Texting and Driving a Problem in Nebraska - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2315 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/04/12 Category Society Essay Level High school Topics: Texting and Driving Essay Did you like this example? Introduction A very serious problem that is affecting Nebraskans today is the multitude of drivers who check and respond to text messages on their cell phones while driving. There are drivers of all ages and abilities that have been guilty of this dangerous practice. Everyone traveling on the roads with these drivers is at a great risk of being involved in a serious, and sometimes even deadly, car accident because of their negligence. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Texting and Driving a Problem in Nebraska" essay for you Create order In the state of Nebraska, it is only considered a secondary offense and law enforcement officers on the roads cannot pull over a driver for texting while behind the wheel. This has created a dangerous atmosphere where the dangers are not taken seriously. The Nebraska state legislature should make texting while driving a primary offense in this state in order to save lives by reducing distracted driving accidents. Problem Statement A large amount of serious car accidents caused by texting and driving happen every day in Nebraska resulting in deaths and injuries. This is a problem that can be addressed if Nebraska starts to follow the examples of many other states. Texting and driving bans exist in forty seven U.S. states. (Distracted Driving) It is a primary offense in most of them. It is only considered a secondary offense in four states. These are the states of Florida, Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota. (Distracted Driving) Since, Nebraska only has it as a secondary offense, it isnt taken seriously enough by some drivers. Police officers cant pull people over for that alone. This leads to many tragedies on the roads that could have been avoided. It is a proven fact that taking your eyes off the road for five seconds to send or read a text message is long enough to cover a football field while driving 55 miles per hour! (Johnson) This fact should prove how serious this issue really is. Iowa is a state that borders Nebraska and is a good example of the benefits of making texting while driving a primary offense. On July 1, 2017, it was made a primary offense there. This has given a plan for Nebraskas future if it is made into a law here. (Stewart) The number of tickets went up over 620% that were issued to drivers who were texting while behind the wheel in the last year, according to the Iowa state patrol. (Stewart) Drivers in the state that were caught breaking this law were issued 1,700 tickets in just the first year alone. (Bolten) There are many drivers in Nebraska that are guilty of this dangerous practice also so it would provide a good source of revenue for law enforcement. These extra funds can be used to hire more officers to patrol the roads and highways, especially at peak driving times such as rush hour. The money can also be used help fund Educational programs and Public Service Announcements to raise awareness to this issue throughout the state. In Iowa , a $100 fine as well as costs for going to court are what most drivers ended up paying who broke the law in that state. (Bolten) When a reporter from WOWT named Rachel Urbanski was able to ride with a Nebraska state trooper in July 2018, she was able to see first-hand and report on how many drivers are out there with this problem. (Distracted Driving Crashes on the Rise) She learned and was able to tell us all about the experiences she saw and learned of from Trooper Jeremiah Foster on the amount of distracted drivers he typically encounters. (Distracted Driving Crashes on the Rise) He provides a typical experience of the officers patrolling our roads unfortunately. Solution There are many Nebraska state senators that agree the state should make texting and driving a primary offense. They look to and mention Iowa frequently when they talk about new laws they are proposing. An example of one such politician in Nebraska in Senator Merv Riepe. He has been vocal about his belief that Nebraska law enforcement should be able to ticket drivers that are caught texting while driving and that Nebraska should follow Iowas path to making it a primary offense. (Distracted Driving Crashes on the Rise) Another state senator named Roy Baker even tried to introduce a bill to make it a primary offense. (Kipper) The Council Bluffs area of Iowa and the Omaha area of Nebraska tend to share many drivers, especially for employment and shopping purposes. This is an important fact that needs to be stated by Nebraska politicians trying to get the texting and driving laws tightened here. There is research that proves that harsh punishments before education might be successful at stopping the practice of texting while driving. (Owner) If it is made a primary offense in Nebraska, people would be less likely to risk doing it while driving. There have been great strides made in three different areas in public health in the recent past that can prove this point. (Owner) One is that most people wear their seatbelts now, another is the fact that less people smoke cigarettes and drunk driving has decreased since worse punishments were put into place for each of these. Paul Atchley Ph.D. has studied each of these and he has said that Distracted driving is particularly difficult to curb because it can be addictive like smoking and its something that the designers of both products purposely built in. (Owner) Success can be found though with getting the general public of Nebraska to not want to take the risk by toughening the penalties for texting and driving. The number of pedestrian and motorcycle accident deaths increased in 2017 in the state of Nebraska. This is believed to be due to distracted driving, according to Fred Zwonechek, the Nebraska Department of Transportations Highway Safety Office administrator. (Withrow) Iowa has shown a remarkable improvement in highway deaths since the new law. There were 397 fatalities in 2016 and 329 in 2017. (Withrow) This is an amazing difference in terms of lives saved there since texting and driving was made a primary offense. Raising awareness to this very important issue is crucial also. There are some organizations that are really making a difference. The National Safety Council is a nonprofit organization that was started in 1913 by the United States Congress that works to stop unneeded deaths on the roads from texting and driving. (National Safety Council Calls on Legislators to Address Distracted Driving) Another influential organization for this cause is the Road to Zero Coalition which is made up of 650 groups and the United States Department of Transportation. They work with many different groups in the government and the private sector. Their goal is end roadway fatalities by 2050. (National Safety Council Calls on Legislators to Address Distracted Driving) If these groups can continue to gain members and support from government and the general public, this can actually become a reality. Supporting