Sexed Bodies and Military Masculinities

Abstract

This article explores the European Union (EU)’s Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) through a framework based on feminist institutional theory that highlights the durability in the dynamics of gender relations. Path dependency based on historic features of military institutions—a strict sex division based on “gender war roles”—has influenced the development of different CSDP bodies. The CSDP is sexed because male bodies dominate the organizations studied, yet this remains invisible through normalization. A dominant EU hierarchical military masculinity is institutionalized in the EU’s Military Committee, combat heterosexual masculinity in the Battle groups, and EU protector masculinity in the EU Training missions. The CSDP embodies different types of military masculinities; the relations between them are important for the reproduction of the gender order through a gendered logic of appropriateness. Yet, this too is invisible as part of the informal aspects of organizations. While women’s bodies are written out of the CSDP, the construction of femininity in relation to the protector/protected binary is central to it. Two protected femininities are read in the texts. The vulnerable femininity of women in conflict areas is important for how the CSDP understands itself in relation to gender mainstreaming. In relation to the vulnerable femininity, CSDP constructs an EU protector masculinity, in turn, set against an aggressive violent masculinity in the areas where missions are deployed. Women’s bodies are absent from the CSDP and they lack agency but are nevertheless associated with a protected femininity.

Keywords

conflict Europe feminism gender equality hegemonic masculinity

Introduction

The EU’s Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) emerged in the 1990s and has turned into a complex set of policies, activities, and organizational bodies, including a military dimension (Dijkstra 2013; Kurowska and Breur 2012; Merlingen 2012). The aim of this article is to use feminist institutional theory to explore how gender is integrated in the formal and informal dimensions of the CSDP. Institutional dynamics, or how institutional processes and practices reproduce gender inequalities, until recently, has been overlooked in feminist scholarship on the EU (Abels and Mushaben 2012; Weiner and MacRae 2014). Historical institutionalism predicts path dependence for the CSDP, that is, historic features are likely to heavily influence new ones (Mackay, Kenny, and Chappell 2010; Pierson 2004, 17–53; Waylen 2009). Previous research suggests that “gender war roles” is a persistent and resilient feature of military institutions. Gender war roles tend to organize men’s bodies into military organizations and women’s bodies out, but military organizations also construct gender identities as part of the norms and practices of the organizations (Goldstein 2001; Sjoberg 2013). This article asks to what extent are such features manifested in the CSDP?

The CSDP is particularly interesting in this regard because there are reasons to expect the EU would choose a unique path. As a multinational organization, the EU may be less inclined to take after individual member state’s security and defense arrangements and concerns. Furthermore, Ian Manners (2002) has argued that the EU is a normative power in international affairs and thus, likely to affirm progressive norms, like, gender equality, that have already been set in other issue areas, rather than promoting historical practices. Furthermore, as a civilian power, the EU can be expected to encourage peacekeeping, conflict prevention, and civilian collaboration also when developing military capacities.

This article begins by presenting the research design of the study and proceeds by setting out the framework for the analysis. First, it presents the argument that gender is an institutional feature that goes beyond women’s or equality policy and outlines how feminist institutional theory can be useful to understand reproduction of gender norms and practices. Second, it sketches the “gender war roles” that are associated with the path dependence of military organizations more generally. One ambition with the article is to better understand the role of organizations in the reproduction of gender through the application of feminist institutional theory. The analysis begins by discussing how the CSDP body is sexed and militarized, and how masculinities and femininities are constructed through a protector/protected binary. Then, it discusses combat masculinity, a distinct military masculinity exemplified in the CSDP by the battle groups. And third, it analyzes the relation between different masculinities in military training missions.

Research Design

The focus is on common security and defense issues, long-standing concerns on the EU’s agenda. Despite this, it seems that a collective frustration among the member states was necessary in order to spur more substantial action, and the frustration was against the weakness displayed by member states in their own backyard during the conflict in Kosovo in 1999 (Andersson 2006, 13). Thus, it seems as if an exogenous event—the Kosovo conflict—pushed the EU to set up military capacity and was a critical juncture for the EU development of defense and security concerns. If the EU were to play any role in international conflict management, it would require the creation of a common defense policy (Kerttunen, Koivula, and Jeppson 2005, 9). At the Nice European Council in 2000, it was decided that new political and military bodies (the Political and Security Committee [PSC], the EU Military Committee [EUMC], and the EU Military Staff [EUMS]) would have to be established to ensure political guidance and strategic direction for EU operations. The CSDP was divided into three components: military crisis management, civilian crisis management, and conflict prevention. In 2009, the Lisbon Treaty confirmed this commitment with the solidarity clause, the creation of the External Action Service and the appointment of the High Representative.

Although the case study surveys development in this policy area, its focus is on the military dimension and studies the policies and the organizational bodies that have been set up to carry out military tasks. The CSDP includes a fairly large set of policies and organizations that have evolved over the years studied in terms of function and staff. While the High Representative of European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR), the European External Action Service (EEAS), and the PSC are important policy-making and administrative bodies for the CSDP, the organizations relevant for this study are the EUMC, the EUMS, the battle groups, and selected EU Missions. The EUMC is responsible for providing the PSC with military advice and recommendations on all military matters and directs military activities within the EU framework. The chair of the EUMC attends meetings of the Council when decisions with defense implications are to be taken and gives direction to the EUMS. EUMS is a source of military expertise and military planning within the EEAS and under the authority of the HR. It provides support for EU-led military crisis management operations, such as EU NAVFOR¹; European Union Force (EUFOR) Althea, European Union Training Mission (EUTM) Somalia, and EUTM Mali. The European Battle groups are operational military organizations under the CSDP that are headed by the member states alone or in cooperation.

