on them. The institution of the military has historically framed female soldiers as problematic, a solution to manpower shortages so male soldiers could be freed to fight in combat. This type of framing has continued, even after all the decades of organizational changes that made room for 141 female soldiers; however, these changes were reconfigurations of past social relations. Thus, female soldiers remain framed as problematic and solutions to workforce shortages, not fighters in the military. The military gaze is a key concept that disproportionately affects female soldiers because it socializes soldiers into seeing who can be and is a real fighter. The military gaze is a way of ordering and classifying soldiers with how well they fit the ideal soldier type. Female soldiers internalize the complexity of the gaze, so their experience is exhaustive and conflicting because they love the work and being a soldier in the combat arms. Nevertheless, the constant questioning of their ability as fighters, as ideal soldiers, is steady—like a crawl up a steep hill. I used the gaze to analyze how the military viewed female soldiers and asked them to draw the experience of being a female soldier. I found that the concept of the ideal soldier was lurking beneath and among the CAF. Moreover, through gendering processes, such as hierarchies based on or alongside gender, signs and symbols or soldier interactions, the drawings revealed experiences in which they stuck out, blended in and fit in, all indicating the complexity of insecurity and subordinate placement. Finally, I discussed the female experiences of fitting in, blending in and sticking out as strategies for navigating and enduring the gendered order of work in the CAF with competing identities of what it means to be a soldier and a woman. Humour is part of the CAF culture, which is an avenue for power, where messages of who is a soldier and who is not are being conveyed, especially when said by soldiers in powerful positions, that message is amplified. However, a form of resistance is present in certain types of humour done by female soldiers. They can present new ways of soldiering and challenge the ideal soldier while easing tensions and uneasiness that follows female soldiers' service—where they can turn things around. 142 6.3 Main contributions My thesis contributes to the academic literature and understanding of the function of the CAF and female soldiers' implications in that institution. In the arts-based method, with an accompanying clarifying narrative, hand-drawn images brought understanding and insight to the focus from the interviewees' perspective and their agency in what they decided to draw/represent. The above findings also show the gendering processes within the CAF experience and internalized by being a female soldier. As a result, I summarize this thesis’ main contributions to the academic field as: (1) The CAF is a gendered organization with many gendering processes. For this reason, more investigation into the organizational placement of soldiers to (a) better understand the social relations of those occupations and (b) identify harmful and toxic gendering processes within those occupations, which continue to promote a toxic culture toward those who do not match the ideal soldier. (2) Adopting arts-based methods to examine the ideal soldier and build off Taber and Davis's work of warrior ideology. (a) Using drawings can be one method of visualizing the gendering processes, which involve the construction of signs and symbols that explain, express, reinforce or sometimes oppose divisions (of gender). Accordingly, the drawings enabled the free expression of personal narratives without mediation, exposing the internalization of being a female soldier. The soldiers alluded to the influence of multiple hegemonic hierarchies on their embodied experiences and the “price” they had to pay. The arts-based method enabled comprehensive, multi-layered disaggregation of respondents' experiences, inner conflicts, and coping mechanisms (Harel-Shalev et al., 2017, p. 509). (b) Also, drawing a response was most interesting because it allowed the participant to guide the question rather than be guided. Drawing enhanced my grounded theory methodology, so the participants' voices and experiences became the basis of my themes. As a final step, the 143 drawings became a way for me to check my dominant themes, where I mapped out drawings as they related to the themes of the coded data. I looked at what was initially said in the drawings and checked my themes with what was seen in the images. Therefore, drawing can support grounded theories process of checking analysis with participants. Lastly, I looked at different strategies, female soldiers deployed in the face of adversity and their use of humour to cope and sometimes resist the culture of the CAF. I found that humour was a conduit for power that maintains divisions based on gender and contributes to a culture that condones harmful and toxic behaviour. Therefore, “laughing it off” has profoundly ingrained gender assumptions embedded within the military