Gender Disparities in Enforcing the Honor Concept at the U.S. Naval Academy

Abstract

Women's ongoing presence as a minority population at the U.S. Naval Academy continues to raise important questions about the extent to which they have been integrated. This study examines the enforcement of the Naval Academy's Honor Concept as an indicator of gender integration. Data from three sources are analyzed: official statistics on honor violations, a U.S. General Accounting Office Survey of midshipmen, and semistructured interviews with Naval and Marine Corps officers who attended the Academy. Official statistics reveal that women are overrepresented as alleged honor violators despite the perception among midshipmen that all social groups, including women, are treated equally. The interview data suggest that women are indirectly targeted because of three factors related to their status as a token population: high visibility, the greater likelihood of being perceived as subperformers, and the lower likelihood of being protected by norms concerning peer loyalty because of exclusion from male friendship networks.