An Unintended Side Effect of Pepper Spray

Introduction

It is difficult to imagine an occupation more deeply saturated with stereotypical ideals of masculinity than that of the soldier. In his work on the imagining of the soldier hero, Dawson (1994) states that the link between soldiers, adventures, and masculinity is an enduring one:

The soldier hero has proved to be one of the most durable and powerful forms of idealized masculinity within Western cultural traditions since the time of the Ancient Greeks. Military virtues such as aggression, strength, courage and endurance have repeatedly been defined as the natural and inherent qualities of manhood, whose apogee is attainable only in battle. Celebrated as a hero in adventure stories telling of his dangerous and daring exploits, the soldier has become a quintessential figure of masculinity. (Dawson 1994, 1)

My aim is to show how military men are done and undone in the context of a military exercise in an Armed Forces unit. The article is based on an ethnographic study, during which I spent five weeks with an international service unit as they were preparing to go on a peacekeeping mission.Drawing on in-depth data from a context that is crucial to the construction of masculinities in society at large, this article contributes to the field of doing masculinities in organizations by developing the concept of “repair work.” Before I describe this concept and the analytical framework of the article at hand, it is time to tell the story of the oleoresin capsicum (OC) night, and the unintended side effects of pepper spray.

The OC night

I am spending five weeks with a military unit that is in the final stages of training for a peacekeeping mission. When the soldiers arrive at their destination, a range of lethal and nonlethal weapons will be at their disposal. One of the nonlethal weapons they will carry is pepper spray, most often referred to as OC. Like anyone who carries pepper spray in their job, the soldiers must practice being exposed to the substance themselves. Therefore, one afternoon and evening of the soldiers’ training is devoted to using, and being exposed to, pepper spray. Apart from teaching the soldiers about pepper spray, the exercise also provides a lesson about what it means to be a military man. I follow them through the intense and highly strenuous exercise, and tell the story of what happens in three acts.

Analytical Framework:“Repair Work,” Homosociality and Heterosexuality

Organizations are gendered, and gendering, contexts. Military organizations are no exception. Jeff Hearn states that “it is an understatement to say that men, militarism, and the military are historically, profoundly, and blatantly interconnected” (Hearn 2007, xi). Brooke Johnson calls the connection between the military and masculinity a “symbiotic relationship,” where one defines the other (Johnson 2010, 580–1). The military is an “extremely gendered” organization (Sasson-Levy 2011, 392). Here, many of the processes that can be found in other organizations appear in exaggerated versions, as viewed through a magnifying glass. Women in the military face a range of barriers that they need to manage and negotiate on a daily basis (Berggren 2002; Herbert 1998). In addition, men’s homosocial practices are considered part of the job and vital to the soldier occupation, and there is a strong connection between heterosexuality and men’s homosocial relations. ¹

I position myself within the research tradition that considers gender to be a dynamic that is maintained, as well as challenged, in social interaction; gender is something we do, not something we are (Kvande 2007; West and Zimmerman 1987). Like Connell (1995), I think of masculinities as an aspect of gender relations and something that is done in social interaction. Margaret Wetherell and Nigel Edley argue, and I agree, that studies of men and masculinities need to attend to “how men negotiate regulatory conceptions of masculinity in their everyday interactions as they account for their actions and produce or manage their own (and others’) identities” (Wetherell and Edley 1999, 337).

When I analyze the events of the OC night, I employ concepts traditionally used in studies of men and masculinities. I also contribute to this field by developing “repair work” as an analytical tool that can help understand the making of men in organizational contexts well beyond the military one. The concept of repair work is traditionally used in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. In its original take, repair work refers to “the conversational mechanisms organizing how seeming errors or sources of trouble in talk are ‘corrected’ or repaired” (Weatherall 2002, 771). In her analysis of how young children interact, Ann Weatherall analyses how “gender trouble” occurs in play situations and how the children repair it (p. 771). When I use the concept of repair work, I adapt it to suit a different theoretical and methodological context. I employ it to analyze ethnographic material in order to understand how individuals in a particular social context attend to “trouble” that disturbs their established ways of doing gender.

