7 ms·

Military sexual assaults far exceed DoD estimates, new report finds

RajT88 2y ago
No shocker. The talking point on sexual assault is generally, "there is much more than is reported" because victims for a variety of reasons do not like coming forward.
JPKab 2y ago
A huge percentage of these cases would be prevented if they simply had male and female E1-E3s housed in entirely separate sections of each base/ship. The integration of women into the service was a good thing, but there's been a lack of realism from leadership about the actual realities of dumping a bunch of 18-22 year olds together when a significant minority of them are from extremely dysfunctional backgrounds and half of them barely made it through high school.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - pc86 2y ago
    You are taking half a sentence out of context, reinterpreting it, and replying to a statement nobody said.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > No shit! That's because the integration happened based solely on ideological and political terms, as opposed to happening in order to improve the quality of the corps. You could exclude anyone born on monday through wednesday and it wouldn't have a big impact on quality. But getting rid of that exclusion for ideological reasons would be a good thing. It's a stupid exclusion. If a very big exclusion doesn't have a very big reason to exist, then the reason to get rid of it doesn't need to be huge either. > Nobody wants to admit that women may have different needs, or worse, abilities, than men lest they be called sexist and lose their political power. > God forbid men and women actually have differences I don't see how these differences have anything to do with the problem here. An all-woman group would probably have similar rates to an all-male group. And most of the differences only exist in statistical form. Individual people have individual abilities and should be sorted based on their own scores.
- gchamonlive 2y ago
  Maybe this problem isn't bottom up, but top down, that is the leadership doesn't enforce rules and actually promotes this kind of very outdated masculine expression. I spent my entire adolescence in a military school and this is something that is very prevalent in the military corporation. There is a lot of victim blaming for something that is clearly systemic -- where these incidents are dismissed because "boys be boys..." -- and could be worked around by making those responsible accountable, but that will step on some very shiny and important toes, which is why you don't see a push for the correct kind of change in the military that this needs.
  - pc86 2y ago
    In what possible universe could you contrive the GP's comment as victim blaming?
    - gchamonlive 2y ago
      Maybe I wasn't clear enough. That part is continuing the thought process I started in the first paragraph, not responding directly to OP. Let me rephrase that, thanks!
  - itohihiyt 2y ago
    In a profession that by nature is meant to be aggressive to the point of killing, how is any form of masculine expression outdated. Worse comes to worse these people may be required to kill other people with their bare hands. It's trained into them, it's meant to be systemic. Unfortunately a side effect is this sort of behaviour. Separating men and women in such an environment is sensible. Recognizing that isn't victim blaming.
    - BobaFloutist 2y ago
      Is the US military supposed to be aggressive, or disciplined?
      - itohihiyt 2y ago
- rytor718 2y ago
  Can you clarify what you mean by "housed in entirely separate sections"? Because housing is separated (male barracks, female barracks for E-1 thru E-3 exactly with minor exceptions) throughout the military. But are you saying basically have a male section of the base and female section of the base? And how would this prevent sexual assaults?
- ziddoap 2y ago
  >the actual realities of dumping a bunch of 18-22 year olds together when a significant minority of them are from extremely dysfunctional backgrounds[...] This is either really sad or maybe I'm just naive? Since when is the "reality" of putting 18-22 year olds together (dysfunctional background and high school completion or not) sexual assault? I remember being 18-22, coming from a fairly dysfunctional background, and yet I managed to never sexually assault anyone. Even when I was in co-ed housing!
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ziddoap 2y ago
      I wasn't attempting to prove or disprove anything. It's a comment.
    - pknomad 2y ago
      It's also unfair to lump all 18-22 year olds from dysfunction background as potential sexual predators.
      - rexpop 2y ago
        "Predation" isn't necessary to precipitate sexual assault, only sexual, social, or emotional dysfunction.
    - seneca 2y ago
      This sort of rude snark really degrades the conversation.
      - JohnMakin 2y ago
        It’s not meant to be rude - but the parent comment doesn’t do much either
  - mc32 2y ago
- rectang 2y ago
