Air University Review, January-February 1978

Assertiveness Training for the Military Woman?

Case 1: The bus shelter stands in front of the women's dormitory. It is deep; the bench inside is protected on three sides from wind and rain. The interviewer cites it as a convenience for the women. One of the group makes an angry grimace; another laughs self-consciously. "Sure it is," she says, "if you don't look at the walls."

"Walls?"

The angry woman answers, "Yeah! Inside they are covered with insults. Not just in writing, but carved in the wood. After they painted the shelter, you could still read the words, WAFs are this . . WAFs are that…"

"Have you reported it?"

"No. Who would care? We're just two-stripers. Or they'd say we're women, always complaining."

A younger woman shrugs off the discussion, "It isn't that serious. I know those things aren't true, so I don't let them bother me. I just look away."

Case 2: Sergeant McC has her uniforms made in the tailor shop. She is tall and fine-boned. On duty she wears her long blonde hair in a bun. The other women regard her as an example of what a woman should look like in uniform. But it is her attitude as much as her appearance that impresses people; she is career-minded. She feels she must prove that women can succeed in "male" jobs. When she is assigned to work behind the desk (actually a high counter) in the security station, she must climb onto the desk to raise the heavy door above it. The men do not have to do this, for they are taller or stronger than she is. However, she has "sworn" that she will never ask any of the men to do anything for her.

Case 3: A/1C laughs when she hears Sergeant McC, She says that she herself is just the opposite. She will let the men do her whole job if they want to. There is much she pretends not to be able to handle, just to get out of work, She goes on to explain what she does, or says, to elicit help. The rest of the women laugh, agree, add comments. Sgt. McC presses her lips together and says nothing more. It is obvious she is a minority in this group.

Case 4: Senior Airman R is very happy in the Air Force. She works in supply; her supervisor praises her for her quickness to do the menial parts of her job cheerfully. In this, he says, she is superior to the young men of the same age and training who work for him, She is the enlistee par excellence: her morale is high; she takes advantage of recreation facilities; she is. a conscientious, even enthusiastic, participant in the Extension Course Institute program. However, she wears her hair in such a strange fashion that even the base commander has commented on it. Since she violates no rules, she cannot he reprimanded for the odd style. Her superior, a male, is at a loss as to what to do. He fears tears and suggests that the interviewer speak to her about it. A male officer comments, "She must have been sick the day they gave them hair styling in Basic." Such small incidents and attitudes are the drops that make up tides, tides. which are reflected on personnel charts in reenlistment numbers, efficiency quotas, and career progression graphs. Even though all four cases concern women, they are not uniquely "feminine" situations, The problems transcend sex, and vast programs in all divisions of the Human Resources Branch are geared to deal with the discrimination, malingering, and lack of team spirit illustrated. Only in Case 4, where those with the real problem of adjustment were male officers or NCOs, is there no obvious organizational way of handling what they feel is a problem.

What is unusual about these cases is the way in which the women have acted or reacted. Young males, black or white, would have handled the situations very differently and, for the Air Force's purposes, in more desirable ways. They would have complained to Social Actions, demanded help from a crew mate, argued with a malingerer, or have been available for a frank discussion about a personal idiosyncrasy. In brief, they would have been assertive. No inhibitions because of their sex would have kept them quiet.

But since male assertiveness is based more on the good self-image that most young men have¹ than on natural aggressiveness; and since female nonassertiveness stems more from social conditioning than from their admitted nonaggressiveness,² it would seem logical that the Air Force should make an attempt to counteract the women's conditioning by trying to raise their self-image and by giving them courses in how to be assertive. Hours spent teaching young female recruits about make-up or hair styles could be better used to help them raise their self-estimates and develop interpersonal skills so that they can start their Air Force careers with the same degree of confidence that young male recruits face new situations.

It must be remembered that assertiveness is not aggressiveness. Hand -to-hand combat or guerrilla warfare may call for aggressive behavior, but otherwise, strongly aggressive people are a handicap, even to an organization designed to make war. It is important to point out this distinction before continuing the argument for Assertiveness Training for military women, partly because aggressiveness in women is considered an undesirable characteristic by both men and women and partly because the two words are often incorrectly interchanged. When aggressive is used as a complimentary term for a man, the speaker usually means assertive. An assertive salesman, for example, interests and wins clients; an aggressive salesman antagonizes them.

One of the leading exponents of Assertiveness Training defines the characteristics in this way:

Nonassertive behavior is that type of interpersonal behavior which enables the person's rights to be violated in one of two ways; (a) the person violates his/her own rights….ignoring them or (b)….permits others to infringe on his/her rights...

