Gender mainstreaming and the military

Gender mainstreaming in the military has been a hot button issues for the last few decades. Recently, there has been a push to open all combat positions to women. This push hit a snag when an army memo written by Col. Lynette Arnhart  addressing the aesthetics of women in their public relation campaign material became public.  Arnhart voiced her concerns about the attractiveness of the woman they chose to use on the army materials.  Her thoughts are summarized in this passage from Jezebel, “In general, ugly women are perceived as competent while pretty women are perceived as having used their looks to get ahead.There is a general tendency to select nice looking women when we select a photo to go with an article (where the article does not reference a specific person). It might behoove us to select more average looking women for our comms strategy. For example, the attached article shows a pretty woman, wearing make-up while on deployed duty. Such photos undermine the rest of the message (and may even make people ask if breaking a nail is considered hazardous duty).”

Arnhart’s point was emphasized by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command Col. Christian Kubik who decided to add this to the memo, “A valuable reminder from the TRADOC experts who are studying gender integration — when [public affairs officers] choose photos that glamorize women (such as in the attached article), we undermine our own efforts. Please use 'real' photos that are typical, not exceptional.” The effort in which the army wished to address with this pr campaign was to ensure women’s acceptance into all remaining combat positions. The army main use of this campaign was to convince the men these women would be fighting with in their new combat positions that they were capable of the tasks. Arnhat suggests that they should use a photo with a woman with mud on her face because of the very different message it sends.

While admittedly I have no experience with the military, I do think its interesting that in order for the army to achieve its gender mainstreaming goal it further marginalizes “aesthetically pleasing” looking women. It also implies that women in their feminine nature are not to be accepted into the army, but rather women who denounce their femininity and accept a more masculine role will be. In essence, the army’s gender mainstreaming campaign isn’t about gender mainstreaming at all, but rather an adherence to male ideals by women in order to be allowed to partake in combat. Perhaps gender sensitivity would be a more valuable use of time, to construct new ideals of value.  Instead of just viewing value based on gender roles referred to by Lorber and Acker, but based on the talents and capacities of a person as an individual.

http://jezebel.com/army-memo-says-this-woman-is-too-pretty-to-take-serious-1468498528