Governing “dependents”: The Canadian military family and gender,a policy analysis

The military family occupies an ambiguous place in the military-societal binary. Military families are deeply connected to, and affected by, the military on a daily basis, though they are not technically “military.” They are civilian, although not civilian in a typical sense, given their relationship to war making. The military family calls into question the artificiality of the military-societal binary in a most direct way. Military family members are citizens who live every day on the hyphen of the military-societal dualism. This paper takes up the Canadian military family as a research subject—a research subject that also occupies an ambiguous place in the international relations–domestic politics binary. Military families are fundamental to the military’s operational readiness and its ability to realize foreign policy initiatives of the government; they are also subject to federal government policies, entitlements, and programs. Moreover, the military family represents a snapshot of the norms and values that characterize a society more broadly. It is believed by some, including Stephen Harper’s Conservative governments, that there is no better way to be Canadian than to take up arms in “her” defence, ¹ and, as such, military members and their families are held to the highest standards. Given the privileged, and also contested, position of the military in society, the military family is in a unique position to (re)produce social values and norms. The representative and constituting nature of the military family vis-à-vis societal norms, which they are afforded given their position on the hyphen, is especially interesting from a gender perspective. Feminist International Relations scholars have argued that a society’s prevalent gender relations are most aptly depicted in militarized settings, ² and recently there has been a surge of interest in gender equality in the Canadian Forces. ³

Yet, there has been little systematic analysis of the relationship between families, gender, and war in feminist International Relations. Instead, a rich body of literature about gender and women in militaries has been produced. Much of the contemporary feminist International Relations work on militarization and gender focuses on important themes such as the culture of masculinities in militaries; how to integrate women into the military as soldiers; and sexual assault in militaries. ⁴ More broadly, contemporary studies of military families are typically found in the fields of psychology, social work, and nursing. These studies consider questions of family/social relationships, military partner and family abuse, and mental health. ⁵ Left out of such accounts are the informal, and often invisible, supports put in place on the periphery of war and war making, which are primarily undertaken by women and/or categorized as feminine spheres of activity. It stands to reason that the less formal gender relations that underpin militaries may inform gender relations within militaries. I suggest that understanding the questions currently being asked by feminist International Relations scholars on the subject of militarization and gender requires an interrogation of gender and the military family. Indeed, families are a fundamental institution upon which more formal institutions rely, and this is especially true of militaries.

Early feminist social science research on military families and gender suggests that in order to function, militaries rely on spouses, most often wives, to undertake the majority of domestic labour, suspend their own careers, and relocate willingly for new postings. ⁶ Thus, the civilian family becomes subservient to the soldier and to the military as an institution, which itself often performs as a patriarchal family. ⁷ A large-scale study of Canadian military families, undertaken by Deborah Harrison and Lucie Laliberté in the early 1990s, found that the non-financial, or human, costs of war making, are taken on primarily by military spouses, through a gendered form of ruling, where wives’ “lives are harnessed by the requirements of a powerful institution [the military].” ⁸ Contemporary feminist International Relations research on military families has also pointed to the productive, and sometimes subversive, roles of mothers and wives in war making, with a particular emphasis on discursive productivity, lived experience, and biography. ⁹ This paper builds on this small, but important, body of literature to consider whether the Canadian Armed Forces’ reliance on the “traditional family,” and traditional gender relationships within families, is being reinforced and/or destabilized to make room for more equitable gender relations and family forms. It extends these ongoing conversations by interrogating the role of policies and programs in constituting the aforementioned dynamics. Policies are productive, and constitute social relations and hierarchies, such as gendered relationships. The consideration of this question is timely, given that family forms are changing: norms around domestic responsibilities and primary earners suggest greater gender equality, and women are contributing to war making as soldiers. Changes within the family and women’s progressive involvement in the military suggest a theoretical necessity to continue to take up the relationship between families, gender, and war making in various ways.

