Equal treatment or equal opportunity? Male attitudes towards women in the Norwegian and US armed forces

Abstract

This article examines men’s attitudes towards women in the Norwegian and US armed forces. The military is one of society’s most gendered institutions, and this study investigates how men in the armed forces feel about serving alongside women. Building on interviews with 34 men in the Norwegian and US air forces, the article finds that men in both countries have a positive attitude towards female service members, and that the majority prefer to serve in gender-mixed units. When discussing their attitudes on more concrete topics, however, the participants employed two different concepts of equality. The Norwegian men argued for the importance of equal treatment of men and women, while the American men thought it was more important to create equal opportunities for women in the armed forces. These different understandings are embedded in the two national cultures, which provide the men with the different cultural resources they relied on to frame their opinions.