Arguments There are states in the United States that have already made texting while driving a primary offense. This has led to safer roads for drivers and passengers there. This was started many years ago. In 2007, the state of Washington instituted the first texting and driving law. (Distracted Driving) Forty two other states followed with similar laws. (Distracted Driving) Texting while driving becoming a primary offense reduces accidents and saves lives. There is definite proof of this when Iowas traffic statistics are examined before and after the texting law was changed. On July 1, 2017, it was made a primary offense there. There were 575 car accidents caused by cell phones in the state in the first half of 2017. (Stewart) In the same months of 2018, there were 486 car accidents caused by mobile devices. (Stewart) This is a substantial improvement and it shows positively for the future of Iowa. Since distracted driving accidents are often under-reported, (The Grim Reality of Texting and Driving) there are also some states like Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin that are starting to add information about texting and other cell phone use to accident documents. (National Safety Council Calls on Legislators to Address Distracted Driving) This problem in Nebraska needs to be addressed very soon. It is not getting any better. The number of distracted driving crashes over the past decade has stayed steady at around 150 accidents per year. (Nebraska Drivers Involved in Traffic Crashes With Cell Phone Distractions) This is not something that should go unnoticed and unresolved. Crashes involving teens has remained steady since 2008 while other drivers have seen a slight increase. (Nebraska Traffic Crashes Involving Cell Phone Distractions, Comparing Teens, Other Drivers and All Drivers) This is proof that even experienced drivers are making this dangerous mistake. In total since 2008, there have been 4 fatalities and over 607 injuries due to these accidents. (see fig 1) Figure 1 The human toll of this dangerous habit of many drivers is heartbreaking. A teenage driver who was texting while driving in Omaha in 2007 caused a crash that killed Rob Reynolds sixteen year old daughter. (Stewart) Since then, he has made it his crusade to support strengthening laws to address the crisis of distracted driving. Another family that lost a young member to a distracted driving accident and is attempting to make a difference is the Modisette family. (Gardner) Their 5 year old daughter, Moriah, was killed when another car hit the familys vehicle at a fast speed. The driver responsible for the crash was on his smartphone and wasnt paying attention to traffic slowing down in front of him. (Gardner) They sued the Apple company. (Gardner) Many horrible tragedies like this can be avoided in Nebraska if texting while driving is made a primary offense and is enforced by police around the state. It has become commonplace for many drivers today to think that texting while driving i s not a big deal. Nationally, 41% of drivers admitted to using their hands to send a text message when 622 of them were surveyed. (Gardner) Innocent people, including children riding in cars with their families, can be saved if the texting and driving laws are toughened. The American military is another good example of a location that has taken strong steps to ensure drivers safety when it comes to texting and driving and all cell phone usage. While on all bases, there is a restriction that states that no cell phones can be used by drivers while they are behind the wheel. This includes talking as well as text messaging and any other communication on hand held devices. (Wood) This is an effective safety measure that was started in April 2005. (Wood) The military did their research on cell phone use while driving. This regulation was developed based on information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration which found that cell phone use was the fastest growing and most visible distraction leading to accidents (Wood) Because of this, the bases are much safer places to drive than on Nebraska roads and highways. The Nebraska state government should have the same interest in the citizens safety and the legislature should pass laws that show t his. Address of the Opposition Some Nebraska government officials worry about possible discrimination problems that could happen if the texting and driving law is made a primary offense in the state. Curt Friesen is the transportation committee chair and he believes that racial profiling could occur because he says that officers tend to profile. (Kipper) This is the reason why he put a stop to the laws that state senator, Roy Baker, tried to get passed on seat belts and tightening the texting and driving law. (Kipper) Racial profiling is also a concern for the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. (Stewart) Racial profiling shouldnt be an issue in Nebraska if texting and driving is made a primary offense. Racial profiling is usually used to refer to minorities being targeted. The neighboring state of Iowa where this has already made a primary offense, has a very similar population demographic to Nebraska. Since the new law has been passed in Iowa, 90% of the tickets issued for this offense were to White drivers, while only 4.5% were written to Black drivers. (Bolten) Another issue that some opponents have with texting becoming a primary offense is that it is hard to determine if a driver is in fact texting while driving. The American Civil Liberties Union believes that Iowas tougher texting law wont work and could cause worse issues for safety because it might cause some drivers to attempt to hide their texting while behind the wheel. (Stewart) Increasing the severity of the texting and driving law has also made other individuals question if its even needed since they say that the Nebraska Reckless Driving and Careless Driving laws already include that. (Kipper) Law enforcement has a great deal of experience with distracted drivers. Everyone seems to think that they can multi-task their different activities, even while driving a vehicle. (The Grim Reality of Texting and Driving) Nebraska state trooper Jeremiah Foster has seen many distracted drivers and one way he can tell is that they are not staying their lanes while driving down the road. (Distracted Driving Crashes on the Rise) Iowas police officers and state troopers have had many chances to see what texting and driving looks like on the roads since it became a primary offense that they can pull drivers over for last year. Troopers look for people scrolling and manipulating text on their phones and then they pull up alongside those cars according to Iowa State Patrol Sargent Nathan Ludwig. (Stewart) Conclusion Nebraska roads can be made far safer for everyone if the state legislature makes texting while driving a primary offense. The state should follow the example of most other states in this country. There have been many very tragic accidents involving lives lost or destroyed because of drivers choosing to read or respond to a text message while driving on the road. No text message is ever important enough to take this risk.