institution. However, humour is a unique communication tool that can convey malice and aggression; yet posit new understandings of who can embody the ideal soldier by understanding humour as a fluid process that takes different forms depending on the social relations. I suggest that resistance humour opens the door to learning how humour can be resistance and a means of presenting new knowledge and reshaping the ideal soldier narrative. Much of the combat arms is demanding work, and humour helps to cope with the intensity while forging close personal relationships between soldiers. However, humour can be harmful too, and when used by the powerful, it can counter one's intent. So, my research provides: (1) a link between the gendered institution of the CAF and an example of the gender processes that reinforce structures of dominance and control and gender hierarchies with outdated humour, which communicates that harassment is ok. (2) changing a culture is a big undertaking, which must move away from relying on leaders leading the way because, as shown above, they have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. By understanding that humour is a fluid process that takes on different forms depending on social relations, it opens the door to 144 learning how humour can be a resistance and a means of presenting new knowledge and reshaping the ideal soldier. Thus, I suggest that humour be viewed as a tool to “confront and detoxify stereotypes” and willingly, with laughter, reappropriate energy away from structures of domination (Willett & Willett, 2019, p. 45). (3) As seen in this study, female soldiers' agency is in their ability to resist an institution that is rigid and authoritarian. (4) Lastly, methodologically, the idea of hand-drawn images gives initiative within the process back to the interviewees to maintain the freedom to create the images they want with little guidance from the researcher. 6.4 Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research The findings presented herein lend some further support to the above recommendation. However, these findings should be interpreted with caution due to the small number of veteran female soldiers’ participants. Potential applications of my research findings could include drawing as a way to discuss experience and a tool to help communicate general senses at the personal and institutional level. To expand our understanding of gender and the experiences of gender, I think future research should review occupations with high concentrations of females or males; and interview more female soldiers currently serving in combat. It might also be interesting to ask female soldiers to draw their views of what it is like to be a male soldier in the Canadian Army. Also, it might be interesting to interview current and former serving men and ask them to draw the experience of being a female soldier. Like other research initiatives, mine has limitations. For instance, my focus is on gender and the female perspective on how it is constructed in the military. 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Gender, Work, and Organization, 28(2), 610–625. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12602 158 Appendices Appendix A - Drawings Drawings collected but not included in the analysis chapters: A.1 Drawing – response to “draw the experience of being a female soldier” Black pen on white paper, drawing from interview, image sent via text message. (© 2019 PS, by permission). 159 Black pen on white paper, drawing from interview, image sent via text message. (© 2019 MJ, by permission). 160 A.2 Drawing – response to “draw a soldier” Blue pen on white paper, drawing from interview, image sent via text message. (© 2019 LK, by permission). 161 Black pen on white paper, drawing from interview, image sent via text message. (© 2019 MJ, by permission). 162 Black pen on white paper, drawing from interview, image sent via text message. (© 2019 MA, by permission). 163 Conté on white paper, drawing from in-person interview. (© 2019 SJ, by permission). 164 Graphite pencil on FMP (field message pad) drawing from interview, held to camera, screenshot. (© 2019 RL, by permission). 165 Black ink on white paper, drawing from interview, held to camera, screenshot. (© 2019 TL, by permission). 166 Blue ink on white paper, drawing from interview, held to camera, screenshot. (© 2019 GS, by permission). 167 Black pen on white paper, drawing from interview, image sent via text message. (© 2019 PS, by permission). 168 Graphite pencil on white paper, drawing from interview, held to camera, screenshot. (© 2019 GT, by permission). 169 Appendix B - Research Documents B.1 Interview guide 170 171 172 173 B.2 Consent letter 174 175 176 177 B.3 Copywrite letter 178
Thesis/Dissertation
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Interdisciplinary Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Aguiar, Luis L. M.
“That’s what she said!” : gender integration in the Canadian Armed Forces with a focus on the experience of female soldiers in the combat arms
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