but can she command a ship? acceptance of women by peers at the coast guard academy

Sex Roles, P'oL 16, Nos. 3/4, 1987

But Can She Command a Ship? Acceptance

of Women by Peers at the Coast Guard Academy 1

Gwendolyn Stevens Department o f Humanities United States Coast Guard Academy

Sheldon Gardner Child Guidance Clinic o f Southeastern Connecticut, New London

The integration of women into the military, mandated by legislation in 1976, was problematic at first; several studies suggested that women were not welcomed by their colleagues. Peer acceptance is an important issue for the Coast Guard, since female officers are not officially discriminated against in duty assignments. Results o f this current study, which assessed whether or not male Coast Guard cadets" attitudes have changed over time, suggest that males have become more tolerant of the idea of women in the military, and especially, that male cadets" perception o f their female peers becomes more positive over time. The results are discussed in terms of Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory.

Despite the legislation mandating that women be integrated into the military service of the United States, and therefore be given full and equal opportunity to excel, military leaders were concerned that gender integration may have the paradoxical effect of making the choice of a military career more difficult for women. Evaluated mainly by male officers and competing with males, women might suffer from increased hostility and prejudicial attitudes as they encroach into one of the last bastions of male sanctity (Rogan, 1981; Stiehm, 1981).

~This article is a revision of a paper presented at the 92nd annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada, August 1985.

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182 Stevens and Gardner

The issue of peer acceptance is potentially crucial for the United States Coast Guard. Whereas in the Army, Navy, and Air Force women provide primarily support services, in the Coast Guard women command ships and are expected to carry out operational functions regardless of peril or physical discomfort. Team effort is highly valued, not only because close quarters and demanding duties require compatibility and confidence that everyone will pull her or his weight, but also because much of the Coast Guard's mis- sion involves danger. Navigating a cutter or icebreaker in rough seas, rescu- ing sailors in peril, apprehending smugglers, and protecting our shores are duties that require courage, assertiveness, and calm judgment.

There was some reason to suspect that the fears of military leaders were justified. Research results shortly after integration indicated that military men were not accepting of women. Not only did men who had chosen a military career hold to social stereotypes concerning women, they more specifically subscribed to a perception of women whose "traits" would preclude leadership, command, or ability to deal with danger and stress. Males in high- ranking administrative positions in the military have frequently been reported to suggest that military endeavors, beyond mere support functions, are unfeminine. It has even been suggested that women's high-pitched voice dis- qualifies them from positions of command; orders cannot be delivered in a soprano voice (Binkin & Black, 1977; Long, 1979)!

Research has been conducted on various sources and expressions of sub- tle resistance to the acceptance of women as fully participating members of the military establishment, including studies of attitudes toward woman in the military and of definitions of the role of military women that reflect stereotyping (Fuller, 1973; King, 1973; Larwood, Glasser, & McDonald, 1980; Savell, Woelfel, Collings, & Bentler, 1979; Segal, Kinzer, & Woelfel, 1977; Thomas, 1977). Larwood et al. (1980), for example, assessed attitudes of ROTC members toward women cadets, both in 1975 and 1977. Their results suggest that, as might be expected, women had more "contemporary" attitudes about women in the military than did men, but most importantly, men's attitudes about women in the military improved over time. In a study of percep- tions of appropriate jobs for women in the military, Savell et al. (1979) reported that a majority of respondents saw no problem in women's adop- ting traditionally male jobs, but judged as inappropriate women as a "rifle- carrying infantry foot-soldier." Woelfel (1981) reported a 1975 Army-wide study that indicated that attitudes toward women commanders held by enlisted people were, while mixed, generally more favorable than negative. For example, he cited a 43.7°70 positive response to the idea that the administration of the Army would not change significantly if women were more often in positions of power.

Along with the integration of the regular armed services, the four service academies (West Point, Annapolis, Air Force, and Coast Guard) were

Can She Command a Ship? 183

also mandated to allow women full participation. Unlike the studies conducted in the "in the field," the early studies at the Air Force, West Point, and Coast Guard academies consistently reported a hostile and sexist attitude on the part of male cadets toward the women cadets and women in general [Cheatham, 1978; Marshak, 1978; Vitters & Kinzer, 1976 (as cited in Bridges, 1984)1.

During the academic year 1977-1978, Cheatham assessed attitudes towards women cadets at the Coast Guard Academy. He used the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (ATWS- Spence & Helmreich, 1972), general questions concerning women in the military, adapted from the Attitudes Toward Women in the Military Scale developed by the Air Force (Cheatham, 1978, p. 20), and specific items addressed to women in the Coast Guard. In analyz- ing the data from the 188 male and 22 female subjects, Cheatham suggested that the males at the academy reflected society's sexist attitudes toward women, both in terms of general responses to the ATWS and responses to the items regarding women in the military.