Historic institutionalism suggests that path dependence can be studied by researching institutional development (Pierson 2004) in order to get a macro perspective. In my reading of the texts on and about the CSDP, I employ feminist methodology (Ackerley, Stern, and True 2006) and interpret texts and search for binary constructions around feminine and masculine identities consistent with constructivist feminist approaches (cf. Brunner 2013). Thus, my interest is in exploring this reproduction of the gender order in the CSDP in some more detail by learning about gendered norms and practices and what kinds of masculinities and femininities are constructed in the EU when it conducts security and defense affairs.

The choice of material is theoretically driven. To get a general overview of the CSDP, I used official documents and selected newspaper articles, speeches, reports, and scientific papers. The case study includes a text analysis of the official documents of the CSDP, but as the focus is on the military dimension I conducted in-depth studies of material on organizations like the EUMC, EUMS, the battle groups, and the EU Military Training Missions. The most relevant texts were those that articulate organizational identity, that is, what the organization stands for and what are its most important tasks and functions and, for this, I used material like webpages, newsletters,² and images. This material is highly relevant because it refers to stereotypes and binaries more clearly than official documents. In the analysis, I make use of images to capture the binary distinctions found in the case and as a way to illustrate analytical points.

Feminist Institutional Theory and Gender Path Dependence

The framework for analysis developed in this section is based on feminist institutional theory (Krook and Mackay 2011). The importance of institutions in the production of gender and gender inequalities has long been recognized. Joan Acker (1990) suggested that gender relates to organizations in multiple ways: the gender segregation of work takes place through organizational practices, organizations provide arenas where images and norms of gender take shape and are reproduced, and individual gender identities can be products of organizations (Acker 1990). The importance of taking gender into account in policy and institutional development has also been recognized in the EU, and a “tool” to deal with this—gender mainstreaming—was adopted in 1996 (European Commission 1996). While gender mainstreaming recognizes “the broader structural and institutional causes of gender inequality and discrimination” (Liebert 2002, 250), it has been difficult to implement.

To consider the role of historical factors in institution building is a valuable way to investigate obstacles to gender mainstreaming (Weiner and MacRae, 2014). Power inequalities are such barriers that “can be reinforced over time and often come to be deeply embedded in organizations and dominant modes of political action and understanding” (Pierson 2004, 11). Organizations tend to have particular “pattern-bound” effects over time, caused by locking into place certain rules and norms of behavior. These norms become embedded and contribute to path dependence and can explain why historic gender notions become resilient (Kronsell 2012, 9; Kronsell and Svedberg 2012, 3, 211). To illustrate, even if organizations such as militaries, with a long history of engaging only men, change their formal rules and allow women to conscript or engage in combat, norms related to masculinity remain embedded in the organizations and their practices and become a challenge for women’s inclusion and performance. While an entrenched norm can be explicit, it is mostly implicit and often a common sense understanding of what is normal. Formal, but perhaps more so, informal norms organize bodies and practices in path dependence. Path dependence, as used in feminist institutionalism, does not imply determinism but suggests that opportunities for innovation and change are constrained by previous choices (Kenny 2007, 93). Institutions provide “conditions for action that can make a certain course of action more or less appropriate or promising” (Kulawik 2009, 265). This is how gender path dependency should be understood in this article.

To study gender is to focus on the relation between men and women and particularly, on how masculine and feminine identities relate to one another. Formal and informal norms and practices are related to gender identity and implicated in institutional development (Mackay et al. 2010, 577; Waylen 2009, 249; Waylen 2013). Gender, as Eveline and Bacchi (2005, 506) suggest, should be understood as always incomplete and something that “people-as-bodies ‘do’ through their practices” and in relation to others. Macro- and micro aspects of organizations are connected because institutions are reproduced through patterns of action in a “gendered logic of appropriateness” whereby individuals follow embedded rules and routines, according to what is appropriate for their social and professional role and the individual’s identity (cf. Breur 2012; Gains and Lowndes 2014, 5). The gendered logic of appropriateness “prescribes (as well as proscribes) ‘acceptable’ masculine and feminine forms of behavior, rules and values for men and women within institutions” (Chappell and Waylen 2013, 601). To follow formal or informal rules in a gendered logic of appropriateness means policy making is guided by subjectivity and identity conceptions. In the context of modern politics with highly specialized organizations and divisions of labor, identity relies greatly on professional expertise and rules and routines often derived from specific expert knowledge (March and Olsen 1989, 38).

