Imagining Gender Equitable Cultures

This project was undertaken by Dr Hannah West in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Equity in the Uniformed Public Services at ARU.  The UK Armed Forces are facing a crisis in their organisational culture around gender equity (Hansard, 2022, Newkey-Burden, 2022). Despite numerous internal investigations centring inappropriate behaviours and sexual abuse (MOD, 2019, Defence Committee, 2021), these cultures and behaviours persist, embedded in the enduring societal dominance of the male warrior narrative. We have a unique opportunity to tackle wicked and entrenched narratives, histories and power dynamics; through creativity, we can shape future gender equitable cultures.

This project aimed to:

• Establish a community of expertise to co-design a future study to shape equitable cultures in the UK Armed Forces
• Explore participatory film-making with female veterans as a methodology for a future project and as a means of catalysing conversations about the nature of the problem
• Facilitate a space for sharing outputs across the ARU research community as a pilot for future public engagement activity

For more information about this project, visit the CEEUPS website.