Expecting Rape

[Rosuav]

Know what, actually since I'm already being attacked for my views on this, I'll just run the gauntlet. I don't believe women should serve in the military, period, for all of the above reasons. Yes, that's not PC in the slightest. Is it sexist? I don't think so. If it is, I also happen to think that holding the door for a lady is sexist. Yes, I realize men can rape each other too. No, I'm not going into that argument because I'll just recommend a bullet in the head for each offender as a deterrent without a trial, which is also not very PC. No, I'm not trolling. But by all means, feel free to post pages and pages of counter rebuttal to this because I know that I'm going to have like 20 strangers posting links to studies and pretending to be experts and simply ignoring physiological differences between the two sexes which causes these issues.

*applaud* Sometimes you just need to be anti-PC.

There's plenty of ways for women to be employed in the military without being on the front lines.

[Malacasta]

Hahaha. What a cesspool. I'd forgotten.

[Nephrys]

Maybe I'm just arguing semantics but saying that you expect rape to occur in the military and saying that a woman who joins the military should EXPECT to get raped have completely different connotations to me.

Rape occurs in society. The military is a microcosm for society. Thus, rape occurs in the military. So yes, there is an expectation that rape happens. But to say that I should expect to get raped when I joined the military because I'm a female(which is what was said by that newscaster) is like saying that I should expect to get raped when I go to the gym. Because it happens, right? Well, I don't expect that. And its completely abhorrent that a newscaster would essentially tell women who have been raped in the military that they should have expected it when they joined.

I don't believe that stress causes a person to rape someone else. There is not a secret rapist lurking in everyone.

[Gromgor]

Except, what I got from her statement was not that women should expect to be raped, but that increases in the number of women in the military will result in an increase in the number of rapes in the military. Perhaps I heard her wrong and if I did, oh well.

And I have to argue that the military is a microcosm of society. The US military life is as vastly different from US civilian life as Japanese culture differs from classical southern Baptist life. Yes. We all have fundamental needs, food, clothing and shelter, but I remember the culture shock when I joined the army and again, when I returned to civilian life. The expectations of the individual, the pursuits and goals of the collective, they are nothing alike. Yes, the military is a smaller society, but it is not a representative of the US society as a whole.

[khaltek]

*applaud* Sometimes you just need to be anti-PC.

There's plenty of ways for women to be employed in the military without being on the front lines.

I think it was already pointed out that many rape victims in the military are men, and that many rapes don't happen "on the front lines".

Your statement is an affront to both feminism AND masculism. Why should women be afraid to fight for their country for being raped by their own comrades? Why should men be the only ones who are expected to fight for their country?

If rape is part of the "culture" of the US military, perhaps it's time to change the culture itself.

EDIT - I also don't think there's ever a time to be "anti-PC", because treating people fairly and equally should be one of the major goals of humanity.

[Tartun]

I think that people (especially in this thread) are confusing inequal with dissimilar. I think that men and women are equal, and should be treated as equal under the law. This [the idea that all people are equal under the law] is a fundamental part of the US legal system. I do not think that men and women are the same, nor should they be treated the same, or expected to act the same, or scientifically analyzed as "the same". If a football coach slapped my son on the ass and said good game, as a linebacker in highschool, I would think that was okay. If a football coach slapped my cheerleader daughter on the ass and said good game, I'd be furious. Just for example.

I think it's funny that people are suggesting that male rape is just as common in the military as female rape when it cannot be known if this is the case. Why? Because men are statistically less likely to report a rape, sexual assault, harassment or sexual descrimination. Just saying something is true doesn't make it true. The fact that statistics cannot be accurately taken because men and women react to the variable in question differently is a very obvious indicator that we cannot look at it in the light of politically correct lantern that has been used to illuminate mankind's actions of late. This kind of thing can only be seen in the blacklight of overprotective fatherly sexism.

[Nephrys]

I think it was already pointed out that many rape victims in the military are men, and that many rapes don't happen "on the front lines".

Your statement is an affront to both feminism AND masculism. Why should women be afraid to fight for their country for being raped by their own comrades? Why should men be the only ones who are expected to fight for their country?

If rape is part of the "culture" of the US military, perhaps it's time to change the culture itself.

EDIT - I also don't think there's ever a time to be "anti-PC", because treating people fairly and equally should be one of the major goals of humanity.

Amen.