The 1960s Of The 1960 S - 994 Words

The 1960’s was a very influential time in the United States of America. The United States began to explore a new culture of people known as hippies. The USA endured a great scare of nuclear war from the Cuban Missile Crisis. This country lost two famous leaders from that era; John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., who were assassinated. The United States also began the move towards equality by passing the Civil Rights Act. The final major accomplishment from 1960’s was when Neil Armstrong was the first astronaut to land on the moon. The Hippie Counter Culture began in 1960. The hippie era was influenced more by personal happiness in which books, music, and fashion followed as result of their personification of a blissful society. Hippies did not care what others thought of them and their motto was â€Å"if it feels good, do it†. Hippies were seeking a utopian society. They participated in street theater and listened to psychedelic rock. As part of their culture they embraced more open sexual encounters amongst each other in their community and believed in use of psychedelic drugs which consisted of marijuana and LSD. The fashion choice that hippies dressed in was due to set them apart from the mainstream society. They choose to buy their clothing from thrift shops and flea markets (Haddock, 2011). Clothing choices are described as â€Å"brightly colored, ragged clothes, tie-dyed t-shirts, beads, sandals (or barefoot), and jewelry† (Haddock, 2011, para 7). Hippies also referredShow MoreRelatedThe 19 60s Of The 1960 S830 Words   |  4 Pages According to Horotitz’s Campus Life, the 1960’s were a tumultuous time. There was a lot of rebellion and unrest within colleges, students were beginning to explore activism and get away from being a part of normal college culture. The United States was becoming involved in Vietnam which prompted the draft which students didn’t agree with especially when they began to change up the rules and looked to draft college students. Black students were seeking inclusion, representation, and Civil RightsRead MoreThe 1960s Of The 1960 S1394 Words   |  6 PagesThe 1960’s were a time of great turmoil and change; people had many different ways to express themselves. Some did this through drugs, others through assassination, while some chose music. While there were many American musicians who were influential during the 1960s such as Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and The Eagles, arguably none were as influential as The Beatles . Consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, helped change the face of popular culture of the 1960’s throughRead MoreThe 1960s Of The 1960 S1907 Words   |  8 PagesThe 1960’s was a time of change. The world experienced many different transformations and so much violence as many different things were coming to bloom. There was love and war all over the United States of America. As I observe this capsule being brought out of the ground I am amazed to see the little etch on the side of it, â€Å"The world as it changed†. I am anxious and taken aback when I begin to remove the contents of what I now realize is a time capsule from many years ago. The 1960’s to be exactRead MoreThe 1960s Of The 1960 S1912 Words   |  8 PagesThe 1960’s brought about many changes to culture in the United States. Gone was the age of conformity; students were no longer going to remain silenced and blacks refused to have their voices and rights suppressed anymore. As it had been for centuries and will likely remain the case, life for blacks and whites was drastically different: most of the blacks in the country lived in the South under Jim Crow laws; white Americans were more preoccupied with Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt. NoRead MoreThe 1960s Of The 1960 S3175 Words   |  13 Pages The 1960’s was a time of revolutionary change in many different aspects including civil rights for African Americans. A lot of attention was brought towards the south in the United States, where many contempt African Americans were tired of racism and denied their basic human rights. Unfortunately, despite the countless protests and loud civil rights movement, little has changed in contemporary America. 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All the music, the clothes, the amount of freedom, just everything. I could never understand it but I’m pretty sure I do now. The dreams so now always have first tarted a few years ago. I would be driving down a dark narrow road with a forest on both sides. Always super dark. I know it is cold and that it is winter although I can’t feelRead MoreThe Invention Of The 1960 S1319 Words   |  6 PagesThe 1960’s made an huge contribution to the world today. Many significant innovations were made around the world at this time. Also, many downfalls happened for lots of countries around the world. The 1960s are known for the assassins of many important persons from different countries. All in all, from the inventions of Etch-a-sketches to the first moon landing, the 1960’s changed the lives of people worldwide. The culture before the 1960’s of course had a big impact on how people acted in the

Benefits Of The For Medicare Payment System ( Mips )

MIPS. It sounds like some kind of disease. And for many providers, it will likely cause as much pain. Starting in 2017, physicians will have to deal with the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). MIPS is intended to measure the performance of Medicare Part B providers in four different performance areas (30% by VBM-measured resource use (claims data), 30% by VBM-measured quality (PQRS data), 25% by Meaningful Use (EHR data), and 15% by a newly introduced â€Å"clinical practice improvement† measure). Providers will then be given a score between 0 and 100. These scores will impact practices in a couple of different ways: 1) Negative scores will affect providers’ Medicare reimbursement 2) Scores will be made available to consumers online†¦show more content†¦Beginning next year, 2017, providers will begin to be scored by the new MIPS measurements and that score will directly impact 2019 reimbursements. And, as we mentioned, on top of being financially impacted by MIPS, providers are also looking at reputation ramifications of low MIPS scores, which will be made public online. The sooner practices can ensure their performance in Meaningful Use, PQRS, and the Value-Based Modifier, the better prepared they’ll be for 2019 MIPS implementation. What Can You Do to Get Ready? With a little over 6 months to prepare, there is much physicians can do to get themselves and their practices ready for MIPS implementation and set themselves up for success. Focus You Efforts When you look at the percentages that will make up the MIPS scores, about 85% will go toward PQRS, MU and VBM. In other words, while you may have secretly prayed at night for these incentive programs to go away, they are not going anywhere. These are the areas you’ve got to focus your efforts on right now. Become a master at these and you’ll be way ahead of the game in 2017. Identify the Quality Measures That Will Most Affect You You’ll want to drill down to identify the clinical quality measures in these current programs that will affect your scope of practice the most. Once you identify them, get as familiar as you can with them so you can score well in your sleep! Maximize Efficiency Because you don’t have a plethora of hours in the day to practice

