Executive Summary

Two years ago, our team asked a groundbreaking question: Was the growing body of social science around how gender affects security outcomes permeating the formal national security policymaking process?

In this new research, we return to that question, but in a very different political and cultural environment. A month after we released our initial findings, Donald Trump shocked much of America—his supporters included—by winning the 2016 presidential election, prompting millions of women to march across the country in protest. A year later, investigative reporting from the New York Times and the New Yorker kickstarted the #MeToo movement, inspiring other women to come forward with their stories of harassment and assault.

Since then, interactions of gender and security have entered the national debate in other ways: The sitting secretary of defense said, almost three years after the opening of all combat positions to women, that “the jury is still out” on how successful they are in those roles, and that “we cannot do something that militarily doesn’t make sense.” Administration officials have reportedly sought to remove the concept of gender from departmental websites and plans, as well as UN documents. Others have apparently developed approaches to remove the entire concept of gender—the socially-constructed way individuals perceive themselves and each other—from U.S. administrative law and replace it with biological sex only. These interviews were held in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, where perceptions of how women view politics, including security and insecurity, took center stage.

While we didn’t explicitly ask about discrimination and sexual harassment in the national security and foreign policy apparatus, half our interviewees raised those topics.

In some areas of the study, this second round of research found little to no change: Policymakers are still largely unaware of gender theory, the inclusive security agenda, and gender-differentiated impact data. But we did find stark shifts in tone, body language, confidence and comfort with the subject matter. In 2016, we struggled to recruit female participants. In 2018, we had to turn some away after they’d heard about the research from women who’d already participated. Our female interviewees had more anecdotes to share, while men were more reticent than two years ago. The men we interviewed took more pauses before responding and frequently caveated their responses to acknowledge they know they’ve had different experiences than their female colleagues, going so far as to suggest we ask them. We heard the word “empower” 18 times as often. And while we didn’t explicitly ask about discrimination and sexual harassment in the national security and foreign policy apparatus, half our interviewees raised those topics. In 2016, no one broached them.

What’s more, we saw these shifts across across genders, political views, professional experiences and age. This suggests that these changes were less indicative of the individual participants and more of shifting cultural norms.

By design, we followed the same discussion guide in each interview as we did in 2016 and intentionally did not inquire about nor reference relevant current events of the past two years. The following represent our top seven insights distilled from the latest research and compared, when relevant, to our 2016 findings.

1) Gender still “doesn’t come up” in the policymaking process.

Respondents—regardless of political leaning and gender—said, “it’s not something people talk about.” This comment often came with an almost apologetic caveat or at least recognition of it being an oversight in the process. Said one male respondent, “People would react strangely to it, frankly. Maybe that’s something that needs to be assessed, maybe it is a good question to be asked and why, or maybe it’s not. People would look at others sideways—it’s not part of regular discourse.” (Read more.)

2) The core social science behind both diversity practices and the gender and security field is still little-known, misunderstood, or contested among national security professionals. Core terminology, including phrases like gender mainstreaming, inclusion, and “women, peace, and security” (WPS), remain unfamiliar and evoke hostile reactions.

“I’m delighted to say I do not know [what gender mainstreaming is],” one respondent told us. “The idea that you could make a policy’s impact on a society without all people on society, that seems insane.”

Both men and women we spoke with agreed with the notion of making the security space more inclusive. Beyond the surface, however, we found significant gender gaps related to how men and women define inclusion. (Read more.)

3) Perceptions of what women’s roles and needs are have shifted—in some cases evolving, and in others, regressing.

In 2016, a significant number of participants offered stereotypes about gender roles and “soft” versus “hard” security in their thinking about what women had to offer in the national security space. We heard less of that this year, with participants across gender and ideological lines speaking much more frequently about the need for women in both peacemaking and peacekeeping roles. At the same time, some repeated old, essentialist arguments about why women, as nurturers, are better equipped and more interested in advocating for peace. (Read more.)

4) Participants were unified in identifying two sources of roadblocks: the Defense Department and leadership (or the lack thereof) within the interagency process. They saw fewer differences between administrations than outsiders viewing through the lens of partisan combat might expect.

Across agencies and administrations, nearly all our interviewees saw most roadblocks to gender inclusivity emanating from one of two sources: the Department of Defense or from interagency rivalries.

Some respondents discounted comparisons across administrations or ideologies. “I don’t see any evidence that the Republican establishment doesn’t take gender into consideration in policy discussions,” one said, adding that “there are exceptions to the rule in every administration.” (Read more.)

5) Policymakers are increasingly open to using more gender-differentiated data in policymaking, but still don’t know what that means exactly, or where to find it.

Gender-differentiated data on the causes and effects of conflict and various security policies is increasingly available, and social science is developing a broadening understanding of its relevance. Examples range from the correlation between conflict and indicators such as bride price or rates of violence, to tracking the movement of female populations as indicators of extremist group planning. While interagency policymakers and influencers became more aware of measurement data’s existence and its value, they remained unaware of what could be measured or how to find such data and metrics.

Impact data is still hard to find. But in a change from 2016, nearly all respondents welcomed the idea of it. (Read more.)

6) Women identify a lack of empowerment as the key barrier to ascendance in the national security field.

“There’s a culture of assumption perpetuated by both men and women that women don’t have a role to play in security and foreign policy,” one female respondent said. Women continued to cite education, training, and unequal caregiving roles—as well as outdated assumptions about those roles—as barriers. (Read more.)

7) Policymakers hesitate to identify gender as a factor that has influenced their working life.

This study found an extreme reticence in women and men, especially younger women, to ever call a gender issue a gender issue professionally.

Several male policymakers shared an inability to either decipher or admit when gender is, or is not, a factor in their own professional settings.

Several men and women ranked the likeliest blame of workplace issues in the following order: personality, age and then gender. (Read more.)

The following report provides an in-depth look and analysis into policymakers' views on gender inclusivity, awareness of gender theory, the inclusive security agenda and gender-differentiated data, and perceptions of the role of gender in national security policy processes and outcomes.

We asked a range of questions of the policymakers that covered not only the topics listed above, but also examined where gender is present, absent, and siloed as policy is formulated and implemented.

About the Gender and Security Project

Within the Political Reform program, we consider how gender interacts with all areas of democracy and governance, with particular attention to the field of national security. Gender-based violence is one of the best predictors of both intra- and inter-state conflict, and gender inclusion is crucial both for brokering peace abroad and negotiating legislation at home. Women remain underrepresented in situation and board rooms, embassies, and on the front lines.

This initiative is supported by the Compton Foundation.