[Nephrys]

This is the complete transcript of what was stated:

ERIC SHAWN (co-anchor): So this is now causing a controversy?

LIZ TROTTA (Fox News contributor): Well, it's a controversy that won't be a controversy because of political correctness. But we have women once more, the feminist, going, wanting to be warriors and victims at the same time. So what is the news? The news is that the Pentagon is going to add 14,000 more jobs for women in the military, but the overall ban against serving in the infantry, in special operations units, and combat tank units, is still in place. Well, you may ask, why did 140 women die in Afghanistan and Iraq if this ban was in place? Well the whole way we wage war has changed enormously. No front lines, no clear delineation of where troops are. Women can be attached to battalions, but they can't actually be in battalions. That would get down to the real guts of how we fight wars -- and that is being a member of the infantry.

But while all of this is going on, just a few weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta commented on a new Pentagon report on sexual abuse in the military. I think they have actually discovered there is a difference between men and women. And the sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? These people are in close contact, the whole airing of this issue has never been done by Congress, it's strictly been a question of pressure from the feminist.

And the feminists have also directed them, really, to spend a lot of money. They have sexual counselors all over the place, victims' advocates, sexual response coordinators. Let me just read something to you from McClatchy Newspapers about how much this position on extreme feminism is costing us. "The budget for the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office leapt from $5 million in fiscal 2005 to more than $23 million in fiscal 2010. Total Defense Department spending on sexual assault prevention and related efforts now exceeds $113 million annually." That's from McClatchy Newspapers.

So, you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much.

SHAWN: Well, many would say that they need to be protected, and there are these sexual programs, abuse programs, are necessary --

TROTTA: That's funny, I thought the mission of the Army, and the Navy, and four services was to defend and protect us, not the people who were fighting the war.

SHAWN: Well, you certainly want the people fighting the war to be protected from anything that could be illegal.

TROTTA: Oh, look, I mean, that's -- nice try Eric. This whole question of women in the military has not been aired properly, and it's the great sleeping giant.


What I get from this is that women should expect to be raped more and that they shouldn't expect that the military will spend money on programs to prevent this or help the victims of this. That's pretty backwards. I think it would be one thing to be critical of the increase in sexual assaults and the fact that it hasn't effectively been dealt with... but the tone that I get from her statement is that "Women wanted expanded roles in the military, then they got raped and then they wanted programs put in place to prevent this/treat victims of this and its costing us SO MUCH MONEY!"

Its one thing to bring up that the increase in rapes over the last few years indicates a problem that hasn't been effectively dealt with. But she's not just highlighting a problem, she's effectively blaming women for wanting more equality and not EXPECTING that they would be raped as a result of that. Sorry but that blame doesn't lie with the women who wanted to serve their country.

[Gromgor]

Then what you get from it is not accurate to what was said.

She was making comments about an increase in the numbers of assaults, brought on by an increase in the number of jobs for females being added in the military (14,000). She commented on how the government/military is not being excessively vocal about the issue, but rather feminists have. Which is only reasonable. I know if -I- was trying to convince people to go fight and possibly die I wouldn't be yelling about how there have been rapes. She's pointing out that there is money being spent, and that there is now an amount she feels to be excessive being spent ($23M vs. the previous $5M - With $113M annually in all). What I get from her statements are that the amount is being spent NOT because it's helping, but rather because feminists have demanded more be spent.

I think the line that has people most up in arms about this is the "Now what did they expect?"

I believe most are reading that as "Now what did [the women who joined the military] expect?

While I am reading that as "Now what did [the politicians and/or citizens/feminists] expect?

She's complaining about the bureaucracy and the money and as a law maker and as somebody that has to ALWAYS be mindful of a budget, she should. We SHOULD look at these programs. We should question whether spending more, adding more "programs" or stiffer punishments, etc. are working, necessary or even possible. In this case, because this is an issue, apparently it's not working, the current policies are not necessary, but some policy IS necessary. Is it even possible to reduce the number of rapes per 1,000 women in the military? I like to believe so. I have your backs on this one ladies. I think we need MORE women in the military. Put them on the front lines. Put them in the infantry. Put them on subs. If they can do it physically, with the same demanding standards as man faces, let them do the job. Flood the military with women. Rape is about power and one, of the many, reasons we are even discussing this issue is because this "man's military" is being challenged. How many of these rapes are simply because the individual is a woman in the military and not just because she's a woman? Remove that sense of the military belonging to the men and that whole challenge disappears.