The notion of repair might suggest that there is a finished, given, maybe even essential “masculinity” that can be mended. This is not how I think about the concept. Rather, I consider repair work to be a practice that is directed toward a specific form of “trouble” that has emerged in interaction. It is this “trouble” that actors repair, in order to restore what they had. I argue that this understanding of repair work provides us with important insights into the doing of masculinity in organizations; in fact, I consider repair work to be an essential form of doing gender. What makes it so useful is that it sheds light on the actors’ understanding of what constitutes masculinity, because it shows what they consider worth repairing and how they go about repairing it. As an analytical tool, I find that it helps me navigate through the myriad activities and processes that make up the doing of gender in an organization. When actors do repair work in a situation, it signals that an important aspect of masculinity is somehow in trouble, or challenged. How they do it provides important insights into what they consider to be at stake. When the actors themselves determine what they find troubling in social interaction by practicing repair work, it provides the analysis with a distinct direction and helps legitimate the conclusions that are drawn from the material. ²

Two additional theoretical tools guide the analysis: homosociality and compulsory heterosexuality. When a male-dominated organization such as the military is studied, the concept of homosociality tends to be a useful tool for shedding light on how bonds between men are formed and reinforced. In an early contribution to the expanding field of research on gender segregation, Lipman-Blumen defines homosociality as “the seeking, enjoyment and/or preference for the company of the same sex” (1976, 16). Her framework is based on the notion that men are “attracted to, stimulated by, and interested in other men” (p. 16) and suggests that men’s preference for other men’s company and admiration is one of the keys to understanding gender segregation and the discrimination against women. In the Swedish context, Gerd Lindgren has contributed to the theory of homosociality through a number of studies conducted in a range of organizations (Lindgren 1985, 1992, 1999). Lindgren uses homosociality as a tool in the study of how the gendered division of labor is reproduced in organizations, and calls it “the logic of brotherhood” (Lindgren 1996, 4). She finds that the relational work that men do, and the brotherhood that emerges from it, inhibits their relations with women colleagues. The homosocial practice of men, Lindgren states, is a synchronized and competitive ritual where men who are joined by similar experiences validate one another, and as a result, their women colleagues are excluded. As Bird (1996) shows, however, not only women are excluded by men’s homosocial practices. Men who do not conform to the ideals that dominate a particular organizational setting can be equally excluded, since homosocial practices contribute to the maintenance of a hegemonic form of masculinity and to the suppression of nonhegemonic ones. Holgersson (2003) shows that homosocial practices that structure organizations have consequences that reach beyond the organizational context, contributing to a reproduction of unequal gender patterns in society at large.

The connection between gender and sexuality is important to the analysis, particularly the ways in which heterosexuality is drawn upon in the social interaction and its relation to making military men. Jackson (1999) states that gender divisions and normative heterosexuality are mutually reinforcing. Further, she argues that “heterosexuality … is not a simple monolithic thing, but a complex of institution, identity, experience and practice, all of which intersect with gender, which is similarly sustained at a variety of levels” (p. 176). Heterosexuality is an important organizing principle of social relations. Organizations tend to be characterized by heterosexuality, in terms of practice as well as culture and ideology (Hearn 2011). In the military, this point is particularly relevant. The concept of compulsory heterosexuality (Rich 1980) is employed here to scrutinize the link between masculinity and sexuality, and relate it to the homosocial practices of the soldiers. It refers to “the institutions, structures, relations and practices that sustain heterosexuality as coherent, natural and all-encompassing” (Rosenberg 2002, 100, my translation). Compulsory heterosexuality plays a crucial part in the construction of gendered binaries: on one hand, women and femininity as a coherent whole, on the other, men and masculinity as its opposite. One is defined by its desire for the other (Butler 1990).

When men strive to prove themselves as men, the audience and jury consist primarily of other men (Kimmel 1994). Reaffirming and articulating heterosexual desires and actions can be a resource for men to draw upon to strengthen the bonds between them. In a study of the homosocial organization of young men’s heterosexual practices, Flood (2008) shows how male bonding and masculine affirmation both draw on heterosexual experiences. Flood states that men talk, brag, and even lie about their sexual adventures with women in order to reaffirm their masculinity and achieve status in the eyes of their male peers. The connection between compulsory heterosexuality and homosociality will be developed further in the analysis.

The Ethnographic Study

The article at hand is based upon an ethnographic study, during which I spent five weeks with a Swedish international service unit undergoing the final stages of training for a peacekeeping mission. ³ The unit I followed was made up of 250 people; approximately 95 percent of them were men. The ages of the soldiers ranged from twenty to sixty years, with a majority in the age span of twenty tothirty years. The design of the ethnography has been emergent, meaning that I arrived at the training grounds with an interest in gender relations, military work and the soldier occupation, but without a list of specific research questions.