The Question of Gender Equality in the Armed Forces free essay sample

This study draws on qualitative data and secondary research to analyse the themes of gender, militarism, violence and war. Paying particular attention to women’s experiences in the British Military throughout the study, the ideologies of gender within the armed forces are examined with examples from history. The effect of women’s increased integration into militaries is analysed for both ideological and policy changes to the armed forces, and the effects on the women’s own identities. Focusing on the military as a labour market and as a means to citizenship rights allows for discussions of equality for women within militaries, finally leading to theoretical discussion of the ethics and impact of violence and militarism, exploring the subjectivity of knowledge and the possibility of imaging alternative orders. INTRODUCTION Rationale and Literature Review That we have to talk about ‘women and the armed forces,’ shows the deeply gendered nature of our understandings of militaries and war. The fact that it is necessary to specify ‘female combatants’ indicates their historical rarity, and symbolic position as unconventional figures. Traditionally, war has been perceived as a masculine endeavour for which women may serve as victim, spectator, or prize. Perhaps, as Francine DAmico suggests, the abundance of feminist analysis of the subject is precisely a result of women’s positioning within wars, and the silencing of their war stories. 1 Perhaps our scrutiny is a fascination for the unknown. Perhaps we need to reclaim an erased identity, to legitimize our ability to speak within heavily masculine arenas. The question raised by this study is whether we must participate in war to claim that voice? Cynthia Enloe reminds us to question all which seems most natural, inevitable, or traditional to us. Masculinity and femininity are two categories which demand such attention, and the work of feminists and gender theorists have formed increasingly strong cases which reveal these distinctions as having been made through particular decisions, by specific people. 2 By this understanding, the involvement of women in state militaries is never random. 3 Robert W. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity refers to a particular set of masculine norms and practices that have become dominant in specific institutions of social control. To become hegemonic, cultural norms must be supported by institutional power. Hence, hegemonic masculinity is a set of norms and practices associated with men in powerful social institutions. 4 Once a particular set of behaviours has been established as the norm for appropriate conduct within any institution, it becomes difficult to critique, partly because normativity makes certain practices appear ‘natural’. As Annica Kronsell argues in her study of the Swedish Military, in the history of most military institutions, â€Å"masculinity has been normalized and regularized. †5 This study will draw particularly from existing research about the British context. In a relatively short time, the armed forces of the United Kingdom have made significant advances to integrate women within their military, for various organisational, political and social reasons. 6 Reflecting the political trends in global security and developments towards non-traditional military operations (for instance peacekeeping, peace enforcement and humanitarian intervention), the international movement has been towards an extension of military roles for women, and at present women play a more active and visible role in the armed forces than ever before. 7 â€Å"The increase in the proportion of women in the Armed Forces raises practical and policy issues for the decision-makers within the armed forces. It also raises cultural questions about how gender is understood within the Armed Forces; the challenges which the presence of women in increasing numbers bring to military culture8 and how these matters circulate within and beyond the military into the British society and the international arena as whole. The extent to which women are integrated into the armed forces will be discussed in relation to ideological processes generated by security elites. In the process by which elites in any state conceptualize ‘security,’ the decision-makers must compare threats and enemies, and in doing so, some concerns are prioritised, and others ignored. Such ideological procedures inevitably affect the validity of alternative defence strategies, and again, these are ranked according to their ability to maintain the current order. It is the defense and maintenance of the structures of public authority in the face of either domestic or external challenge which will receive most attention. While constructions of masculinity and femininity are always circulating in and around militarism and war, women -and their bodies- are primary considerations for military and state leaders. The ideological processes that shapes a state’s uses of women in the armed forces are determined by the structures distinguishing and reconciling women’s many roles and ‘natural’ characteristics within that society. 