Unisex dormitories in Norwegian army help prevent sexual harassment
Photo: EPA
The Norwegian Army has introduced unisex dormitories, which means that now women soldiers have started to share unisex bedrooms with their male colleagues in a bold, or as it may seem to some people, dangerous experiment. What has come as a result is the fact that a decrease in sexual harassment was registered as soon as the experiment started, as women reported.
A military base in northern Norway was equipped with new unisex dormitories, with each room putting two women with four men.
According to Ulla-Britt Lilleaas, the co-author of the report "The Army: the vanguard, rear guard and battlefield of equality", the women reported that
sharing bedrooms with their male colleagues helped them feel "one of the boys".
One woman soldier was surprised to see that rather than accentuate gender differences, sharing a room helped make them less relevant.
This move is the latest initiative coming from the Norwegian Armed Forces. In November the Norwegian Army announced that Norway's Armed Forces would "
serve soldiers vegetarian-only food one day a week in an effort to combat climate change". In August the country unveiled a new initiative saying that
male recruits "would be permitted to grow their hair long, so long as they kept it in pony –tails or braids, as is required for female recruits.
Comparing the unisex camp with a training centre for the Royal Norwegian Navy, where women and men have separate rooms, Lilleaas' co-author Dag Ellingsen said though the problem with girls' rooms is that in some cases they are characterized by conflicts and cliques.