Institutional scholars normally focus on one particular institution or organization in their research, but in general, recognize that organizations are embedded in a larger institutional, political, and social context and are neither formed nor transformed in isolation (Pierson 2004). The most immediate context of the CSDP are the member state institutions and institutions developed as a result of European integration. For military organizations, certain common institutional features have been reproduced over time. Militaries are closely related to practices of war and this is both paramount to and a distinct feature of military institutions. It implies that they either engage in warfare or are preparing for it, in order to engage or avert war. To study military organizations is, in a way, also about studying war. War can, according to Christine Sylvester (2013, 4), be seen as “regimes of truth that emerge over time and dominate alternative ways of living to such a degree that they seem normal and natural, or at least unavoidable.” It is also the normalized presence of war in society, which makes institutions related to security, defense, and military matters relevant, acceptable, and perceived as needed. Militaries are part and parcel of a norm system that sees “war-making” as a legitimate way to handle conflicts (Fogarty 2000; Jabri 1996; Mann 1987) and the use of force as particularly effective in a dangerous world (Enloe 2007, 4). The monopoly on the use of force is conferred to state military organizations, and it is the skills around the use of force and violence that sets the military apart from other organizations. The capacity to inflict or threaten with violence, detain, injure, or even kill others is the unique professional skill of a military. Although there is a range of other skills taught in and executed by military organizations, the combat function is at its core (Coker 2001, 105–10; Mosse 1990, 53–69). Combat, as historically envisioned, is challenged when military organizations, as is the case in Europe and for the CSDP, gear their activities in the direction of peace enforcement, peacekeeping, and conflict prevention.

Military activities have been exclusively related to male bodies and to masculinity and, to what Joshua Goldstein calls “gender war roles” the scope of which extends “across virtually all societies” and hence, has a universal character (Goldstein 2001, 34). Gender war roles are reflected in militaries, most obviously through a long history of enlisting men as the staff to be trained for military purposes. By enlisting only men, often the case in conscription systems, or mainly men, the military organize and materialize gender relations through rules of access and entitlement (cf. Prügl 2011, 29–32). Military organizations have not only been monopolized by men’s bodies, but the norms of the military as an organization are defined on the basis of male bodies and masculine practices (Higate and Hopton 2005). There has been a general understanding that the military creates men out of boys, as training for military capability becomes intertwined with training masculinity. Paradoxically, and this is what happens when norms are deeply embedded in institutions, they are naturalized and thus appear normal. The profession of a soldier is normalized in the male body and is how military organizations construct gender identity (cf. Acker 1990). It has also come to imply that men are expected to be the protectors, defenders, and security actors. It is taken as given that the male soldier will give his life and his body for the nation and sacrifice for a “good” cause (Elshtain 1995; Hicks Stiehm 1982).

The dominance of male bodies in militaries confers obligation, but it also confers power. Cynthia Enloe (2004, 154) writes that it “legitimizes masculinized men as protectors, as actors, and rational strategists.” Jeff Hearn (2012, 35) also stresses this: “The military is one of the clearest and most obvious arenas of men’s social power. It is an understatement to say that men, militarism and the military are historically, profoundly and blatantly interconnected.” Men, and likely militarized men, are the ones put in charge of the policies and operations of defense and security activities.

This analysis studies whether gender norms are changed and challenged when new organizational bodies are set up in the CSDP and takes a closer look at the EUMC, EUMS, the battle groups, and the military mission. A sign of path dependence would be that history is remembered, that is, gender war roles of military institutions become relevant in new organizations like these. If so, I ask how are they relevant?

Military Male Bodies and Protector Masculinity

The dominance of male bodies in the organizational landscape of the military dimension of CSDP is noticeable. Yet, it is rarely discussed or raised as an issue. This is also the case for security and defense issues in the EU more generally, where member states retain much influence. To a certain extent, the domination of masculine bodies in the organizational landscape of CSDP is a function of the choices made by member states as to who they appoint, for example, as ambassadors, foreign and defense ministers, and military leaders. The reliance on member states reproduces their dominant norms and forms. The CSDP is embedded in, rather than independent from, the larger institutional context of the EU. Historic consistency is retained, as the organizations rely on member states’ foreign and security structures, already gendered and dominated by male bodies.³ In 2013, women only accounted for 27 percent of the ministers of EU member state governments (EU Database 2013) in the area of security and defense, women’s presence is, in general, the lowest. Thus, that there were four female defense ministers in the EU in 2014 is not only a sensation but draws attention to and makes visible the dominance of male bodies in the defense sector.⁴

More immediately related to the EU is the appointment of Catherine Ashton as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in 2009. To appoint a woman to a new leadership position in charge of the foreign and security policy area was pathbreaking. Although charged with many daunting tasks, in a speech to the Parliament in the debate on foreign and defense policy, Ashton evaluates her actions over the years and includes a focus on gender representation. She said, “I have dramatically improved the number of female Heads of Delegation from the frankly abysmal level I inherited. It’s now one in five, 20%” (Speech 2014). One of her concerns was to do something about what she perceived as a dominance of male bodies in this sector. However, scholars argue that one woman’s presence is not enough to disrupt path dependency, a critical mass is needed (Dahlerup 1988; Moss Kanter 1977). It seems that at the leadership level, social power continues to be conferred to men (cf. Hearn 2012).

There is gender path dependence in the EUMC. It is the highest military body within the European Council and is composed of the chiefs of defense (high commanders) and every one of them is a man. Indeed, while many may applaud when something breaks the compact dominance of male bodies, the process by which the dominance of male bodies is secured in the CSDP goes largely unnoticed. Robwyn Connell (1995, 212) has pointed out that organizations that are dominated by a specific kind of military masculinity, like the EUMC and the EUMS, reproduce themselves through everyday practices that remain invisible because they work according to the same methods, logics, and principles for making choices that they always have.

