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    Published: 2022-01-09
    Vol. 11 (2021)

    On the Motherhood of Women Performing Professional Military Service (on the example of the Polish Armed Forces)

    Aneta Judzińska
    Family Forum
    Section: Compatibility of Work and Family Life
    DOI https://doi.org/10.25167/FF/4580

    Abstract

    Background: For about twenty years, Polish women have been able to access military service full-time. It means that they can, like men, participate in career development perceived in terms of promotion to a higher military position/rank. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the military remains a typically male professional space. Thus, it requires women to go beyond the traditionally understood division of social roles or - in the case of married women - to combine them skillfully.

    Objectives: The article aims to present the specificity of the functioning of women on the path of a professional military career from the perspective of family and professional dilemmas. Particular attention will be paid to the category of motherhood.

    Methodology: This article is an overview. The author mentions the research results on women in the military space available in the literature, including her research. Due to the small amount of research, as a supplement, the author also analyzes Internet sources - more specifically, press interviews with female soldiers.

    Conclusions: The nature of the difficulties between military service and family indicates the need for regular monitoring of women's participation in the military space. The cited studies indicate that balancing the maternal role with the professional role of a soldier is complex and depends both on non-professional factors (relations with the husband, including the divisions of roles in the family) and organizational ones. The latter results from the specificity of the service (the requirement of mobility and availability) and the attitudes of superiors. For some women, it turns out that motherhood becomes an object of exclusion and stereotyping on the part of soldiers. There is also a lack of institutional (belonging to the military) forms of childcare. In selected cases, motherhood itself triggers the process of self-exclusion from the career in favor of fulfilling the role of a mother.

     

    Keywords:

    soldier, motherhood, professional military service, family and professional dilemmas

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    Judzińska, A. (2022). On the Motherhood of Women Performing Professional Military Service (on the example of the Polish Armed Forces). Family Forum, 11, 89–113. https://doi.org/10.25167/FF/4580

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