  The greater problem is hostility to enforcement from the top down, as evidenced by countless scandals. Gender segregation "others" women and cripples their careers, ensuring that they continue to be underpromoted relative to their talent and thus underrepresented. We learned a long time ago that separate but equal is inherently unequal, yet it's a zombie concept that always comes back. https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/the-dark-side-of-gender-segregation-in-the-military/ https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/the-dark-side-of-gender-se... > It may seem intuitive that gender segregation would lead to less sexual harassment and sexual assault, but there is mounting evidence that shows the opposite might be true. Studies on workplace sexual harassment show that encouraging social integration at work can reduce sexual harassment. Other studies show that increased contact with an “outgroup” (in this case, women), improves attitudes towards individuals in that outgroup. These improvements are more likely to take place when group membership is de-emphasized during the interaction. But we're hobbled in discussing this on HN because it skews overwhelmingly male — and there's even less enthusiasm for confronting that than there is for confronting sexual assault in the military.
  - lo_zamoyski 2y ago
    Even if we accept your thesis, are you prepared to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, to throw women to the wolves with the hope that over time, the men will learn? I, for one, would not do this, as it is cruel and uncaring. In the best case, it is utilitarian, and that is evil. You need some more nuance here. There is a place for mixed sex interactions. Men and women are not interchangeable. They have different needs, some of which require operating in sexually segregated settings, and because of their intrinsic complementarity, coupled with the vices that actually exist in the world and the weaknesses of human beings, there will always be tension. To refuse segregation in certain situations is to willingly put the weaker in danger. It is important that we conform our actions to reality, instead of operating from arbitrary and preconceived notions of how things "should" be. The notion of "equality as sameness" does not help people flourish, because it is hostile and ignores who people actually are and their particular needs, and in this case, the needs proper to their sex.
    - rectang 2y ago
- brudgers 2y ago
  Sexual assault occurs in single sex groups. This can be a factor in under-reporting.
  - everybodyknows 2y ago
    Point addressed in TFA. Yes, is a problem, but male-on-female assault rate is an OOM greater.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  Given that the US military has a persistent problem with Marines raping Okinawan women (i.e., people off-base entirely), I don't think gender segregation is the panacea that you think it is.
  - RajT88 2y ago
    Among other misdeeds. Every now and again they kill a local in a bar fight. Americans are far less popular in Okinawa than the rest of Japan.
- yellow_giraffe 2y ago
  A huge percentage of these cases would be prevented if the leadership at Company-level and up actually took SHARP cases seriously and didn't retaliate against [1] or belittle soldiers who report assault/harassment. Or the fact that, until recently, it was at the commander's discretion whether to prosecute an assault/harassment as a crime [2]. >there's been a lack of realism from leadership about the actual realities.. I can assure you most Platoon leaders, Company commanders, etc. are very aware of the realities in enlisted living quarters; they are simply apathetic about them. A SHARP complaint becomes another pile of paperwork on their desk they don't want to deal with (see [2]). I think the tendency to blame the 18-22 year olds with "dysfunctional backgrounds" who "barely made it through high school" places the blame on the lower enlisted while ignoring the military leadership's responsibility for decades of documented failure in addressing this issue. Consider the following: > Most Service members identified the alleged offenders as men and often of the same rank as the victim or some other higher ranking military member in their unit. However, an estimated 44 percent of women and an estimated 35 percent of men identified at least one alleged offender as someone in their chain of command [3]. Also consider reasons for not reporting: >Despite these differences, the top three reasons provided for not reporting were consistent between men and women: (1) did not think anything would be done; (2) thought it was not serious enough to report; and (3) worried about potential negative consequences from military coworkers or peers [3]. In my opinion, the problem is at the top of the hierarchy, not the bottom. (Sorry to throw so much in this comment, but I grow really tired of people thinking this problem is some case of lower enlisted being dumb hooligans who can't control their urges while ignoring the consistent and systemic failures of senior officers and NCO within the DoD to address the problem at all.) [1] https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-reserve-416th-sexual-assault/ https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-reserve-416th-sexual-as... [2] https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/12/28/sexual-assault-prosecutions-officially-out-of-the-chain-of-command/ https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/12/28/sexu... [3] https://www.sapr.mil/sites/default/files/public/docs/reports/AR/FY23/FY23_Annual_Report_Fact_Sheet.pdf https://www.sapr.mil/sites/default/files/public/docs/reports...