Theoretical and methodological approach

This work undertakes a feminist critical policy analysis of some of the policies and programs that affect military families. The documents that I engage with speak to two elements of military life that distinguish it from civilian life: mobility and separation, respectively. ¹⁰ The documents primarily include the Integrated Relocation Program, and Defence Administrative Orders and Directives (DAOD) 5044-1: Families & the Family Care Plan. These policies and programs speak most directly to mobility and separation. Feminist critical policy analysis is critical of traditional models of policy analysis for failing to consider the gendered components of policies and policy outcomes. The goals of feminist policy analysis are to make women and gender visible in policy, including the underlying assumptions and stereotypes embedded in policy, and the ways in which women’s (and men’s) lives and roles are regulated and constrained by policy. ¹¹ Beverly McPhail offers a feminist policy analysis framework, which comprises a comprehensive list of questions to ask during a policy analysis. Of particular relevance to this work are those questions that address state-market control:

Are women’s unpaid labour and work of caring considered and valued or taken for granted?

Use of the term “traditional family” is informed by Dorothy Smith’s concept of the Standard North American Family (SNAF), which is characterized as:

A legally married couple sharing (a) household; the adult male is in paid employment; his earnings provide the economic basis of the family-household; and while the female may engage in paid work, her primary responsibility is to the care of husband, household and children. ¹³

The concept of the “traditional family” is used in this paper to typify gendered relationships of power, regardless of the sex of the individuals that comprise a particular family. Gender refers to socially constructed expectations, typically assigned on the basis of sex, which dictate relationships of power. ¹⁷ This work pays particular attention to gendered expectations within the military family, where the public sphere of activity—paid work and military service—is masculinized, whereas the private sphere—unpaid labour, and civilian status—is feminized. It is used as a conceptual device, and a starting point from which to understand the ways in which the expectations of the Canadian military family are changing, or not. Despite the theoretical use of the traditional family, empirically it appears as though the military family is primarily traditional in terms of sex. Canadian military service people are primarily male, at 88 percent; 60 percent of military service people are in committed relationships; and heterosexual partnerships are anecdotally identified as the norm. ¹⁸ Half of Canadian military service people have children under the age of 18, and 70 percent of military spouses have had their careers affected by their partner’s military service, while 51 percent identify making sacrifices in this regard. ¹⁹ It is not clear how many Canadian military families are comprised of dual-service couples, same-sex couples, single parents, and/or blended families. At the same time, there is an official understanding by the Forces that Canadian military families are changing, complicating the relationship between the two institutions. “Defence Administrative Orders and Directives: Families” recognizes “the difficulties that Canadian Armed Forces members may face in balancing commitment to country with family life on top of the ever-changing structure, composition and function of Canadian families.” ²⁰ Moreover, the ombudsman for National Defence and the Canadian Forces finds that “today’s Canadian military family is patently different from previous generations, reflecting shifting Canadian societal norms and expectations, resulting in more complex and transitional arrangements.” ²¹ There is a sense that the move away from the traditional family as a norm has complicated the relationship between the military and military families, and the military’s ability to function as it once had. Perhaps this is due, in part, to shifts in gendered divisions of labour.

The Canadian Armed Forces acknowledge the family’s important contribution to the military, and their subsequent responsibility to support families. The relationship between military families and the Forces was formalized in 2008 by the Canadian Forces Family Covenant, an agreement that recognizes the military family’s essential contribution to operational effectiveness of the military, the sacrifices that are undertaken by military families, and, as such, the obligation the Forces have to support military families. ²² It follows that Canadian military families “in the post 9/11 period receive substantially more support than at any point in the Canadian Armed Forces history.” ²³ Despite this, the Department of National Defence’s public consultation phase of its policy review, completed in July 2016, found that “for all those good intentions they have yet to come to grips with the needs of the modern military family,” and that the Forces’ “reliance on unpaid family members to support personnel, specifically around issues of mental health and reintegration,” means that a large burden is undertaken by military families, and as a result the Forces need a better way to support them. ²⁴ The gendered division of labour within families is not unique to military families. Statistics Canada’s Time Use Survey of 2015 finds that women do the greater share of unpaid work, while men do the greater share of paid work, in Canadian families generally. ²⁵ Yet, the military family offers a unique insight into how gendered relations are manufactured, because of the constitutive nature of war making activities vis-à-vis gender performances and relationships. Indeed the military life has unique characteristics, which are mandated by the state. The Canadian state has a distinct role to play in the production of a particular type of family, by virtue of the job requirements for military service people, and the subsequent policies and programs that their families are entitled to and bound by.