The empirical material upon which this article is based consists of observations of everyday work at the unit, conversations and spontaneous unstructured interviews with the soldiers. Although this article focuses on observations that took place during one night, it is based on 150 hr of participant observation of everyday life in a military unit, including lunches on the muddy training grounds, shooting drills, lectures, strenuous exercises, and after-hours socializing in the soldier café. During fieldwork, I was often limited to simply observing their work (the shooting range is no place for casual conversation). Between exercises, in the car on the way to a training site or during lunch, it was possible to become a more active participant. During the observations, I made fieldnotes in the form of quick and sketchy notes that I elaborated into full fieldnotes at the end of the day. Excerpts from the fieldnotes are edited for clarity, while quotations within excerpts and in running text are verbatim accounts.

As a woman observer (and oftentimes the only one not wearing a uniform), I was a strange character in the unit. Blending in as a neutral observer was not an option. Early on, I became aware that the ways in which the soldiers perceived me colored their manner of interacting with me in important ways. Sometimes, I was referred to as “the lady,” and had chairs pulled out and doors opened for me. At other times, soldiers appeared to be testing me by making sex jokes, while keeping a close eye on my reactions. A few of the women confided in me, and aired some frustrations connected to being a woman soldier. Rather than problematic examples of “observer effect” (Spano 2006) that needed to be reduced, I thought of these situations as important ways of learning about how gender was done in relation to me as a researcher, and as a reminder of the need for constant reflexivity. I am convinced that, had I been a man conducting the same fieldwork, the interplay with the soldiers would have been very different, but that gendered interactions provided other important insights of this military context, nonetheless.

Performing the Soldier Hero

Turning to the line behind him, the commander says in a high-pitched voice: “Now you get to see me crying.” When his face is sprayed with OC, he goes through the motions, teeth clenched … In the grand finale, the commander turns to the soldiers, eyes and nose running, stretches his arms above his head in a victorious pose and shouts (in English) “Rock on!” (Fieldnotes, 36)

When the commander stands in front of his men to get the OC sprayed into his eyes, he is entering a stage. Not only are they watching him with intense interest, they are filming him, too. Crying appears to be a critical part of the experience. Not once but twice does he repeat that he wants the soldiers to see him crying. Ekenstam (1998) maps the history of men and crying in European culture. He shows that for centuries, crying was an essential part of being a man. Men cried from happiness, movement, frustration, anger, and sadness. Up until the nineteenth century, there was no contradiction between being a real man and shedding tears. After that, however, a much more problematic relationship emerged along with what Ekenstam labels modern masculinity. It was characterized by self-control, fearlessness and tenacity, and did not go well with crying and similar displays of emotion. This, I find, provides an interesting backdrop against which the behavior of the commander can be understood. He knows he is entering into a situation where the soldiers will see him crying. Pepper spray does make your eyes run profusely; no willpower in the world can stop that. So he distorts his voice, and makes sure that everyone hears that he intends to cry—in fact, he wants to. I find that, by distorting his voice and turning it into a parody, he is performing preventive repair work, thus making sure that they do not misinterpret his tears. There might be legitimate reasons for a military man to cry, but he makes it clear that pain or fear is not one of them. In addition, he is sure not to make any sound of agony during the exercise, and then tops his show off with the Rocky-like pose, yelling,“Rock on!”

As mentioned, there is a widespread understanding that the military is a place where boys become men. The performance of this commander shows how setting an example in a training situation becomes a way to show soldiers how to be the kind of men that the organization requires. Aggression, strength, courage, and endurance sum up the warrior persona that the commander embodies in the example above. The similarity to the soldier hero described by Dawson (1994) in the introduction of this article is striking. The “Rock on!” performance clearly draws on classical traits of the soldier hero. The commander’s display centers on the acceptable display of emotion. His tears are framed as something other than crying, while crying is connected to a childlike or feminine character (hence the distorted voice). The correct emotions in this case are, similar to the archetypal soldier hero, aggression and unshrinking courage.

The OC night is a formalized part of soldier training, legitimated by the regulation of pepper spray use. However, it bears a striking resemblance to an organizational rite of passage. Studies show that initiation rites are part of military culture, and a means to enforce the bonds between soldiers. Winslow (1999) analyses the rites of passage that are supposed to bring Canadian Airborne soldiers closer together and turn boys into men. They are alcohol-infused, humiliating events with an apparent homoerotic flair that are remarkably fondly remembered for their bonding and character-building effects. A study of the repair work required after such a night would, no doubt, be fascinating. Although there was no intent to humiliate the soldiers, the strain of the OC exercise seems to work in a similar way for them. They do it together, their brotherhood is strengthened and the whole ordeal becomes a form of “war story” that they can draw upon afterward in order to display a credible version of being military men: the soldier hero.

