Language and Gender in the Military: Honorifics, Narrative, and I ...

One may take as evidence of this point the fact that many were skeptical of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 bid as presidential candidate because of doubts that a woman could be commander in chief, that is, carry the nation’s highest military rank. Were it not considered socially anomalous, or even discordant with an established semiotic, it would not warrant debate.

One reason military experience is generally so influential in veterans’ habitus resides in another concept explored by Bourdieu: rites of institutions. Bourdieu all but names the military in his discussion of rites of institutions, noting that much work has shown that “people’s adherence to an institution is directly proportional to the severity and painfulness of the rites of initiation,” creating a lasting imposition and even creating arbitrary cultural limits, “as expressed in fundamental oppositions like masculine/feminine” (123). I will return to the problem of the expressions of masculine and feminine, but for now, clearly the arduousness of recruits’ first military-training experience creates a “lasting imposition” and “durable disposition” in those who experience it. Enduring these rites, and in some cases the bonding experience of deployment or hostile action, makes military service a very powerful and formative element of veterans’ habitus. Bourdieu goes on to point out that external signs such as uniforms and rank insignia, and incorporated signs such as ways of speaking and personal bearing, also signify a social position assigned by the institution, that is, institutional identity. Indeed, enactment of institutional identity is, for many, at least as integral as the much more personal enactment of individual identity, including elements of gender. This is certainly true of the military or individual service branches, but also applies to a broad range of institutions, including those which have religious or even nationalist affiliations.

The Military and Masculinity

Bourdieu assesses that rites of initiation into an institution facilitate arbitrary cultural oppositions like masculine and feminine—concepts which are critical in a discussion of the points at which language, gender, and the military intersect.