Silence‐breaking butterfly effect: Resistance towards the military within #MeToo

Abstract

Systemic violence against women in the military has existed for decades, but they have mostly refrained from public resistance. However, in the context of the #MeToo movement in Sweden, 1768 women published a call for an end to violence and sexual harassment in the military. We analyse this call as a public resistance effort against the military and find that #MeToo is: (i) challenging the norms of the hyper‐masculine military organization, making resistance towards it visible; and (ii) resisting the practices of sexual harassment and lack of responsibility in the military organization. The military organization is questioned when it comes to norms and practices, but there are variations in whether the social order of the military is truly challenged. Still, the call highlights the fragmentation of this ‘last bastion of masculinity’. More research is needed on the erosion of the militarized norms and practices and the effects of the call.

Persistent norms and the #MeToo effect in Swedish forestry education

“…To be silent could therefore be a strategy to protect yourself, but at the same time, it allows harassment and injustice to continue (De Welde and Stepnick 2015). Alvinius andHolmberg (2019, p. 1262) define a norm of silence as a behaviour of a group of people that by unspoken consensus does not mention, discuss, or acknowledge the experience of women. This silence does not just concern the exposed individuals but involves a whole group where individuals could have different reasons for being silent.…”

“…The perceived tolerance of harassment against women is an important explanation for the culture of silence, described, for example, by Alvinius and Holmberg (2019) and Bird (1996). Our study adds to the understanding of the complexity of this concept by showing the multifaceted forms of silence that make up the culture in forestry education.…”

“…The first studies of the #MeToo movement in Sweden primarily analyse testimonies, for example in the military sector (Alvinius and Holmberg 2019) and the forestry sector (Johansson et al 2018). In these studies, the testimonies are analysed to increase understanding about how resistance is expressed and articulated.…”

“…Sexist jokes have a function of strengthening group feeling among men (Thomae and Pina 2015). Alvinius and Holmberg (2019) highlight that gendered incidents are often neutralised and reduced, and one way of doing this is to say that "it was a joke". If the harassment is camouflaged as a joke and it is pretended that any offence given is unintentional, it is easier for both the speaker and the bystanders to neutralise the seriousness of what was said.…”

La resistencia en los estudios organizacionales: una revisión de literatura

“…• Otras investigaciones estudian el vínculo que existe entre las relaciones de género, las prácticas de control y la resistencia en las organizaciones (Thomas, Mills, & Mills, 2004). Así, se encuentran trabajos sobre el aporte del feminismo a la comprensión de la resistencia organizacional (Thomas & Davies, 2005b), sobre los efectos y modos de resistir a los tradicionales roles de género (Griffin et al, 2017) y a comportamientos sexistas (McKie & Jyrkinen, 2017) y violentos (Alvinius & Holmberg, 2019), y, de manera más general, sobre la forma como la identidad de género (Hodgson, 2003), el cuerpo (Ball, 2005) y la sexualidad (Liu, 2017) constituyen recursos valiosos para la resistencia.…”