Description
Despite decades of gender equity policy, military institutions internationally remain sites of persistent violence against women. This reflects not merely implementation failure but active institutional resistance operating through reform rhetoric to mask continuing male supremacist structures. Drawing from qualitative PhD research with Australian women veterans as an illustrative case with international applicability, this analysis reveals how military institutions function as sites of organised backlash against women's integration; where policy becomes concealment rather than transformation. Institutional resistance operates through the three pillars of militarism: martialism, fraternity, and exceptionalism, which position women as threats to male privilege. Critically, this data indicates violence against women has intensified as participation expanded and combat roles opened, revealing that resistance escalates with women's advancement. Male resentment manifests through gendered violence, harassment, reputational damage, and administrative abuse, demonstrating how martial masculinity sanctions violence as territorial defence. Women who report abuse face institutional betrayal whereby the system protects perpetrators whilst pathologising victims, frequently resulting in involuntary medical discharge that reframes institutional violence as individual failure. This pattern represents institutional gaslighting maintaining male dominance whilst claiming progress. Military institutions serve as concentrated sites for examining how patriarchal structures resist gender equity reforms through strategic concealment and active backlash. Understanding this resistance offers insights into how male dominated institutions across society deploy reform language to neutralise challenges to gendered power whilst maintaining structures of male authority and women's subordination.
Keywords: Gender equality backlash; Military institutions; Male supremacy; Institutional resistance; Women veterans; Critical military studies
