ARTICLE NOTES: GENDER INTERGRATION IN ISRAELI TRAINING

WAR: ASSIGNMENT #2 Gender Integration in Israeli Officer Training: Degendering and Regendering the Military 1) Differences in how theme of war is addressed ( ways in which these vary by author, location, & subject matter. Inherently masculine, Israel, lots of probs when women and men are in military together- women cant keep up and if they change training then the hold men back from their full potential, schemas keep women down Just like Palestine, military service seen as loyalty to state, honorable, and determines certain access to diff privileges (in Palestine they get free education and they?re really poor) 2) Include own reasoning why your essay theme and the particular readings you consider are important to you. 3) Which questions were foremost in your mind when you decided on your essay topic? 4) Which questions were foremost in your mind when you decided on the readings you would address? NOTES Examines nature and meaning of gender integration in an officer training course in the Israeli military Simultaneous gendering and degendering from gender integration in military Gendering ( married women/mothers exempted from draft, all fem soldiers transferred to few jobs like social work/nursing/teaching Degendering( new Jewish society in Israel says women have right to contribute, that they deserved to serve Israeli women not seen as = citizens partially due to their unequal military service Despite declared aim of integrated course to degender military org and create = opportunity env for women, gender integration has actually led to a dual process of degendering and regendering Degendering: attackts structure and process of gender by recognizing that the 2 genders are not homogeneous groups (intersected by other major social satuses) and by recog gender similarities in behavior/thinking/emotions (pg 106-107) Degendering officer traingin was result of deliberate structural changes and regendering more subtle process derived from overbearing centrality of masculine combat soldier model in culture of course; occurred mostly through ways in which cultural codes, stereotypical schemas, and hegemonic gender beliefs were enacted/performed in daily interactions; more sophisticated/hidden process Research they did over 10 weeks(pg 108) Military service is hallmark of citizenship, citizenship hallmark of political democracy, republican discourse of citizenship highlights collective and defines citizenship according to individual active contribution to common good, citizenship = loyalty to state which determines access to diff social, economic, political resources Militaries perceived as masculine not only bc mostly men pop it, but bc they constitute a major arena for the construction of masculine identities; despite far reach in political/social/tech changes warrior seems to maintain his status as a key symbol of masculinity Sewell?s conceptualization of structure as consisting simultaneously of schemas (which are virtual) and resources (which are actual) can help to bridge disparity in understanding of gender ( we can understand gender as structure whose resources (ex division of labor) are the effects of schemas (femininity and masculinity, soldiering, motherhood) AND vice versa; not a closed circle of reproduction, gender relations can be dynamic and contradictory ( this conceptualization can help us understand both stability of the gender structure and its ongoing dynamic changes Gender schema & military schema (