ABSTRACT

This chapter demonstrates how the fulfilment or the violation of the socially embedded expectations from the military service, continue to resonate in later life stages. In Israeli society, compulsory conscription applies to women as well as men, and therefore, for most Jewish young people, military service constitutes a key scenario of participatory citizenship and constructs distinctive trajectories into civilian life. Until the mid-1990s, the Israeli military preserved a rigid gendered division of labour, in which the majority of women soldiers served in traditionally feminine roles, at least 40 percent in secretarial and administrative jobs. Life course narratives are a very effective research strategy to examine the influence of military service on the individual, while placing the interpretation of the social agent at the centre. The woman secretary is the cultural icon of the women's inferior status in the military, and is often disparaged in Israeli culture.