Assertive behavior is that type of interpersonal behavior in which a person stands up for his/her legitimate rights in such a way that the rights of others are not violated

Aggressive behavior . . . is behavior in which a person stands up for his/her rights in such a way that the rights of others are violated. ^.3

These definitions were developed by Ms. Jakubowski-Spector while preparing a monograph on assertiveness for the American Personnel and Guidance Association. Her scholarly work has become a reference for writers of the best-selling paperback hooks that have made Assertiveness Training a subject of discussion for anyone who is interested in human relations. Psychologists and career counselors have developed assertive training workshops appropriate for businesses and the educators and clergy who are familiar with this literature use it to enliven their classes or sermons.

The danger here is that this very popularity makes many women, to whom such books are especially addressed,⁴ feel they already know enough about assertiveness to make training in the subject unnecessary. Military women, by enlisting, have made a giant step; they feel, into the world dominated by men. Anything more would smack of Women's Liberation, and though uniformed women feel strongly about having equal rights, they also feel strongly about not being "libbers" or extremists.

Air Force surveys and civilian polls⁵ reveal that women are decidedly more conservatives than men. They know far less about the women’s movement or their own rights than blacks or other minorities, or even whites, know about black history or the civil rights laws.⁶

However, since women usually have a lower image of women in general than they have of themselves as individuals, ⁷ it is necessary to raise their opinion of their entire gender, as well as their personal self-confidence. A miniconsciousness raising session should precede Assertiveness Training and is, in fact, included in the most comprehensive of the paperback books, The New Assertive Woman. This work aims to convince women of the stark necessity as well as the advantages of being assertive, and, through questionnaire, it helps them spot areas where they are aggressive or nonassertive.

Body language; voice pitch, timbre, and expression, posture, grooming and choice of clothes--all reveal a person’s self-estimate. These qualities are dealt with during Assertiveness Training so that changes come from the inside and are not merely adjustments made to the outer appearance.

Visible changes, in fact, are often noticed after Assertiveness Training. Weight-loss is an example. Obesity is more common among women than men, and studies indicate that it is often caused by conflict about sex stereotypes.⁸ Fat women do not rate passivity, docility, and modesty high as their own major interpersonal traits. Yet they have been conditioned to believe that strength and responsibility (which they rate high) are not socially desirable for women. They compensate by gaining weight. When such women start to behave assertively, and they no longer need extra flesh, and they are able to lose and control their weight.

The Air Force is already providing its women with confidence on the job, which comes from knowing that they have been competently trained. Now, a combination of Assertiveness Training with at least a minimum of consciousness raising and women’s history is needed to prepare them to move in larger numbers into positions of responsibility and command, which will soon be theirs by right of rank or grade. Their technical training is not faulted. It is time special attention was paid to developing the force of character and the interpersonal skills they will need as senior NCOs and officers.

1. Martha T. S. Mednick et al., editors, Women and Achievement (New York: Halsted Press, 1975), pp. 38-41); Inge K. Broverman et al., "Sex Role Stereotypes and Judgment of Mental Health" in Mednick.

2. Corinne Hunt, Male and Female (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 108-9.

3. Patricia Jakubowski-Spector, "An Introduction to Assertive Training Procedures for Women" (Washington, D.C.: American Personnel and Guidance Association, 1973).

4. This is because women seem to buy this sort of book more frequently. The subject is as apropos to men as to women, as noted in cases cited in When I Say No, I Feel Guilty by Manuel J. Smith (New York: Bantam Books, 1975) and Don’t Say Yes When You Want to Say No by Herbert Fensterheim and Joan Baer (New York: Dell Books, 1975). A young man at an Army post in Europe came to an Assertiveness Training session given by the author. He was not dismayed that the course was geared for women: he took notes and said he felt he had gotten what he had come for: tips on how to enforce discipline in his new extra-duty job as barracks sergeant.

5. Air Force Survey to help evaluate effectiveness of Social Actions programs, prepared in 1976 by Captain David L. Payne, USAF, Program Analysis Branch, Department of Social Actions Training. The Virginia Slims American Woman’s Opinion Poll, vol. III, conducted by the Roper Organization. Gallup Polls, Princeton, New Jersey, 1955-1977.

6. For five weeks, different groups present in Social Actions sessions at one base were asked this question: "Name two women who worked for women’s suffrage." Only two names were ever offered, and these, in seriousness, were Jane Fonda and Margaret Mead. The groups totaled 125 people of both sexes, all ranks and grades, civilian and military. All groups could name three, sometimes five, black or minority civil rights leaders. Later, a group of fifteen college women knew the last name only of one suffrage worker and the first name of another. All white, they knew the full names of three black civil rights workers.

7. Mednick, pp. 38 and 44.

8. Angela Barron McBride, A Married Feminist (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), cites in her chapter, "The Body," numerous studies on women’s obesity and overeating.

Nancy Dughi (M.A., Goddard College) is a writer and lecturer living in Europe. She has served as a company officer in the Women’s Army Corps, then worked as a newspaper feature writer in Spain, Morocco, Denmark, France, and Italy, and edited English-language papers in Morocco and Italy. Miss Dughi is the author of a novel, a biography, a translation of an Italian art-history documentary book, and numerous journal articles.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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