Sexual assault and harassment are serious problems for women in the military and should concern everyone in the U.S.
Although the military is often surrounded by an aura of secrecy, it is no secret women are endangered across all branches of the military and are drastically outnumbered, according to a post about U.S. military demographics from the Council on Foreign Relations.
Women in the military are a minority, making them more vulnerable to attack and less likely to be taken seriously by their peers.
Since 1948 when then-President Harry Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act into law, which allowed women to serve in all branches of the military, women have been under attack, not by any foreign enemy, but by their fellow service members.
“What we knew from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was [that] a woman was more likely to be assaulted by a male peer than actually hurt by the enemy,” Kyleanne Hunter, a Marine Corps combat veteran, said in a Zoom interview with the Spartan Daily.
Hunter was deployed multiple times into combat as an attack pilot and is currently an assistant professor of military and strategic studies at the United States Air
Force Academy.
“In an environment that is so dependent upon trust, if you feel that if something bad happens to you, that your peers as well as the system in place are not going to take care of you, you’re going to be afraid,” she said.
The military’s issue with sexual assault allegations undermines the authority and prestige the armed forces strive to promote.
If female officers have to live in a constant state of heightened fear, it impacts their ability to perform, creating a larger issue that negatively impacts the military’s ability to fight and win battles.
Every two years the United States Department of Defense issues a report on sexual assault numbers in the military and in 2018 it estimated that across the military branches about 13,000 women and 7,500 men were sexually assaulted. That sum of about 20,500 service members was a drastic increase from the 2016 total of 14,900.
Male military officers rarely view female comrades as equals and do not share the same foundation of trust they do with their fellow male officers.
For instance, the Marine Corps Times, a newspaper serving active, reserve and retired U.S. Marine Corps personnel, reported in a 2018 article that approximately 30,000 military members which included active-duty U.S. Marines, Marine Corps veterans and British Royal Marines were part of a Facebook group called Marines United where members shared nude photos of female military personnel and other women.
After it was exposed, the whistleblower and his family received death threats from the members of the Facebook group.
In July, the New York Times reported the murder of Specialist Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army soldier stationed at Fort Hood who told her friends and family that she was sexually harassed before she was reported missing. Nearly two months later, Guillén’s dismembered remains were found about 20 miles from Fort Hood.
Guillén’s death sparked a #MeToo movement centered around women in the military sharing their own experiences of being sexually harassed or assaulted.
According to an April 30 article from the Military Times, a news outlet for military service members, multiple women in the military have gone public with their stories of assault and eventual dismissal. The 1950 supreme court ruling, Feres v. The United States, prevents active-duty members of the military from making a claim against the government, limiting victims’ options once the cases have been closed.
The secrecy surrounding the military needs to be dissolved, especially when it comes to horrendous personnel issues like this.
Hunter confirmed that under the current conditions, reports filed against officers are dealt with internally.
“I think there absolutely needs to be much better oversight,” Hunter said. “There needs to be external review, it can’t all live internally.”
Keeping reports internal isolates and limits options for victims to seek unbiased aid. It also prevents necessary communication between the public and the military.
Issues surrounding a lack of accountability in the military will continue without a more transparent procedure for investigating sexual assault allegations. Under current conditions, women are not receiving proper justice for the harassment and assault they have endured while serving their country just like their male counterparts.
