ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Not like I needed more reasons to not join the military but... well... now I have more.

And what sort of nut job gets a psych degree with that kind of attitude.

Yes, the military is a bad place to be. However, the psych technician is thinking about how to keep morale high enough for the maximum number of soldiers that the minimum number of people get killed by it.

The problem is that the percentage of harassing men is so high, and the manpower issues are so bad. If you start penalizing (predominately male) soldiers for being sexist, you don't have enough people left to sustain operations (actually, we already don't have enough people to sustain operations properly, but this would just make things worse). The tactical answer? Dump it on the minorities (women) except in the most egregrious cases that would cause open revolt in the female ranks. Fixing it properly requires fixing the entire culture, which at this stage requires practically dumping the entire military and starting over from scratch.

The psych tech gave exactly the correct answer; it's just too bad that this isn't the sort of thing that people find out from the recruitment officers before you've committed years of your life to that sort of situation. Someone with good graphic design talents should design a pamphlet about all the things that recruitment officers don't want you to know, and the rest of us can set up a fund-raiser to get it distributed at every high school to counteract the recruitment marketing.

As far as the problems the military has, though, I rate this pretty far down on the scale. In an army that can't even keep its soldiers from regularly torturing or killing civilians, sexual harassment barely merits a footnote.

In my darker fantasies, I imagine an all-female unit, with female superior officers going up a fair distance up the chain of command, with a simple policy of castrating or simply shooting harassers, and then giving the victims exactly the sort of treatment that the vicitms of harassment get now, while going for slap-on-the-wrist penalties at most for the women. This is probably what it would take for a small group to be able to even dent the problem, but I have to admit in my more awake moments that it's a somewhat extreme solution.

Ideally: Men and women should be able to serve their country, shoulder-to-shoulder and anyone who commits sexual harrassment or any other act of aggression against another soldier should be dealt with harshly.

Reality: This was a bad idea. Placing men and women together in a high-emotion setting like a war zone is only going to strengthen emotions and these types of instances are bound to occur. I have to wonder, how do we define sexual harrassment? I am reminded of what the great Chris Rock said on the subject "Do me or your fired. Anything less is not harrassment - it falls under 'Just trying to get laid.' If my father wouldn't have 'harrassed' my mother, I wouldn't be here."

Believe me when I say, I am a proponent of the idealists view. I am all for equality regardless of sex, race, age or disability. But if anyone expected this not to happen, they had their head in the sand.

Zed -

After analyzing your comment, I have decided to reply line by line. You are either very misguided, a liar, or both. If you can back any of your so called "facts" up, please post your sources. I have had a successful career in the co-ed military (Navy) and am willing to rebut your disinformation.

Here we go:

"Yes, the military is a bad place to be."
Actually many people in America, including minority and immigrants, find the military to be a wonderfull stepping stone to the middle class, enabling them and their descendants to live the American Dream. Are you speaking about your military experience? or are you just against having a military for philosophical reasons?

"The problem is that the percentage of harassing men is so high, and the manpower issues are so bad."
What is your source for this?? I believe you just made it up.

"actually, we already don't have enough people to sustain operations properly,"
So now you are qualified to "Chief of Staff" or "SecDef"?? Please list your source for this.

"Dump it on the minorities (women) except in the most egregrious cases that would cause open revolt in the female ranks."
Woman have rapidly assumed leadership roles. It is in fact, woman who assess and review the military harassment policy.

"In an army that can't even keep its soldiers from regularly torturing or killing civilians, sexual harassment barely merits a footnote."
I assume you are refering to abu gharib, an ISOLATED incident. The people involved are being punished. We live in a transparent society. Long gone are the days when that kind of thing could be covered up. Infact, it was military personel who "disclosed" the scandel. When you compare, the beheadings, rape, and torture that is perpetrated by our enemies could be classified as inhumane. However, in the interests of communication, we'll call stacking nude guys "torture".

"counteract the recruitment marketing."
Are you actually saying that we should weaken our military? Maybe if the best and the brightest(people like you) were to volunterarily serve for a few years the military would be a better place(see your first quote).