- lo_zamoyski 2y ago
  > lack of realism Yes, but... > The integration of women into the service was a good thing Was it? I, for one, would reject this thesis, except in a qualified sense. That is, I can imagine a place for women in certain roles, sure, but not all roles. Same for men. The most obvious problem is that putting men and women in a position that places equal physical demands on them either does a disservice to men by making these demands lower to allow women to meet them, or to women by imposing on them a physical regime that is wholly inappropriate for the female body. We know that men and women respond different to various physical activities. In sports, men tend to become healthier with moderate physical activity like weight-lifting. When women take up similarly rigorous exercise, you see negative consequences to their health. Menstruation can be disrupted, for example. That doesn't mean women cannot exercise, only that the range of exercises that benefits women is not the same as the range that benefits men. Sex blindness where sex is relevant is a great disservice to each sex. It ignores the needs of each sex for the sake of ticking off some kind of ideological check box. It is not kind or loving to either sex.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
trhway 2y ago
Technical site - technical solution - bodycams everywhere/everybody. Car dashcam costs $10 these days (and anyway video recording took a massive scale in the modern war like in Ukraine, so non-currently-fighting militaries better get used to it beforehand). In case of any questionable situation - presumed guilty until there is video clearly showing otherwise - thus no "battery issues", everybody would be carrying 2-3 bodycams and spare batteries just to be sure (already happening when it comes to drones, and soon every soldier will have several drones one way or another, drones are becoming widespread like guns and soldier carrying a gun has been normal for 500 years or so).
- alwa 2y ago
  I’m sure that will be very popular on top-secret military installations.
  - trhway 2y ago
    Even more so. You'd like everything recorded there. Encryption solves the leaking issue.
    - alwa 2y ago
      I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I see what you mean. The idea being the more important it is to know what really happened, the more important to record evidence as it happens, right? I think our plan’s much bigger problems are ethical, social, legal, and political. And logical: odd to solve sexual misbehavior by routinely recording people while they’re naked. But a more technical critique for a technical solution: Encryption or not, isn’t it axiomatic that you can’t hack or steal what doesn’t exist? When our best and brightest protective schemes can’t protect the security files of all the cleared personnel in the US [0], or the bag of digital tricks the intelligence agencies use to hack with [1], is it technically wise to generate vastly more stuff worth stealing? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Manageme... [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/theft-of-top-secret-cia-hacking-tools-was-result-of-woefully-lax-security/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/theft...
baby 2y ago
It’s interesting how opaque and non-transparent the US military is. From a glance it seemed like this is one of the reason Iraq was such a fuck up. The intel that nothing was working there wouldn’t make its way up the chain, nobody understood how bad the situation was. There used to be that one documentary circulating on Reddit about that general that was pretty open about things there and got severely reprimanded for it. I can understand keeping things internal, but if things are not transparent internally then people should go public with the intel they have.
- philwelch 2y ago
  Nearly all of the mistakes in Iraq (including the decision to invade in the first place) were made at the political level, above the military. Bush decided to invade the country, Rumsfeld decided to commit too few troops to effectively occupy the country, and Obama decided to set a hard public deadline for withdrawal that allowed the insurgency groups that turned into ISIS to plan and bide their time. The military can’t question the orders they receive from the president and Secretary of Defense. That’s an important part of maintaining civilian control over the military. The military can only try to carry out whatever goals and decisions they’re given by the politicians, and in Iraq the politicians (from both parties) got it wrong.
  - Mathnerd314 2y ago
    > The military can’t question the orders they receive They can present a report on why the orders are a bad idea, IIRC. That could be seen as "questioning". And there is the possibility of disobeying illegal orders. But it is true, if the orders are legal and final then they have to be carried out. (And if they're illegal... better be prepared to prove it at a court-martial)
    - philwelch 2y ago