The CSDP military organizations normalize the connection between male bodies and military tasks and through everyday acts gender war roles are reproduced in a way that may seem effortless. Norms, practices, routines, and so on, are reproduced through everyday acts and decisions in a gendered logic of appropriateness (Chappell and Waylen 2013) applied in the military organization. These organizations formed through self-reinforcement (Pierson 2004, 21) and according to a perceived “regime of truth,” the natural way to proceed and the obvious way to go (cf. Sylvester 2013, 4). Jeff Hearn (2012, 36) writes that the very obviousness of the relation between militaries and male bodies “can easily naturalize and normalize it, so that its interrogation escapes serious critical scrutiny.” Indeed, the appointment of military men as the main actors in the EUMC or EUMS escaped critical scrutiny.⁵ Characteristic of this application of masculine rule, here in military organizations, is the silencing of difference and the resulting effect is a naturalization of this difference (cf. Prügl 2011, 31). It is not an open, strategic, conscious political effort but occurs through the reproduction of persistent institutional features and becomes the normal state of affairs and diversions from it an odd curiosity.⁶ This is visually reflected in the photo of EUMC below. The male bodies are there and represent the militarized masculine identity of the institution.

The image clearly reveals the presence and dominance of the uniformed militarized male body. The long duree through which the male body has been normalized as the military body does not seem to be broken, questioned, or challenged in the EUMC. The importance of the male body to military practice is apparent. Via the image, it is possible to note other central norms associated with military institutions and gender path dependence, namely, discipline and hierarchy, inscribed on the male bodies through the display of medals and insignias. Military rank is a professional system of hierarchical relationships that is almost universal. In the military context, the signs of military ranks are well known and considered important to those initiated in military culture, only guessed by civilians.

According to masculinity scholars, to understand gender power it is important to consider how relations between different masculinities are constructed and upheld (Connell 1995, 2002). Military institutions foster different types of masculinities and organize male bodies differently (e.g., Brown 2012; Hale 2011; Higate 2011). The specific masculinity represented in the image of the EUMC is a masculinity associated with rank and hierarchy. The member states’ representatives here are military leaders: the Chief of the Defense or Chief Commanders. Among the different types of masculinities present in military institutions, some are more dominant than others (Hinojosa 2010; Higate and Hopton 2005). The EUMC is represented by male bodies, the generals with the most valuable insignias. The EUMC is infused with their masculinity. R. W. Connell (1995, 213) argued that the military has had a particular important position as the most important arena for the definition of dominant masculinity in the European context. Although this military masculinity may not be the most powerful masculinity in the global context, the high-ranking military masculinity is the dominant masculinity expressed in the CSDP and dominant masculinity is powerful because it is normative (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 832).

Turning again to Figure 1, it is possible to elaborate on the characteristics of the military male body. Age and ethnicity are other elements. The ethnic aspect is worth noting; it seems from a visual analysis that a European-white-ethnicity dominates. The EU also has a fairly large proportion of non-white citizens but that is not carried over to the EUMC body. This may be an artifact of conscription, the preferred way of securing staff in the European militaries in the recent past (Carreiras and Kümmel 2008; Eulriet 2012). Military conscription was a duty tied to the nation, each boy trained to be a man but also to be a protector of the nation and its people hence, relying on a form of nationalism tied to national ethnic identity (Joenniemi 2006; Kronsell and Svedberg 2001).

Figure 1.

EUMC (http://eeas.europa.eu/csdp/structures-instruments-agencies/eumc/news/archives/2009/20091104_en.htm Commons).

Figure 2.

This is the Nordic Battle Group (NBG) soldier (Swedish Armed Forces, Graphics: Kjell Ström, Insats & Försvar 3/2007).

Figure 3.

On parade (from EUTM Somalia magazine, 2014).

There is path dependency in the CSDP and in the EUMC, gender war roles associating males with military organizations are seen as natural and given through a process of normalization. The male body of the EUMC represents a kind of masculinity that dominates the EUMC and while female EU citizens theoretically are also part of the CSDP, their bodies are excluded. They are not there as military decision makers or actors. However, gender constructions are relational: masculinity and femininity are constructed in opposition to each other and the tasks, characteristics, and behaviors associated with the pair are complementary. This implies, using Connell’s (1998, 7) words, that “/m/asculinities do not first exist and then come into contact with femininities; they are produced together, in the process that constitutes a gender order.” Gender war roles suggest what is expected of masculinity, military masculinity is also a protector identity, and the protector needs someone to protect (Hicks Stiehm 1982). The protector masculinity foregrounds benign aspects of a military masculinity related to acts of heroism, chivalry, and virtue (Kümmel 2008; Moelker and Kümmel 2007). Who is it then he is expected to protect?

