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Shorter article: Female US soldiers are more likely to be raped by one of their 'colleagues' than they are to be killed in action.
Response: What?! I don't have a meaningful response to this. Nothing I write would get anywhere near the profanity filiter without causing it to explode. I defy anyone who's still a functioning human to read the article and not be disgusted.
This is not an attack on America, or the US military, most of whom will be just as outraged as I am, but, seriously, what the f!$! is wrong with this picture?
Many thousand 18 year old men thousands of miles from home without seeing their wives& girlfriends, then amped up by combat and adrenaline and given a VERY limited dating pool.
I think its genetic. Kill the men, rape the women. Spread your genes. Humans have been doing it since the dawn of time. I am NOT.. i repeat not excusing he behavior. Just trying to explain it in what I hope is a sanity saving mechanism.
To end this (or at least curb it), hey should make rape punishable by putting you 500 yards out and making your friends snipe off the offending part of the anatomy with a sniper rifle.
I am sure Shifty will soon show up to call you a monster for suggesting such ways to deal with rapists.
( And I am pretty sure he will take my sarcasm as an insult too :D )
However, I do support the notion of showing rapists that THEIR ACTIONS WILL HAVE DIRE CONSEQUENCES.
I am sure Shifty will soon show up to call you a monster for suggesting such ways to deal with rapists.
( And I am pretty sure he will take my sarcasm as an insult too :D )However, I do support the notion of showing rapists that THEIR ACTIONS WILL HAVE DIRE CONSEQUENCES.
I'd be more inclined to go with a method that actually works. I mean don't get me wrong, i am blood boiling angry about this, but i'd rather stop it than get revenge on these people.
Of the top of my memory, i think the research shows, educational measures are some of the most effective at reducing rape. Get female service people thinking seriously about taking actions to minimise the risks, ensure that male service people have been fully made aware both that it is wrong, and why it is wrong.
On top of that, institute easier reporting mechanism, and more care for victims.
Those approaches will probably do more god than said sniper.
I smell misanthropy here..
...it smells like home.
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Rather than get terribly excited about this, consider also: getting raped is a lot more common than getting killed, in general. While it might skew things a bit being on active duty, most soldiers aren't even on active duty most of the time. I don't think it implies that US soldiers are necessarily have a greater proclivity to rape (though as aggressive young males, they probably have a greater procility than the general male population, if only demographically), it does suggest that in a large group of individuals (how big is the US Army? hundreds of thousands of individuals, maybe more?) you will get sexual assaults. I'm not necessarily dismissing the article, but it isn't very specific on this and the fundamental claim (more likely to be raped than killed) is merely an estimate. It is a scandal if rape is not being properly addressed and punished within the army, which is argued here and which it would be hard to disagree with (and that feels intuitively correct, given that accusations like that can misguidedly be considered to be bad for esprit de corps). Whether this is a greater problem for the army than, say, at teenaged parties, though, is probably moot.
Well, that was interesting. Odd, too. I'm female, I just turned 60 last month. I spent 26 years -active and reserve- in the US military. How come I *missed* all this ongoing rape?
Does it happen? Yes. Do you see similar reports for colleges, as one of the comments for the article noted? Yes.
But it is not so widespread that no female (or male) is safe.
I will admit that there has always been a weird attitude both in and out of the military about female military members; when I first joined after high school, I was told by realtives that 'all women in the military are whores'. Later it was 'they're all lesbians'. Yet the way we were treated slowly improved and *most* commanders and squad members had no problem with female soldiers/sailors/marines/air force memebers (OK, so afik they never really came up with a female form for airmen).
I think I actually saw more sexual issues/events in my reserve unit - amazing how many married types thought our two week camps were a free break from marriage rules.
I think you'll find all these issues in all militaries. To me the difference is - the US military is actually taking about it and at least trying to do something about it.
And as for the commanders supressing reports? That to is common everywhere..the don't make waves that might make the organization look bad. Military or civilan, there's aways been the keep your mouth shut where it might affect our bottom line or our mission...Coach Sandusky, anyone?
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Aubrey,
You're right. The article, and my post, highlight the 'irony' of the odds, but statitiscally you're likely correct. However, the articel goes into much more detail on the way the US military treats this, as compared to other countries, like the UK where it's taken out of the military's hands. On the other hand, headlines need to be extreme to get attention and this story needs attention, I think.