"In my darker fantasies," etc.....
Wow. I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps with your castration fantasy....you should seek some therapy. But it is interesting to me that you advocate the same or worse treatment to people that violate your principles than was handed out to the prisoners as abu gharib. You think that punishment without due process is okay in that case, but not in the event of interegation to get intelligence to save lives. You would torture for revenge. You sicko.

Perhaps you should join the military and fix all of the so-called problems you have outlined.

The scary thing is, some people are surprised at this.

I have a LOAD of female friends that are/have been in the military, I myself almost joined up, and my officemate is ex-airforce and is studying women in the military here at grad school.

This isn't a minor issue, it's a HUGE issue, and speaks to deeper issues regarding the way soliders are operating in general if they can't even have the bare minimum of respect for the humanity of their female colleagues.

In fact, I would hestitate an argument that the fact that Abu Gharib occurred (and that wasn't an isolated incident, it's just what got caught on camera - the far majority of soliders don't participate in such, but it is far more prevalent than a lot of people think) is actually not unrelated to these issues of harrassment and assault.

In what is supposed to be the finest military force in the world, one would think that the humanity of a sizeably percentage of those serving would be a priority to maintain.

But then, I think gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly, that the glass ceiling that's operating in the military for women needs to be dismantled, and that sexist behaviour in the military should be punished even more severely than in the private sector, so maybe I'm a touch biased.

Sarah -

I don't believe you are biased. There ARE many issues that need to be addressed. It just irked me the way Zed posted his/her comment.

Fortunately for all of us, many of the best and brightest women America has to offer(ie: your friends) ARE getting involved. They are making changes in the way the military views certain issues. The military of today is very different than the military of 20 years ago.

You may be right about Abu Gharib, it may be more prevalent than is being photographed, but I submit to you that humiliation and poor treatment is a far cry from amputations, gang rape, and beheadings.

The people who commited the abuse at Abu Gharib deserve to be punsished. They ARE BEING PUNISHED.

Only time, education, and training can fix sexism and harassment. "We've come a long way, baby." but that doesn't mean the voyage is over.

tfreridge -

Oh, I completely agree we may have come a long way, and that nonetheless we definitely have a long way still to go (as this stuff reveals). And I am with you on Zed's comments.

As to Abu Gharib, well, honestly, I don't think everyone involved (particularly, those higher up) are being punished. The speed that the investigation ran away from any possibilities of commanders knowing about this raises some serious red flags to me, and not outside of the fact that they are supposed to be responsible for the conduct of the troops under their command, regardless of knowledge (which I honestly think they had).

And, moreover, those that are being punished (like England) are being unequally 'trashed' (if you'll pardon the colloquialism). England was vilified by the media, having her whole sexuality paraded around, but the men involved (just as much) weren't to anything like the same degree. I don't think the fact that she is a woman is unrelated to this.

This, amongst other reasons, is why I connect Abu Gharib to the sexual harrassment and assualts of american service women, as they are part of a similar milieu.

Oh, and I agree, humiliation and poor treatment is a far cry from amputations, gang rape, and beheadings, but just because they are a lesser evil, doesn't make them any less of an evil. And moreover, those that we subjected to those abuses certainly weren't clear to have been those that committed those awful crimes.

But, I also think we shouldn't be in Iraq to start off with, but that's a different story.

My sister, who happens to be very active in the feminist movement, told me about theory regarding the sexual humiliation of prisoners in Abu Gharib and Guantuanomo Bay.

She thinks that it is the cultural oppression of women in the muslim country that directly leads to American women participating in sexual degradation of muslim men. A sub-conscious "our society is better than yours", if you will. She says its a cultural thing, not a sexist thing.

The reason our female interegators willingly expose themselves, or dominate them by making them masterbate in public, is to humiliate their captives, who they sub-consciously percieve as oppressive, anti-american, and anti-freedom. It "shows" them that American women won't be controlled by them.

Now, this is just theory, mind you, but still very interesting. If anyone has any data or studies to to back this up or refute this please post.

I'm cynical enough to believe that it could all be very well planned psy-ops on the part of some very smart CIA behavioral scientists, too.

that's an interesting idea, tfreridge, I don't know if it's true, but I hadn't thought of that.

