by Chris Bodenner
A reader writes (with an updated reader retort below):
I’m a reserve naval officer with a young daughter that I love very much. I mention this information just to let you know where I’m coming from when I say that the media (including The Dish) is getting this story wrong and missing the larger problem.
One rape is too many – period – and does it happen in the military? Obviously. That said, I can tell you from personal experience that the military is more proactive on this problem than any other public or private institution. I’m not an apologist – just telling you the facts. Every year, every single member of the military goes through several hours of sexual assault prevention training. As long as I can remember – at least 10 years – this training has included outside-the-chain-of-command hotline numbers and other reporting techniques. You should also know that sexual assault stats in the military can include incidents that wouldn’t even be reported within civilian institutions – things like “brushing by” and “staring for too long.”
The reason that I mentioned that I have a young daughter is that, after studying the data, I can say with confidence that she would be safer in the military than at most American colleges. I’m not even talking about the frat colleges like USC or Duke. I’m talking about places like Harvard. Check out the Class of 2013 survey that was published in The Crimson, especially this tidbit:
In the survey, 45 people—41 of whom were women or transgender students—said that they had been sexually assaulted at Harvard. Just eight of those victims said they reported the assault to Harvard administrators. And just one, a male victim, went to the police.
I believe only about half of the graduates responded to this survey and so it doesn’t include those who were so traumatized that they had to leave Harvard. But even so, those numbers are roughly the same as the numbers for the military – and remember that the threshold of what is defined as “sexual assault” at Harvard is probably much higher than the military. Finally, and most damning, only one – one! – victim out of 45 went to the police. And only 8 notified anyone at all. That is absolutely egregious.
Clearly this is just the tip of the iceberg. So who has the problem? We all do. Like I said, one rape is too many.
Lastly, Harvard and every other college gets a shitload of federal money for research and student loans and grants, so their sexual assault problem is not theirs alone. If the tax-payer is funding those institutions, the tax-payer has a right and duty to demand higher standards.
Update from a reader:
Responding to the Naval Reserve Officer who excuses the military’s demonstrably unsuccessful response to sexual assault while pretending not to: I’m a retired Naval Officer, and now a civilian working on a military base, and I call bullshit on his assessment that the military is more proactive on this than anyone else. A few points:
1. Mentioning he has a daughter he loves is irrelevant, manipulative hand waiving.
2. The annual sexual harassment training we receive is a check-in-the-box lecture conducted by ill-trained and apathetic instructors. The last one I attended devolved into a lengthy discussion that was little more than victim-blaming accusations of inappropriate dress, which the instructor allowed without interruption or contradiction. This was not much different than the post-DADT training lecture, during which the instructor opened with “You don’t have to like it and I’m not gonna try to justify it,” signaling his clear dislike of the new policy.
3. Your correspondent’s dismissal of military assault statistics because the include “brushing by” and “staring too long” is insulting to all those that have been assaulted. It is a repulsive and inaccurate minimization of a very real problem. The writer is conflating sexual harassment issues – which, just as in the civilian world, can include ogling, leering, and staring inappropriately – with assault, while pretending that such concerns are unheard of in the civilian workplace.
4. Comparing “the military” to “colleges” is a nonsensical logical fallacy. It is much more appropriate to compare the military to other industries and workplaces. The fact that our daughters are not particularly safe at colleges is a problem, but to hand-wave away the military issues with little more than “but other places that are worse” is childish.
We have a major sexual assault problem that has confounded the uniformed leadership despite having vastly greater authority over their employees than nearly any other industry or professional leadership cadre. It is this contradiction that suggests a significant structural and cultural problem not to be dismissed by lazy comparisons and minimizations.
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