Career barriers for young women in the Swedish Armed Forces

This report is based on research done as part of the FoT Militära Professionen project Longitudinell studie av personalflödesfaktorer ur ett genderperspektiv. The overall pattern of gender relations within an organization may be called a gender regime. This particular continuing pattern provides the context for events, relationships and individual practices that may create career barriers for women. In this study a fourfold model is used to map and understand the gender regime that exists and is recreated within the Swedish Armed Forces. The model contains the following dimensions; Gender division of labor and power; Gender culture and symbolism; Human relations; Identity and motivation. The goal is to identify barriers that affect young military women. Their career opportunities and the choices that they make. The report find that many barriers have been reduced with time but that some remain and others have appeared, partly as a result of work taking place to create gender equality within the organization. The remaining barriers are mainly transparent, hard to spot from the outside, and caused by culture and attitudes towards military women.