Mobility and the Integrated Relocation Program

Mobility requirements are a distinct feature of military life. Canadian Forces members will be posted several times during their careers, within Canada or abroad, due to the operational and organizational needs of the military. Specifically, a member might be moved because of a career opportunity, training or development, or to fill a vacancy. As a result, military families move three times more frequently than civilian families, and have “little input over where they are posted, when they are posted, and for how long.” ²⁶ Mobility requirements associated with military life impact the military family’s ability to participate in the housing market; find and maintain adequate and fulfilling employment; access adequate health care, education, and childcare; sustain stable social support networks; and preserve healthy relationships and mental health of the self. ²⁷ A 2013 report on military family health and well-being, entitled “On the homefront: Assessing the well-being of Canada’s military families in the new millennium,” identified geographic relocation as “the most unsettling feature of the Canadian Forces lifestyle.” ²⁸

The Canadian Forces Integrated Relocation Program Directive is the primary policy document that governs moves of Canadian Forces members and their families. The document outlines what military members will be compensated for when they move their dependents and household goods and effects. The policy demonstrates a concern for offsetting some of the financial costs associated with military relocation. For instance, Canadian Forces members and dependents are entitled to be reimbursed for full daily meal rate entitlements; commercial lodging; costs associated with moving pets; interim lodging, meals, and miscellaneous costs; among others. ²⁹ There are also entitlements, which appear to acknowledge, and attempt to offset, the labour required of the military family when facing a mandated move. These include packing and unpacking services from Brookfield Global Relocation Services, and childcare during packing, loading, and cleaning, and unloading and unpacking. As well, there are certain reimbursement entitlements for cleaning services. Such initiatives demonstrate a move away from the assumption that the labour burden associated with a move will be taken on solely by the military family, in the feminized private sphere.

While the Integrated Relocation Program provides redress for many of the direct elements of a military move, many secondary consequences of the move are insufficiently supported, or simply unaddressed. National Defence ombudsman Pierre Daigle argues in “On the homefront”:

From a larger perspective, the philosophy around relocation services and benefits focuses primarily on the direct aspects of a geographic posting: selling and purchasing a residence, travelling to the new location, and physically moving the household. The more complex secondary effects involved in a mandated relocation—principally, spousal employment, access to health care, availability of child care and education, and the re-establishment of a stable social network—are largely disregarded in this service/benefit package. ³⁰

The policy’s failure to adequately address secondary elements of a military move suggests an assumption, on the part of the Canadian Forces, that these concerns will be dealt with by some other means—principally the individual family. There is a gendered component to this oversight. Secondary aspects of relocation, such as childcare, health care, and the establishment of a social network, are typically categorized in the private, feminine sphere of the gendered division of labour. That the Canadian Forces do not adequately support the gamut of domestic issues which arise from a mandated move presumes that the member has a civilian spouse to take on this labour. It is gendered insofar as it positions the service person in the masculinized role of the primary breadwinner, who will resume their work duties after a move post-haste, while a civilian spouse is left to deal with the domestic implications of the move—such as setting up a home, arranging for health and childcare, and re-establishing social networks. The gendered nature of this dynamic is exacerbated in that the majority of Canadian military civilian spouses are female. If the military service person has no partner, they may be required to outsource this labour to other forms of unpaid labour, such as other family members, or to the private markets. Care work, the work typically undertaken by women’s unpaid labour, maintains its low status in the markets as evident by low wages. ³² The commodification of care work has had a particular impact on women, exacerbating class and racial hierarchies between women. ³³ Privatized care work has enabled certain women, often middle and upper class, and often white, to enter the paid labour force because they have outsourced care work to racial-ethnic and immigrant women in the form of low-wage jobs. ³⁴ Thus, regardless of whether or not secondary aspects of relocation are undertaken through paid labour or unpaid labour, they have gendered consequences.

