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2 The Generations of Enlisted Women Recent policy changes have turned a single chronological generation of enlisted women into several attitudinal and behavioral generations , as interviews with enlisted women reveal. In this chapter the cohort method of analysis will be adapted to register important policy changes, with emphasis on how different changes have affected different women. In assessing these effects it is important to remember that all women who join the U. S. military do so voluntarily. They do not enlist expecting or wishing to change the Army, Air Force, Navy, or Marines. The services do change, though, and the changes can surprise service memberssometimes pleasantly, sometimes unpleasantly. Rapid changes mean that women enter and continue their service under a variety of implicit contracts. Further, these contracts vary among services. For example, Navy women agree to meet higher enlistment standards than men; this is not required of Air Force women. Air Force women have long competed with men for promotion; Army women have not. On the other hand, Marine Corps enlisted women have always been segregated from men during basic training, whereas women in the other services have not. Variations that have developed over time are even more dramatic: the introduction of weapons training, a shift from limited geographical assignments to involuntary remote and at-sea ones, and a shift from women supervisors and co-workers to otherwise all-male work groups. Each change reversed earlier assumptions. Perhaps the biggest change for military women, though, has been from an implicit agreement to remain childless to the acceptance of an agreement (at least by some women) to remain in service despite pregnancy and motherhood. Most people learn the implicit terms of a work, marriage, or other contract through experience. Often one thinks of implicit terms as a 28 Copyrighted Material The Generations - 29 natural part of what it "means" to hold a particular job, to be married, to be in the military. When the terms of a contract change, that contract no longer seems so natural, so inevitable, and individuals in the changing institution can more easily come to different conclusions about what is appropriate to and required by their role. In a hierarchical organization with little lateral entry and a promotion system linked to time in service, the views of personnel are likely to vary considerably by rank. Moreover, in a sharply pyramidal organization, the views of those with senior rank (those with official power) may be the views of a small percentage of the membership. Thus, to understand American enlisted women today, it is helpful to remember that they entered the military with various assumptions, and that senior women (who are few in number) have enjoyed (or endured) several revisions of their implicit contracts. Generational "differences" and "gaps" are a staple of public discussion . Generations (or, more precisely, cohorts) are also a tool for social analysis.l This method or approach is especially useful in the study of military personnel because people enter the military at approximately the same age, begin at the bottom of either the enlisted or officer ranks, and move through the system at about the same pace. Thus, date of entry is one of the most telling data one can have about a member of the military. Since it does not permit lateral entry, the military must "grow its own" personnel. Even people recruited for newly valuable attitudes and skills must start at the bottom and proceed upward. Thus, if a new piece of equipment creates a need for forty mid-level technicians, that need cannot be met by hiring forty mid-level technicians. Either technicians already in service must be retrained, junior technicians must be induced to stay and rapidly promoted, or potential technicians must be recruited, trained, and rapidly promoted. Further, when people leave the military (and most do), they tend to be permanently lost to the services. This means a fluctuating policy that leads to the demoralization and exodus of different kinds of people at different times can severely thin the senior ranks. Changes in military policy mean, then, that when policymakers solicit the views of senior military women, they get views colored by more than the usual generation gap. Discrepancies are further aggravated by the fact that the changed policies affect women differently at different points in their life cycle. In the discussion that follows, it is assumed that today's military women are members of a number of distinct age cohorts. The policy and social changes cohort members experience at...

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