EU Homeland Femininity

If there is a protector identity, we should be expecting to find also the protected in the text or between the lines (cf. Brunner 2013, 33). It is likely the EU woman who is the one who stays “at home” when the CSDP goes on operations abroad. From my analysis of official documents on the ESDP/CSDP⁷ (EU Security and Defense 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010) the EU woman is virtually absent⁸ from the text and is given no role in this policy area. Jean Elshtain (1995, 140) conceptualizes the protected ones as the “beautiful souls”; they are too good for the conflict-ridden world and should be protected from it (see also Cooke 1996, 15). Yet, the protected one is absolutely necessary to how gender war roles are constructed, without her there can be no protector masculinity. Iris Marion Young (2007, 121) writes about the protector/protected binary: “Central to the logic of masculinist protection is the subordinate relation of those in the protected position. In return for male protection, the woman concedes critical distance from decision-making autonomy.” The EU homeland femininity is constructed as the protected one, and hence she does not engage in security and defense policy; she has no agency and takes no responsibility for it. As the protected one, she accepts subordination with gratitude and admiration for the security that the protector offers. It is likely that she does not even aspire to be part of the military dimension of the CSDP; she is thankful that the protector is willing to take on the job.

In summing up, male bodies dominate the CSDP’s military dimension, and express through the EUMC, an EU protector masculinity. While there are few female military bodies in the military organizations, it was suggested that an EU homeland femininity is present in terms of the protected ones, important subjects for the CSDP’s military endeavor. As will become evident later in the article, there are other femininities associated with the CSDP. However, the following section will take a closer look at how combat masculinity, a historically salient military masculinity, has been relevant for the CSDP.

Combat Masculinity and the Battle Groups

Combat masculinity is closely related to military practice and visible in the CSDP, particularly in the battle groups. The battle group is an operational military component of the CSDP introduced in connection with Operation Artemis in the Congo in 2003. By the following year, a majority of member states had agreed to form battle groups and, by the beginning of 2005 they were set up according to plan (Andersson 2006; Lindstrom 2007). In brief, an EU battle group consists of circa 1,500 troops with combat support and logistics units as well as air and naval components that are expected to take on a whole range of tasks including humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, and peacemaking, while at the same time remaining prepared to conduct high-intensity combat operations. While the member states provide the battle groups, none have yet been deployed even though they represent one of the few military tools the EU has at its disposal (Cheetham 2012). This also goes for the Nordic Battle group set up twice.

I conducted a closer analysis of military masculinity of the Nordic battle group 2008 (Kronsell 2012, chap. 5) and conclude that the battle group has contributed to the reproduction of “gender war roles” by its emphasis on a combat masculinity that became visible through efforts to explain and describe it as illustrated in following figure:

The image appeals to a form of combat masculinity that, as Paul Higate (2002) argues, is a dominant masculinity in military culture. Already the recruitment campaign for the Nordic battle group emphasized a kind of “warrior-like” masculinity. Yet, battle groups are not supposed to be strict combat units. As stated earlier, they are expected to take on a wide range of humanitarian tasks while also being prepared to conduct high-intensity combat operations. Despite this, the Nordic battle group centered on a combat masculinity in its information and recruitment campaigns. Combat masculinity is a kind of model of admired masculine conduct while it may be far from the real experiences of enlisted men, or that of generals and high commanders, it carries masculine ideals, fantasies, and desires and has historic roots (Coker 2007, 2008). Combat masculinity is deeply embedded in military organizations and seen as necessary to it, and also in the EUMS, according to Director General of EUMS David Leakey: “the warrior ethos needs to be sustained. It is very much part of military capability” (Impetus no 8 2009, 4), and this ethos is the ethos of combat masculinity. Thus, there seems to be gendered path dependence in the CSDP whereby gender war roles are reproduced through combat masculinity.

Combat masculinity is constructed and reinforced as soldiers train and perform military exercises, in a gendered logic of appropriateness. Through gender path dependence of military organizations, masculinity and military performance are trained together as one and the same. Handling and using military equipment is an important acquired skill, but it is cohesion that enables military performance. James Griffith (2007, 138) argues, “while there are many factors that motivate soldiers to fight, the nature of relationships within the small unit or group cohesiveness, is one of the primary explanations in military literature.” Troop cohesion has been understood to build on the deep friendship and loyalty among heterosexual men (e.g., King 2006; Kirke 2009; Verweij 2007) and that troop cohesion, male friendship, is only possible in the absence of women and homosexual men. Military historian Martin van Creveld stresses the importance of cohesion for military performance and laments changes that allow women to enter military service, because as he argues, it threatens military capability at its very core (van Creveld 2008, 409). Combat masculinity provides the micro-politics of the military organization’s raison d’être, the capacity to use violence in an organized way, to kill, maim, or defend. On the EUMS introductory page, it reads:

We have been established to ensure the availability of the military instrument with all its domains as one integrated military organization. If called upon, we will support our civilian colleagues with our broad range of expertise… Still, we will not forget that the raison d’être for the military, is the ability to act quickly as one integrated entity for the broad range of military options.…”⁹

Thus, the specialized skills that military institutions are vested with, that is, what it has to offer, relates to combat masculinity.