Destination Inspection Trips (DITs) might be more useful than the HHTs in offsetting the secondary consequences of military moves, because they appear specifically designed to do so. The entitlement covers “up to three days and three nights at the new location for the Canadian Forces member or spouse,” in order to “visit the new place of duty and provide the opportunity to inspect the replacement residence; inspect purchased property; finalise school arrangements; arrange specific medical requirements/specialised care; or make administrative arrangements related to the pending relocation.” ³⁵ Unlike the HHT, the DIT’s purpose expressly addresses some secondary consequences of moves. However, the DIT’s purpose is silent on a crucial consequence of a mandated move: the employment of the member’s spouse. The omission of spousal employment in the purpose statement of the entitlement is an especially interesting omission in the context of the core benefit, which entitles the member or spouse to a DIT. Taking these two things together, the underlying suggestion is that a Canadian Forces spouse might take on the administrative tasks associated with moving everyone else in the family, yet not prioritize seeking employment for themselves. Accordingly, this part of the policy (re)produces an idealized form of the family, which is gendered in a traditional way: the masculinized service person is primarily responsible for finances, while the feminized civilian is responsible for the domestic management of the household and family members. The sentiment in this policy revives the post-war welfare state model of social governance, which calls for a male breadwinner and a dependent female caregiver, who may participate in the labour market herself, though this income is secondary or unnecessary. ³⁶

As a whole, the Integrated Relocation Program Directive is not silent on the topic of spousal employment. Rather, the policy provides reimbursement for several spousal employment services, such as “interview travel up to a maximum of three days/two nights, and costs associated with re-establishing current credentials for the same certification in the new province.” ³⁷ However, spousal employment is not prioritized in the policy document. These entitlements are outlined two-thirds of the way into the directive, and are found on the list of “sundry relocation expenses,” which includes items like connection and disconnection of electronics and services; changing drivers licenses; and postal expenses, like mail hold. ³⁸ Spousal employment is listed second-last on the list. Moreover, the word “sundry” means, “of various kinds; several; various items not important enough to be mentioned individually.” ³⁹ In other words, spousal employment does not merit mention in a category of its own, and is placed within the same category, and further down the list, than tedious items such as changing one’s mail address. Furthermore, entitlements for services related to spousal employment are not integrated into other parts of the policy. For example, chapter 11, and chapter 12, which outline the limitations and enhancements of benefits with respect to “moves to and from an isolated post,” and “moves to and from outside Canada,” respectively, make no additional nod to spousal employment. It stands to reason that spousal employment in isolated and/or international posts may involve different concerns.

The ancillary way spousal employment is addressed in this policy promotes a culture wherein military spouses prioritize their partner’s paid employment over their own. While quantitative data varies, it is generally agreed that Canadian military spouses are more likely to be un- or under-employed, and make less money, than their civilian counterparts. ⁴⁰ It follows that the non-serving spouse, who is most often female, becomes the financially dependent spouse while assuming primary responsibility for the home front. This gendered dynamic makes possible the occupational requirements of military service people, namely mobility and separation. While traditional family arrangements featuring paid and unpaid labour appear to continue to enable the Canadian military to function in certain ways, cracks are beginning to develop on the foundation of this dynamic. One of the key findings of “On the Homefront” is that “the spousal employment challenge has been identified as a major consideration leading serving members to release from the Canadian Forces.” ⁴¹ The challenge around spousal employment has meant that skilled, trained members of the Canadian Forces are leaving gaps in units, which presumably affects unit morale and operational readiness. Thus, there is an ethical, and pragmatic urgency to address this challenge.

The Canadian Armed Forces have attempted to offset spousal employment challenges resulting from mobility requirements with various initiatives and programs. The Military Employment Transition (MET) Spouse Program, which began in 2016 as a pilot program, has recently gone nationwide, and might address many of the aforementioned concerns. Canada Company bridges military-friendly employers with military veterans, and now spouses, who seek employment in the civilian sector. Importantly, MET Spouse employers are “asked to commit to explore mobile options when a spouse is relocated.” ⁴² There is also employment support for military spouses through Military Family Resource Centres, which are support centres for military members and their families, found on Canadian bases. Military spouses may also be eligible for the Second Career Assistance Network Programme (DAOD 5031-4) through the Canadian Armed Forces, or Federal Public Service Employment Spousal Priority Entitlement Benefit for Surviving Spouses and Partners. ⁴³

More broadly, the spousal employment challenge may be temporarily remedied through an entitlement called Imposed Restriction. Imposed Restriction is when a service person moves on to the next posting, leaving their family at the previous posting to account for “relocations outside of the usual posting season, undue disruption to children’s education, particular financial hardship associated with the posting, or medical requirements precluding the family from relocating.” ⁴⁴ Service members who are granted Imposed Restriction may be entitled to separation expenses to cover rations and quarters. This status and accompanied entitlements do much to disrupt normative ideas about what constitutes a family—namely living under one roof—and do much to offset the disruption of career faced by military family members (both civilian and military).