I know that when I am out with my girlfriend, and I see fundamentalists (or, hell, frat boys) and I feel like I am in a relatively safe space, I will definitely be more likely to take her hand or kiss her, just as a bit of a 'middle-finger' in their direction.

Course, that's anecdotal and I'd be loath to generalise from my own experiences, but it bears thinking about

"Actually many people in America, including minority and immigrants, find the military to be a wonderfull stepping stone to the middle class, enabling them and their descendants to live the American Dream. Are you speaking about your military experience? or are you just against having a military for philosophical reasons?"

I've managed to avoid having a military experience, thankfully. My experience is limited to coming from a family with multiple career officers, and spending a lot of time around various ex-military, some of them veterans. I learn both from their stories and from interacting with them, voluntarily or involuntarily. A lot of them have pretty severe socialization problems.

That's irrelevant, though; you don't have to be raped to know it's a bad thing to happen to you, and you don't have to be in the military to know it's a bad thing to happen to you, either. Since you've decided to start this conversation with a personal attack, let me return it to you: if you are trying to say that the military is a good place to be right now, you're either horribly misguided, a liar, or both. We've had almost 13,000 casualties so far *in Iraq alone*, not counting Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense (11,220 injured by enemy fire, not including those injured by other means or disabled by sickness, and 1510 dead -- it seems that our deaths are low only because modern body armor is converting a lot of would-be fatalities into "mere" maimings), and that doesn't count the emotional scarring. Many of the wounded coming back are finding out that their benefits are being chopped and they can't find jobs. One fourth of the US homeless are veterans and 75% of those have mental or substance abuse problems (according to the Homeless Veterans Coalition).

My version of "living the American Dream" doesn't include me living it without legs and with PTSD.

'"The problem is that the percentage of harassing men is so high, and the manpower issues are so bad."
What is your source for this?? I believe you just made it up.'

Good grief. Start with the link at the top, and then go grab a copy of GAO/NSIAD-94-6 (50% of female students harassed twice a month or more at Annapolis Naval, 59% at the Air Force Academy, 76% at West Point), google for Tailgate, grab a copy of the ACLU reports on the abuses in Iraq *other* than Abu Ghraib, and then go back up to the top again and realize that these incidents are *underreported by 400%*. What's your source for saying it's not a problem?

"'In an army that can't even keep its soldiers from regularly torturing or killing civilians, sexual harassment barely merits a footnote.'
I assume you are refering to abu gharib, an ISOLATED incident."
No, I'm not, and no, it isn't. Go read the documents the ACLU managed to get under the FOIA (http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/ ), if you can stomach them. Incident after incident, not investigated by the military sometimes for months after being reported, and then investigated only in a cursory fashion and closed despite logging significant evidence of abuse. Sometimes light punishments are meted out on the enlisted soldiers directly responsible; rarely (never? I'd have to go back to reread them to see if it ever happened even once, but once was enough for me) are their commanding officers punished.

"The people involved are being punished. We live in a transparent society. Long gone are the days when that kind of thing could be covered up. Infact, it was military personel who "disclosed" the scandel. When you compare, the beheadings, rape, and torture that is perpetrated by our enemies could be classified as inhumane."

The people involved are *not* being punished, except for a couple of scapegoats at the bottom. Name a commanding officer in jail for this. Name the CIA agents. Hell, name one *investigated*. The military wouldn't even let them come forth and testify at Graner's court-martial. Also, it's not just being stacked naked: it's having your skull caved in and your body dumped at a hospital. It's medical reports of electrical burns and rectal bleeding, journalists picked up, sexually threatened, and beaten until they required hospitalization before they were finally released. It's Iraqi women finally starting to talk about the rapes by US troops, despite the immense social pressure against admitting such a thing happened to them.

This is policy coming from the top. We've installed an attorney general who called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and who penned recommendations for torture.

We're likely well over 100,000 civilians dead, and if things keep going at this rate, George W. Bush is going to have the dubious distinction of killing more civilians per annum over his reign in Iraq than Saddam Hussein.