Although military performance is the core skill of any military organization, the battle groups and military responses seem rather tenacious in the EU and the battle groups have not yet been deployed. There have been conflicts in the near vicinity of the EU, for example, in Somalia, Chad, Libya, and Mali, that fit the description of the purpose and tasks of the battle groups, but the battle groups have not been used (Balossi-Restelli 2011; Faleg 2013) perhaps due to this tension around combat masculinity. On other occasions, the option to use combat has been dismissed, for example, regarding the situation in Mali the Council clearly declared that combat was not an option:

EUTM Mali will provide advice and military training to the Malian Armed Forces, including on command and control, logistics and human resources as well as on international humanitarian law, the protection of civilians and human rights. The mission will not be involved in combat operations. [my italics]”¹⁰

The battle groups have not been a salient feature of the CSDP in recent years and it could be argued that the battle group failed to become institutionalized. There are different explanations as to why, such as the economic crisis, member state’s unwillingness to spend on the military sector, and battle groups distribute the burden of military costs unevenly across the EU (cf. Barcikowska 2013). From the perspective of the military component of the CSDP, the problem is the lack of political will among the member states. For example, in 2009, David Leakey, the Director General of EUMS, said that it is not really about whether battle groups are deployed or not. Deployment “is an administrative decision.” It is about the willingness to employ “soldiers, sailors, the air forces.” “/T/hey have to be prepared to fight, they have to be prepared to take risks, that’s what the military are for. They have to be prepared to take life, to sacrifice life.” This is not a decision for the military but for the politicians who have to be prepared to take decisions to employ (Impetus no 8 2009, 2–3). The lack of political will to act and employ the battle groups could be related to the member states (some member states) wanting to see the EU as a civilian actor. The nonemployment of battle groups and other military actions of this kind leads me to conclude that combat masculinity is not a dominant masculinity in the CSDP; however, it has not been openly questioned or abandoned.

The military component of the CSDP has in recent years concentrated on work with the EU Comprehensive approach, which involves the integration of civil and military matters in CSDP affairs. This has also led to tensions. EU’s comprehensive approach is a policy response “to the evolution of the concept of security beyond the conventional, state-centric and militarized” term (Pirozzi 2013, 5). An example of the influence of this thinking can be found in the evaluation of ten years of European Security and Defense Policy 1999–2009 which is labeled: Peacemakers. (http://www.esdp10years.eu/e-mag.php, accessed July 13, 2014).

The Comprehensive approach has become a main focus for the EUMS (Impetus 13 2012, 8–9), but its implementation presents problems. Head of EUMS David Leakey articulates this as a problem of the culture of combat masculinity that permeates the organization: “There is often a macho or ‘warrior’ culture which constrains the military from allowing itself” to become part of civilian activities on the ground and advancing an approach that recognizes the need to cooperate with non-military actors to accomplish CSDP goals (Impetus 9 2010). Working with the comprehensive approach brings out tension between military and civilian organizational practices. Director General for EUMS Ton van Osch thinks that the difficulty with the comprehensive approach has to do with the way others view the organization and said: “For people who are not used to working with the military, it is not always easy to understand the military approach to our different tasks. We therefore need to better explain who we are and what we do” (Impetus 13 2012, 2).

The comprehensive approach draws attention to and challenges the combat masculinity norm of military institutions. Combat preparedness and masculinity are coconstructed and embodied through military training and practice. Research on peacekeepers has shown that when they, during deployment, do not get to apply what they have trained for, that is, combat skills, this can have profound effects on performance, identification, and their mental status (Sion 2006; Whitworth 2004, 2008). Organizations rely on the individuals to find meaning in what they do through the gender logic of appropriateness. When professional rules and routines change, it affects not only the macro level, the organization, but also the micro level, gender identities. If the raison d’etre of the military institution is questioned, so is the identity of the combat soldier and such crises can provide opportunities for organizational change (Mahoney and Thelen 2010).

The Vulnerable Other Femininity

Two types of masculinity are found relevant for the CSDP military bodies: white EU middle-aged military masculinity and a heterosexual combat masculinity. Yet, as with the EU protected femininity discussed previously, this is not at all visible in the key texts for the ESDP/CSDP,¹¹ where there is actually no mention at all of masculinity and seldom of men. However, women are mentioned in the texts more often but, for the most part, are considered as vulnerable others in need of protection. For example, it is stated that the task for the CSDP is “to pay special attention to the needs of vulnerable groups, in particular to the rights of the child and violence against women” (Council of the European Union 2008a, 13). These women are located outside the EU, in places where there is conflict and where they are subject to a highly violent and aggressive masculinity. There is a tendency in recent years to put a stronger emphasis on sexualized and gender violence: “we are deeply concerned about the sexual violence” (EU Security and Defense 2010, 236) and also to associate women with children while foregrounding human rights. The human rights of the vulnerable women are not respected and the commitments made are to protect these rights through the United Nations (UN) women, peace, and security agenda that has been integrated into CSDP activities since 2008 and “/t/he systematic integration of human rights issues and the protection of women and children in armed conflicts into the conduct of the operation…will continue” (EU Security and Defence 2009, 292). This way, in the CSDP texts, femininity is constructed as relevant in places outside and away from EU, where there are violent conflicts.