Alongside the Integrated Relocation Directive, there are programs and services provided to Canadian Forces members and their families which aim to offset the secondary results associated with the mobility. These programs include, for example, counterbalancing the consequences to spousal employment, as well as the more domestic concerns already discussed. Yet the policy that guides military relocation, and quite possibly sets the tone for corresponding cultures and informal practices surrounding moves, suggests underlying assumptions about gender roles and family dynamics that are out of touch with many modern families.

Separation and the Family Care Plan

The second element addressed here which distinguishes military families from civilian ones is the frequent separation of the service member from their home and family. Members of the Canadian Forces may be away from their families anywhere from “a day to up to 15 months at a time, for reasons ranging from training courses, responses to emergencies or humanitarian operations, or operational deployments abroad.” ⁴⁵ Research on the impact of military separation, especially in relation to operational deployment, is extensive. Non-serving spouses assume all the household, domestic, and parenting responsibilities; children assume responsibilities that child psychologists suggest are beyond their years; families experience high levels of stress and anxiety; and many families report difficulty adjusting and re-adjusting to changing family dynamics over the course of the deployment cycle. ⁴⁶

The policy document which speaks most directly to military family separation is “DAOD 5044-1: Families.” The directive’s context states that the organization “requires its members to place service to country and needs of the Canadian Armed Forces ahead of personal consideration[;]… remain mobile and deployable; and that this may create profound disruption for the families of the Canadian Armed Forces members.” ⁴⁷ Yet, the directive goes on to acknowledge the contribution and sacrifices made by Canadian military families, and, as such, commits to reducing the impact of frequent family separations through various services. The pledge to reduce the negative impacts of military life on military families is to say that individual families and individual family members will not be left to bear the brunt of these hardships alone. It is also congruent with the Canadian Armed Forces Family Covenant, previously discussed. In a sense, the directive promotes a culture wherein the military is itself one big family, and thus will take care of its own. This part of the directive also acknowledges the changing composition of military families.

The directive on families sketches the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces’ commitment to military families, and in return obliges military members to complete a Family Care Plan. The plan is a strategy for the care of dependents when the service member has to be separated from their family. The purpose of the Family Care Plan is to:

Assist members with planning for family care needs in the event of an absence for duty reasons; and apprise Commanding Officers of potential difficulties regarding family care needs that may be encountered by some members in the event of an absence for duty reasons. ⁴⁸

The Canadian Armed Forces Family Care Plan normalizes a family dynamic wherein the military service person has principal authority over the family, but is not the quotidian caregiver of their dependents. Consequently, the plan reinforces a dichotomy between the military and home front in a gendered dynamic. The plan positions the military service person as the paternal head of the household, responsible for making strategic and managerial decisions about their dependents. The policy defines care as “responsible for providing financial, health care or other support to a family member.” ⁵⁰ Care is tied to the member’s breadwinner status, wherein financial security and social benefits, such as health care, are the result of the member’s military service. Yet, because of their responsibilities in the public, military, and masculine sphere, the member downloads the responsibility for daily management of the family through the care plan. Traditionally feminized elements of reproductive labour such as “the provision of food, clothing, shelter, basic safety, and health care, along with the development and transmission of knowledge, social values, and cultural practices,” which are not specifically addressed in the policy, are offloaded to a (presumably) civilian, feminized, spouse. ⁵¹

The corresponding Family Care Plan declaration form asks members to identify as “not presently responsible for providing care to a family member; or presently responsible for providing care to a family member.” ⁵² This suggests that families are primarily patriarchal—relying on the authority of one person, usually the service member. It is an important distinction between wordings that might account for alternative family arrangements, such as shared responsibility with a partner. Articulating familial responsibility as an individual endeavour may open up space for alternative family compositions, such as single parents, yet the corresponding care form instructs the member to identify caregivers in the following way:

