THE CHALLENGES OF THE PROFESSIONAL ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN IN THE SERBIAN ARMED FORCES

Abstract

This paper examines the roots of the disproportionately low representation of women in command and management positions as compared to their outstanding involvement in all the activities of the Serbian Armed Forces. The key source for this empirical research is the data compiled by surveying military personnel of both sexes on the functioning of the gender-mixed military and organizational units of the Serbian Armed Forces. Within this authentic pool of information about the respondents’ opinions, attitudes, and sentiments, the paper aims to identify whether, and to what extent, the advancement of women in military service lags due to gender stereotypes, which structures contribute to this problem the most, and whether there are other reasons for such a low representation of women in high-ranking positions. The methods applied are statistical analysis and Chi-squared statistics (c2), which determine the deviations in the answers of groups of respondents, and the assessment of the statistical significance of this deviation (p-value). The results indicated two groups of causes: sporadic informal slowing of progress by senior officers, and the psychological and physical maladaptation of a significant number of women to field tasks.