Gender and the Limits to Diversity in the Contemporary British Army

Abstract

This article considers equal opportunities and diversity management policies in the contemporary British Army for what they indicate, not only about policy frameworks for women's military participation, but also for what they tell us about the construction of ideas about gender and difference within that organization. The article sets out contextual information on women in the British Army and describes the research methodology on which this article is based. It looks at the evolution of equal opportunities policies and the more recent shift towards diversity management policies in the Army, focusing on their contributions towards female equity. The article examines the consequences of the shift towards the management of diversity, noting how embracing the ideas of diversity management is ultimately limited by the Army's construction of female difference. It concludes with a discussion of the issues of female and military specificity in relation to the management of diversity.

Gendered divisions of military labour in the British armed forces

“…Personnel debates, in other words, are about military forces having what they perceive to be the right combination of skills and Downloaded by [Nanyang Technological University] at 11:10 15 June 2016 talents to meet the challenges of contemporary conflicts and deployments and about what policy-makers, the defence community, government and civil society want their military forces to do and be. Gender is central to this recognition of the benefits of diversity 3 (Acker 1992, Britton 2000, Carreiras 2006, Woodward and Winter 2006.…”

Just one of the guys until shower time: How symbolic embodiment threatens women's inclusion in the US military

“…Research has documented the processes by which the masculinity of the military institution is created and maintained (Barrett, 1996;Hale, 2011;Höpfl, 2003;Sion & Ben-Ari, 2009), and how the construction of women as weak and in need of protection fosters this organizational culture (Jeffreys, 2007;Nantais & Lee, 1999;Woodward & Winter, 2006). Research has documented the processes by which the masculinity of the military institution is created and maintained (Barrett, 1996;Hale, 2011;Höpfl, 2003;Sion & Ben-Ari, 2009), and how the construction of women as weak and in need of protection fosters this organizational culture (Jeffreys, 2007;Nantais & Lee, 1999;Woodward & Winter, 2006).…”

“…Women's bodies have often been portrayed as leaky and/or unclean (Douglas, 2002;Gatrell, 2011;Woodward & Winter, 2006). Menstruation, as a form of leakage, connotes a lack of control over the physical body, an out-ofcontrol status (Grosz, 1994).…”

Gendering Pensions: Making Women Visible

“…This work provided a seminal account of how gendered occupational divisions impact on women's pensions later in life. Since then there have been excellent analyses and critiques of discrimination and policy (Ainsworth et al 2010;Colley, 2003Colley, , 2013Duncan and Loretto 2004;Woodward and Winter, 2006), much of which has been published in Gender Work and Organization and by advocacy groups (such as the Fawcett Society 2007;Working Families, 2010). We have also seen the proliferation of impressive work addressing gender blindness in organization studies (Benokraitis and Feagin, 1995;Husu, 2001;Kantola, 2006Kantola, , 2008Lindvert, 2002;Saari, 2013;) that keep women in disadvantaged positions, and also critiques of how various pension policy reforms have impacted on women disproportionately (Fredericks, 2007;Green, 2005;Leitner, 2001;Loretto and Vickerstaff, 2013;Marier, 2007: Peinado, 2014Sefton et al, 2011;Vara, 2013).…”