Innovation and Inclusion in the Armed Forces

• In Event: Gender and Security

Abstract

Modern military institutions are, and historically have been, dominated primarily by men. In the simplest terms, men have held the highest ranks and made up the majority of recruits. Nonetheless, militaries have also been populated by women, and consistently so. Historically, women have served in an unofficial and temporary basis as soldiers, intelligence officers, and spies, and on a longer-term basis as nurses and support personnel. Despite the conservative nature of military organizations and their resistance to change, many militaries have recently made major transformations to their gender regimes. Such progress has not always been linear; there have been advances, and then sometimes reverses, with exclusionary policies reinstated.
What accounts for the expansion and contraction of gender inclusion in the armed forces across countries and over time? While scholars agree that many variables have affected the degree and nature of women’s participation, one important variable is military innovation. In other words, changes in the conduct of warfare, which offer the promise of greater military power, also require changes in skillset of the fighting force. As many scholars of military innovation and organizational politics have demonstrated, such changes are often met with resistance, as they tend to destabilize existing hierarchies.
Military culture reinforces and rewards a willingness to fight and risk one’s life, but innovative military changes can minimize exposure to danger and the importance of physical strength. Indeed, throughout history militaries have adopted technologies and broader innovative changes that incorporate tactical and organizational realignments. Such innovations have led directly to changes in the individual characteristics necessary to be a warrior and/or the way warfare is organized. For example, while direct combat has been viewed as a man’s activity, the proportion of military personnel in support jobs has risen over time, creating a need for soldiers to service, repair, and develop military technologies. Military innovations have increasingly removed soldiers from the “fight,” emphasizing the need for technical skill rather than exposure to risk and physical strength.
I assert that such innovations are likely to encourage the inclusion of women in the armed forces. In other words, military innovations that reduce the need for physical strength and exposure to risk should enable the inclusion of women. From this perspective, militaries that have adopted technologies that have led directly to changes in the individual characteristics necessary to be a soldier should open more positions to women. I test this theory by examining gender inclusion and the adoption of military innovations that disrupt “warrior” values across militaries and over time. I take a macro-historical approach that relies on time-series data of gender inclusion in modern militaries cross-nationally. While many scholars (especially sociologists) have written about gender inclusion in military organizations, none have conducted similarly rigorous quantitative analyses. Moreover, existing cross-national studies are limited to western militaries. I use an expansive and original dataset of gender inclusion that extends beyond solely western militaries, as well as comprehensive historical accounts of all military innovations examined in the literature cross-nationally and over time to test my theory.

Author

• Shira Pindyck, University of Pennsylvania