"'actually, we already don't have enough people to sustain operations properly,'
So now you are qualified to "Chief of Staff" or "SecDef"?? Please list your source for this."
We're heading further and further off topic, and I didn't expect anyone to dispute this (it's hit the mainstream news enough times by now), so I'll just tell you to google for "stop loss", "recruitment target", and "troop shortage" . You should generate a number of hits, including a number of papers by military specialists. And that's with the large number of National Guard shoring up operations, as well as the use of mercenary companies. I remember one entertaining article about the military trying to reactivate a WWII veteran (IIRC he's a dentist now, so try "dentist re-enlist").

I'm not saying that in my judgement there's a troop shortage; I'm telling you that the *military* is saying they have a troop shortage. I think I'll believe them.

"'counteract the recruitment marketing.'
Are you actually saying that we should weaken our military?"

Are you saying we'll significantly weaken our military by ceasing the practice of deceiving minors? If you can't get people to support you without aggressive, deceptive marketing to minors, maybe you don't deserve to have them.

"Maybe if the best and the brightest(people like you) were to volunterarily serve for a few years the military would be a better place(see your first quote)."

Do you honestly believe that adding a few honest people, even if they all came in as junior officers instead of grunts, would even dent the culture and machinery? On top of that, there are better ways to serve your country than getting shot and shooting up foreigners to cover the careers of corrupt politicians.

"But it is interesting to me that you advocate the same or worse treatment to people that violate your principles than was handed out to the prisoners as abu gharib."

I don't, as I made clear at both the beginning and the end of that paragraph. It's an extreme fantasy response out of anger at an utterly, hopelessly unjust situation that can't be fixed by reasonable means. That doesn't mean I can't vent my frustration by coming up with the occasional unreasonable solution.

Since I seem to have disturbed Sarah with it, a woman who has seemed reasonable in her other writings, I'll apologize for venting my frustration in public.

You find facts to fit your version of reality, instead of interpreting reality from the facts presented to you. Its a volunteer Military. How did you "manage to avoid" ?? You mean, you didn't volunteer, right?

You compare being in the military to being raped? Obviously, you've never been raped.

I have serve in the Persian Gulf and I have an Uncle who is in Baghdad, as I type this. I've talked to the wounded and their friends and families. All of the people I've talked to feel their sacrifice is worthwhile.

I never said harassment wasn't an issue. I disputed your fact about a high percentage of harassing men. IN FACT it is a small percentage of men doing almost all of the harassing, just like in the civilian population.

Manpower - I refer you to heritage foundation. The reason SECDEF is restructuring our military is because we're not structured for these types of wars, not because we're are undermanned. We have plenty of manpower in korea, germany, and other places based on a cold war paradigm.

Punishment - so another conspiricy theorist is born. I suppose Don Rumsfeld watches the video tapes of torture for his personal amusement, right? (thats sarcasm by the way)

I believe that change starts at the bottom, not the top. If you believe what you say, and you truly want to make America better, then you should serve. I know you believe that "there are better ways to serve your country than getting shot and shooting up foreigners" but if it wasn't for the military then you wouldn't be able make your outrageous claims, right?

Zed -

You didn't offend me, but thanks for the apology :)

I was just concerned that you said harrassment was rather low down on the concern scale (apolos if my paraphrasing is incorrect) in the context of all the other crud that's wrong with the military at the moment. Can you explain to me what you mean by that? Because I can't agree to that as phrased.

But I definitely agree with your comments about not just manpower shortages (hell the stop loss on gay and lesbian service personel show that emphatically), but the RIGHT kind of manpower being a shortage. And you a certainly right that this isn't going to be solved by replacing a few people, this is a cultural and structural thing within the military. It can be changed, as the militaries of other countries have shown us, but it isn't going to be a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh, and thanks for your reference to me as reasonable, I'll have to drag my Mum in here :)

Sarah:

"I was just concerned that you said harrassment was rather low down on the concern scale (apolos if my paraphrasing is incorrect) in the context of all the other crud that's wrong with the military at the moment. Can you explain to me what you mean by that?"

