Women in the Military: Public Rhetorics and Gendered Policies

Although the participation of women in the military has been the subject of attention in the social sciences since the 1970s, there has been no specific focus on this issue within the context of the European Union. The aim of this book is to redress this imbalance. Exploring the policies adopted in the United Kingdom, Germany and France over the past 20 years, it situates them in the unique context of the European Union. Through a survey of the political and legal dimensions of the wider recruitment of women into a professional milieu that has long remained a male stronghold, Irene Eulriet traces variations between the three countries back to differences in their public cultures. In doing so, she exposes the complex frameworks within which national military institutions operate and shows, on the basis of her European findings, that patterns of women's military participation vary in shape and content beyond what is commonly assumed.

Irene Eulriet is Research Fellow at the Institut de recherche strategique de l'Ecole militaire (IRSEM) and a member of the Groupe de Sociologie Politique et Morale (GSPM/EHESS), both located in Paris, France.