In the aftermath of the pepper spray exercise, the soldiers begin the process of turning the experience into a war story. When they do, they downplay the emotional strains and amplify the physical suffering. As they talk about how it felt, they describe the ordeal as “worse than being shot,” “worst experience of my life,” and “I’d rather take a bullet,” This can be understood as a case of repair work, a joint effort of explaining why they were unable to be the kind of military men that they try to be. If pepper spray is worse than being shot, and they made it through, their efforts can be considered heroic, even though some of them cried for their mothers.

During OC night, most of the soldiers do not measure up to the standard set by their commander. Unlike him, they do cry from the pain and fear, and they are anything but calm. By turning the exercise into a war story, a rite of passage that they have completed together, soldiers can use the OC night to heighten their sense of camaraderie and joint accomplishment. Their commander helps too, by praising their efforts, mending their broken masculinities and claiming that they are all “heroes on [their] own level.” The OC night, through the repair work of both the commander and the soldiers, is transformed into an experience that brings them all closer to the soldier hero archetype.

The Intimacy of Brothers

“Help each other through this,” the instructor says, when the OC night is introduced to the soldiers. Helping each other is essential in the unit. In the soldier collective some command and others obey, but when push comes to shove, they are all responsible for each other’s lives. The soldiers are being trained for dangerous and trying situations, and they are taught that they need to look out for one another. When a soldier is given the order to run into a crowd where someone might be armed, he or she needs to be sure that the colleagues behind are paying attention and have their weapons ready. Trusting each other and sticking together, therefore, is a fundamental part of being a soldier.

As the pepper spray burns like fire in their eyes, the soldiers take care of one another. They work in pairs and take turns, so that one soldier can concentrate on helping the other. In the shower, the ones sprayed with OC scream, cry, panic, and hyperventilate. Their partners are tender, hold their shivering bodies and speak reassuring words in low, comforting voices. They adjust the temperature of the water that will slowly rinse the OC from the eyes. The one woman soldier who takes part is very active in the exercise, and she is included in the caring atmosphere as well. She is treated the same as the others, and her reactions are very similar. She cries, shakes, and panics in her soaking wet uniform, just like many of her male colleagues. And like the others, she is tenderly taken care of by her designated partner in the exercise, who holds her and tells her that everything will be all right. Although the shower is a turbulent and noisy space, it also has an emotionally charged and even intimate atmosphere.

Since I have followed the soldiers for weeks at this point, I am well acquainted with the soldiers’ everyday ways of interacting with one another. In their daily work, they spend a lot of time practicing homosociality in the ways that Bird (1996) describes. Bird argues that three forms of homosociality are practiced in order to sustain a dominant form of masculinity: emotional detachment, competitiveness, and sexual objectification of women. All these forms are frequently practiced in everyday work in the unit. However, in the shower during OC night, they are nowhere to be seen.

The contrast between “normal” soldier behavior and the scene in the shower is striking. In the mid of OC chaos, a parallel universe seems to be created; the ordinary rules do not apply. No one has the energy to act tough anymore, no one is laughing at the sobbing and crying of their male colleagues and they are very physical in a tender, caring way. At that moment, there is no competition, no emotional detachment, and no sexualized jargon. But one key aspect of homosociality remains strong throughout the turmoil: the soldier camaraderie.

In military life, situations like the one that occurred during the pepper spray exercise are described as crucial for male bonding and the formation of a homosocial brotherhood. In their study of fraternal friendship among Israeli men, Kaplan and Yanay (2006) state that the male love between comrades-in-arms holds an almost mythic status that can be traced through history. Kaplan and Yanay show that the close friendships described by men are fueled by dramatic and tense experiences that are often situated in a military context.

It is not uncommon to hear a soldier say that the friendship that is formed in the military is one of the most important reasons for being part of the organization. Again and again, camaraderie is referred to as an incentive and source of joy by soldiers. Oftentimes, the reason they choose to go abroad and be part of the international service is linked to the camaraderie that is formed there. It seems as if a special bond emerges between men in the military. Soldiers at the unit describe a kinship that unites them with men who have also taken part in a mission abroad. A platoon commander says that when he passes another man on the street, wearing the signature ring of soldiers who have served in the international service units, he feels a connection between them, the “Band of brothers.”