      It’s possible there was some pushback on the manpower levels, because that actually is closer to a military decision. Though apparently even then, the military often just takes what they get. The original plans for the 1991 Gulf War didn’t include the flanking attack from the western desert because not enough forces were allocated, and it was Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney who had to remind the generals that they were allowed to request more troops if they thought they needed them. But the decision to start and stop wars is explicitly political and there is a much greater taboo against the military trying to tell the president which wars the country should be fighting in the first place. Which is a big part of the difference between a democracy and a military dictatorship!
jandrewrogers 2y ago
Completely unsurprising. There is a longstanding history of incentives and policy inconsistencies that make this outcome a virtual certainty. Everyone knows it is an issue but addressing it has been turned into a forum to push ideologically-driven narratives by all sides rather than a sincere effort to do what is necessary to find an effective solution. Lots of political vibes and platitudes, little interest in the hard questions.
kr0bat 2y ago
So that's 74,000 assaults against a population of 1,328,000[1]. So about 5.57% of the armed forces were assaulted sexually in one year. But the United States as a whole had a reported ≈325k[2] sexual assaults in 2021. That's 0.09% of the population. Are you really over 60 times more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than in the general public? And are over a fifth of sexual assaults in America happening between military personnel? Somebody please tell me what I'm missing because I must be making a serious logical mistake. [1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11994 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11994 [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/642458/rape-and-sexual-assault-victims-in-the-us-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/642458/rape-and-sexual-a...
- Kinrany 2y ago
  Why is this surprising?
- trhway 2y ago
  >Somebody please tell me what I'm missing because I must be making a serious logical mistake. authority (and corresponding victim helplessness and defenselessness) breeds sexual assault and harassment. Military is by far among the most authoritarian institutions (only prison probably beats it by a thin margin).
- throwaway984393 2y ago
  It's well established that sexual assault is under-reported in the US general population
  - arcticbull 2y ago
    Under-reported to police yes, but this data comes from NCVS which is generally regarded to be more accurate. You can learn more about their methodology here. [1] [1] https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs#0-0 https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs#0-0
- sxp 2y ago
  One common stat that is used is "1 in 5 women are SA'd in college". Assuming a 4-year college, that means 1-((1-.2)^.25) = 5.5% of women in college are SA'd each year. So the rates are somewhat similar to a rough approximation with some coarse assumptions about demographics.
rustcleaner 2y ago
[flagged]
- crowcroft 2y ago
  I think this is a fair question, but I would be a bit concerned if the implication here is positive masculinity includes sexual assault. I'm sure that's not what you're saying though.
- rexpop 2y ago
  > Why does everything attack or throw shade on masculinity? Because of men's disproportionate representation among perpetrators.
  - rustcleaner 2y ago
    ... and why isn't there more classification of women as perpetrators for their bad behaviors like men? Why isn't there more "perp walking" women-as-perpetrators stories like the constant "perp walking" men as a class get? Are the sexes only unequal when it works out for the oppressed-labeled classes?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - dahart 2y ago
      Maybe it’s because “An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male.”? https://www.humboldt.edu/supporting-survivors/educational-resources/statistics https://www.humboldt.edu/supporting-survivors/educational-re...
- api 2y ago
  Overcorrection (and reaction) from the past when women were considered inferior beings and basically property. It wasn't that long ago. Just one example: women were not allowed to open bank accounts in some places in the US until 1974: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open-a-bank-account/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open... One of my rules for understanding human society is that "everything always overcorrects." We tend to overcorrect one way, then overcorrect the other way, and so on. It's a bit like if you have a spring under tension and let go of it. It does not snap back to the center. It oscillates for a while.
sa46 2y ago
Link to the actual report [1]. The DOD estimates 4.3-8.4 percent of women experience unwanted sexual contact, based on 8,500 reports, extrapolated to 29,000 estimated incidents. The author argues that the actual rate is 24% of women, using the median estimate from a range of independent studies. DOD's most significant change was moving the prosecution authority for sexual assault to a separate tribunal in 2023. [1]: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/2024/8.14.24%20Greenburg_Sexual%20Assault%20Crisis_Costs%20of%20War.pdf https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20...
basementcat 2y ago
Why is this flagged? Is sexual assault not perceived to be a major issue here?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