9 One of our goals will be to uncover the process by which gender ideologies are modified, contested and renegotiated by war and militaries. How has war shaped what the culture accepts as ‘natural’ or ’true’ about men and women? And how are men and women shaping militaries and the war-system? Does war result in increased sexual equality? By exploring the conditions under which states include women in the militaries, we contribute to the mounting social science literature and theory concerned with women’s military roles cross-culturally and historically. Research into women’s contemporary military roles, and how gender is constructed within the armed forces is of course, not new within the social sciences, nor is the study of the military experience oriented towards understanding construction of gender identities. There is a growing body of work on femininities and the military experience, with Cynthia Enloe’s work regarding the militarisation of women’s lives providing fresh insights for the Post-Cold War years. Nira Yuval-Davis’ examinations of the links between gender, militarism, and national identities; Christopher Dandeker and L. P. Peach’s cross-national comparative work on combat exclusion; Juanita Firestone and Carole Pateman’s studies on occupational segregation and Segal’s exposition of a broader cross-cultural theorization of women’s military roles, have all contributed to broader theories about the social construction of gender, and have provided the discussion about gender and the military experience with much insight and diversity of theory. Philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jean Bethke Elshtain provide great insight into deconstructing violence and militarism with the purpose of exposing the temporal and subjective nature of political Realism, and its excessive focus on war. The subject of women’s relationship with the military has created intense debate amongst many protagonists, reflecting the controversy and the importance of the issues involved. 10 They may be briefly sketched according to their basic orientation on this issue of combat, ranging from those who are strictly opposed to any utilization of women in the armed forces, to those who ardently support complete access for women. Both military traditionalists and the pacifist feminists, for example, are opposed to women in the armed forces in general and in the combat arms in particular, but their reasoning could not be more opposed. The military often portrays women soldiers as disruptive in combat situations, by exposing the military gender system and therefore damaging the efficiency of the masculine war machine. 11 Feminist observers, on the other hand, tend to regard women soldiers role in a wider debate, as either serving or harming women’s interests. 12 As Orna Sasson-Levy points out, the ongoing debate regarding women’s military service tends to view women soldiers as â€Å"pawns in a bigger game. †13 The most dominant question in this debate is whether military service is a venue for equal citizenship for women or a reinforcement of masculine concepts of security and power. Thus, the contemporary debate on women in the military tends to remain on the macro level and ignores the gender experience of women soldiers themselves. I find that the most interesting arenas for studying gender are those where the ideologies of masculinity and femininity are central to the organisation of social activity, and identity. In these more extreme settings, gender becomes a crucial distinction for stratifying society, and deciding how roles and responsibilities should be assigned. The inclusion of women in ultra-masculinised arenas can simultaneously expose the prioritisation of masculinities within cultures, and calls into question the gender identity of the women themselves. As women represent what has been conceptually and physically denied from masculinised institutions, women’s presence in these spheres reveals the shapes and forms of gender power within such organizations. 14 The narratives of the women become integral to the study, as their agency is often disregarded within the debate as a whole. It is also interesting to analyse how institutions that embody these understandings of gender, also play a dominant role in broader cultural meanings of gender. I find the consequences of this, and the processes by which ideologies of gender become naturalised fascinating, and especially seek to locate these debates within international and epistemological contexts. Theoretical Framework The complex nature of women’s location in institutions of hegemonic masculinity presents a challenge to researchers. Feminist standpoint and postmodernist theories support the argument that the individual woman within these institutions can generate important insights about systems of control, and the effects of gendered hierarchies. Meghana Nayak and Jennifer Suchland have shown that by analysing practices carried out in different sites within hegemonic institutions, highly abstract notions of masculinity can become concrete. The narratives of military women reveal the highly complex operations of hegemonic masculinity. 15 Nancy Harstock’s argues that in this respect, that â€Å"one can only know and appropriate the world (change it and be changed by it) through practical activity. †16 Thus, it is not only what women experience as they go through life, but the insight or consciousness they can gain from their activities and interactions in a gendered world, that produces knowledge. This approach is particularly useful when looking at the effects of militarism on women, and Enloe’s extensive work on this subject prioritises their voice, and their knowledge. I would argue, however, that standpoint theory’s focus on ‘women’s knowledge’ and ‘women’s lives’ as a privileged position for making knowledge claims has tended to essentialize and universalize deconstruct the category ‘woman. ’17 The stability of the category ‘woman’ in standpoint theory has been contested at length by theorists such as bell hooks, along lines of class, sexuality and ethnicity. 18 Since all societies are stratified by class, ethnicity, race, access to natural resources as well as gender, hooks and others argue that there are no ‘women’ standing outside these stratifications. As such, I also utilise feminist and postmodern conceptualizations of identity as relational and situational specific, constructed through everyday repetitive practices. 19 Following much of Judith Butler’s theory, gender identities are analyzed as a â€Å"never-ending series of performative practices, which are repetitive imitations of an imagined gender identity. †20 This theory is extremely useful when analysing identity practices within militaries, as it espouses open and changeable notions of gender. The contrast between the approaches of standpoint and postmodern feminism will help to evaluate whether the possibility of mutual or common political interests between women are possible, despite the unstable and shifting the status of the category ‘woman’. They will also enable us to evaluate the subjectivity of knowledge gained from the various sources of this study. Methodology Theorists of Feminism and International Relations Rebecca Grant and Kathleen Newland regard a feminist epistemology a simply meaning that gender is a key element to the theory and practice of research. 