It's not spoken of a lot, but it does seem true that rape is FAR more common than what news and statistics would imply. All the more reason to feel misanthropic nowadays, especially when you see those who do it get away or just realizing how many of your female friends are (or could be) victims of such. It's also shocking to see that it's often hidden from the media, which is ironic considering the media just LOVES to show us bad news and dark statistics. Why be quiet about one of the most horrid crimes there is, especially when it's also a rather common occurence?!
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Actually it is much less common, or at least likely much less common, in and out of the military than is often reported, especiallyin the media.
Often rape allegations are found to be baseless, sometimes to the point of extremely unlikely to impossible as described, but legally, the female accusser(s) can not be named and their accusations can not be labled false accusations unless they actually come clean and admit that they lied. The news around the world overstates and dramatiscices female abuses, particularly sexual ones, demonizes males as universally the aggressors, and understates and sometimes flatly ignors female sexual abuse and rape of males, (or further traumatices the situation my making jokes about it).
That is not to say it doesn't happen. It does. To both males and females by both males and females, (and probably more nearly equally in all honesty). But certainly not nearly that amount.
Only 138 women have died in total in afghanistan and iraq since the wars began. Thus only 139 women need to be raped to make this fact true. Given a military base may have thousands of men and a few hundred women, and the US has dozens of military bases...we end up with a very large pool of women who could be raped. This is not to say anything about the issue. Only that women are not exactly being killed in combat at a alarming rate.
source
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/national/fallen/
-Everyone is well aware of US military rape scandels. The Air Force Academy had a terrible reputation.
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Allow me to deliver a quotation from the marginalia of the Measure belonging to the late and visionary Hellknight Lictor Kurtz: "EXTERMINATE ALL THE BRUTES."
If a man refuses discipline and clings ever more desperately to emotion, to the point where they spread harm and disorder about them in the pursuit of their selfish impulses, than have they not also refused their own humanity? Do there exist crimes for which the Measure can offer only death as an acceptable punishment?
The harming of a comrade-in-arms, one with whom the bond of trust must be unhesitating and unshakable, perhaps qualifies. Above and beyond the grievous crime of rape, the offenders bore the responsibilities of their station and uniform. Their weakness lessens us all. The unwillingness of their superior officers to act on their responsibility to enforce order and discipline without mercy only magnifies the failing.
Beckett, I am not sure if I could agree with you, since I have a friend who is a rape victim. I had another friend who was also one, but she's no longer among us. Seeing that and hearing of many other cases that have been proven true (as in, the guy had really done it) make me think that it IS much more common than shown instead of the other way around.
...and just when I was about to go into a fit mixed with anger and sadness, AM HELLKNIGHT shows up and cheers me up. THIS is why I love Hellknights.
Darn, I used the wrong word. It's not about agreeing with anything, it's about not believing.
I really don't believe that rape is uncommon. Quite the opposite.
And nothing infuriates me more than seeing people who do it get away with it, either with very weak punishments or no sentence at all...
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Darn, I used the wrong word. It's not about agreeing with anything, it's about not believing.
I really don't believe that rape is uncommon. Quite the opposite.
Well, that's fine. I'm deployed and do not have my resources, but essentually the idea in law enforcment now is that practically all the "statistics" about rape since the early 70's are terribly false. Some estimates stated that 80% of all women will be raped, and a variaty of localized studied published numbers that actually indicate that over half the female population in a region would need to be raped multiple times a year to physically meet the standards published. Essentually there where no records of what was used to gather all the statistics, but later interviewees found out they had been classified as rape victims for things such as recieving an unexpected (but not undesired) kiss, or partaking in activities that actually they would equally be catagorized as the rapist as well as the victim. Almost all rape statistics where done by private woman's organizations until realitively reacently. Currently the belief is (which can almost never be proven or officially states for the reasons I said above) that anywhere from 50ish% to 20ish% of rape alligations are likly outright lies.
That does not mean that rape doesn't occure. It does. But it is not something that happens on an hourly basis city to city like the media seems to imply it does. Obviously I'm stretching it a little in that statement. And maybe it depends on your experience with how often the media highlights rape and similar sexual victimization. For me it is very often. Maybe you do not hear of it often.
It's almost never discussed here in Finland, unless it's a foreigner randomly attacking a woman in the street which always catches newspapers. We all know that those kind of things are not common, unlike rapes that happen when a "friend" (who is either crazy or faked being friends from the start/is a sociopath) decides he wants the woman he hangs out with and she says no, which results in rape.
