Original scientific paper
Gender, Military Profession and Armed Forces: The Increase of Women's Military Participation/Integration as a Trend of Emancipation?
Tomislav SMERIĆ
Abstract
The article is addressing multiple issues concerning women's
participation/gender integration in contemporary armed
forces and its broader social consequences. After a short
comment on the complex and perplexing relationship
between citizenship/military rights/obligations of women, a
brief historical overview of main features of their military
participation is given. Attention is then focused on
characteristics of post-cold war trends in military gender
integration, especially those aspects of the processes
revealed in sociological interpretations (I/O model,
"postmodern military" hypothesis, the "decline of the mass
army theory"). Conflicting arguments of "civil agents" on the
topic are also presented and compared to views of military
women/men, established by research findings on the issue
conducted in military context. Finally, the conducted analysis
suggests caution in identifying the undoubtedly reached
higher level of gender equality and integration of women in
military context with the accomplishment of the project of
emancipation in a broader social context.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
16264
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2005.
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