‘Prepared people cope better’ – critiquing militarized preparedness in the domestic and (re)imagining feminist alternatives

In November 2024, Finland published a Guide for citizens and households to prepare for ‘extraordinary events’. This initiative locates preparedness within the domestic sphere and thus makes households key sites of Finnish national security. Moreover, the Guide links everyday domestic life to broader military discourses. Through an iterative, reflective and dialogic analytical process, we explore how the Guide frames preparedness, and how it interacts with existing structures. Although the proposed practices of the Guide may appear harmless, we argue that the Guide infiltrates the domestic sphere by relying on gendered unpaid domestic labour division within the patriarchal organization of society. In doing so, it normalizes militaristic logics and mindsets in the domestic everyday. This paper offers a critical feminist analysis of Finland’s evolving preparedness landscape, with a particular focus on the above-mentioned Preparedness Guide. The aims of this paper are twofold. First, it contributes to feminist conversations on militarization in the Nordic context by critically examining the intersections of gendered preparedness work and everyday militarization; and second, it explores alternatives to dominant understandings of preparedness by engaging with feminist imaginaries rooted in care. This article highlights how militarized preparedness is reproducing patriarchal dynamics in everyday life and explores how feminist approaches can support reimagining preparedness and security beyond militarized frameworks.