I would not wish to discuss the case with my friend, since I do not have her permission to go into detail on it. I also fear the guy who did it might know that I hang around here, since he does play Pathfinder. Cheers for needing to feel paranoid as well as feeling infuriated...
...then again, I am unrelated to the issue, and he has no idea who I am. Doesn't stop my paranoia though.
OK as a former sailor all I can relate is MY personal experience here.
On my ship rape being wrong was drilled into our heads from day 1.
You had a few young women that wanted to go through as many guys as possible during a six month cruise but rape was just not something that happened. If any of you have ever been in the service you know how fast gossip and rumor spread. We all knew which lt. the captain of the ship was banging so she could get promoted, we all knew why this guy and that woman were liberty buddies port after port and yet they never had any pictures or memorabilia to show for the hours they were away from the ship. Everybody knew which bathrooms the guys went to on-board after light out the get some relief. In that type of an environment the mere whisper of rape would have had the person in the Masters at arms office so fast to get to the bottom of it.
Does actual rape occur? yes but I do not believe it is as wide spread as this report makes it out to be. I would also like to suppose that while most of the cases are valid I'm almost sure that some of them are just sharks swimming for some money off of a lawsuit.
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While I don't share your experience, what I do have is some (hotline advice) experience with women who have been raped.
Gossip and rumors generally (not always, but strongly biased) work against the victims. Many, if not most victims of rape do not report because of shame. The mere thread of rumors, the mere thought that 'everybody knows' they have been raped keep the victim silent and the assailant save. This is even more true in an enviroment where being seen as 'weak' or as 'slutty' are a strong stigma (like the military or, that is what I know it from (very few female soldiers in Germany...) the police).
I am not saying you must be wrong about how few cases of rape occured on your ship, in fact I hope you ar right, but sadly the enviroment you describe actually would work for the protection of possible rapists.
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Are you trying to say, that most actual rapes with women as victims are reported or did I misunderstand you.
If you did say that, I must inform you that most (about 2/3) of the women calling the hotline and many of those seeking counceling (from what I heard from the actual councellers the ratio was about 50/50 with a few more victims that did report the crime)had not reported the crime and no, they were not victims of "mini rapes".
Edited for claryity and spelling-
Are you trying to say, that most actual rapes with women as victims are reported or did I misunderstand you.
If you did say that, I must inform you that most (about 2/3) of the women calling the hotline and many of those seeking counceling (from what I heard from the actual councellers the ratio was about 50/50 with a few more victims that did report the crime)had not reported the crime and no, they were not victims of "mini rapes".Edited for claryity and spelling-
What I'm saying is that I think the only type of rape that isn't over reported is where men are the victims.
I have no idea if most actual rapes with women as victims are reported. My comment had nothing to do with that.
Your comment makes no sense. If you don't know whether most rapes of women are reported, how do you know that only rapes of men aren't overreported?
I suspect however, we're considerably behind countries like Israel, where women soldiers are considered in all aspects the equivalent to men. They're put on official front-line duty and are expected to take the same risks as men, whereas our nation is still in the transitional phase of accepting women as humans in the same sense that men are. (Being founded by exceptionally prudish colonists didn't help matters) It's also a contributing factor in LGBT issues in the military as well because we make such a big thing in differentiating gender roles.I think you'll find all these issues in all militaries. To me the difference is - the US military is actually taking about it and at least trying to do something about it.
Good point. Ironically, today I was at the VA here for my annual physical and there was a big sign in the waiting area offering assistance to anyone affected by any unwanted sexual issues while in the military. The new women's center had multiple pamphlets on deaing with everything from sexual harrasment to rape. And each area had new signs showing a man and a woman and asking which was the veteran...then noting both were.
The issues ARE being raised, are being delt with...however slowly.
As a side issue, I was assaulted once while stationed in Germany, but he fled when I struggled. It wasn't a fellow soldier, but a local on a motorcycle as I was walking home after missing my bus. (I was living off-post at the time.) I never got therapy, didn't think I needed it at the time, but the incident might very well be why I stayed single and sexually inactive for so long. I didn't marry or even date until my late 30's. I feel for those women, I know I was lucky and they weren't, so maybe there's a small amount of guilt in the mix? I want the perps punished as strongly as possible.
And you DON'T want to know what I'd do to someone who attacked my daughter that way. Let's just say...they'd prefer meeting AM HELLKNIGHT.