The subtext is that there is an imminent need for a protector masculinity to do something for the vulnerable other. This is the role of the military component of the CSDP. In the logic of masculine protection the protector is the “good” one (Young 2007, 130). The CSDP masculine protector is also the one willing to protect the vulnerable other femininity. The construction of the benign, chivalrous masculine protector depends on the relation to a masculine other, that is, a bad and violent, aggressive masculinity found in faraway places, such as Africa. Yet, the EU protector has acted differently than what the George W. Bush administration did in Afghanistan, the case that Young’s conclusion about masculine protection draws on. According to her and other feminists scholars, President Bush’s foreign policy relied on, and used, a rhetoric of saving vulnerable and deprived Afghan women from the aggressive Taliban as a strategy for military intervention (Ferguson and Marso 2007; Shepherd 2006; Stabile and Kumar 2005). While such a protector masculinity, keen to save vulnerable women in faraway places, can be read in the CSDP texts, the choice of means is different. The EU protector does not intervene or enter into armed battle, but he teaches and trains in order to reconstruct the other masculinity to become a proper soldier and citizen.

EU Military Training Missions—Teaching EU Military Masculinity

In the Training Missions, different masculinities encounter one another, the power differences between different masculinities are accentuated as the learning relation is one sided. In the context of EU Military Training Missions, the attention is on the masculinity of the other who has to be taught new ways. He has not only failed to be the protector but is also assumed implicated in the violence toward the feminine vulnerable other. The masculine “other” is expected to learn from the EU military masculinity of the EU training missions: EU NAVFOR Somalia, a naval mission that patrols the coast of Somalia to secure international waters from sea pirates and assure the safe passage of humanitarian aid to Somalia (Riddervold 2011); EUFOR Althea, an operation that has been placed in Bosnia Herzegovina since 2003 to uphold the Dayton agreement; EUTM Somalia, since 2010,¹² a military training mission that aims to strengthen the Somali national government and institutions by providing military training to members of the Somali national forces (Impetus 17 2014, 8–9); EUTM Mali, a mission set up in February 2013 to support the training and reorganization of Mali Armed Forces;¹³ and European Union Peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (EUFOR RCA) organized in 2014. In terms of male and female staff, male bodies dominate the EU military missions, with 94 percent men in EUFOR (Valenius 2007), 95 percent male in the EUFOR and European Union mission to provide security sector reform (EUSEC); Gya, Isaksson, and Martinelli 2009, 14; see also Olsson and Sundström 2012, 37) and similar figures are relevant for EUTM Somalia (Oksamytna 2011, 9–10).

Training is important component of militaries. It was argued that military training coconstructs combat and masculinity in the military organization, thus it becomes relevant to ask what kind of training the EUTM in Somalia and Mali are engaged in? Put differently, what kind of men is the EU hoping to turn the Somali and Mali boys into? The focus of the EUTM Somalia mission is on military skill. A magazine about the mission (EUTM Somalia 2012) contains a description of the different training modules that the Somalia recruits were subject to. The following photo with its caption suggests a training philosophy: training is about military preparedness, and it is done on a large scale; it echoes the training of mass armies with its emphasis on uniformity. Each soldier is a product, replaceable by another. The caption next to the image signals a sense of pride in the successful “production” of military combat ready men.¹⁴

The EUTM Somalia demonstrates what masculinity scholars have argued, that the gender order relies on the relations between different men and the relevant power relation here is between the EU military men doing the training and the Somalian men, that is, the product.

The trainer is constructed as masculine. This is a masculinity with norms about what is a good state, it is one with clear boundaries, political sovereignty, and where citizens identify with their nation. This is a masculinity for which the laws and norms that guide civil and military interactions, the laws regulating warfare and the use of violence, human rights, and women’s rights, are not only well known but considered second nature. These values are what the EU masculinity is protecting and can be found in the European Security Strategy (European Council 2003, 2008). Maria Stern (2011) argues that a superior masculine-marked Europe is written into the security strategy and in a study on the EU missions to Democratic Republic of the Congo 2003–2006, Gabi Schlag found the missions were grounded in “a self-imagination as a ‘good reliever,’ even ‘gentle civiliser’” needed to assist what was perceived as a Congo in chaos (Schlag 2012, 337). There is this sense of chaos also in relation to the situation in Somalia and Mali with a similar tone of confidence about what needs to be done, how it should be done, and by whom.

Gender is relational and as Robwyn Connell (1995, 2002) has argued, the gender order depends on hierarchical power relations between different masculinities (and femininities). The construction of the EU masculinity takes place in relation to what is a subordinate masculinity. Maria Stern found that subordinate masculinities were constructed as both “outside of and before Europe” in the European Security Strategy. It casts its readers “back in time to a period of barbarism and violence, and placed spatially in, for instance, ‘failed’ and ‘weak’ states.” The other masculinities “both threaten Europe and serve as its ‘constitutive outside’” (Stern 2011, 34). It is this other masculinity on the “outside” that the EU will “civilize” through training. The EUTM describes the training as follows:

Training extends beyond military skills alone and Somalis, who are for the most part illiterate, learn about their country as a complete and sovereign entity and are urged outside their clan structures to a broader understanding. They are taught aspects of the Laws of War, Humanitarian Law and Gender Issues. However, the main task at hand is instructing them on war fighting capability…in order to establish a safe and secure Somalia. (EUTM Somalia Magazine 2012, 4)

The core of the mission is clarified as extending beyond military performance; it is about “creating better soldiers and citizens” (Impetus 13 2012, 19). As the mission also aims to produce citizens, it includes an agenda related to European values on nation building and citizenship, to be taught and reproduced through the military training of Somali men. In the EU mission to Somalia, we learn that the Somali soldiers are “taught aspects of the Laws of War, Humanitarian Law and Gender Issues” as an element of the training (EUTM Somalia Magazine 2012, 4). This is relevant also for the EUTM Mali, which presents itself in the following way: “/b/esides the transfer of military knowledge (infantry, armored combat, engineering, artillery, logistics), a strong emphasis is placed on moral values. Cohesion, discipline and respect for international humanitarian law are at the heart of the training provided” (EUTM Mali 2013).