21 They argue that â€Å"The lens of gender offers not just an alternative vision of the world, but one that is more whole and more representative of the spectrum of experience out of which international conflict and cooperation arise. It offers the possibility of an escape from one of the major sources of fragmentation and distortion in our discipline. †22 The extent to which a methodology is feminist, however, stretches beyond the theory which underpins the study. Helena Carreiras reminds us of the importance of â€Å"analysis† exclusively based on the ‘subjective’ dimension of women’s perceptions and representations†23 This study focuses on the subjective gender experience of women soldiers in military roles and the meaning of those experiences at both the microlevel of women’s lives and the macrolevel of the military and state â€Å"gender regimes†. 24 The primary qualitative data for this study will be collected by a small sample of semi-structured interviews informed by feminist interview techniques, with women from the British Military, focusing on prioritising the voice of the research participant throughout the study. Semi-structured interviewing is more flexible than standardised methods such as the structured interview or survey, and a feminist interview method encourages a more reflexive approach that aims to neutralise the hierarchical, exploitative power relations that were claimed to be inherent in the more traditional interview structure, which has traditionally marginalised, inadequately represented, and even excluded womens experiences. Contemporary feminist approaches acknowledge gender inequality and seeks to incorporate an awareness of gender relations through a reflexive approach to interviews. Ann Oakley’s methodology addresses these issues, and she argues that, â€Å"In most cases, the goal of finding out about people through interviewing is best achieved when the relationship of interviewer and interviewee is non-hierarchical and when the interviewer is prepared to invest his or her own personal identity in the relationship. †25 The feminist researchers primary motivations are to empower women and to restructure the imbalance of equality in understanding womens experiences, and so feminist research challenges both the knowledge which is produced and the methods of producing knowledge. Through social research, feminist methods go beyond studying women as objects of investigation. Rather they seek to challenge gender inequalities in social research and to motivate emancipatory, political change of womens experiences in society, engaging with them and recognising the role of the researcher and the influence this has upon the study. In their study of feminist methodologies, Judith A. Cook and Mary Margaret Fonow emphasise the need to challenge the norm of objectivity that assumes that the subject and object of research can be separated from one another and that personal and grounded experiences are unscientific. 26 One way in which feminist researchers have addressed this is through treating the interview as co-constructive. Ann Oakley’s feminist paradigm for interviewing aims to minimize objectification of the subject as data by viewing the interview as an â€Å"interactional exchange. †27 Feminist researchers claim that developing a rapport with interviewees is an essential part of establishing trust, respect and maintaining an empathetic position, and gathering knowledge not just ‘for the sake of it’, but for the women who are providing the information too. Oakley advocates that answering the questions of interviewees humanizes the researcher and places the interaction on a more equal footing. 28 This research method rejects the positivistic ideal of producing an impersonal and objective account of experience. Although the interviewer in this technique will have some established general topics for investigation, this method allows for the exploration of emergent themes and ideas rather than relying only on concepts and questions defined in advance of the interview. Cook and Fonow note that a further aspect of feminist methodology requires investigation into professional gate-keeping practices, including the influence of gate-keeping on topic selection and research funding and the formulation and implementation of alternatives to the present gate keeping system. 29 The relatively closed nature of the military can make it difficult for an interested researcher to secure access to this field. As such, interviews will be arranged with individual women from the Royal Navy, the Royal Airforce (RAF) and the Army through personal recommendations. Despite these connections, the concern for ethical implications of the research are central to the study, and correct ethics procedures will be maintained throug hout the study, with participants being reassured of their anonymity, the availability of copies of the final draft, and security that the information provided will only be used for the purpose of this dissertation, without any view for publication. Studies such as Pamela Cotterill’s concerned with the subject of interviewing women have highlighted the problem that ‘public’ and ‘private’ divisions have their equivalent within language. 30 I have been conscious of the language I have used in this study so as to avoid subordinating women through my research. 31 The experience of individual women, does not, unsurprisingly, produce analogous understandings of gender patterns and feminist theories. Therefore, consciousness about any particular experience must be connected to a wider set of gendered power relations that structures those experiences. We must contextualize individual experiences and isolated events and an important role for the feminist academic is to become a ‘mediator’ between knowledge gained through women’s and men’s daily experiences and knowledge of global gender relations gained from ‘outside. ’32 Despite my focus on the British experience, the case studies and secondary readings used in this research project provide rich empirical material from countries and cultures across the globe, with examples selected which combine both variations and similarities which are sufficient to engage in and develop my research. The standpoint and postmodern theories employed in the approach the semi-structured interviews and their analysis will develop my understanding of whether identity practices reflect a human agency capable of negotiation, renewal, and change and the extent to which they are limited and conditioned by the structure of social relations. 33 Thus, focusing on identity practices enables me to comprehend more fully â€Å"the complexities of structural demands versus human agency, without unduly privileging one over the other† 34 Informed by Sasson-Levy’s interview style in her study of Israeli soldiers, I can analyze how subjective meanings are created at different locations within structures of inequality. 