Gender Equality Mainsttreaming within the Swedish Armed Forces; a Bridge Too Far?

The Swedish Armed Forces has strived to promote and recruit women for almost three decades. But still there are less than ten percent women among the military employees in the Armed Forces. Like most authorities the Armed Forces has according to many the demand to somehow represent society, without this having an impact on the specific military tasks it has to carry out. How can this representation be motivated? Is gender equality motivated with reasons of operational ability, such as entering certain Afghan societies or is it motivated by arguments of equal representation of society, meaning both sexes represented is a question of democratic principles? By conducting interviews this study poses the question how male military officers perceive gender in the Armed Forces and how this perception influences the advocacy and motivating arguments of gender equality by those male military officers. The hypothesis of this study is that there is a connection between the perception of gender and the approach on how to achieve gender equality. In order words; does the perception of what the female and male sexes constitute influence the way one would advocate for gender equality? The result of the interviews shows that there is a relation between how the male military officers perceive gender and their advocacy for gender equality. That link however is not totally clear and we cannot draw the conclusion that the relation between perception and advocacy is not free from influence.