Oh, come on, now. Are you going to deny the fact that the military has a completely male-oriented culture in the officer ranks that has been trying to cover up things like rapes? Did you not read the article I provided before the study on the rate of rapes of women in the military? Here, let me quote:
In reference to reports of assault on women in the military - to quote Sanchez: "The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory."
The military takes an incredibly lax attitude toward rapes; women often report that they weren't even transferred, upon request, away from the unit in which the perpetrator served. This is an incredible thing to picture - having to serve with - and sometimes even salute and follow the commands of - the person who raped you.
Lets follow the timeline here, just for one isolated set of incidents. Karpinski complained several times about assaults taking place. Sanchez, and under him Diamond, did absolutely nothing. Only when the victims took to the media was an investigation launched.
Just so people don't miss the numbers:
30% of women in the military report having either been the victim of a rape or an attempted rape
3/4ths reported sexual harassment
54% reported unwanted sexual contact
37% of the rape victims had been raped more than once
14% of rape victims had been gang raped
Your attempted dodge that this wasn't so much an issue because we don't know the number of men raped in the military is a dodge. Even if the ratios were merely on par with those in the general population (doubtful), that would mean that 91% of the cases were "male rapes female", 8% would be "male rapes male", 0.8% would be "female rapes female", and 0.2% would be "female rapes male". However, seing as I can't find a *single* case of "male rapes male" or "female rapes male" that's made it to the media, or been uncovered in an investigation, I am only left to assume that they're relatively rare, and that we're only seing an increase in the "male rapes female" case.
And, of course, we're seing the further problem of an institution that bloody doesn't care.
Simply, these raw numbers - and statements like have been repeatedly been given talking about how women should expect it in the military - are simply incomprehensible. Everything about how the military treats rapes is just crazy. They use the McDowell checklist, which reports a 60% rate of "false reporting" on rapes, as opposed to the general population's 8%. They don't allow unit transfers as a general rule. The perpetrators are very rarely prosecuted. Complaints often lead to further harassment. This has been a huge problem.
Here's another article on the subject:
Page not found – Awakened Woman
They link to a DOD study on the subject that I'd recommend that you read:
http://www.dod.gov/news/May2004/d20040513SATFReport.pdf
The results are really quite damning. And it's all due to this male-oriented culture. Not surprising, really.
This message has been edited by Rei, 09-21-2004 07:58 PM
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."