Your comment makes no sense. If you don't know whether most rapes of women are reported, how do you know that only rapes of men aren't overreported?Are you trying to say, that most actual rapes with women as victims are reported or did I misunderstand you.
If you did say that, I must inform you that most (about 2/3) of the women calling the hotline and many of those seeking counceling (from what I heard from the actual councellers the ratio was about 50/50 with a few more victims that did report the crime)had not reported the crime and no, they were not victims of "mini rapes".Edited for claryity and spelling-
What I'm saying is that I think the only type of rape that isn't over reported is where men are the victims.
I have no idea if most actual rapes with women as victims are reported. My comment had nothing to do with that.
Your question makes no sense. Whether or not most rapes of women are reported has no affect on whether or not only rapes of men are over reported. The only thing that is relevant is whether the number of rapes of women which actually occur is less than or equal to the number of rapes of women that are reported.
Assume you've got 10 women. Three of them have been raped. One of them reports that rape. In addition, three other women report rape (but weren't actually raped). Rape is over reported (there are four reports of rape even though only three actually occur) even though most rape victims don't report their rape.
Can you back this up with any sort of evidence? Because, while false reports certainly happen, I highly doubt that they outnumber actual rapes or truthful reports.
I highly doubt that they outnumber actual rapes or truthful reports.Can you back this up with any sort of evidence?
What part of "I highly doubt" did you not understand? That is not a statement of fact, and requires no evidence. Your statement, on the other hand, reeks of rape apologism.
I highly doubt that they outnumber actual rapes or truthful reports.Can you back this up with any sort of evidence?
I can link you to evidence that the lone study on which the idea that 40%-50% of rape reports are false is based, "False Rape Allegations" (Eugine J. Kanin, 1994) was methodologically worthless, and should only have been published, if at all, in the Journal of Irreproducible Results (except of course that it isn't nearly humorous enough for that worthy periodical). The other, more rigorous studies linked from that article provide ample evidence that false reports are relatively rare compared to true ones, making up less than 10% of all rape claims.
I can link you to evidence that the lone study on which the idea that 40%-50% of rape reports are false is based, "False Rape Allegations" (Eugine J. Kanin, 1994) was methodologically worthless, and should only have been published, if at all, in the Journal of Irreproducible Results (except of course that it isn't nearly humorous enough for that worthy periodical). The other, more rigorous studies linked from that article provide ample evidence that false reports are relatively rare compared to true ones, making up less than 10% of all rape claims.I highly doubt that they outnumber actual rapes or truthful reports.Can you back this up with any sort of evidence?
Thank you.
*Glares hotly at Darkwing Duck*
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http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9254
The University of California, Davis, has determined that it significantly over-reported the number of forcible sex offenses that were committed on an around campus in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
Specifically, in 2008's Clery Act statistics, UC Davis reported 48, 68, and 69 forcible sex offenses in 2005, 2006, and 2007, respectively. However, based on the two recent reviews, UC Davis has determined that the correct statistics for each of the years are less than half of those numbers: 21 reported in 2005, 23 in 2006, and 33 in 2007,
Read the article you linked; it's not about false reports by alleged victims, it's about one bureaucrat making up reports that never actually existed in the first place in order to justify her office's budget. It provides no evidence whatsoever for the popular "Men's Rights Movement" slander that half of all women who report they were raped were lying.
I recently read about two other studies that shed a good deal of light on the prevalence of rape from a completely different angle: it turns out that quite a lot of men are willing to admit to rape as long as you don't actually call it that, just describe actions that indisputably meet the legal definitions of rape or attempted rape and ask if they've ever done any of those things, and if so, how often. In a sample of 1882 adult males ranging in age from 18 to 71, with a median age of 26.5, the first study found that 120 (6%) admitted to rape or attempted rape, of whom 76 (4% of the whole sample, 63% of the admitted rapists) admitted to repeat offenses; these 76 committed a total of 439 rapes or attempted rapes, for a mean of 5.8 each (and a median of 3, meaning that there were a few who admitted to numbers in the teens or twenties, dragging up the average). Read the article -- it's fascinating, in a horrifying sort of way, and sheds light not only on the prevalence of rape, but how both women and (especially) non-rapist men could go about about reducing that prevalence.
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9254
The University of California, Davis, has determined that it significantly over-reported the number of forcible sex offenses that were committed on an around campus in 2005, 2006, and 2007.
