A rape crisis in the U.S. military?

Question

I heard this stat on the news tonight and checked it out:

"A 2003 report financed by the Department of Defense revealed that nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking health care through the VA said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service."

This is a catastrophe. Why isn't more being done about it?

Answer 1

When men and women are together in stressful situations nature takes over. s*x is a stress reliever.

The way to solve it would bring an uproar from feminist. The solution would be the separation of men and women and only allow certain jobs to women. This of course would be sexist. This is a catch 22.  

Answer 2

Because the Department of Defense don't care what the men in the military do, as long as they can kill other people in other countries.

Answer 3

Violence against women has been a problem the military has had to deal with for awhile now.  I remember a decade ago 60 minutes did an expose on the much higher than average spousal abuse committed by military personnel.

I know some people will hate this,but I really think the military, especially war,brings out the worst in people.  My father teaches a course on the 60's, and we read a lot of Vietnam memoirs in his class and it was horrific.  There were lots of stories of people snapping and raping, mutilating,and killing civilian women.  The military does horrible things to people,and they really don't want to deal with it.  

Answer 4

It is wrong and their should be things done to stop it. Just like that prison where female prison guards humiliate inmates. I'll edit this when i find the article.

EDIT I just can't find it, looked for it for an hour. All i know is it was in a third world prison and there was a picture og naked men blindfolded being teased by female prison guards. If you can find it, good for you.

Answer 5

Apparently a woman is more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than die in Iraq.  It's a shame.

And before you accusee me of knocking the military, I am a Navy Officer's wife.

Answer 6

"A 2003 report financed by the Department of Defense revealed that nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of  said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service."

I just love statistics. One third of the of female veterans seeking health care through the VA is WHAT proportion of all female veterans? I can think of several reasons why the statistic for that particular group might be higher (or lower) than the norm. What is the experience of ALL female service members? If you don't know that, you don't know anything useful.

I'm not commenting on the scope of the problem of rape or related abuse in the military here, just pointing out the pitfalls of taking statistics out of context, which is generally how the media present them.

Answer 7

This is, indeed, alarming.  I must be frank that I am unfamiliar with this and will research this matter thoroughly to understand the underlying basis for such egregious non-normative behaviour.

Answer 8

If you were in the military, you would know that plenty is being done about it.

The press reports only enough to get everybody riled up and to cultivate negative feelings about the military. Have you noticed that you NEVER hear of one good thing the military does? All you hear is bad stuff, which will always color people and taint their views. Thus the press doesn't want to undermine its efforts by reporting the rest of the story.

[Read below the comment by 'TakeMeSeriously.' I rest my case.]

You assume that the press reports the whole story. They rarely do.

This is typical of a liberal press.

You should read "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg.

Answer 9

I always find it interesting how those who claim to be so pro-military are the same people who never served and never would even consider it. Not only that, they probably don't know anybody who is serving. Yet, many of those who have are not so quick to sing its praises. My father was a career Army officer and he said that even when he was in the military, rape was a major problem. In his day, it was mainly carried out against men. That was because there were far fewer women in the military and they were generally restricted to certain MOS's such as nursing.

Answer 10

OK, all you non-military personnel! Most of you or making comments on stuff that you have no idea or clue what you're talking about. As a Navy Vet, I can honestly say that there was one time in my whole entire career that I feared being taken advantage of by man (and he was a civilian.) Contrary to most of you people believe in here (or what the disgruntled prior military preach) men and women do work side by side, and make sure things like this do not happen to their comrades in arms.

In most cases, women and men (because for some strange reason, you guy tend to forget about the men) who serve in combat areas do report having being raped or sexually assaulted. For the simple fact that during such a stressful time, superiors in charge don’t' really have time to address such issues. It's either get your men and women in and out of harms way alive, or put everyone at risk of getting killed to stop had hold a court-martial. The war is not going to stop because some one (man or woman) was raped. Not to mention that a lot of the women and men who where raped later had to turn and depend on their rapist to fight with them in a fire fight, or assist in saving the lives of fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. So it's like a man or woman rapes you, and then a few mins or days later your unit falls under attack and you have to fight with one another in the same fox hole, at the same battle station on the ship, or on the same gun ship to stay alive.

