Perceptions of Equal Opportunity among Women and Minority Army Personnel

Abstract

Equal opportunity (EO) is recognized by the Department of Defense (DoD) as being crucial to maintaining a high state of military readiness. In the last two and a half decades, a number of EO initiatives have been employed by the DoD and each of the military services in an effort to promote fair treatment of minorities and women. Social science literature suggests that the integration of racial minorities, particularly African American males, is a military success story. Some social scientists argue convincingly that the military has far surpassed civilian organizations in integrating African Americans.While the U.S. military has had a long history of addressing racial issues, problems concerning gender have only recently been addressed on a large scale. Some scholars assert that the military is the last male bastion in the United States. It lags behind the civilian sector in integrating women.This study examines the perceptions of active‐duty men and women in the U.S. Army to determine whether minority men are more satisfied with the equal opportunity climate than women and whether minority women are less satisfied with the equal opportunity climate than non‐minority (White) women. The purpose of this study is twofold: One objective is to examine differences within the gender category, i.e., African American, Hispanic, and White women. The other objective is to explore differences across gender. Degree of satisfaction is measured by responses to items on the Military Equal Opportunity Climate Survey (MEOCS). The data were stratified by rank level, officer and enlisted, and a General Linear Model (GLM) was performed with race, gender, and the interaction of race and gender as independent variables. In the final analysis, the data were stratified by paygrade, and a GLM was performed on each part separately. Among the findings, race is a more powerful predictor of the attitudes of active‐duty men and women toward the EO climate in their units than either gender or the interaction of race and gender. While gender is significant in most of the statistical models, and the interaction of gender and race is sometimes significant, these variables explain less than one percent of the variance. Although African American men are generally more satisfied with the EO climate than African American women, they are less satisfied than White and, in some cases, Hispanic men and women.