"They jump out of planes and drive tanks" - A Feminist Visual Narrative Analysis of Women in the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) Digital Recruitment Campaigns (2022–2025)

Abstract: Research on how the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) seek to recruit women remains limited, despite women currently accounting for 13.63 % of the force. This master’s thesis examines how digital recruitment content targeting women between 2022 and 2025 reproduces or challenges gendered framings of women’s military participation. Drawing on a Feminist Visual Narrative Analysis (FVNA), the study analyses n = 212 posts and videos published on the Bundeswehr’s official YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok channels. The findings show that recruitment content simultaneously increases women’s visibility while continuing to reproduce militarised masculine norms. Women framed as “successfully” integrated soldiers are further positioned as symbolic exceptions (“Tokens”). This potentially undermines women’s military participation and might contribute to the persistently low representation of women within the Bundeswehr.