In the concerted attempt to deal with Cheatham's findings and to change the attitudes of male cadets, the administration of the Coast Guard Academy was working with social forces similar to those described by Festinger (1957). Male cadets, according to the general theory of cognitive dissonance, would be likely to feel what Festinger called "dissonance resulting from forced compliance." In their public acts toward female cadets, the men would display comraderie, unprejudice, and fair, direct competition, regardless of their private attitudes, for the military allows little defiance of authority. Festinger predicted that the dissonance produced under conditions of forced compliance and high motivation, i.e., where the rewards and/or punishments are important, will have the effect of changing "private opinions.., over and above what the variables in the situation, not including dissonance, would account for" (Festinger, 1957, p. 122). In other words, if male cadets are forced to treat female peers as equals, they will grow to perceive them as equal.

To test whether or not the academy and its inhabitants followed Festinger's prediction and have changed in the attitudes they hold toward women, the authors undertook a replication and extention of Cheatham's work. The data base was extended to include a civilian college, thus allow- ing the assessment of similarities and/or differences between cadets and civilian students. Three hypotheses were generated for the study. Since previous research has suggested (e.g., Larwood et al., 1980)--and since com- mon sense dictates-that women who enter a rigorous, nontraditional career are going to possess a "modern" attitude concerning what women are capable of, the first hypothesis was that the women's mean responses to both scales would reflect a more positive attitude toward women and women in the military than would the men's responses. The second hypothesis was that there would be no difference between the mean responses for the male sub-


jects, since there are data that support the idea that men who enter a military academy are not significantly different from men who attend a civilian school (DiMichiell, 1972; Enger, Mednick, & Fisher, 1972; Rootman, 1971). Last, based on Festinger's (1957) theory, the third hypothesis was that the mean responses for the male cadets would reflect a "neutral" attitude toward women and women in the m i l i t a r y - reflecting both a change over time in the general attitude at the academy and more agreement with general social attitudes toward women in nontraditional career choices.

METHOD

Subjects

Subjects were 222 undergraduate students at the Coast Guard Academy (16 women and 112 men) and a small civilian college in New England (68 women and 26 men). Altogether there were 84 women and 138 men who par- ticipated in this study; 44 freshman, 108 sophomores, 24 juniors, and 46 seniors. The schools matriculate students f rom all over the country and from a variety of socioeconomic strata.

Instrument

The 55 statements of the ATWS were used in combination with 17 questions assessing attitudes toward women in the military (ATWM). The ATWM questions, modeled after Larwood et al. (1980), contained items such as "Women should not be allowed in any branch of the military," "I would not want to be in a combat unit headed by a woman," and "Women are too emo- tional to handle weapons." These were randomly distributed on the assessment instrument along with the ATWS questions.

The response scale was a Likert-type, with 1 indicating agreement and 5 indicating disagreement. The responses were tabulated in such a manner that a high score indicated a positive attitude toward women and a lower score indicated a more negative attitude. For the ATWS, the total scores could range f rom 55 to 275, and the total for the A T W M could range f rom 17 to 85. The instrument was administered to students in the classroom who could, by completing the inventory, earn extra credit points.

RESULTS

Initial analysis of the ATWS and ATWM, using an analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure from SPSS-X (SPSS, Inc., 1983), included the variable


of school and gender, and revealed, for the ATWS, that there was a main effect for school (F = 11.05, df = 1, p < .001) and for gender (F = 18.64, df = 1, p < .0001). The A T W M scale analysis revealed that there was a main effect for gender (F = 45.81, df = 1, p < .0001) and an interaction effect for school by gender (F = 7.34, df = 1, p < .007).

Tables I and II, respectively, display the means and standard deviations for the ATWS and the ATWM. Employing Tukey's honestly significance difference test (HSD; Kirk, 1968), the male cadets' mean response was significantly lower 6o < .01) (indicating a more negative response) than the other three groups: civilian males, civilian women, and Coast Guard Academy (CGA) women. Post hoc analysis of the data f rom the A T W M suggested that both civilian males' mean response and CGA males' mean responses were significantly lower 6O < .01) (indicating a more negative response) than both civilian women and CGA women's mean responses.

DISCUSSION

The current study was a replication and extension of one conducted in 1977-1978 at the Coast Guard Academy, where it was reported that male cadets were not favorably responsive to the female cadets who had begun to be integrated into the academy. The current results suggest that male cadets' attitudes toward women are more positive than they were previously and thus provides support for the study's hypotheses. The first hypothesis, i.e., that women's responses would reflect a more positive attitude than males toward women and women in the military, was supported; however, the women's responses on the ATWS were not significantly different f rom civilian males' responses.