It's a matter of priorities, ordered by how difficult they are to correct for the victims. That means that first and foremost, things that get people killed take the cake. In yet another statement that will probably offend the heck out of tfreridge, I then prioritize civilians above military personnel, on any side. After that, maiming, physical taking priority over emotional, but also noting the cultural subtext — an Iraqi woman who becomes known to have been raped is in many ways in the same boat as a farm worker who has lost an arm: permanently handicapped in that society and at the mercy of charity. Rapes in general leave their own form of stress disorders and other marks in the lives of many victims, even without the extra cultural baggage, so it's still up there even for servicewomen.

But let's step out of the context of direct military behaviour for a moment to look at other things that get people killed and maimed: military and contractor corruption and waste. Our soldiers are short on body armor, in no small part thanks to a combination of incompetence and corruption on the part of both politicians and contractors (yes, let's give this expensive mass-production contract to an old military buddy of mine who's never mass-produced anything in his life!). There's a website up for concerned relatives and friends to even pitch in cash and equipment specifically for snipers (www.adoptasniper.com), which would cause me to laugh hysterically if I weren't so damn terrified that someone I know, or the family of someone I know, might really need it. Vehicles aren't being armored. The companies involved in providing supplies to Iraq are using shell corporations to charge 300% markup or more, chopping hard into the funds that are desperately needed to keep our soldiers alive. When the government threatened to withhold funds from them after they were caught, they threatened in return to pull out completely, delivering nothing. The government immediately caved, showing exactly who's running the show out there. (Incidentally, I hope the executives involved get charged with treason just as soon as they're no longer needed, and then executed upon conviction. That's not a wild fantasy, as unlikely as it is in reality, that's a genuine desire; they're getting soldiers killed for personal profit, and I think they might get away with it.) Bush keeps cutting vet benefits, for the ones that do make it back, so they aren't getting proper medical care. There was a story a few weeks ago about a soldier who got billed for the food that he ate while recovering from war injuries at a US hospital... and being billed for hospital food strikes me as adding insult to injury.

I'm truly sorry to have to say this, because I know it sucks for the women involved, but given a choice between getting prosecutions for those involved in repeated sexual harassment and the start of a change in military culture, and getting proper armor on the personnel carriers, I'll go for the armor without hesitation. Your female friends will survive being leered at, verbally harassed, or even groped (thankfully, the culture has changed enough that actual rapes do get investigated and prosecuted when they are reported now, or so I'm told at least). They might not survive an improvised explosive device. They'll probably take less emotional scarring from being groped than from accidentally gunning down a car full of children at an improvised checkpoint as well. They'll re-integrate better if a stop is put to the commanders telling them to torture the people they pick up if they think it'll get more information.

There are a lot of things that really suck about our current situation. I must regretfully stand by my assertion that sexual harassment is down the list a ways.

Retraction: in retrospect, I don't support execution even of treasonous corporate types, and my frustration is showing again. I do support life at labor in a place where the proceeds go to the families and soldiers they harmed. I get very conflicted trying to maintain a belief that the government should be trying to uphold the sanctity of human life at the same time that I want to dance on someone's grave.

Zed,
I apologize for my earlier insult to you. Even though I disagree with your conclusions, I respect the earnestness of your beliefs. Your last two post lead me to believe you are sincere.

Zed -

Okay, I can see how you came to that position, and it does make sense, even though I don't agree with you.

I just don't see it as an either/or issue. I think we can foreground women's issues in the military and the resource issue simultaneously.

But you're definitely right in that NEITHER are really being addressed in any real way. I've heard and read about the same things you have, and while a part of me seriously respects the ideals of the military, the way it's being run right now isn't a country mile from that ideal.

Oh, and as to inter-service-person rape, from what I have been hearing, while it is certainly better, it's not being investigated in anything like it is in the civilian sector (which isn't perfect either).

tfreridge: Thank you.

Sarah: Well, there's probably no harm in trying to make the sexual harassment issue more visible, if for no other eventual end than making sure that it's still an issue even after some of the other things stop being problems, for whatever reason. If it gets hidden or forgotten, it will *never* get fixed. There's only so many hours in a day, and so many people available to work on problems, though, so I remain somewhat cynical about the outcome. I do, of course, hope for the best anyway.