One of the senior commanders of the unit, when asked why he wants to go on this peacekeeping mission, says that he does it for his “men, my warriors.” When it comes to soldier camaraderie, gendered accounts abound: the adventure is “boyish”; the soldiers are “men” or “warriors”; and they are united as “brothers.” Even though there are women present in the unit, about a handful among the soldiers in the rifle unit, the mythology of soldier brotherhood remains firmly gendered as a male phenomenon. Lindgren refers to homosociality as “the logic of brotherhood” (Lindgren 1996, 4), and argues that the brotherhood that comes out of the relational work between men tends to exclude women and reproduce gender divisions in organizations. This exercise offered an opportunity for the soldiers to reaffirm the bonds between them, to reinforce the brotherhood, and experience a situation that strengthens their collective connection to the image of the soldier hero.

What I saw in the shower during OC night, to me seemed like a good example of soldier camaraderie, the band of brothers in action. To the soldiers, however, things were a lot more complicated. In the following section, I will try to come to terms with why my comment about love in the shower made them so very uncomfortable.

The Heterosexual Imperative and the Boundaries of Male Camaraderie

“Yes,” I say, “but that was really nice, wasn’t it? There was a lot of love there.” The guys stir, seem uncomfortable. After a moment’s silence one responds: “That sounds like rape in the shower, sort of.” “Yeah,” another soldier says, “grabbing each other’s ass and stuff.” (Fieldnotes, 41)

A military unit can be described as “an archetypal culture of masculinity” where the sexual status of the soldier is always “on the line” (Carreiras 2006, 42). The constant affirmations of the soldiers’ heterosexuality play a vital role, particularly because there is such a strong connection between heterosexual sex and (strictly nonsexual) homosocial relations. In a study of the homosocial organization of young men’s heterosexual practices, Flood (2008) shows how male bonding and masculine affirmation both draw on heterosexual experiences.

In the Swedish Armed Forces, there are no longer any restrictions against nonheterosexual employees. However, there have been formal restrictions regulating the sexualities of Swedish soldiers. Up until the 1970s, soldiers were fired from the military if their sexual interest in other men was revealed (Sundevall 2011). Today, the taboo is not based on any formal regulations, and there are openly gay officers in the organization, as well as an association for nonheterosexual members of the Armed Forces. However, in the countless accounts of “sexual storytelling” (Flood 2008) and jargon among soldiers, only heterosexual practices seem to be on the repertoire. Homosexuality remains a taboo among the soldiers in the studied unit, unless it is used to make a joke.

As Rosenberg (2002) remarks, however, no heterosexual culture is ever fully waterproof. On the contrary, there are cracks in it that allow leakage. The shower scene at OC night is one example. In a slightly surreal incident, given the firm heteronormative culture of the unit, I find myself to be the witness of another example. This surprising scene takes place after lunch during an exercise with the rifle unit.

We are having lunch in a shed by the training area. Meanwhile, two soldiers are goofing around, swinging the baton at each other’s legs, staging a pretend fight. All of a sudden, they lean against each other like an A, forehead to forehead with their visors down. One pouches his lips to look like a kiss. Next, they pretend they are making out, tongues winding behind the visors, bodies twirling. After a few seconds, they both laugh, back away and aim a few air kicks at each other. (Fieldnotes, 44)

A case of leakage that soldiers find all the more disturbing and are eager to repair is the shower incident during OC night. That night in the shower, when the eyes of the soldiers are soaked in pepper spray and tears, the heteronormative military culture leaks profusely. And it is neither a joke nor a parody. Hours later, soldiers are busy repairing the cracks, stopping the leakage, and returning to “normal.” And apparently, “normal” means that the word “love” in relation to what was going on in the shower is not appreciated.

The soldiers’ reaction to my remark about love highlights a fundamental rule in the band of brothers: compulsory heterosexuality. An officer expresses that he feels “violated” when military men walk the Pride Parade in uniform. “That is crossing the line,” he says. During an outdoor lunch, just before the mock make-out performance, in fact, I have a talk with a unit commander who describes his relationship with his deputy commander, who has been a close friend of his for many years.

