Helena Carreiras est une professeure et chercheuse spécialisée en Sciences Politiques et Sociales. Son travail explore des questions sociétales complexes, offrant des perspectives critiques et une profondeur analytique. Elle aborde ses recherches avec une perspective académique rigoureuse, contribuant de manière significative à la compréhension des dynamiques sociales contemporaines.
Women in the military and their relationship with war often provoke controversial reactions that reveal entrenched stereotypes and cultural values central to many societies. This is the first comparative, cross-national study of the participation of women in the armed forces of NATO countries.
This collection of articles basically originates in Durban, South Africa. In late July 2006, the International Sociological Association (ISA) held its World Congress of Sociology in the beautiful landscape of Southern Africa. As usual on these occasions, the ISA's Research Committee: Armed Forces & Conflict Resolution (RC 01) organized several sessions dealing with issues of military sociology, the sociology of war and conflict resolution. One of these sessions looked at Women in the Military: National and International Per spectives and was chaired by Helena Carreiras from Portugal and Leena Parmar from India. As this session turned out to be very interesting and substantial, we, the editors deemed it worthwhile to make these papers available to a larger audi ence and thus contribute to the ongoing debate about war, the armed forces and the role of women in both war, violent conflict and the military. This an thology, then, contains the revised and updated versions of the papers that have been presented in Durban plus one or the other article that has been written specifically for the purposes of this book.
The book explores the participation of women in NATO armed forces, highlighting the complex relationship between gender, military roles, and societal perceptions of war. It provides a comparative analysis across various countries, revealing entrenched stereotypes and cultural values that shape reactions to women in the military. Through this examination, it addresses the broader implications of gender dynamics within armed forces and the evolving role of women in combat situations.