A feminist coworker posted the following article on her web site: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10518131
It talks about women being raped, abused, and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on or after the battlefield in Iraq. The solution to these problems, of course, is obvious and will therefore not be followed. We could, simply, get women out of the military, out of the combat zones.
Now before some folks reach out and try to remove the electronic version of my testicles, let me offer an alternative position: we could divide our military forces into combat forces (“Leviathan Force”) and occupation and peacekeeping forces (“System Administration Force”). The Leviathan Forces, as articulated by its author, would consist of young men, about 19 years, old, and slightly pissed off. The Sys Admin Forces would be more integrated (from a male-female perspective), older, and more deliberate in its actions. The goal of the Sys Admin group is to provide stability and civilization to an area where the Leviathan Force has previously killed people and broken things. The presence of women would be a reminder to the local populace and the male soldiers on the ground what the purpose of the mission was.
But no, we won’t do that. Instead, we’ll continue to put women into an environment filled with young men stressed out and hyped up by combat. Speaking as a male (not as a male who has been in the armed force), I can tell you that one cannot switch from a paranoid watchfulness–as when one perceives one’s life has been threatened–and the civilized behavior expected between men and women back at home in peacetime. And I’m not a particularly emotional or violent man. But putting women into that environment was not a particularly great idea, and the armed forces are still paying for it.
And as bad as the story described in the NZ Herald is, imagine how much worse a female soldier’s PTSD would be if she were captured by Al-Qaeda. Ask Jessica Lynch what kind of nightmares she’s had since returning from capture in Iraq. And she was lucky–she was rescued. What the hell are we going to do when we have American women in our armed forces captured, raped, tortured, beheaded, and all those other wonderful things our enemies have been proven to do? What’s also interesting to me is how much more outrage and invective there is toward our own boys than toward the terrorists who actually tortured Ms. Lynch. Again, there’s this irrational expectation that American males can be utterly vicious toward our enemies, then come back to their base camp, act completely composed, and treat their female comrades in a rational, polite, politically correct fashion.
There was a time when men came home after “the wars” and would not share their experiences with their wives or children in great detail, out of decency, taste, and chivalry. Now we have women over there, seeing the experiences that used to be kept “over there,” and we WONDER why the men used to keep the brutality to themselves??? Bizarre.
Problem is, with the Army playing cover-up, we have no way of knowing if co-ed units in combat could be made to work. If we start open investigations and harsh punishments of ALL guilty parties, and it still happens this much, we may have to consider segregated units:(
By: Michael on July 8, 2008
at 8:09 pm
But what of the civilian women and children of both sexes who live in the war zone, who too are raped, assaulted, kidnapped, tortured, and beheaded. Can they too be whisked away from the combat zone?
Maybe we need to totally rethink sending any 19 year old males who are easily hopped up on adrenaline into a war zone.
War overall is a tragedy. The women who go into combat zones are cognizant of the dangers. So few men realize that women are already accustomed to
balancing those fears internally regardless of being in the military. The possiblity of being raped, assaulted, and possibly murdered is something that is close to the forefront of a woman’s mind, no matter what nation she lives in. Men rape, assault and kill women, in war and in peace.
How is keeping women out of combat going to change that? It might only change the nationality of the attacker.
By: Tracie on July 20, 2008
at 9:31 pm
The article said that PTSD is higher in women soldiers who were raped by men who were supposed to have their backs. If you look at the criteria for trauma induced mental health conditions you will find that the higher the trust level of the victim of the attacker, the higher the degree of PTSD .
So, why blame the victim? Was she weak to want to serve her country? Was she weak to trust her fellow soldiers. She’d have their back, why didn’t they do the same? The answer is not to exclude women, but to finally get men to see how destructive their behavior is and to STOP the rape!
By: Tracie on July 20, 2008
at 9:43 pm
I’m posting your comments out of politeness. However, there are as many unspoken assumptions behind your comments as mine, so it is almost impossible to respond to them all.
I do not accept your unspoken premise that all men are either evil or potential rapists. Yegad, what an unhappy life you must lead to think that way. Now, that having been said, how do you stop men from being violent or fighting wars? You can’t. That’s what war is all about. How do you stop men from raping? I can’t answer that, having never been one. How do you stop that 1% of women (or whatever it is) who molest young boys here at home? I can’t answer that, either, but it happens. In any case, the easy, logical solution (and therefore the one least likely to be taken) is to remove the temptation or POSSIBILITY of having American military women raped by not having them in combat zones.
I have been proud as hell of the men and women fighting over there. I just don’t understand how social engineers actually expect men and women to behave normally in an environment where behavior we consider abnormal (killing people, destroying things) occurs as part of the business.
And please make up your mind: either women are tough enough to pick up a gun and kill with the boys, or they’re victims who need to be protected from the depradations of evil, violent lascivious men. IMO, they cannot be both. If men were left to fight wars and women were out of the picture, the fighter/victim duality wouldn’t even come into the picture. Social engineering has done the military no favors by adding women to the combat scene, and I suggest to you that as long as wars continue and the U.S. continues to have women in combat, rapes will happen. Less often than you think, but often enough to feed stories like this.
By: spacewritinguy on July 21, 2008
at 10:14 pm