The Somalia and Mali missions suggest two different masculinities that give meaning to one another. The trainer represents the EU militarized masculinity previously observed as the dominant identity of the EUMC. The EU masculinity is normative and dominant while the other masculinity is subordinate (cf. Higate and Hopton 2005). Those who are to be trained represent the masculinity of the others who live in “failed states,” identify with clans, are illiterate, and uneducated about the norms and laws of civilized states like those in the EU. In the EUTM, institutional reproduction takes place through training, whereby the other masculinities are reconstructed and redefined to become like the white, EU, liberal, and human rights respecting male. In an interview, Somali Company Commander Nur Ali Egal was asked about the EUTM’s success in training on gender norms. Dutifully he explained, “Yes I am quite sure that the outlook of every soldier has changed and they will act appropriately following the concepts they have learned here. Moreover, they will apply these in their future lives and careers” (EUTM Somalia Magazine 2012, 19). The relation is between the masculinities, the feminine other invisible, yet the subtext reads her as the one to be protected and the other masculinity has learned to act appropriately toward her. The mission of the EU masculine protector is complete. He has been able to protect the homeland from chaos while being the benevolent protector of the vulnerable other femininity. However successful this endeavor, the power difference between the EU masculinity and the other masculinity is likely to remain. Simultaneously, the training conveys military values, concepts, and an understanding of the use of violence that is based on the path dependency of gender war roles also relevant in the military dimension of the CSDP, reproduced here in Somalia through the training mission.

The male body of the CSDP is constructed as the protector, based on the chivalrous military masculinity. The protector is “a courageous, responsible, and virtuous man” (Young 2007, 120), but as we have seen, fostered and trained in military institutions according to “gender war roles.” He is chivalrous because he only uses violence in combat according to the rules of war. He is fostered in EU values and he is gender aware and becomes the natural teacher and trainer of such values. He treats women in a chivalrous way. The chivalrous military masculinity, in the protector, is contrasted with the overly aggressive masculinity emerging from the local context, who needs to be trained and taught to become like the protector. The violent other masculinity is not aware of the laws and norms on conflict and war, unaware of human rights, gender issues, and of UN Resolutions. Through principles of institutional reproduction, on hierarchy, discipline, and combat, the Somali and Mali military are to be trained in EU masculinity. The local vulnerable women are expected to be grateful for the concern and the protection. Her voice is seldom heard.

Conclusion

The analysis confirmed gender path dependency for the CSDP related to gender war roles. Neither the civilian nature of EU activities nor the developments in EU gender mainstreaming or equality policy have seriously challenged this. Gender war roles, when they were institutionalized in the CSDP, relied on the relations between different types of masculinities. Military male bodies, generals, combatants, and trainers, have been organized into the CSDP and men’s presence and these masculinity constructs are normalized as a natural feature of the CSDP. This article applied feminist institutional theory to learn about the reproduction of the gender order and demonstrated not only gender path dependency, but also shed light on the processes of normalization, binary constructions, and training through which gender war roles were reproduced. It became clear that various masculinities and femininities are juxtaposed in relations of subordination and domination and that the continuity or reproduction of the gender order depends not only on the relation between men and women, but on multilayered hierarchical relations between masculinities and femininities. For femininities, this may also be a comfortable place, as she is not required to engage in the dirty details of warfare but can remain outside it and invisible.

Women’s bodies have been organized out of the CSDP and gender mainstreaming and equality measures have had next to no impact. However, while women are excluded as bodies and have limited agency and decision-making power, when it comes to matters related to the CSDP and in applying the protector/protected binary, we note that women become key subjects of the CSDP. Femininities are the ones to be protected and the ones to whom all the efforts are directed. The analysis highlighted how the protected are cast as two different femininities, the EU homeland femininity and the vulnerable femininity in the places outside of the EU home. The efforts of the EU protector masculinity go toward making her life more secure by mending the chaos in conflict prone areas outside the EU.

The EU has clearly not taken on a normative role on gender in relation to military issues, activities, and organizations of the CSDP. Nevertheless, the insights from this study can help us understand EU as a security actor by taking a starting point in the EU protector masculinity. In 2008, Ian Manners argued that 9/11, US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has “diverted the EU on a road towards militarization led by ‘martial potency’” and by being enticed to become a world power (Manners 2008, 189). This article shows that in terms of the masculine protector, the United States and the EU have chosen different paths, with EU masculinity showing considerable restraint in employing “martial potency.” The EU masculine protector has instead been engaging in training and teaching. This EU masculinity, however benign in its ambitions to not only protect the femininities of the EU homeland, but see to it that the vulnerable other femininities are protected from violence and atrocities, is shown to be tainted by desires for masculine power and domination and a gender path dependence that casts masculinities and femininities into historically established gender war roles.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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