Section B is used to identify the caregiver. It must contain the names of at least two persons or agencies able to care for the family members in the event of an absence for duty reasons. In most cases the first caregiver would be the member’s spouse or common-law partner. ⁵³

The Family Care Plan can also be interpreted as evidence of neoliberalism, which is characterized by the privatization and commodification of social reproductive services for families. ⁵⁴ While the spouse or common-law partner of the member is “usually” the first caregiver to be named in the plan, the names of “two persons, or agencies” may also be listed. In this way, the policy encourages contemporary society’s reliance on paid care work from private markets, rather than support from the state, or in this case the military. Financial resources may enable the service member to fulfill the two-caregiver requirement of the plan—to fill the caregiving gap of the paradigmatic female spouse. Importantly, military families have difficulty accessing adequate childcare due to the unique schedules associated with the military lifestyle, namely shifting schedules and inability to plan. In addition, accessing appropriate privatized care work is subject to a family’s privileged ability to participate in the private market. This challenge compounds, and is compounded by, the difficulties military spouses—most of whom are women—face with respect to employment. It is common for military spouses with young children not to engage in paid employment, in part because of difficulty finding appropriate and reasonably priced childcare. ⁵⁵ Families in which the military spouse has a higher-paying job are better able to outsource childcare to the private market, throwing into relief the varying levels of financial privilege among military families. The idea that spousal income ought to fund the outsourcing of childcare to the markets is the logic behind the Family Care Assistance program, which, as discussed below, compensates only single-parent families or dual-service couples for their childcare. While balancing income and childcare is a concern many families deal with, military spouses have particular and additional challenges due to the separation and mobility realities of military life. The Family Care Plan institutionalizes jettisoning feminized elements of care of dependents onto individual families, usually civilian female spouses. The gendered consequences of this dynamic are often financial dependency of military spouses on the service person, and constrained choices for military spouses facing paid and unpaid labour.

The Canadian Armed Forces commits to providing services to military families in the Directive on Families, and these are offered through the Military Family Services Program. One of the most sought-after services is childcare through Military Family Resource Centres, because they understand and are responsive to the unique schedules and needs of military families. While this service is partially subsidized, there are limited spots and long waiting lists. Despite this, childcare goes a long way to support military families, offsetting the challenges associated with separation, and reducing the reliance of unpaid labour of military spouses. Indeed, acquiring affordable and available childcare services is a challenge for most Canadians: there are spots for only one in five children in the private market. ⁵⁶ In exceptional circumstances, the Forces provide financial assistance to members who are absent from home for longer than 24 hours, through a benefit entitled Family Care Assistance. This benefit is only available to “members who do not have a spouse or common-law partner, or who [have] a spouse or common-law partner who is also a Canadian Armed Forces member and who is away from their place of duty for services reasons.” ⁵⁷ On the surface, this benefit appears progressive in that it acknowledges and accommodates families that do not take a traditional form. However, in this instance, giving financial compensation for childcare only to families comprised of single service members or dual-service couples reproduces the association of domestic caregiving with civilian spouses, and in the heteronormative family generally. When there is a civilian spouse as a part of the family, there is no additional compensation to offset caregiving costs, because the assumption is that this will be taken care of in the private/unpaid sphere. Otherwise there are more accessible, flexible, and perhaps modern childcare grants, including the Emergency Child Care Services (ECS); Emergency Respite Child Care Services (ERCS); and Casualty Support Child Care Services (CSCC). ⁵⁸

A major source of support for military families, in the face of separation-related hardships, is through Military Family Services—an arm of the Canadian Armed Forces Family Network. Military Family Services “ensures that the Canadian military family community is well supported in order for military families to lead positive nurturing family lives comparable to other Canadian families.” ⁵⁹ One of the strengths of the program is that it models its service delivery on community development, meaning that “community members themselves take primary responsibility for their well-being, and engage government and outside resources as needed.” ⁶⁰ Following the principles of community development, volunteerism is embedded into, and relied upon, for many aspects of the program.

