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Military.com Forums Women in the Military Women in the Military The private war of women soldiers|
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Just read an article: The private war of women soldiers by Helen Benedict.
I have talked to more than 20 female veterans of the Iraq war in the past few months, interviewing them for up to 10 hours each for a book I am writing on the topic, and every one of them said the danger of rape by other soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or showers without another woman for protection. The female soldiers who were at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, for example, where U.S. troops go to demobilize, told me they were warned not to go out at night alone. "They call Camp Arifjan 'generator city' because it's so loud with generators that even if a woman screams she can't be heard," said Abbie Pickett, 24, a specialist with the 229th Combat Support Engineering Company who spent 15 months in Iraq from 2004-05. Yet, she points out, this is a base, where soldiers are supposed to be safe. Spc. Mickiela Montoya, 21, who was in Iraq with the National Guard in 2005, took to carrying a knife with her at all times. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," she told me. "It was for the guys on my own side." regards JakobA "Good is better than bad cause its nicer" Mammy Yokum (as related by Al Capp) |
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
On college campuses women are told not to go out alone at night. I don't know if I'd agree that on bases soldiers are supposed to be safe or should feel safe.
Yet, I agree that soldiers are supposed to be safe from the soldiers on their side. I don't know why a soldier would want to assault, or gang up on another soldier to assault them. Perhaps we could discuss that? |
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Basic Training |
When i was in Iraq i was the only female amongst 100 coalition on my FOB i had no problems. Now the training that occurs down range also includes males to take precautions.
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Member |
Interview enough people, you are bound to find 20 who will say what you want to hear.
Because Homo sapiens sapiens, despite "modern culture" introduced only recently in their evolution, are still animals. Add to that the military selects for "type A" aggressive personalities, trains them to be more even more aggressive and places them in a high stress environment. Assaults will happen. |
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
So people assault because it is in their nature to do so? That's kind of a dangerous assumption.
And what is it that you want to hear? I don't know how prevalent male against female assault is in the military. It seems to get a lot of attention when it does happen. I do think assault, harassment, and usually a male assault against a female involves her genitalia so sexual assault, is a tool that men use to keep women out of where they do not want them. And unfortunately when specifically a woman is assaulted people men and women tend to wonder if she "should have" been there in the first place. I am suspicious of anyone who brings up rape, or writes an article about the prevalence of assault against women in the military as a tool to discourage women from serving their country, or that somehow women do not have a place in the military or should not be there because men will rape them. There is a reason these men assault women. You can't say these people who specifically choose to assault a female or harass a female, gang up on her, especially one of their fellow soldiers, do not have an abundance of negative views of women. Like when people specifically choose to assault a homosexual man. They aren't following some biological impetus now are they? This message has been edited. Last edited by: byzantine, |
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"A Tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury...signifying nothing." William Shakespeare |
The military is just a different cross-section of society. It is unfortunate that women need to protect themselves, but it is NOT a military issue, it is a societal one.
Rape can ad does occur even in the areas most perceived as being safe. Rape can be inflicted on women, girls, men, boys and horrifically enough- on children. These rapists are men, women, clergy members,coaches, teachers, soldiers and so-called pillars of the community. |
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Experienced Member |
We all know the the pathology and variety of perps. That is not the issue. The difference that concerns military women is.....they aren't receiving the same treatment or justice that civillian women are able to get. Military women live by an entirely different set of regs. Regs that have been gender prejudiced for years. Commanders who turned a blind eye to the problem of rape. As for Benedict and her book. IMO, I think she is full of chit and sensationalizism. If you reseach some of the women being quoted, they have had military disciplinary problems. Yeah, they are going to be fair and unbiased. I have corresponded with many, MANY women serving in Iraq. Most have a well developed "buddy system". Those who don't are just plain stupid in IMO. If you know there are dangers..YOU DAMN WELL TAKE PRECAUTIONS. |
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"The Diplomat!" 6433 prior posts as B.  |
That may be so, in general. However, here we are dealing with the Military aspect of the problem... Izzy has some good points... |
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
Izzy you do have good points. I venture to wonder whether or not their disciplary problems were the result of their experiences..but that is just speculation.
But you talk about how there is prejudice, yet you seem unwilling to change the very fabric that supports it. Our commanders are unified against this prejudice. Report EO violations where you see them, when they happen. |
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
the reason I say this is because I was sexually harassed. I was harassed on a daily basis, and sexually harassed, by a civilian instructor. I was fresh out of basic training and pretty much scared crapless about complaining or using my chain of command. So I just did what I was told, and thought I was doing a good thing by putting up with it or acting like it didn't bother me, you know "toughing it out" and not complaining. I thought it would stop, but my toleration of it just made him more determined.
I didn't want to go to class. People started to wonder why I seemed withdrawn and angry. My grades dropped (I had close to a 4.0), and my participation dropped considerably, it was almost nonexistent. And my instructor started to use this as a reason to harass me more, and as a reason why he needed to work with me one-on-one. When I was upset about having to work with him one-on-one and told him this that I would rather work with another instructor or in a situation where we were not one-on-one he wrote up a report on me and sent it to my supervisor saying that I refused to work with him, which was not true, and that I was refusing to improve my scores. I ended up telling my supervisor what had happened. It was suggested that I file an official EO complaint. I was told by a female, and I will not disclose rank, that by complaining I was giving females a bad impression, that I should "tough" it out, and that I would potentially appear to be using it to my advantage. Oh and that I could be permanently removed from the course (the course was a military course for my job). So I didn't, and the only one who suffered was me. He tried on another occassion to get me to work with him one-on-one and said that if I refused to work one-on-one with him he would report me to my chain of command, but by that time they already knew what was going on..and if they didn't, I would have probably had "disciplinary" problems. But I will forever regret not filing an EO. This message has been edited. Last edited by: byzantine, |
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
I'm wiser now.