No shocker. The talking point on sexual assault is generally, "there is much more than is reported" because victims for a variety of reasons do not like coming forward.

JPKab 2y ago

A huge percentage of these cases would be prevented if they simply had male and female E1-E3s housed in entirely separate sections of each base/ship. The integration of women into the service was a good thing, but there's been a lack of realism from leadership about the actual realities of dumping a bunch of 18-22 year olds together when a significant minority of them are from extremely dysfunctional backgrounds and half of them barely made it through high school.

dingnuts 2y ago
[flagged]
- pc86 2y ago
  You are taking half a sentence out of context, reinterpreting it, and replying to a statement nobody said.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > No shit! That's because the integration happened based solely on ideological and political terms, as opposed to happening in order to improve the quality of the corps. You could exclude anyone born on monday through wednesday and it wouldn't have a big impact on quality. But getting rid of that exclusion for ideological reasons would be a good thing. It's a stupid exclusion. If a very big exclusion doesn't have a very big reason to exist, then the reason to get rid of it doesn't need to be huge either. > Nobody wants to admit that women may have different needs, or worse, abilities, than men lest they be called sexist and lose their political power. > God forbid men and women actually have differences I don't see how these differences have anything to do with the problem here. An all-woman group would probably have similar rates to an all-male group. And most of the differences only exist in statistical form. Individual people have individual abilities and should be sorted based on their own scores.
gchamonlive 2y ago
Maybe this problem isn't bottom up, but top down, that is the leadership doesn't enforce rules and actually promotes this kind of very outdated masculine expression. I spent my entire adolescence in a military school and this is something that is very prevalent in the military corporation. There is a lot of victim blaming for something that is clearly systemic -- where these incidents are dismissed because "boys be boys..." -- and could be worked around by making those responsible accountable, but that will step on some very shiny and important toes, which is why you don't see a push for the correct kind of change in the military that this needs.
- pc86 2y ago
  In what possible universe could you contrive the GP's comment as victim blaming?
  - gchamonlive 2y ago
    Maybe I wasn't clear enough. That part is continuing the thought process I started in the first paragraph, not responding directly to OP. Let me rephrase that, thanks!
- itohihiyt 2y ago
  In a profession that by nature is meant to be aggressive to the point of killing, how is any form of masculine expression outdated. Worse comes to worse these people may be required to kill other people with their bare hands. It's trained into them, it's meant to be systemic. Unfortunately a side effect is this sort of behaviour. Separating men and women in such an environment is sensible. Recognizing that isn't victim blaming.
  - BobaFloutist 2y ago
    Is the US military supposed to be aggressive, or disciplined?
    - itohihiyt 2y ago
rytor718 2y ago
Can you clarify what you mean by "housed in entirely separate sections"? Because housing is separated (male barracks, female barracks for E-1 thru E-3 exactly with minor exceptions) throughout the military. But are you saying basically have a male section of the base and female section of the base? And how would this prevent sexual assaults?
ziddoap 2y ago
>the actual realities of dumping a bunch of 18-22 year olds together when a significant minority of them are from extremely dysfunctional backgrounds[...] This is either really sad or maybe I'm just naive? Since when is the "reality" of putting 18-22 year olds together (dysfunctional background and high school completion or not) sexual assault? I remember being 18-22, coming from a fairly dysfunctional background, and yet I managed to never sexually assault anyone. Even when I was in co-ed housing!
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ziddoap 2y ago
    I wasn't attempting to prove or disprove anything. It's a comment.
  - pknomad 2y ago
    It's also unfair to lump all 18-22 year olds from dysfunction background as potential sexual predators.
    - rexpop 2y ago
      "Predation" isn't necessary to precipitate sexual assault, only sexual, social, or emotional dysfunction.
  - seneca 2y ago
    This sort of rude snark really degrades the conversation.
    - JohnMakin 2y ago
      It’s not meant to be rude - but the parent comment doesn’t do much either
- mc32 2y ago
rectang 2y ago
The greater problem is hostility to enforcement from the top down, as evidenced by countless scandals. Gender segregation "others" women and cripples their careers, ensuring that they continue to be underpromoted relative to their talent and thus underrepresented. We learned a long time ago that separate but equal is inherently unequal, yet it's a zombie concept that always comes back. https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/the-dark-side-of-gender-segregation-in-the-military/ https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/the-dark-side-of-gender-se... > It may seem intuitive that gender segregation would lead to less sexual harassment and sexual assault, but there is mounting evidence that shows the opposite might be true. Studies on workplace sexual harassment show that encouraging social integration at work can reduce sexual harassment. Other studies show that increased contact with an “outgroup” (in this case, women), improves attitudes towards individuals in that outgroup. These improvements are more likely to take place when group membership is de-emphasized during the interaction. But we're hobbled in discussing this on HN because it skews overwhelmingly male — and there's even less enthusiasm for confronting that than there is for confronting sexual assault in the military.
