This is a story about people in the U.S. military who rape other people in the U.S. military.
Justice Not War Coalition staff member Karla Cohen introduced the Command Rape panelists to the 60 people who gathered in the Knight Law center on Wednesday night.
“These stories are not easy to hear,” Cohen began. “The realities hit too close to home.”
“In Iraq, many servicewomen are carrying weapons to protect themselves not from insurgents, but rather from their ‘battle buddies’ – the men with whom they are ostensibly fighting a war for democracy and freedom, the comrades who are supposed to have their backs,” Cohen said.
“At least three women serving in Iraq have died of dehydration as a direct result of choosing to forego liquids rather than risk a dangerous nighttime trek to the latrine,” Cohen said. “Their ‘battle buddies’ often await them there.”
Carol Van Houten of the Community Alliance of Lane County and the Committee for Countering Military Recruitment discussed the power dynamics that play a role in military rape. She said it can be hard when women are discredited and the government opts to believe men.
“The military just turned a blind eye to this problem,” Van Houten said.
She said toward the beginning of the conflict “when there was still actually a war in Iraq,” then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq specifically to investigate the high number of military rapes.
But since Rumsfeld’s trip, the government has done nothing to stop the still-high occurrence of rape, she said.
Van Houten began by reading an excerpt from an interview she’d had with a young military woman who’d been raped by her recruiter.
“The recruiter had all the power. He had the uniform. He had my future. And I trusted him,” Van Houten read.
Panelist and University law professor Caroline Forell spoke about military culture for women. She focused on the internal dynamics within the military and the seriousness of power structures.
“How does (a woman) make her commander stop or hold him accountable?” asked Forell. She said that when dealing with a superior man in the military and a subordinate woman, he always has the option of denying the allegations. Forell said in this case, it turns into a “he said-she said” case, in which the government almost always chooses to believe the man.
“Women soldiers are viewed as whores, bitches or dykes,” said Forell. “Those are the three choices.”
Women who speak out are viewed “furthermore as a coward, just trying to get out of service,” Forell said.
“Think about it. It’s power backed by force, hierarchy, following orders and violence,” Forell said. “Those are all essential features of the military. It’s not military without it.”
Megan Cornish of the socialist feminist organization Radical Women addressed stereotypes of women who are raped; they wear “revealing” clothes, are promiscuous and behave in a manner that makes being raped their fault. These notions are ludicrous, Cornish said; nothing, especially not wearing shorts or a skirt, makes for an invitation to be raped.
Members of the University’s Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team commented that this is part of a notion called “victim blaming.”
The panelists said they would try to end on an optimistic note, though there wasn’t much optimism surrounding the topic.
Cornish said the way women are treated by their fellow officers and commanders needs to just stop. She said that when the word comes down the line that it’s not okay to do this, it sticks. But first that word needs to start somewhere and successfully continue to be passed down to everyone in the military, and that hasn’t happened yet.