The second hypothesis, that men's responses would be similar regardless of school attended, was only supported in the analysis of the responses for the ATWM; for the ATWS, male civilian's responses did not differ statistically f rom women's responses. However, the item mean for men on both the ATWS and A T W M was about a 3, which gave support to the third

Table !. Means and Standard Deviations for the ATWS by School and Gender

Gender Mean SD

Coast Guard Academy Female (N = 16) 171.81 9.79 Male (N = 112) 158.97 14.64

Civilian college Female (N = 68) 177.01 13.63 Male (N = 26) 168.46 12.11


Table !1. Means and Standard Deviations for the ATWM by School and Gender

Gender Mean SD Coast Guard Academy Female (N = 16) 70.37 8.46 Male (N = 112) 53.42 11.27

Civilian college Female (N = 68) 64.16 8.47 Male (N = 26) 58.57 6.23

hypothesis: the men's responses are not so much negative as they reflect a neutral attitude (male cadets ,~ ATWS = 2.89; male civilian .~ ATWS = 3.06; male cadets X ATWM = 3.14; male civilian ,~ A T W M = 3.44).

That the atmosphere at the Coast Guard Academy has changed agrees with Festinger's (1957) theory, i.e., as people change their behavior to meet the expectations of a "role" or respond to the need for compliance, their underlying attitude changes. The more the dissonance, that is, the more the underlying attitude is negative, when compared to the behavior, the more likely the attitude change. Cadets, like all military people, must abide by the rules in order to succeed. At the academy, one rule is that women will be treated as "equal." Even if the male cadets do not like the idea of women in the military, Festinger's theory would suggest that, after having to behave toward them without animosity, their attitude will change.

Specifically, this model would suggest that male cadets' attitude toward women should improve over time. To test this, the data was submitted to another ANOVA procedure where "grade" was included as an independent variable, and post hoc analysis revealed that fourth-class (freshman) males' mean response on the ATWS (X = 138.66) was significantly lower (p < .05) than the third-class (sophomores) cadets' mean response (X = 160.00), second-class (juniors) cadets' mean response (X = 156.00), and first-class (seniors) cadets' mean response (X = 160.00). Similarly, the mean response for fourth-class males to the A T W M (X = 39.00) was significantly lower (p < .05) than the mean response for the male third-class (X = 53.00), second-class cadets (.~ = 55.00), and first class cadets (X -- 55.00).

Item Analysis

Helmreich (Note 1) suggests that, when the entire ATWS is used, one should analyze responses to individual items. The item analysis revealed a significant difference for gender on 47 of the questions, but for 18 of the items no difference for gender was noted. There are two ways in which the items' responses might reflect no statistical difference; (1) the women and


men might agree-share a particular point of view; and (2) the women and men's responses might be equally distributed over all the possible response alternatives (the 1 through 5 on the Likert scale), thus creating no variance accounted for by gender. Evaluating the questions where the women and men's responses were apparently not statistically different revealed that for 13 of these 18 questions the women and men agreed, and the items reflected a concern that traditional social etiquette in interpersonal relationships should continue; in other matters, men and women should be considered equal and the treatment of women should be fair. These items probably reflect the in- trinsic "old-fashioned" etiquette of the military and also contemporary attitude toward women in general. The remaining five questions elicited an equal distribution for all response possibilities. These questions indicated that college students today are still in conflict over basic social issues, e.g., "Women earning as much as their dates should bear equal the expense when they go out together."

CONCLUSION

The officer ranks of the other services are comprised of mainly nonacademy graduates. The Coast Guard, however, is unique in that at least one half of its officer ranks is comprised of academy graduates. Thus the academy experience is very important in shaping how the officer corps will respond after graduation-how the officers will relate to female colleagues and subordinates. The data from this study, i.e., that cadets are more accepting of women as potential officers and colleagues than they were (as reported by Cheatham, 1978), paired with the forced compliance of equal opportunity legislation, suggest that as the number of women officers in- creases they will find even more acceptance by male officers. While these results at first glance may seem idiosyncratic to the Coast Guard, or perhaps the military in general, the implications are likely to be more far-reaching. Academy students are drawn from middle-American families, and hold what might be considered traditional ideas and attitudes about the world. That young persons from this environment seem to be modifying their traditional attitude toward women is encouraging. For women to compete equally with men in regular and nontraditional occupations, they need to be not only given a chance but perceived as being able to do the job. At the Coast Guard Academy, it appears, this perception is gaining.

REFERENCE NOTE

1. Helmreich, R. L., Personal communication, 1983.


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