Handbook of the Sociology of the Military by Giuseppe Caforio & Marina Nuciari

Author:Giuseppe Caforio & Marina Nuciari
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

But the numeric question remains important because it has consequences for a different type of problems, already discussed here when speaking about cohesion in integrated units. In the study by Rosen et al. (1996), the number of servicewomen was negatively correlated with cohesion of the integrated unit, in the sense that the negative effects of tokenism (role entrapment, boundary heightening, social isolation) affected cohesion, but the possible solution to tokenism was only apparent: increasing the number of women in units had unintended effects of enhancing negative attitudes toward women, since their growing minority was perceived as a threat to the declining majority. Here Blalock’s theory on minority group relations is relevant by considering the feeling of increased internal competition perceived by a once strongly majoritarian group when it sees its numerical superiority threatened by the growing minority.

Some distinctions proposed by Yoder (1991) permit to better place the role of tokenism: according to her findings, negative effects of tokenism function and are perceived only by individuals playing low prestige roles with respect to the majority, and in this case to increase the minority size in these roles should not have “Blalock-like effects”. For high and medium-high prestige roles, on the contrary, internal competition between the male majority and the female minority (as it is the case in the armed forces) would generate negative attitudes toward women, conversely related to the growth in numbers of the female minority.

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