Camouflage Isn't Only for Combat: Gender, Sexuality, and Women in the Military

4. Camouflage Isn't Only for Combat

4 4 4 4 4 CAMOUFLAGE ISN’T ONLY FOR COMBAT We cannot always be just “feminine” or “masculine.” I found myself being a combination of both at times; it all depends on who you’re dealing with. —Enlisted, Army, heterosexual Strategies for Gender Management Women may respond in several ways to the notion that gender has much greater meaning in the workplace than simply being female or male, “feminine” or “masculine.” A woman may choose to emphasize either characteristic, or set of characteristics . Or, she may emphasize both, depending on the specific setting in which she is operating at a particular time. In a military setting, we could tell a convincing story as to why each one of these might be a likely choice. Much of the work on the management of gender has focused on professional women or women in business and management (Amatea and Fong-Beyette 1987; Sheppard 1989; Stivers 1993). While the military contains professional and 81 managerial positions, it shares as much with vocational and technical occupations as it does with the professions and management . Of course, this varies a good deal by assignment, occupational specialty, and so on. Nonetheless, the environment of the military is quite different from most professional or managerial settings. In her work on women managers, Deborah L. Sheppard (1989) describes the processes of managing gender. She suggests that women must learn how to “redefine and manage” being female. She writes, “Deliberate behaviours were seen as needed to balance the conflicting statuses of ‘female’ and ‘manager’ and such strategies were seen as necessary for organizational success” (1989: 144–145). “Blending,” one strategy for managing gender in the organizational setting, “depends on a very careful management of being ‘feminine enough’ . . . while simultaneously being ‘businesslike enough’ ( . . . in other words, stereotypically masculine)” (Sheppard 1989: 146). Echoing Sheppard, I argue that the difficulty for women in the military is in figuring out how to balance the two competing demands. Women also need to minimize their sexuality while still maintaining some degree of “femininity.” They must strike a balance between femininity and masculinity in which they are feminine enough to be perceived as women, specifically heterosexual women, yet masculine enough to be perceived as capable of soldiering. One of the contributions of this research is the collection of empirical data on how women “do gender.” There is, however , one major difficulty with this type of research: it is based on information that must be recalled by the respondent. For 82 ■ CAMOUFLAGE ISN’T ONLY FOR COMBAT women who have been out of the military for a number of years, it may be difficult to recall and identify strategic behaviors . In addition, there may be an effect of time; women may fail to recall what could be perceived as “negative” aspects of their service. Even when respondents are thinking about more recent events, there is a high likelihood that many behaviors that are forms of strategy are not identified as such. As one woman wrote, “I was too busy doing my job, as me, being myself, to worry about artificialities.” Another believed that: the most successful women were those who didn’t worry about being masculine or feminine, but were just themselves , with whatever mix of masculine/feminine attributes they happened to have, and used those attributes to accomplish the mission. (Major, Army, heterosexual) It is important to note that strategies may not be deliberate or even conscious. Sheppard states: A number of women respondents initially stated that gender was not a factor for them at work and that being female was not important. Subsequently they described a variety of strategies including dress, language and relationships with peers and superiors, although they didn ’t particularly identify them as strategies related to being female. (1989: 145). Given these constraints, the findings presented here must be viewed as conservative estimates of the degree to which women strategize around gender. Respondents in this study were given a list of twenty-eight behaviors (See Methodological Appendix, survey items CAMOUFLAGE ISN’T ONLY FOR COMBAT ■ 83 122–149) and were asked to “check any of the following that you believe applied to yourself” (while on active duty). These items included behaviors such as polishing one’s fingernails , wearing cologne on duty, keeping one’s hair trimmed above the collar, and socializing with the men in the unit. Respondents were then asked, “Do you believe that any of those behaviors checked...