The notion of “by families for families” as a governance structure provides important avenues for military spouses and family members to exercise agency and ownership. While this program is the backbone of support for families, and doubtlessly provides a great deal of fulfillment for members involved, the governance principle of “by families for families” risks placing additional responsibilities on military families who might already be overstretched. The Military Family Services “Parameters for practice” specifically calls on, and encourages the participation of, “civilian spouses, in particular.” ⁶¹ At the core of the Military Family Services Program governance principles is the idea that the civilian spouse ought to be primarily responsible for the family. Notwithstanding the fact that most Canadian military spouses are female, this gendered dynamic is further entrenched when it is through this very program that support services are accessed. The gendered dynamic within the governance structures of the Military Family Services Program, and its corresponding cultures, could be a fruitful area for further research.

In the context of separation, DAOD 5044-1: Families, and the corresponding services that follow, the Forces recognize the changing composition of military families, and manage in some ways to be responsive to their needs. Yet, subtle expectations of gender dynamics in the family persist in these documents and programs, which reinforce particular cultural ideals which are potentially disadvantageous to some—mostly women—or, at the very least, unrepresentative of many families.

Conclusion

This paper took as a starting point early feminist work on gender in the military family, and set out to interrogate whether the Canadian Armed Forces reliance on unpaid labour, in the context of the traditional family, has been reinforced or destabilized. Given the supposed shifts in gender roles in families, the workforce, and the military, as well as changes to the constitution of Canadian families writ large, we might expect less reliance on traditional gender relations in military families. Undertaking a feminist critical policy analysis of some of the policies that govern military families shows that while the Canadian Armed Forces acknowledge, and attempt to respond to, the needs of changing family forms and gender roles, there is also evidence to suggest an inherent reliance on patriarchal families. This is especially true of the question Beverly McPhail asks us to consider with respect to women’s unpaid labour being valued or taken for granted, and the mediation of gender relationships between the state, market, and family. Military operational requirements of mobility and separation necessitate and are necessitated by the prioritization of the member’s career over a civilian’s career. Consequently, policies reinforce this sentiment and position the service person as the authority over, and financial guarantor of, the family, thus reinvigorating the patriarchal family as ideal. Simultaneously, these features of military life demand labour, which remains economically unaccounted for, and is undertaken primarily by women. As a result, and in response to feminist critical policy analysis, these policies encourage mostly women to be dependent on their male military spouses, especially in relation to finances. Perhaps increased financial pressures in the context of capitalism and neoliberalism, and the military’s largely unchanged reliance on the unpaid labour of military families, places even more burdens on families than in times of the past.

The ways in which gender dynamics persist and are contested in military families are constituted, in part, through policy. Gender in military families undoubtedly informs gender relations and expectations in the military more broadly. It is vital for feminist International Relations scholars concerned with gender and militarization to continue to be concerned with gender in the military family. Although a seemingly natural institution, the family is a political and socially constructed institution, and a central place where gender is (re)produced. As a result, it is also an important site for contestation, and subversion. Similarly, if the Canadian Armed Forces are genuinely interested in gender quotas, equality, and mainstreaming, it is fundamental that the military family be treated as a gendered institution, rather than a gender-neutral stakeholder. The reliance on unpaid labour in the domestic sphere, and the employment challenges facing military spouses, ought to be considered from a gendered perspective if they are to be wholly understood and remedied. While gender influences power relations in civilian families as well as military families, the Canadian state is especially influential in (re)producing gender power relations in military families because they are integral to Canada’s security industry.

An underlying theme of this discussion is that the military family contributes to the operational readiness and effectiveness of the Canadian Armed Forces. Military families are often made up of civilians, who enable the machinery of Canada’s national security and foreign policy programs. Accordingly, the military family destabilizes the military-societal binary, by highlighting how civilians are integral to war making. Indeed, military spouses are colloquially known as the invisible ranks, and April is the Month of the Military Child, acknowledging military children’s contribution to the Forces. Military families are civilians who point to the artificiality of the military-societal binary in a very direct way. Paradoxically, the military-societal dichotomy is reinforced through the military’s continued reliance on traditional family, where gendered spheres of war making and domesticity persist.