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"A Tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury...signifying nothing." William Shakespeare |
It seems as if sometimes it is hard to just do your job without all the extra cr** thrown in the mix.
I was very lucky never to have had a situation like those described. I do not fool myself into thinking its because I was a better soldier, or my bearing was STRAC, the simple fact is that I was lucky. I never ran into the types that try to strong arm a woman. For some reason, all the males were over-protective, if anything. |
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Basic Training |
You got very lucky. I was Air Force in the Transportation field and every base I went I was harrassed. When I was sent to Wiesbaden, Germany for four years, I was the ONLY female on my base in the Transportation Squadron. Talk about the cr-- and the verbal and physical sexual harrassment I had to deal with!! As for complaints, they feel on deaf ears, because it was everyone--airmen up to the officers doing it. I was told to "deal with it or get out of the air force". Wanting a career at that time, I just dealt with it and now wish I had done something. And the worse thing is I have NO proof of anything that happened, my word only. And trying to explain this now to certain people they think it is all lies. So if anyone is harrassed in any way, report it and keep going until you die.
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"A Tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury...signifying nothing." William Shakespeare |
I am ashamed to say that I had forgotten this, it was over 20 years ago and somehow was pushed in a corner of my mind.
A friend (also an MO, different co in Frankfurt) was raped in the barracks by the CQ. She didn't want to report it to the MPs (ourselves. She started to drink heavily. She discovered that she was pregnant. One night on MP patrol she put her .38 to her temple and pulled the trigger. She did not die instantly. She lingered for a week on lifesupport until her parents flew in from the States so they could say goodbye. I had spoken with her 2 days before she did it. Se seemed like she was happier, I guess she already decided to do it. We had gone through OSUT together and were station in t he same city. She had wanted to be a soldier since she had been a little girl. She was a wonderful, funny, sweet, caring not to mention one hell of an mp! I can still see her face, and am ashamed that I had "forgotten" about her. PFC L****, damn fine soldier! |
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Member |
I didn't say I wanted to hear anything. I was saying that a writer with an agenda can eventually find some support for their view. And yes, people do assault because it is in their nature. Think about it: at it's very foundation, males and females are driven to pass on their genetic material. It is universal in every species that uses sexual reproduction. We have made certain things taboo in the interest of a well-ordered society, but men are still wired to breed as much as possible, and women are wired to select certain men to breed with. Sometimes those desires override self control, and we punish accordingly.
Yes, they are. You have to go back to our caveman upbringing: the stongest men want breeding rights to the women. They tolerate weaker men, because if worse comes to worse, and the stronger men die, the weaker men can take over and still perpetuate the species. At some level, we find the choice to not want to perpetuate the species abhorrent, and we react accordingly. We (on a caveman, tribal level) tolerate lesbian women because they still have the capacity to bear young. Their preference doesn't matter. Some of us with the capacity to think further than our caveman roots may think "there are enough resources to keep homosexuals around, and it leaves more women for me", but some don't think that far ahead. A lot of things can be explained if you remember that for 98% of our history, we were cavemen. You may not like it, but there it is. |
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Experienced Member |
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Experienced Member |
One of them was a CO that got busted down for covering up and lying about Abu G problems. I can't pull up the full article at the moment or I would post the rest of the names I read and checked. Here are some corrections the author and Salon.com HAD to make because people were misquoted or taken out of context.... "The March 6 story "The Private War of Women Soldiers" originally said that National Guard soldier Demond Mullins told the author that "a commander in his camp turned a blind eye to rape all the time." But Mullins says that he heard only secondhand from his unit commanders about rapes in other units. The story also quoted Mullins as saying that more than one solider raped a woman in the shower, whereas Mullins says that he heard that only one man committed the rape. The misstatements have been corrected." "The March 6 story "The Private War of Women Soldiers" originally included the following statement from National Guard soldier Demond Mullins: "Rapes were happening every night ... Married men were doing it, everyone." Mullins says that he misspoke and was also misunderstood by the reporter. The statement has been deleted." Bottom line here, there is always an agenda for a book like this. Most of it is making women look bad....not men per se. We all know men suffer from tetosterone poisoning....not news. We all know about rape and it's prevelence. But when we have women troops popping off because they are ticked off, it does not bode well for the sincere females who have found ways to stay safe, do their duty honorably and make a positive mark for ALL women in uniform. |
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
look I am an Anthropology graduate and a lot of those cavemen societies were very religious or even matriarchical, if you want to count only the homosapien sapien. All you are trying to do is defend something with biology and anyone can do that for anything.
Everyone knows that rape is not a product of sexual desire and not a consequence of biological desire and definitely not a breeding impulse. Real research concludes this;not some caveman fantasy. It is even plainly obvious as a rapist is often a violent assailant with the intent to hurt his victim as much as possible; not breed with them. |
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
to say we should accept, or rather that we can't stop this behavior on the basis of biology is to say that men are an incurable detriment to the entire world. You are saying that and yet at the same time you are the same people who are vehemently against the radical lesbian feminist movement. I don't support either, personally. But I do not think you can say men are good in the same breadth as you say they are biologically prone to attack people. That's just messed up.
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Suspended for 15 days. Duchess333 4 June 2007 |
I really honestly believe it is a social issue; of men being raised to believe they are superior to women, with the sense of entitlement that comes along with that, and therefore with the mentality that where women are, "real men" are not. So in an effort to protect what they believe are real men jobs, and what is considered a man job changes throughout time in a society, men will harass women, and some will even attack them, and some men's unwillingness to stop this is based solely on the fact that they believe they benefit from it.
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