Unpacking the Perception of Gender Roles in the Military

Abstract

The paper presents the main results of an exploratory research conducted in 2022 within an Erasmus+ international project, entitled “Military Gender Studies”. The aim of the investigation was to identify military students’ perceptions, thoughts, behaviors, and expectations concerning several peculiarities of gender issues in the daily life of the military organization: gender balance, gender differences, equality, equity, and discrimination. The respondents – Land Forces Academy students – were also asked about the opportunity/necessity to insert aspects related to gender perspectives into the academic curriculum. The structured interview method was used for data collection, which subsequently informed the qualitative data analysis. The findings presented synthetically could guide a future gender education approach, addressed to both male and female cadets and aimed at providing important tools for promoting the gender perspective in the military.

Keywords

• gender perception
• equality
• discrimination
• military