The War against the Female Soldier? The Effects of Masculine Culture on Workplace Aggression

• Published date: 01 April 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/0095327X12460019
• Date: 01 April 2014
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Armed Forces & Society
2014, Vol. 40(2) 226-251
The War against the
ª The Author(s) 2012
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Female Soldier?
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X12460019
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The Effects of Masculine
Culture on Workplace
Aggression
Sabine T. Koeszegi1, Eva Zedlacher1,
and Rene´ Hudribusch2
Abstract
This study intends to analyze the relationship between military culture, masculine
norms, attitude toward women, and workplace aggression. By using a paper-pencil
survey in the Austrian Armed Forces, we show that overall 6.5 percent of all soldiers
in the sample suffer from severe, long-term collective aggression (bullying). The
detailed analysis suggests that systematic workplace aggression is associated with
a culture with high power orientation and adherence to traditional (masculine) mil-
itary norms. It occurs most often within socialization processes in training centers as
well as in combat units. Conversely, culture in support units has high levels of task
orientation with a comparably positive attitude toward female soldiers and less
reported workplace aggression. The data reveal the gender dimension of workplace
aggression in the Austrian Armed Forces: women are significantly more vulnerable
to bullying. Almost every second soldier declares to have observed and every tenth
soldier admits to have conducted aggressive acts against women.
Keywords
hypermasculinity, culture, workplace aggression, integration, military
1 Vienna University of Technology, Wien, Austria
2 University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Corresponding Author:
Sabine T. Koeszegi, Vienna University of Technology, Theresianumgasse 27; 1040 Wien, Austria.
Email: sabine.koeszegi@tuwien.ac.at

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Koeszegi et al.
227
Introduction
In 2007, an officer in the Austrian Armed Forces approached the authors with a
request to scientifically analyze incidences of workplace bullying which had
occurred a few years prior during his early years of officer training. It had since then
bothered him. In an interview, he confessed that he was taking part in collective
aggression against women in the Austrian Armed Forces: ‘‘ . . . The only two women
soldiers who have made it to the academy were fully isolated and humiliated by all of
us ( . . . ) we purposefully did not share important information or material with them. In
class, when the two girls would start to speak, we all grunted like pigs ( . . . ) nobody
wanted to join the girls-platoon because this meant to be made fun of by the rest of the
comrades. I wasn’t fully aware what was happening, but, (.) yes, I also took part in
harassing. The commander tolerated and even promoted aggression against the
women ( . . . ) One of them left service in the course of the year, and by the end of
the first year the last female soldier of our year also had finally thrown in the towel
( . . . )’’ (Josef Pichlhuber, 32 years, Officer in the Austrian Armed Forces).1
This anecdote was the starting point for our interest in systematic workplace
aggression in male-dominated work environments. In 2009–2011, we conducted
an empirical study in the Austrian Armed forces which is presented in this article.
The Austrian Armed Forces is an army with conscription for males and voluntary
access for women since 1998. Austria is a full member of the European Union and the
United Nations. Due to its neutral status, Austria is not a full North Atlantic Treaty Orga-
nization (NATO) member but has signed a ‘‘partnership for peace.’’ The main three
responsibilities of the Austrian army are national defense, emergency aid, and peace-
keeping missions abroad. Peacekeeping missions include trouble spots like the Golan
Heights, Bosnia, the Lebanon as well as the Kosovo, where Austria sent a mechanized
company and support units to the NATO-led Kosovo-Force (KFOR) troops and took
command of KFOR’s Multinational Task Force South (MNTF-S) in early 2008.2
In 1998, the army opened all career paths, including combat units, to women. The
number of females in the Austrian Armed Forces remains minimal: As of today,
there are 363 women serving in the Austrian Armed Forces, representing approxi-
mately 1.8 percent of all professional soldiers.3 A drop-out rate of more than 58 per-
cent suggests severe problems with the integration of women. Factors like
conscription service, the political environment in the country, societal values, and
division of labor, are considered to influence the rate of female participation in
armies.4 Apart from that, internal cultural processes and resistance may account for
the low number of female soldiers.5
Qualitative studies on many national armies reveal frequent aggression toward
female soldiers like misogynic jokes, denigrating glances, and sexual harassment.6
If this form of aggression is perceived repetitively and over a significant period of
time by a targeted individual, it is classified as ‘‘bullying.’’7 Bullying is assumed
to flourish in highly competitive cultures and in cultures with an extreme degree
of conformity and group pressure, in cultures with norms that legitimate the