Either way it goes, it's wrong, immoral, and unjust. And the military is doing things to prevent the incident from happing. There’s all sort of training, thousands of advocates and information given to service men and women that can be used in such a time of crisis. It’s just that the good that is done by the military doesn't get reported as much as the bad. So you’ll see these stats, but you want see all the rape/sexual assault prevention methods used to keep such things from happening. I’ve had to be an advocate for both men and women who where victims or rape/sexual assault, so I’ve seen it first hand during  war and peace time while on active duty status. And to tell you the truth, the military offers more legal, medical, and psychological assistants to the victims and their families than the civilians do. Trust me when I say rape/sexual assault is something that the military does not tolerate and is governed by strict laws outlined in the UCMJ (Uniform Military Code of Justice, meaning all four branches of the service adhere to it).

Edit: Guns Fan is right, just because they say it happend doesn't mean it really did. I have seen this happen as well. And the young lady to accused the young man of such was discharged under unfavorable conditions. The military does not play games with false accusations either.

Answer 11

That's really horrific.  And the report dates from 2003.  I wonder how much has changed in five years - that would be an interesting measure of how seriously the Department of Defense is taking it.

Answer 12

it would open a <HUGE> can of worms.

People would loose trust in the military and that would be very destructive for homeland seurity.

I'm sure it is being handled, but with a lighthanded approach.

Answer 13

Why would this surprise anyone?  Put women in a situation where they are vastly outnumbered by men, but living in close proximity to them, and of course rape is going to happen.  They should stop letting women join the army, it was bound to lead to trouble.

Answer 14

It makes me agree with a previous poster that their is a complicit nature in some men, and that they secretly approve of rape as long as it isn't anyone they know, because it keeps women in fear and makes them easier to control.  

However, the stat would be more meaningful if the rapes that occured at the hands of the enemy were distinguished from the rapes from service personnel.

Answer 15

Then go do something about it.

Answer 16

If you want to stop it keep men and women apart in combat, otherwise there is nothing you can do to stop it, it will happen! sad but true.

Answer 17

That rape statistic is the exact same as women that are not in military one in three women will be raped in their life. This is still a man's world and men don't get raped as much therefore nothing will be done until a bunch of civil rights leaders step in, as usual.

Answer 18

This article contains information from the Department of Defense and contains numerous cases of how women are being treated today by the military when a female says she was raped: "Army Rape Accuser Speaks Out": http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/1...

It sounds like the military is lagging in it's treatment of rape victims as it's been a "boys" club for quite a while-so they haven't been as affected by the changing attitudes of both men and women towards rape in our culture. But it did sound encouraging that the families of the women are not giving up on them and that Congress is pushing the Pentagon for reform. If this is how women rape victims are being treated-I can't imagine what is happening to the male rape victims..the article below is also quite horrifying as well..

Answer 19

Just because they said that they've been raped doesn't automically mean that they're telling the truth.

Answer 20

The 2 problematic areas that remain are military and sports. Some would say college campuses.

There is info about sexual violence in the military. I have raised the point continuously on here b/c women are so quick to say they'd join in a draft (to demonstrate their commitment to equality). Why in G-- name would we join such a misogynist group to prove equality? Let them fix this problem first.

(many men in my family have served, so i do know the culture somewhat).

I know the military is trying to solve the problem. I was in Korea & the station AFS *repeatedly* had sexual violence commercials on (obviously there is a huge problem if they need to drum home the message). But - they must do more.

Did you see my post on Levena Johnson? There is another woman too, but I cant think of her name. Shameful cases.