- lo_zamoyski 2y ago
  Even if we accept your thesis, are you prepared to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, to throw women to the wolves with the hope that over time, the men will learn? I, for one, would not do this, as it is cruel and uncaring. In the best case, it is utilitarian, and that is evil. You need some more nuance here. There is a place for mixed sex interactions. Men and women are not interchangeable. They have different needs, some of which require operating in sexually segregated settings, and because of their intrinsic complementarity, coupled with the vices that actually exist in the world and the weaknesses of human beings, there will always be tension. To refuse segregation in certain situations is to willingly put the weaker in danger. It is important that we conform our actions to reality, instead of operating from arbitrary and preconceived notions of how things "should" be. The notion of "equality as sameness" does not help people flourish, because it is hostile and ignores who people actually are and their particular needs, and in this case, the needs proper to their sex.
  - rectang 2y ago
brudgers 2y ago
Sexual assault occurs in single sex groups. This can be a factor in under-reporting.
- everybodyknows 2y ago
  Point addressed in TFA. Yes, is a problem, but male-on-female assault rate is an OOM greater.
jcranmer 2y ago
Given that the US military has a persistent problem with Marines raping Okinawan women (i.e., people off-base entirely), I don't think gender segregation is the panacea that you think it is.
- RajT88 2y ago
  Among other misdeeds. Every now and again they kill a local in a bar fight. Americans are far less popular in Okinawa than the rest of Japan.
yellow_giraffe 2y ago
A huge percentage of these cases would be prevented if the leadership at Company-level and up actually took SHARP cases seriously and didn't retaliate against [1] or belittle soldiers who report assault/harassment. Or the fact that, until recently, it was at the commander's discretion whether to prosecute an assault/harassment as a crime [2]. >there's been a lack of realism from leadership about the actual realities.. I can assure you most Platoon leaders, Company commanders, etc. are very aware of the realities in enlisted living quarters; they are simply apathetic about them. A SHARP complaint becomes another pile of paperwork on their desk they don't want to deal with (see [2]). I think the tendency to blame the 18-22 year olds with "dysfunctional backgrounds" who "barely made it through high school" places the blame on the lower enlisted while ignoring the military leadership's responsibility for decades of documented failure in addressing this issue. Consider the following: > Most Service members identified the alleged offenders as men and often of the same rank as the victim or some other higher ranking military member in their unit. However, an estimated 44 percent of women and an estimated 35 percent of men identified at least one alleged offender as someone in their chain of command [3]. Also consider reasons for not reporting: >Despite these differences, the top three reasons provided for not reporting were consistent between men and women: (1) did not think anything would be done; (2) thought it was not serious enough to report; and (3) worried about potential negative consequences from military coworkers or peers [3]. In my opinion, the problem is at the top of the hierarchy, not the bottom. (Sorry to throw so much in this comment, but I grow really tired of people thinking this problem is some case of lower enlisted being dumb hooligans who can't control their urges while ignoring the consistent and systemic failures of senior officers and NCO within the DoD to address the problem at all.) [1] https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-reserve-416th-sexual-assault/ https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-reserve-416th-sexual-as... [2] https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/12/28/sexual-assault-prosecutions-officially-out-of-the-chain-of-command/ https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/12/28/sexu... [3] https://www.sapr.mil/sites/default/files/public/docs/reports/AR/FY23/FY23_Annual_Report_Fact_Sheet.pdf https://www.sapr.mil/sites/default/files/public/docs/reports...
lo_zamoyski 2y ago
> lack of realism Yes, but... > The integration of women into the service was a good thing Was it? I, for one, would reject this thesis, except in a qualified sense. That is, I can imagine a place for women in certain roles, sure, but not all roles. Same for men. The most obvious problem is that putting men and women in a position that places equal physical demands on them either does a disservice to men by making these demands lower to allow women to meet them, or to women by imposing on them a physical regime that is wholly inappropriate for the female body. We know that men and women respond different to various physical activities. In sports, men tend to become healthier with moderate physical activity like weight-lifting. When women take up similarly rigorous exercise, you see negative consequences to their health. Menstruation can be disrupted, for example. That doesn't mean women cannot exercise, only that the range of exercises that benefits women is not the same as the range that benefits men. Sex blindness where sex is relevant is a great disservice to each sex. It ignores the needs of each sex for the sake of ticking off some kind of ideological check box. It is not kind or loving to either sex.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

