Interacting with Women: Interpersonal Contact and Acceptance of Women in the U.S. Army

Female soldiers are more likely than male soldiers to have worked with other women, to have had experience with female supervisors, and to have more female friends. All three of these variables have weak but statistically significant relationships to holding contemporary views regarding women's...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Segal, David R, Woelfel, John C
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
ARMY PERSONNEL
ATTITUDES(PSYCHOLOGY)
COMPANY LEVEL ORGANIZATIONS
FEMALES
INFANTRY
MILITARY COMMANDERS
PE62717A
Personnel Management and Labor Relations
ROLES(BEHAVIOR)
SEX
TABLES(DATA)
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Summary:Female soldiers are more likely than male soldiers to have worked with other women, to have had experience with female supervisors, and to have more female friends. All three of these variables have weak but statistically significant relationships to holding contemporary views regarding women's roles among male soldiers. Only the number of female friends was associated with contemporary sex-role views among female soldiers. Of these three kinds of contact with women, among male soldiers only the experience with female supervisors was related to perceiving combat infantry roles as appropriate for women, and only the number of female friends was related to perceiving the company commander's role as appropriate for women. Apparently, while association with women does influence men's general sex-role attitudes, its impact is weaker on attitudes about the appropriateness of specific traditionally masculine jobs. Female soldiers with working mothers considered the jobs of infantry soldier and company commander more appropriate for women than did those whose mothers did not work. (Author)