The "Genderman": (Re)negotiating militarised masculinities when "doing gender" at NATO

As a result of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) engagement with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and the Women, Peace and Security agenda military personnel have been tasked with engaging with and implementing NATO’s interpretation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda, to do ‘gender work’ within the alliance. There are only a small - though increasing - number of men working full time on gender issues within the military structures of the Alliance. This article analyses the experiences of two military men actively and consciously ‘doing’ this gender work. Using Duncanson’s (2015) notion of a (re)negotiation of gender relationships based upon empathy, similarity, interdependence, respect and equality, the accounts of these men are analysed, exploring ways in which a more ‘gender conscious’ militarised masculinity may develop. It is argued that positive, incremental shifts within militarised masculinities should not be dismissed; yet the process is contested, contradictory and incomplete. The article highlights how perceived gender transgressions are policed and controlled via trivialisation and feminisation and how conceptualisations of masculinist protection (Young 2003) and credibility, can reinforce pre-existing gender relations, rather than challenge or change them