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Armed Forces & Society 40(2)
existence of domineering and punishment rituals and the instrumental use of aggres-
sion for workers’ motivation.8
Hence, it stands to reason that military cultures are prone to bullying through
the potential abuse of formal authority by supervisors and the high value of group
cohesion. In such a situation, expulsion from the in-group is the worst punishment
and is applied to ‘‘deviant’’ soldiers.9 Moreover, the gendered division of labor can
impact the level of exhibited aggression: various scholars suggest that in particular
elite combat troops of armed forces have a ‘‘hypermasculine’’ culture. This includes
a high level of aggression and a strong differentiation and denigration of everyone
who does not comply with (hegemonial) masculine standards, be it women or
‘‘insufficient’’ males.10
To the best of our knowledge, the specific relationship between (gendered) cul-
tural norms and systematic bullying has rarely been empirically analyzed. Apart
from the analysis of sexual harassment of women, only a few notable (qualitative)
studies for military institutions exist which have investigated severe organizational
misconduct in subunits of national armies.11 Studies report severe institutionalized
hazing against freshmen by superiors and peers.12 A study within a paramilitary
organization in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland revealed that
bullying actions are endemic, especially in ‘‘masculine’’ operative units as part of
the socialization process to separate in-group members from out-group members.
Aggression was applied instrumentally to protect the white male organizational cul-
ture from minorities, namely black people and women.13
In this study, we analyze how military norms and workplace aggression are sys-
tematically interrelated across subunits of the military. In the second section, a
review of literature shows that the internal social organization of military institutions
fosters (low-level) aggression and denigration of out-group members in training cen-
ters and combat units. Furthermore, it is explained why women soldiers per se do not
conform to gendered military norms and are hence vulnerable to out-group member
status and systematic aggression. The section concludes with hypotheses to be tested
empirically. In particular, we are interested in whether members of different military
units display different cultural and gender norms associated with organizational mis-
conduct in the form of bullying. The third section presents the method, sample and
instruments, and the results are presented in the fourth section. We conclude the
analysis with a discussion of results and limitations in the fifth section.
Theoretical Background
The Social Organization of Military Institutions
According to Max Weber, military organizations can be described as ideal bureau-
cracies, having a well-designed system of roles organized in hierarchical structures
as well as predefined procedures and control mechanisms; all of these factors are
ensuring high performance.14 Even then Weber discerned a certain contradiction

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229
between the effective disciplining of the community of soldiers through bureaucratic
mechanisms and the wish of single individuals to dominate and ‘‘fight out the line’’
in order to stand out as war heroes in combat.15 Translating these ideas to the typol-
ogy of Harrison and Stokes,16 military organizations are deemed primarily role
oriented with aspects of power orientation, where members tend to struggle for dom-
inance and abuse their power for personal advantage. Archer argues that the hybrid
existence of power and role orientations is deficient in nonoperational activities. In
these instances frustration, that is, lack of opportunity for dominance or unease with
role assignments, predominates.17
Western military systems have undergone profound changes within the last
decades. Among them are the introduction of volunteer armies, rationalization pro-
cesses in alignment with the changes in civil organizations, and stronger involve-
ment in military missions other than war. New technologies in warfare have
lowered the proportion of combatants but have increased the relevance of nonmili-
tary expertise. This has increased administrative and support functions and the num-
ber of civilian personnel (in noncombat positions).18 All these changes cited above
are believed to have shifted the vocational/institutional character of the...