Remember Private Benjamin? Goldie Hawn goes from princess to private and grows up. That 1980 film was a combination of feminism, coming-of-age and just plain funny. But that’s not how the U.S. military treats its women. Maybe not then, but certainly not now. In fact, we’re allowing our soldier sisters to suffer at unthinkable rates. It’s beyond shameful. Representative Jane Harman details the horror (no, I am not exaggerating – this is every woman’s version of a horror movie) in this LA Times op ed republished on Alternet. This is from Harman’s piece:
The scope of the problem
was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA
Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw
dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic
say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report
being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued
terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives
have since taken.
Numbers reported by the
Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults
were reported — 73% more than in 2004. The DOD’s newest report, released this
month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from
calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data
from previous years much more difficult.
What level of misogyny, anger, or malignant neglect allows this to be the way we treat 20% of our military? It’s an insult to their service and to every American woman and yet another shameful chapter in our relationship with those who would protect us. Does it seem to anyone else that Abu Ghraib and our other abuses of Iraqi prisoners and the abuse of women in our own military both demonstrate a terrible loss of humanity among at least some of our soliders?
I remember reading a book called ABSOLUTELY AMERICAN, about the meritocracy that is West Point. There was a time, recently, when the Army, at least, had moved very far from its less attractive traits and was struggling, by training leaders well, to guarantee that abuses did not happen in the future. I wish I knew what has happened; whether they never got below the surface, whether it’s the fact that so many of our soldiers are National Guard and just not as well-trained, or simply that there’s a surfeit of anger in our military (and out here, too.)
Beyond the acts themselves, there’s not even much punishment. Here’s more of Harman’s piece:
At the heart of this crisis is
an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks.
According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for
sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to
courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military.
Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge,
and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment,"
which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or
received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated,
the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was
because of "insufficient evidence."
Anyone who pays any attention to this issue, or even who’s ever watched LAW AND ORDER knows that rape is a crime of dominance and hate, not a sexual crime. That means that every one of those rapes is an act of rage against a woman — and a fellow soldier. And that in all the years that women have been part of active military duty, we haven’t dealt with that rage. And that if it’s that prevalent in the military, it’s probably still floating around out here in the rest of the world at a hefty rate too. And apparently, however far we’ve come as women in and out of the military, just below the surface is something big, angry and very scary indeed.
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