Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the structure of gender-related outcomes for female cadets at a military university and, by inference, to women in male-dominated organizations in general. It begins with a review of the sociological literature on deviance and conformity and then applies qualitative data from an extended participant observation study to explain how, within this limited but highlighted context, they relate to the negotiation of gender. It then identifies the situational costs for women associated with gendered behavior and suggests that "gender" in general is treacherous for women when they enter into masculine-typed social settings such as a corps of cadets where, specifically for them, gender conformity represents a kind of deviance and gender deviance a type of conformity.