2019/03/22 by Alma Persson, Fia Sundevall · 4 citations
Social Sciences · #Gender, Security, and Conflict #Historical Gender and Feminism Studies #Gender Politics and Representation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/09612025.2019.1596542
openalex publication_date 2019/03/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
This article explores how women, men, and gender equality in the military have been debated, made sense of, regulated, and dealt with in Swedish contemporary history. It takes its empirical point of departure in 1965, when the issue of military conscription for women was first raised in Sweden, and ends with the implementation of so called gender-neutral conscription in 2018. The study is based on a wide range of sources, collected through a combination of extensive archival work, ethnographic studies, and interviews. The analysis shows how men have been the standard against which women were measured throughout the period studied. Women service members were simultaneously perceived both as a problem and as a solution to a range of problems in the organisation. Women’s ‘different’ bodies were considered problematic, while staff shortages and demands for specific personnel qualities rendered the ‘woman soldier’ a solution, in particular in relation to international missions.