{"id":106,"date":"2019-02-01T14:04:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T14:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/?p=106"},"modified":"2019-02-01T14:21:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T14:21:10","slug":"the-labours-of-military-spouses-unpaid-and-precarious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/2019\/02\/01\/the-labours-of-military-spouses-unpaid-and-precarious\/","title":{"rendered":"The labours of military spouses: Unpaid (and precarious?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago the Government\u2019s Defence in the Media blog responded to the recent Barclays report, which explores the career barriers faced by military spouses as a result of their partner\u2019s service (you can read their blog post here<\/a>). The research by Barclays suggests that 1 in 5 military spouses surveyed felt that they face discrimination when applying for jobs, while a third claimed that they either had to reduce their hours or leave their job entirely as a result of their partner\u2019s service.<\/p>\n

Families, and in particular spouses, of military personnel are integral to the functioning of the Armed Forces (Cynthia Enloe\u2019s book Does Khaki Become You <\/em><\/a>\u00a0is great for an overview on this). Military partners engage in countless forms of unpaid labour in service of the military and its ideals, ranging from domestic duties and solo childcare during deployment, to fundraising and \u2018flying the flag\u2019 for military charities that fill the gap in the provision of support for veterans and their families. The partners of servicemen and women even provide a level of emotional support and stability for their spouses that they usually do not get elsewhere, both of which are crucial to the very survival of the Armed Forces (see Denise Horn\u2019s chapter on military support networks in Gender, War and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives<\/em><\/a>). It is no wonder that Segal<\/a> describes the military family as the intersection of two \u201cgreedy institutions\u201d, both of whom demand commitment, loyalty, time and energy.<\/p>\n

The findings of the Barclays report are troubling, but unsurprising. Over the course of my research with the Military Wives Choir in Plymouth, I heard a number of similar stories from women who had left their jobs, moved across the country or even across the world as a result of their partner\u2019s military service (see Alex Hyde\u2019s chapter in The Palgrave International Handbook of Gender and the Military<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for further reading on the mobilities of army wives). What groups like the Military Wives Choir offered these women was an opportunity to meet people who understand the lives they live, make friends, and have time for themselves. More than that though, as I discovered, the choir was often empowering its members to go back into education, start businesses and change career direction. One research participant said;<\/p>\n

It has been very empowering, a lot of the girls have started to do things like they\u2019ve started courses, so like for me I\u2019ve wanted to train to be a counsellor for a while and going to the choir and doing the gigs and having the support and stuff I\u2019ve finished my course. Other girls have started up businesses, other girls have changed jobs or gone for jobs that they\u2019ve always wanted to go for, and I think it\u2019s been really empowering for everybody to have this voice, that\u2019s a big thing that the choir has given us. It\u2019s given us this voice together but also individually, so like \u201cOK I want to go and change my job so I\u2019m going to change my job<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

We are beginning to see more support for the partners of servicemen and women when it comes to employment. The Armed Forces Covenant<\/a> for example, alongside organisations like X-Forces<\/a>, offer valuable support to veterans and military spouses in the development of their careers and business enterprises. In their response to the Barclay\u2019s report, an MoD spokesperson said;<\/p>\n

Service families are a vital part of the Armed Forces community and we encourage companies to support the careers of military partners through the Armed Forces Covenant. We have announced a new fund to step up access to vocational training and career development for military partners, and we\u2019ve recently launched a review into the support for service families, to ensure they are not disadvantaged by their loved ones\u2019 service<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But, it seems to me that groups like the Military Wives Choir also have an important role to play. What these kinds of organisations do, that more formal support networks perhaps cannot, is offer a safe and emotionally supportive space for self-reflection and empowerment. After all, it is undeniable that a significant challenge facing female military spouses in particular is that the gender roles in military families, which mark wives as homemakers and husbands as breadwinners, remain pervasive. Groups like the Military Wives Choir arguably offer a means of helping these women imagine their lives, and the roles that they play in them, differently. Seeing greater value attributed to these kinds of groups might therefore represent a positive step forward in reducing the disadvantage faced by military partners in the workplace.<\/p>\n

You can read more about the findings from my research with the Military Wives Choir in a previous blog post, available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Published work from this research is forthcoming!<\/p>\n

Alice Cree<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days ago the Government\u2019s Defence in the Media blog responded to the recent Barclays report, which explores the career barriers faced by military spouses as a result of their partner\u2019s service (you can read their blog post here). The research by Barclays suggests that 1 in 5 military spouses surveyed felt that they face … Continue reading The labours of military spouses: Unpaid (and precarious?)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7655,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[30,28,29],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-armed-forces-covenant","tag-military-wives","tag-military-wives-choir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7655"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/militaryresearchatnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}