35 As such, I address questions at both the macro- and micro-level, focusing both on the interaction between state institutions and identity practices. CHAPTER ONE THE MILITARY AND IDEOLOGIES OF GENDER â€Å"What we do we often do somewhat unthinkingly, repeating inherited patterns, reconstructing familiar identities, re-encoding traditional scripts. †36 Jean Bethke Elshtain In contrast to Clausewitzs description of war as a continuation of politics by other means, philosopher Hannah Arendt questions the historic transformations and practices that have made possible â€Å"a consensus among political theorists from Left to Right to the effect that violence is nothing more than the most flagrant manifestation of power. †37 Revealing the war system and militaries in this light, demands that we pay attention to the conceptions that allow for this current order. War is understood within an international system and state culture that bases its conceptions of political community on the premise that men’s membership in certain kinds of political collectivities, is related to their preparedness to sacrifice their lives for national security or state interest. 38 The pervasiveness of war in history, and our expectation that men will take part in war has profound consequences for our understandings of masculinity and femininity, and in her work Women and War, Jean Bethke Elshtain has argued that women’s social roles can only be understood when the significance of war and militarism within our societies is fully realised. Thus, for both men and women, ‘gender’ and ‘war’ are inescapably bound together in the history of western thought and practice. There is a close connection between state-making and war-making. Max Weber defines the state precisely by its monopoly over the legitimate use of force, which forms the basis of the coercive power from which states rule particular territories and people. 39 Following this, Nira Yuval-Davis notes that establishing a ‘people’s army’ or introducing national draft has historically been one key method of legitimating particular regimes and governments in various cultures and eras. 40 Gendered and feminist analyses reveal that the state is in almost all cases male dominated, and is in many different ways a masculinist construct. Jan Jindy Pettman argues that â€Å"It is simply not possible to explain state power without explaining women’s systematic exclusion from it. †41 Cynthia Enloe articulates that the military is â€Å"not just another patriarchal institution,†42 but is the institution most closely identified with the state and its particular ideologies. In her historical and cross-cultural study of women’s military roles, Mady Wechsler Segal confirms that the armed forces have traditionally been defined as the most prototypically masculine of all social institutions. 43 It follows that for women to participate in this manly endeavour, either the perception of the armed forces must have changed to make it more amenable to women and femininity, or women have to be perceived as changing in ways that make them more compatible for military service. Segal notes a third option, that the security situation could be so extreme that the ideological concerns are less of a priority than that of national defense. 44 Analysis of the various interrelational factors influencing women’s relationship to, and conceptions of, the armed forces will bring us closer to understanding whether a state’s greater emphasis on ascription by gender limits womens military role. The apparent malleable nature of women’s involvement in the military indicates that conceptions and ideologies are not objective, but socially constructed, and require constant redefinition over time, as the priorities and demands of the armed forces change, and as other structural influences also evolve. Women’s experiences of war, therefore, whether they are treated as actors or subjects, are susceptible to the construction of gender, but also race, class national and political structures operating in and around their lives. Cultural norms about gender have a profound impact on how women are regarded in relation to war, what is expected of them in times of national crisis, and the strength of the repercussions suffered for acting outside the accepted gender boundaries. 45 Developing Segal’s arguments, Darlene Iskra et al. argue that social values about force, power and domination particularly determine how the military is perceived in the society and how the society is able to imagine conflict, and conceive of its resolution. 46 The further into the study of gender relations we explore, particularly with regard to military policies and ideologies, the more apparent it seems that we should not concern ourselves with any objectively ‘true’ or ‘neutral’ knowledge. Rather, this study begins only with the understanding that the discourse of gender and importantly, gender differences, have presently in most societies, great importance attached to them. This has resulted in profound consequences for women and men’s lives. I look to analyse how the interpretation of these ideologies is contextual and changeable, and the effects of these processes are made visible in sites of contention, such as the military. Which particular ideologies of gender have allowed for war to be elevated to its current position within our realist international security agenda? And how are women’s experiences of military life affected by preconceptions of gender roles capabilities? Examining the extent to which wars depend on ideologies of gender and gendered power relations in order to function and evaluating the effect of social, national and political influences on women’s integration into the military will help us to theorise about the constructions of gender implicit to these policy debates, and what this will mean for women’s future military participation. Social Construction and Prevailing Notions of Gender The meanings of sex and gender are socially and historically contingent, and as such, not concepts that are easily definable. Feminists and gender theorists interrogate the essentialist categories of man and woman; male and female, that we use to understand both sex and gender. 