“Pumps och långa röda naglar” : En deskriptiv intervjustudie om genusrelationer i värnplikten på 1980-tal jämfört med 2020-tal

This descriptive study explores gender relations in female conscripts’ experiences of conducting military service in the Swedish Armed Forces, in the 1980’s compared to the 2020’s, through eight semi-structured interviews. Gender relations is in this study defined as Raewyn Connell’s (2009) four-dimensional model of gender relations, and this model is then used as the theoretical framework of this study, and is for example operationalized into several interview questions. Then follows a thematic analysis of gender relations in the described experiences of the informants. The findings of this study shows that gender relations manifest in conscription in various ways, for example through gendered discrimination and sexual harassment which is described by the informants of the study as occuring in both the 1980’s and 2020’s. Furthermore, gender relations manifest through, for example, informants describing themselves as feeling representative of the female gender while conducting military service – also a phenomenon that was described in both the 1980’s as well as the 2020’s. A difference between gender relations manifested in women’s experiences of military service in Sweden, during the 1980’s and the 2020’s, could however be found in, for example, the ways in which women feel the need to adapt to the masculine social environment – a phenomenon more remarkable in the 1980’s. Most striking however is the findings of the seemingly persistant occurrence of gendered discrimination and sexual harassment, in both the 2020’s and the 1980’s.