We are close friends, we would do anything for each other—but nothing sexual; that’s where we draw the line. (Fieldnotes, 44)

I argue that intimacy between men in the unit is charged with the paradox of being close, without being physically intimate. My remark that there was “a lot of love there” apparently touches a nerve with the soldiers, highlighting aspects of the experience that do not comply with the rules of camaraderie or their ideas of being “manly.” What I am referring to is the closeness between them, the supportive friendship that they show one another. My remark about love, apart from an uncomfortable silence, also generates one of the most explicit examples of repair work from the soldiers. They are quick to assert that they disagree with me; there was no love (i.e., sex) in that shower. The commander who describes his deputy as a close friend for whom he would do anything, “but nothing sexual—that’s where we draw the line,” is another interesting case of repair work. In this case, the association with sex does not come from a comment of mine, but is an unspoken association of the commander himself. Therefore, there is a need for repair work to make the boundaries of male camaraderie explicit.

So, why are the soldiers so eager to repair the “trouble” that comes with camaraderie being associated with love or sex? What is so troubling about it? One reason is that the “band of brothers” is so important to the soldiers. Because of it, men are allowed to form strong and intimate bonds of friendship. But I find that they can only do so within a setting that remains undoubtedly heteronormative. The constant affirmation of heterosexuality is, I argue, the “scene of constraint” (Butler 2004, 1), within which soldiers construct a highly traditional, stereotypical version of being military men. If heterosexuality did not frame their closeness, the soldiers would find themselves in a completely different terrain. Therefore, they are quick to repair any trouble that is caused by an association between their close relationships, on one hand, and sex or love, on the other.

Conclusion

In this article, I have argued that repair work as an analytical tool has the potential to guide the researcher through the myriad gendered practices and articulations, and identify situations where gender is “on the line.” When analyzing the events of the OC night, when the doing of masculinity became troubled, I find two forms of repair work: preventive work and reactive work. Preventive repair work describes the forms of practice that are used to safeguard against potential gender trouble. The most apparent example is the commander who repeatedly announces that he intends to cry in front of his men. By addressing the issue of crying before the fact rather than after, in a parodic manner including a distorted voice, he takes control of a potentially disturbing situation where his behavior might otherwise be misinterpreted. The second form of repair work found in the material is the most frequent. Reactive repair work includes both individual and collective efforts to manage a situation where trouble has for some reason arisen. Several examples are found in the analysis. The commander who asserts that his red-eyed men are “heroes” is an example of a senior member of the unit using his authority to repair the soldiers as a collective. The most intense act of reactive repair work, however, is the talk over lunch the day after the exercise, where a comment of mine launches a joint effort on the part of the soldiers present to resolve what they interpreted as a reference to homosexuality. In addition to these two types of repair work, this analytical approach highlights the situations that, so to speak, go unrepaired. In the analysis, the mock make-out scene is a good illustration of a situation that was clearly not troubling to the soldiers, even though it could easily have been considered “crossing the line.”

In studies of men and masculinities and in gender studies more widely, a recurring question is how we can claim to know when gender or masculinity is being done in the studied context. How can we analytically distinguish the doing of gender from the doing of ethnicity, profession, or sexuality? In recent years, there has also been a debate concerning the idea of “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman 1987), where critics argue that the concept obscures change and variation, by turning nearly everything men and women do into one blurry and diffuse category of “doing gender” (Risman 2009). West and Zimmerman respond to the criticism by stating that change and variation are not necessarily about gender being undone, but rather redone. Butler (2004) introduced the concept of “undoing gender,” and it has been claimed that this concept has the potential to move beyond the limitations of the original “doing gender” framework (Hall, Hockey, and Robinson 2007). Jackson, however, criticizes the idea of undoing divisions of gender and sexuality, and states that such endeavors tend to reinforce the very categories that were meant to be deconstructed. Instead, she argues that we need to find ways to “address the ways in which heterosexuality and gender are sustained at the macro level of structures and institutions as well as the micro level of our everyday social practices” (Jackson 1999, 181).

This article shows that repair work is a tool that, combined with other concepts, enables an analysis of how gender relations, masculinities, and heterosexuality are sustained in everyday organizational practices. It turns our attention to what is considered “gender trouble” in a particular context, what makes it troubling and how it can be repaired. When such a research strategy is employed, we can focus on what is being challenged and how, irrespective of whether it is best understood in terms of doing, redoing, or undoing gender. In the article at hand, this approach has highlighted the intricate and intimate connections between compulsory heterosexuality and the homosocial brotherhood of soldiers. This connection is a crucial step toward understanding how soldiers learn about being military men.