trhway 2y ago

Technical site - technical solution - bodycams everywhere/everybody. Car dashcam costs $10 these days (and anyway video recording took a massive scale in the modern war like in Ukraine, so non-currently-fighting militaries better get used to it beforehand). In case of any questionable situation - presumed guilty until there is video clearly showing otherwise - thus no "battery issues", everybody would be carrying 2-3 bodycams and spare batteries just to be sure (already happening when it comes to drones, and soon every soldier will have several drones one way or another, drones are becoming widespread like guns and soldier carrying a gun has been normal for 500 years or so).

alwa 2y ago
I’m sure that will be very popular on top-secret military installations.
- trhway 2y ago
  Even more so. You'd like everything recorded there. Encryption solves the leaking issue.
  - alwa 2y ago
    I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I see what you mean. The idea being the more important it is to know what really happened, the more important to record evidence as it happens, right? I think our plan’s much bigger problems are ethical, social, legal, and political. And logical: odd to solve sexual misbehavior by routinely recording people while they’re naked. But a more technical critique for a technical solution: Encryption or not, isn’t it axiomatic that you can’t hack or steal what doesn’t exist? When our best and brightest protective schemes can’t protect the security files of all the cleared personnel in the US [0], or the bag of digital tricks the intelligence agencies use to hack with [1], is it technically wise to generate vastly more stuff worth stealing? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Manageme... [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/theft-of-top-secret-cia-hacking-tools-was-result-of-woefully-lax-security/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/06/theft...

baby 2y ago

It’s interesting how opaque and non-transparent the US military is. From a glance it seemed like this is one of the reason Iraq was such a fuck up. The intel that nothing was working there wouldn’t make its way up the chain, nobody understood how bad the situation was. There used to be that one documentary circulating on Reddit about that general that was pretty open about things there and got severely reprimanded for it. I can understand keeping things internal, but if things are not transparent internally then people should go public with the intel they have.

philwelch 2y ago
Nearly all of the mistakes in Iraq (including the decision to invade in the first place) were made at the political level, above the military. Bush decided to invade the country, Rumsfeld decided to commit too few troops to effectively occupy the country, and Obama decided to set a hard public deadline for withdrawal that allowed the insurgency groups that turned into ISIS to plan and bide their time. The military can’t question the orders they receive from the president and Secretary of Defense. That’s an important part of maintaining civilian control over the military. The military can only try to carry out whatever goals and decisions they’re given by the politicians, and in Iraq the politicians (from both parties) got it wrong.
- Mathnerd314 2y ago
  > The military can’t question the orders they receive They can present a report on why the orders are a bad idea, IIRC. That could be seen as "questioning". And there is the possibility of disobeying illegal orders. But it is true, if the orders are legal and final then they have to be carried out. (And if they're illegal... better be prepared to prove it at a court-martial)
  - philwelch 2y ago
    It’s possible there was some pushback on the manpower levels, because that actually is closer to a military decision. Though apparently even then, the military often just takes what they get. The original plans for the 1991 Gulf War didn’t include the flanking attack from the western desert because not enough forces were allocated, and it was Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney who had to remind the generals that they were allowed to request more troops if they thought they needed them. But the decision to start and stop wars is explicitly political and there is a much greater taboo against the military trying to tell the president which wars the country should be fighting in the first place. Which is a big part of the difference between a democracy and a military dictatorship!

