Meat And Masculinity In The Armed Forces
Meat production is widely recognized as an environmental disaster and meat consumption has been devastating on a public health level as well. Some countries have recognized that something needs to be done, and have taken some initial steps to at least gesture towards the problem and begin addressing it. One such country is Norway; like most countries, Norway’s public institutions have a tremendous amount of buying power, and they’ve been investigating the possible impact this could have through initiatives such as Meat-free Monday (MfM). In late 2014, the Norwegian Armed Forces announced they would introduce MfM in all military mess halls by the end of 2015, initiated due to concerns about improving the nutritional value and sustainability of the military diet.
In this study, researchers investigated the potential impacts of – and barriers to – the implementation of MfM in the Norwegian Armed Forces. Though they began the MfM program with good intentions, there were problems from the beginning. Firstly, there were organizational and structural factors that hampered it, namely, that “key policy makers in the Armed Forces were reluctant to promote reduced meat consumption as a sustainability measure.” Secondly, there were perceived problems with morale, as kitchen staff ” wanted to serve the soldiers food they wished to eat, and were concerned that reducing meat would foster negative reactions.” To this end, only a minority of the camps actually implemented any meat reduction measures at all.
To better understand this phenomenon, researchers conducted focus groups with several dozen military personnel who participated in the program. They found that, among the soldiers, food was seen as a set of building blocks, and meat was seen as the main component of the meal, the base of the structure. Interestingly, the researchers found that there was very little difference in the view of male and female soldiers about the perceived insufficiency of a vegetarian diet: they note that this indicates just how dominant a masculine view of meat eating is in the military.
The results of the study differ from those outside the military that show that women tend to be more open to a veg diet than men. While the results here are specifically applicable to a military context, they show how a masculine mindset can actively work against promoting a veg diet more broadly.