25-10-2009, 08:32 AM
Sexual abuse of women in the military is rampant and I remember much from my own time there.
I remember the Sargent coming to kiss us girls good night in the dormitory.
I remember the very young slight built blonde Leutenant asking us in class one day if to come and speak with her privately if we had any problems with any of the males. No one did come to her of course because she had no 'authority'. While she technically was higher ranked than the sergeant he had been around for thirty years and was well connected on the base and she had just blown in from no where.
Then there was a woman I know who had a hand gun forced into her mouth to make her a willing participant to be raped by a soldier.
I wont even mention that bayonet practice was done on a figure of a black woman. It was very difficult to get any sort of redress for sexual harassment, which was endemic, due to the authority structures in the work place. My own limited observations of the military police was that they were a law unto themselves, unpredictable, and most had had a humanity bypass. I don't know if any of this has been addressed since I left. Probably not.
It is not just that the military turns young men into sexual predators, which it most assuredly does being at the apex of all patriarchal institutions, but that it turns ordinary humans into monsters. And is designed to in some cases not withstanding that there are also decent humans in this dysfunctional institution. The military is the institution of the force of the state. The state is a male. The military worships death and destruction, maiming and scarring through violence. The phallus of the bomb and bullet the signs of rank, the guns on the tanks. Women are seen as weak and as something to conquer. Their soft bodies changed by carrying life, scarred by the stretching of their skin accommodating new life is ridiculed. Their otherness and mystery and connection to the ability to create an nurture life is feared by many men. The best that these 'men' can do is destroy life. But even then their fear is still ever present.
I remember the Sargent coming to kiss us girls good night in the dormitory.
I remember the very young slight built blonde Leutenant asking us in class one day if to come and speak with her privately if we had any problems with any of the males. No one did come to her of course because she had no 'authority'. While she technically was higher ranked than the sergeant he had been around for thirty years and was well connected on the base and she had just blown in from no where.
Then there was a woman I know who had a hand gun forced into her mouth to make her a willing participant to be raped by a soldier.
I wont even mention that bayonet practice was done on a figure of a black woman. It was very difficult to get any sort of redress for sexual harassment, which was endemic, due to the authority structures in the work place. My own limited observations of the military police was that they were a law unto themselves, unpredictable, and most had had a humanity bypass. I don't know if any of this has been addressed since I left. Probably not.
It is not just that the military turns young men into sexual predators, which it most assuredly does being at the apex of all patriarchal institutions, but that it turns ordinary humans into monsters. And is designed to in some cases not withstanding that there are also decent humans in this dysfunctional institution. The military is the institution of the force of the state. The state is a male. The military worships death and destruction, maiming and scarring through violence. The phallus of the bomb and bullet the signs of rank, the guns on the tanks. Women are seen as weak and as something to conquer. Their soft bodies changed by carrying life, scarred by the stretching of their skin accommodating new life is ridiculed. Their otherness and mystery and connection to the ability to create an nurture life is feared by many men. The best that these 'men' can do is destroy life. But even then their fear is still ever present.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.