Culture and Gender in Military Operations

Question 1

Recognize the 12 cultural domains

Answer 1

1. Family & Kinship
2. Religion & Spirituality
3. Sex & Gender
4. Politics & Social Relations
5. Economic & Resources
6. Time & Space
7. Language & Communication
8. Technology & Material
9. History & Myth
10. Sustenance & Health
11. Aesthetics & Recreation
12. Learning & Knowledge

Question 2

Describe the relationship between human security and national security.

Answer 2

Human security is the foundation for national security. When citizens experience insecurities such as violence, hunger, disease, natural disasters, and displacement in peacetime, instability in wartime is only aggravated.

Question 3

Describe the importance of applying a gender perspective.

Answer 3

Gender perspective is defined as an analytic view that examines how treatment of men, women, and children in a society shapes a persons needs, interests, control of resources, and security. Men, women, boys, and girls have unique security needs.

Question 4

Recognize the five barriers to cultural and gender competence.

Answer 4

1. Ethnocentrism
2. Stereotypes
3. Defense
4. Faulty Assumptions
5. Misrepresentation

Question 5

5 Barriers to Cultural and Gender Competence

• Viewing one’s own culture as best and measuring others cultures by one’s standards

Answer 5

Ethnocentrism

Question 6

5 Barriers to Cultural and Gender Competence

• A set idea people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong

Answer 6

Stereotypes

Question 7

5 Barriers to Cultural and Gender Competence

• Viewing cultural awareness or gender considerations as a threat or an annoyance; viewing these considerations as “nice-to-haves” versus necessary.

Answer 7

Defense

Question 8

5 Barriers to Cultural and Gender Competence

• The word “gender” is often used synonymously with “women” and resonates as exclusionary versus inclusionary; making assumptions about a culture could unintentionally offend a partner nation/ally.

Answer 8

Faulty Assumptions

Question 9

5 Barriers to Cultural and Gender Competence

• Gender awareness is often perceived as an effort to achieve quotas or push Western initiatives onto our patterns with their interest or consent.

Answer 9

Misrepresentation

Question 10

Recognize the definition of culture.

Answer 10

The creation, maintenance and transformation across generations of semi-shared patterns of meaning, sense making, affiliation, action and organization.