Combattre et parader

Abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a French army training center, this article aims at describing and analyzing the production of gender by the military institution. Becoming a soldier involves incorporating certain “techniques of the body” and a specific hexis which refers to professional efficiency requirements. At the same time as these activities which prepare bodies for the fight, an esthetic concern is frequently expressed during the training: young recruits are taught to take care of their appearance to be “handsome” and “immaculate”. Those opposite imperatives testify to the existence of plural military masculinities. One is based on traditional attributes of “virility” (violence, strength, endurance, pain tolerance), whereas the other is characterized by ostentation and self-control. This article shows that these two masculinities promoted within the same social and professional context have to do with the internal hierarchy of the institution.

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