Specifically, in 2008's Clery Act statistics, UC Davis reported 48, 68, and 69 forcible sex offenses in 2005, 2006, and 2007, respectively. However, based on the two recent reviews, UC Davis has determined that the correct statistics for each of the years are less than half of those numbers: 21 reported in 2005, 23 in 2006, and 33 in 2007,
That's a single instance, where a single person may have been responsible. Do you have any studies about all the universities in California? Or a broader study?
This isn't an article about how and why rapes are or aren't reported in the country, or on campuses, it's an article about a single person and their possible misconduct. Are you implying that this person is responsible for all reports of rape everywhere?
Darkwing, do you have evidence that contradicts the FBI's statistics?
Note, the FBI only tracks "forcible rape", and some places in the US have very narrow definitions of "forcible rape". For example, if the victim doesn't try to fight off the attacker, they don't classify it as "forcible rape" so it doesn't get reported to the FBI as an actual rape.
Another note on false accusations: you can get false convictions without false accusations. In other words, there are a lot of cases where a person was actually raped, reported it honestly, but later misidentified an innocent (of that particular rape, at least) man as the rapist, leading to a conviction based on the popular, erroneous belief in the reliability of visual memory.
Darkwing, do you have evidence that contradicts the FBI's statistics?
Note, the FBI only tracks "forcible rape", and some places in the US have very narrow definitions of "forcible rape". For example, if the victim doesn't try to fight off the attacker, they don't classify it as "forcible rape" so it doesn't get reported to the FBI as an actual rape.
Good point; "forcible rape" represents a very small minority of the rapes self-reported by rapists in the Lisak & Miller and McWhorter studies referenced in the article linked from my post four up from this one.
One more thing, re: the original topic of this thread: the Uniform Code of Military Justice provides death by firing squad as the maximum penalty a court martial may impose for rape.
Darkwing, do you have evidence that contradicts the FBI's statistics?
Note, the FBI only tracks "forcible rape", and some places in the US have very narrow definitions of "forcible rape". For example, if the victim doesn't try to fight off the attacker, they don't classify it as "forcible rape" so it doesn't get reported to the FBI as an actual rape.
Good point; "forcible rape" represents a very small minority of the rapes self-reported by rapists in the Lisak & Miller and McWhorter studies referenced in the article linked from my post four up from this one.
One more thing, re: the original topic of this thread: the Uniform Code of Military Justice provides death by firing squad as the maximum penalty a court martial may impose for rape.
My opinions on this.
1) The definitions need to be broadened a bit.
2) Now that's Justice if you ask me.
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Your question makes no sense. Whether or not most rapes of women are reported has no affect on whether or not only rapes of men are over reported. The only thing that is relevant is whether the number of rapes of women which actually occur is less than or equal to the number of rapes of women that are reported.Assume you've got 10 women. Three of them have been raped. One of them reports that rape. In addition, three other women report rape (but weren't actually raped). Rape is over reported (there are four reports of rape even though only three actually occur) even though most rape victims don't report their rape.
Everything else aside, and I will not comment on that other than: you should reread the article you linked to and probably at least the artilce and the mentioned links in that article Kavren linked to, I highly doubt your suspicion.
In the two years I was phone councelling, I worked wit psychiologists who worked with the police. Given the number of callers and the timescale of the crimes they spoke of (and I am only taking into account those who did mention when they were raped) and the area we were getting calls from, the number of callers outnumbered the few false reports (as in reported to the police)in a 'semester (half a year) ca 240 (actual numbers varied between 298 and 204) to ca 12 (8 to 14).
We generally did assume that about 15 Percent of the callers were not rape victims but called for any number of reasons (we never speculated who that were, the assumption was only considered for statistics) based on several years of evaluating councelling hotline. Even if we had taken the highest number of fake calls any counceling hotline assumed (parental violence assumed, based on the same studies, 50 Percent fake calls) the ratio would have been 10 to one.
Add to that the number of victims that never did call a hotline and it is quite hard to assume that rape of women is an overreported crime.
Please note that it is not my wish to attack you because of your assumptions, but I want to give you reason to rethink them.
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Compulsory death penalty for any crime committed by a government employee. After all all crime is Treason, including such acts of rape and violence and the same goes for those who cover it up.
The USA would be better off if it executed everyone in the chain of command from President down to the neanderthal with the 'rape is an acceptable means of expressing dominance' brain.
Dingo calling for a revolution here? That might help.