Master thesis | Crisis and Security Management (MSc)
open access
2023-03-30T00:00:00Z
Twenty-seven years after the swiss military compulsory service officially allowed women to serve in the same position as men, their numbers remain scarce. They officially represent under one per...Show moreTwenty-seven years after the swiss military compulsory service officially allowed women to serve in the same position as men, their numbers remain scarce. They officially represent under one per cent of military forces. Meanwhile, several decision-makers call for a transformation of this balance, either to reach ten per cent of women in the ranks or to include them completely in the draft group. This research finds that women have played a key role in the military in the past 100 years and that they have been systematically invisibilised. The analysis shows that the military and the state in Switzerland is male centred (Peterson, 1992; Sjoberg, 2009), that women were prevented from gaining the status of an actor in the military practice despite filling that role, and that the military is highly dependent on women’s unpaid labour. The analysis of women’s presence and how it is reported to the public show that women comply with gendered norms rather to challenge them to be accepted in the military. Therefore, this research argues that a specific gender-sensitive policy would be necessary to attain the announced goals.Show less
