The military is (not) everybody’s business - : A critical discourse analysis of the FinnishArmed Forces’ portrayal of women in their marketing

In this paper I will examine how the Finnish Armed Forces use representation to portraywomen within the military, in the context of marketing. I will do this partly by analyzingvisual texts, but also by performing a critical discourse analysis. Part of my aim is to reveal which discourses are present in the empirical material, which consists of three recruitmentbrochures. I also examine in what way the Finnish Armed Forces use these discourses toeither change or (re)produce the existing order of discourse. The main theoretical frameworkconsists of representation theory by Stuart Hall. Representation can according to Hall be usedas a power tool to control and (re)produce discourses in society. As a government institutionthe Armed Forces have the power to exclude or under-represent groups from a discourse,which results in a hegemony upheld by the same institutions. My results help uncover the ways in which military organizations, even in countries that are seen as rather equal, still havesome way to go until they reach full equality. My empirical findings show that the Finnish Armed Forces have not succeeded in representing women and men equally. Both men andwomen are often portrayed in a stereotypical manner. Consequently, The Finnish Armed Forces are contributing to a (re)production of existing traditional discourses, and are thereforecurrently not challenging any norms regarding what women in the Finnish Armed Forces canbe like