jandrewrogers 2y ago

Completely unsurprising. There is a longstanding history of incentives and policy inconsistencies that make this outcome a virtual certainty. Everyone knows it is an issue but addressing it has been turned into a forum to push ideologically-driven narratives by all sides rather than a sincere effort to do what is necessary to find an effective solution. Lots of political vibes and platitudes, little interest in the hard questions.

kr0bat 2y ago

So that's 74,000 assaults against a population of 1,328,000[1]. So about 5.57% of the armed forces were assaulted sexually in one year. But the United States as a whole had a reported ≈325k[2] sexual assaults in 2021. That's 0.09% of the population. Are you really over 60 times more likely to be sexually assaulted in the military than in the general public? And are over a fifth of sexual assaults in America happening between military personnel? Somebody please tell me what I'm missing because I must be making a serious logical mistake. [1] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11994 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11994 [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/642458/rape-and-sexual-assault-victims-in-the-us-by-gender/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/642458/rape-and-sexual-a...

Kinrany 2y ago
Why is this surprising?
trhway 2y ago
>Somebody please tell me what I'm missing because I must be making a serious logical mistake. authority (and corresponding victim helplessness and defenselessness) breeds sexual assault and harassment. Military is by far among the most authoritarian institutions (only prison probably beats it by a thin margin).
throwaway984393 2y ago
It's well established that sexual assault is under-reported in the US general population
- arcticbull 2y ago
  Under-reported to police yes, but this data comes from NCVS which is generally regarded to be more accurate. You can learn more about their methodology here. [1] [1] https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs#0-0 https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/ncvs#0-0
sxp 2y ago
One common stat that is used is "1 in 5 women are SA'd in college". Assuming a 4-year college, that means 1-((1-.2)^.25) = 5.5% of women in college are SA'd each year. So the rates are somewhat similar to a rough approximation with some coarse assumptions about demographics.

rustcleaner 2y ago

[flagged]

crowcroft 2y ago
I think this is a fair question, but I would be a bit concerned if the implication here is positive masculinity includes sexual assault. I'm sure that's not what you're saying though.
rexpop 2y ago
> Why does everything attack or throw shade on masculinity? Because of men's disproportionate representation among perpetrators.
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  ... and why isn't there more classification of women as perpetrators for their bad behaviors like men? Why isn't there more "perp walking" women-as-perpetrators stories like the constant "perp walking" men as a class get? Are the sexes only unequal when it works out for the oppressed-labeled classes?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dahart 2y ago
    Maybe it’s because “An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male.”? https://www.humboldt.edu/supporting-survivors/educational-resources/statistics https://www.humboldt.edu/supporting-survivors/educational-re...
api 2y ago
Overcorrection (and reaction) from the past when women were considered inferior beings and basically property. It wasn't that long ago. Just one example: women were not allowed to open bank accounts in some places in the US until 1974: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open-a-bank-account/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/when-could-women-open... One of my rules for understanding human society is that "everything always overcorrects." We tend to overcorrect one way, then overcorrect the other way, and so on. It's a bit like if you have a spring under tension and let go of it. It does not snap back to the center. It oscillates for a while.

sa46 2y ago

Link to the actual report [1]. The DOD estimates 4.3-8.4 percent of women experience unwanted sexual contact, based on 8,500 reports, extrapolated to 29,000 estimated incidents. The author argues that the actual rate is 24% of women, using the median estimate from a range of independent studies. DOD's most significant change was moving the prosecution authority for sexual assault to a separate tribunal in 2023. [1]: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2023/2024/8.14.24%20Greenburg_Sexual%20Assault%20Crisis_Costs%20of%20War.pdf https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/20...

basementcat 2y ago

Why is this flagged? Is sexual assault not perceived to be a major issue here?

deleted 2y ago
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