How a Good Old Boy Network Perpetuates Sexual Harassment in the Army
Many people in the public sector, especially women and minority members, who are faced with obstacles to their career success blame the so-called “good old boy” network that prevents these types of outsiders from gaining access to certain occupations, disciplines or political positions. These public sector good old boy networks pale in comparison, though, to the male-dominating culture that exists in organizations such as the U.S. Army. Although significant progress has been made in encouraging women to enlist in the U.S. Army and even serve in combat roles in recent years, the lingering effects of the good old boy network in the U.S. Army together with the prevalence of sexual harassment and the high-profile reports of these occurrences have discouraged many women from pursuing a military career. The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the relevant literature to explain the Army’s sexual harassment problem and to identify some possible solutions. Following this review, a summary of the research and important findings concerning sexual harassment in the U.S. Army are provided in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

Overview of demographic composition of the U.S. Army today

To their credit, the top leaders of the U.S. Army have made it a high priority to diversify the service’s demographic composition in order to attract and retain the high quality individuals that are needed in a modern military including aggressive efforts to enlist more women. While the Army has taken a number of steps to facilitate this diversity, one of the most significant reforms was the elimination of the restriction on women serving in combat roles which many women regarded as an unfair barrier to career advancement. Despite these efforts, women are still underrepresented in the U.S. Army today, most especially at the top leadership levels (Demographics of the U.S. military, 2020). Of the six U.S. armed forces (i.e., Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Space Force), the U.S. Army is the largest service with approximately 35% of the total personnel serving in the armed forces today (Demographics of the U.S. military, 2020). In addition, the percentage of black women in the U.S. Army is substantially higher than the corresponding percentage in the civilian workforce (Demographics of the U.S. military, 2020).

It is especially noteworthy that the percentage of women serving in the U.S. Army has experienced some ebbs and flows over the past half century, and these percentages may be directly linked to employment opportunities in the civilian workforce. For example, in 1973, women only accounted for about 2% of the enlisted forces and 8% of the officer corps, but those percentages have increased to 16% an19%, respectively, at present (Demographics of the U.S. military, 2020). Regardless of their percentage representation, female soldiers enjoy the same legal protections from sexual harassment as their male counterparts. Beside the protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution, female soldiers are also protected by and held accountable to the gender-neutral provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

As can be seen from the trends depicted in Figure 1 below, the percentage of female enlisted recruits in the U.S. Army steadily...…Against this backdrop, it is also clear that more aggressive efforts are required in order to make a substantive difference (Ferguson, 2015).

Some of the initiatives that have been used in the past that have demonstrated good results include education and training programs that are designed to increase awareness about the problem of sexual harassment and what forms it can assume (Ferguson, 2015). One of the more innovation solutions that has been implemented in recent years include a video hologram of a sexual assault survivor developed by the Army Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Academy that was designed to enhance awareness of sexual assault by male soldiers; in addition, the U.S. Army also took part in the U.S. Department of Defense’s Male Sexual Assault Working Group and collaborated on the development of the Military Services sexual harassment communications plan (Stewart, 2019).

Conclusion

The research showed that sexual harassment in the U.S. Army remains a significant problem today despite broad-based efforts by the U.S. Department of Defense and Army leaders to address this issue for more than a half century. Old habits and good old boy networks, though, die hard and the fact that service in the military has traditionally connoted a sense of machismo and masculinity only further exacerbates the challenges that are involved in eliminating sexual harassment from the U.S. Army. Finally, the research showed that there are some possible solutions available for this purpose, including maintaining the current zero-tolerance policy as well as raising awareness of the problem among soldiers as well as the severe consequences, including dishonorable discharge and imprisonment, that will result for violators.…