47 Even the distinction of ‘sex’ as a purely biological classification, and ‘gender’ as a socially constructed phenomenon is problematic, and excludes those people who identify themselves as asexual, intersexual, transsexual and hermaphroditic. We must also interrogate the dominance of gender as mode of identity formation. Postmodern feminist theory has challenged the universal application of gender, and the perpetuation of its discursive effects, focussing on the category of ‘woman’ in its ability to represent and initiate feminist interests and goals within the discourse. Judith Butler explores the concept of representation as a normative function of a language which is said to â€Å"reveal or to distort what is assumed to be true about the category of women,†48 primarily as this approach pre-empts who is included, and importantly, who is misrepresented or entirely excluded from that category. This undermines the stability of the term ‘women’ and following this argument, the subjects of feminism are themselves regulated, defined and reproduced by the discursive structures which determine them to be ‘women’ in the first place. Whilst the collapse of the category of ‘woman’ would indeed signify a real change to the present gender order, the primacy of gender roles in war and militaries must be attended to if social change and equality are to be realised. It is useful to consider the dynamic construction of sex and gender by theorising about masculinities and femininities broadly, conceptions which Laura Sjoberg describes as â€Å"stereotypes, behavioural norms and rules assigned to people based on their perceived membership in sex categories. †49 I support the approach that gender is not static, but a contingent and changing social process. Connell’s interpretation of gender as a set of discourses which represent and construct and have the power to alter meaning and power within our cultures shows the importance of gender as an analytical concept. 50 This approach enables us to understand the diverse, and sometimes conflicting nature of gender representations, whilst also acknowledging the prevalence of gendered discourses in both international politics and interpersonal identity formation. Following Connell’s approach, social structures such as labour and power are all implicated in any society’s ideas of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’. These structures ideologically construct ‘women’ and ‘men’ in terms of certain characteristics. Zarina Maharaj notes that a certain type of sexuality and a certain possession or lack of authoritative, decision making capacity are regarded as gender identity markers in this way. 51 The extent to which particular roles and norms are seen as appropriate to each gender is therefore socially determined,52 and the division of social activities, responsibilities and capabilities are made along the lines of ‘male’ and ‘female. ’ The degree to which a society exaggerates or minimises the importance of sex differences is reflected in the fabric of its institutions, the history of its traditions and cultures, and the perceptions of its citizens. Therefore, it is my belief that the social roles of men and women, the extent to which deviations to these roles are tolerated, and the boundaries which confine our understandings of gender and sex, are regulated by states and elites in decision-making positions. It follows then, that these definitions are subject to change and due to the activities and knowledge produced by the women’s movement of the past decades, gender roles have indeed been widely discussed in society at large and, have resulted in the establishment of different, non-traditional role models for women. The feminist actions of women themselves are not, however, the only source of change where ideologies of gender are concerned, and in Segal’s model for theorising the women’s involvement in militaries, she argues that political, international, social, cultural and military pressures all influence the level of integration in a state’s armed forces,53 and furthermore, the causal links between these influences and the structure of a society are not always clear, but operate in a interrelational fashion. It is important to understand that the military plays a significant role in determining the degree to which women have become integrated within the armed forces, and economic, political and technological changes have all affected the physical and ideological positioning on women in regard to the military, and in response to its particular requirements. The Status of War Anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt concludes that with war, as with â€Å"all matters cultural, the society shapes natural human capacities and potentialities to it’s accepted purposes, reinforcing some and suppressing others†¦by systematically rewarding and punishing, by indoctrinating youth, creating role models to be emulated, and honouring those who perform well. †54 Behind any war is a system of beliefs that permits them to occur. Standing militaries, training and defence funding take up large proportions of almost every state budget, directly impacting on society, its institutions and its culture. This reflects the global â€Å"predisposition to resort to violence†55 to resolve conflict or pursue interests. This constructivist argument frames war as a human activity and there is much space within it for imagining alternatives to the war system we know. The same capabilities could be applied in a different culture, into non-warlike practices. However, in his study of war and gender, Joshua Goldstein maintains that the connection between the two is â€Å"more stable, across cultures and through time, than are either gender roles outside of war or the forms and frequency of war itself. †56 This can be explained by taking the approach that war is not a natural endeavour for neither man or woman, but in an effort to convince men to lay their lives down for national causes, state ideologies have connected the most highly regarded forms of masculinity with soldiering and war. Goldstein contends that the war system as we recognise it has been shaped and adjusted but that the selection of men as combatants and women as supporters has been consistent across cultures and through time. 57 This tradition is evident in classical social contract theories, where the legitimation of violence, and the accordant citizenship rights attached to this, are exclusive masculine privileges, and this responsibility been utilised by states to divide its citizenry into active and passive halves. 58 This structure is not limited to the national context, and in the anarchical international system which dominant political realists imagine, Tickner confirms that power, autonomy, self-reliance, and rationality are all necessary characteristics of state behaviour, and all of these attributes are ones we associate with a socially constructed ‘ideal-type’ masculinity. 59 In the same way that men within societies have traditionally born the physical duty of defending their nati