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Why Males Vets Are Committing Sexual Assault

Posted by Guest Blogger at 9:35 AM on May 23, 2007.


Lucinda Marshall: A troubling new study finds that military veterans are twice as likely to serve time in prison for sexual assault than civilians.
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This post originally appeared on the Feminist Peace Network

A recent study by the Department of Justice found that military veterans are twice as likely to be incarcerated for sexual assault than non-veterans. When asked about the finding, Margaret E. Noonan, one of the authors of the study, told the Associated Press, "We couldn't come to any definite conclusion as to why." The intrinsic and systemic connection between militarism and violence against women, however, makes this finding far from surprising.

Since the beginning of the patriarchal age, women have been considered the spoils of war, invisibilized under the euphemistic phrase, 'collateral damage'. The result is that many types of violence against women are exacerbated by militarism, including the indirect effects on civilian populations and post-conflict situations. These include:

* Rape/sexual assault and harassment both within the military and perpetrated on civilian populations.
* Domestic violence.
* Prostitution, pornography and trafficking.
Examples are not hard to find--the U.S. and Japanese use of comfort women during WWII, the Tailhook scandal, the sexual abuse problems at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the murders of military wives at Ft. Bragg, NC and Ft. Campbell, KY to name a few. This latest statistic is clearly no accident, it a systemic part of a military culture that not only tolerates but frequently encourages the hatred and belittling of women.

What this study illustrates is that clearly the impact that militarism has on how men treat women does not end when a conflict is over, indeed the effects of militarism during post-conflict periods can also be quite grave. Men returning from 'war' frequently transfer their entitlement to commit violence from the battlefield to their own communities.

While the military acknowledges the problem, it has also tried to cast the blame on such factors as the relatively young age of the offenders compared to the population at large and PTSD. But neither explanation holds up in that this isn't a problem of men beating up men. Nor is it a problem of female vets, many of whom also are young and/or suffer from PTSD (99% of incarcerated vets are male), committing sexual assault. it is a problem of men beating up women.

It isn't surprising that the DOJ feigns bafflement about these latest statistics. For years now the problem of misogynist violence in the military has been the subject of lengthy reports and hearings, but yet the problem continues, and with very good reason--to cop an understanding of the issue and truly remedy the problem would require no less than a complete re-thinking of the ethos of military violence and how it exacerbates the global pandemic of violence against women.

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Tagged as: veterans, sexual assault

Lucinda Marshall is a feminist artist, writer and activist. She is the founder of the Feminist Peace Network. Her work has been published in numerous publications in the United States and abroad. She blogs at WIMN Online and at Sheroes.


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Euphemisms be damned
Posted by: Markson on May 23, 2007 1:45 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Instead of "violence against women" call them what they are--hate crimes. Women (and girls) are targeted on the basis of gender. Sexual overtones do not change the end result. And stop calling rape "sexual assault" since it combines something universally desired--sex--with violence, which in the minds of many males makes sexual violence sexy. Rape is rape; rape is a hate crime.

These euphemisms, though well-intentioned, reminds me of the news Establishment recently calling the O&A shock jock tactic of laughing at brutally graphic rape "humor" as merely "crude sexual comments," which in essence trivializes rape--a weapon of war--as impolite (Bushie should take note: the psychological and physical torture of a person is not a gross violation of human rights but bad manners). It's like calling the sermons of Islamic radicals preaching violent anti-Semitism "energetic religious expression."

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Why Males Vets Are Committing Sexual Assault
Posted by: chinaskicharles on May 23, 2007 10:33 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
in classic bait and switch media tradition, they run a story promising to answer a question and then trick you into reading crap that doesn't answer the question.

the question remains: why do vets rape twice as much as civilians? Are male vets somehow "trained" in the military to rape women as the author suggests, operating as manchurian candidates programmed to rape women after their military service has eneded? or does the military tend to attract recruits who are already predisposed to commit rape against women? or do the long tours of duty where the sexual urge must be suppressed and replaced with violence, fear, and possible death have something to due with the high incidence of rape upon return to civilian life?

it seems like the author didn't want to dig too deep on this one.

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Military culture degrades women
Posted by: Betsyny on May 24, 2007 8:55 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First of all since rape is about anger and not sex at its core, lets look at how the combination of degradation of women in military culture along with all of the anger and trauma soldiers experience in their service work together.

I worked with the military 10 years ago on a base. Women who complain about being harassed are the ones who get transferred, and in general there is NO projection that women are equal to men. Also, there is a LOT of viewing of pornography going on, and if you don't think that doing that and coming back from war with a bunch of anger and trauma you don't know what to do with (esp if its PTSD and your superiors demean you for having it) doesn't have an effect, think again.

One small step would be a debriefing at the end of service that has to do with anger management. The thing is is that the military has to acknowledge there is a problem first, and believe me, they make one small step forward and then take 10 back.

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The Ultimate Bully
Posted by: ccluelessfl60 on May 24, 2007 12:22 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My take on rape is that the rapist is inferior to real men and he knows it. They revel in the ability to take what they want. They are not the brave men or the truly accomplished men, but the want a be's. They are moral cowards and take their failure out on women if she is less physically able to defend herself. A rapist is the ultimate bully. It may be his only achievement in his sorry life.

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Military denigrate and belittle women and men
Posted by: carolcarre on May 24, 2007 12:32 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A large part of military training for men is to belittle the men by calling them female epithets, and increase their insecurity by stating that their spouses and loved ones are out cheating on them behind their backs. Furthermore, women are portrayed as weak, disgusting, vampirish sluts that suck up the vitality of males, the pure warriors victimised by the awful females. To expect men to honor and respect women after this non-stop mental barrage (called brainwashing) is too much.

There is a further undercurrent in war, that women are the property of men and that raping them is allowed if they are the property of "enemy" males, akin to burning fields and pillaging homes.

In truth, to condition boys to go to war is to brutalize their minds. They have to be driven by a fear of appearing "weak" (read female), and of being held up to ridicule. Warriors are frequently mentally ill. I don't believe that war is something we should send boys to fight. We should draft adult men who find war repellent. These mature men will fight necessary wars, and will refuse to kill stupidly and wantonly. More difficult to manage, yes. Better warriors, definitely.

War is not for boys.

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Re:Lucinda Marshall: More Vets Incarcerated for Violence against Women
Posted by: tonirae on May 25, 2007 3:30 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Seems a knee jerk-anti-military reaction to me to opine there is lack of justice over so many military men prosecuted successfully for violence against women. I find it an amazing and wonderful outcome. Could it be the military actually takes violence against women seriously, criminalizing such behavior appropriately? Wow!

I've also read many stories of women in the military having been violated physically and sexually with no recourse, so maybe the real problem is how the study was done. If Ms. Marshall's thesis is to be believed, the culture of military violence, especially against women, might seem to preclude more convictions of military men than civilians.

It is a Bush administration DOJ study, probably under the authority of Alberto Gonzalez who is, finally, thank heavens, leaving his post as US Attorney General. There may be even more reasons to doubt the veracity and strict protocols of this baffling study.

Would love to hear from scientists interested in reading the results more carefully.

Thanks.

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