The Gender Justice conference
Some douchebag organization that calls itself Miller-McCune takes up the “Gender Justice” issue with it’s focus on the “Gender Justice Conference” at West Point. it turns out to be nothing more than poisoning the well of future officers with unsubstantiated blather;
Speakers at the two-day Gender Justice conference — hosted by the West Point Center for the Rule of Law — tackled a tight range of sober topics, and the Friday morning speaker presented the results of three years of research about a particularly troubling subject: rape and gender inequality in the military.
According to her research, said Helen Benedict, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and author of the book The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, 1 in 3 women in the U.S. military is raped by another service member.
yeah, you know where they got that “1-in-3″‘ number? From some broke-dick survey in which they polled every woman who worn a uniform since the Vietnam War and got responses from less than 1% of the women they polled. We’ve discussed this poll before. Don’t you think that if you were not a victim of violent treatment at the hands of fellow soldiers, you’d be less likely to respond to an obvious cheap shot at those same soldiers?
Benedict is a novelist and short story fiction writer who stumbled upon this survey and decided to make it a work of her own brand of fiction. And now she’s taking it on the road to the service academies to poison the minds of future officers. At the behest of those same service academies. What possible contribution could a band of 50 cadets have to add to this travesty of research? They’ve never served in the military and their experience is solely at the academic level.
Mickiela Montoya, one of the female Iraq veterans Benedict interviewed for the book, explained her experience of men’s treatment of women in the military: “There are three things they’ll let you be: A bitch, a ho or a dyke. You’re a bitch if you won’t sleep with them; you’re a ho if you have only one boyfriend; and you’re a dyke if you don’t like them.”
Yeah, that sounds just like how I treated women who I encountered in the military. Well, except that I also treated them with respect they wouldn’t ordinarily get from their college classmates and respect for their rank and experience. And i was in the infantry – the branch that’s supposed to be the most misogynistic because it excludes women. The biggest “boys’ club”.
And, oh, by the way, the Geezers For Sitting On Our hands have embraced Benedict’s “research” as a part of their anti-recruiter campaign. So WTF is she doing at West Point? Who’s next? Cindy Sheehan?
Category: Antiwar crowd, Military issues
Funny this should come up. I spent the weekend at a Women & War conference. To be sure, there is a serious issue with sexual assault and harassment, this we do not deny. But I took a serious punch to the jaw when I mentioned that the Army & Marines had devoted much time to the issue, and in fact had declared April as Sexual Assault and Awareness month. Two of the attendees were quick to scream that none of these programs worked. They quickly branded them as ineffective and Benedict said they were largely PR scams. Yet, several active duty, including a retired career Army NCO who is now at USC, as well as a retired career Naval healthcare recruiter tried to point out that one had to praise the services when they did take on an issue, pour resources into it, and develop programs. After all, you start with square one and build upon it. None of this was going to be heard. Helen Benedict continued, and later was the luncheon speaker trotting as well, out her facts and figures, going well over her allotted time. The picture she painted was of an overwhelmingly misogynistic culture both within the NCO, and the Officer ranks, and at West Point as well. Do I think sexism and chauvisnism as well as sexual assault exists within the services. Yes. But do I believe that every person is a victim? No. Is culture itself is unwilling and won’t change? No. Do I think that demeaning language needs to be challenged, expunged? Yes. As I take it on in my everyday life as well. Would everyone here would throttle the jerk who was harassing or assaulting a female or male service member? Yes. Toward the middle the day –which had been contentious, and hammering over the problems of mental health services from the VA and through the military health network, any person who felt themselves a troop supporter felt besieged. I was one of them, as were several at our table. Thank god for 1stSgt Tina Dexter, one of the leaders of the… Read more »
Note, sexism and chauvinism exists a lot of places and so it is normal that the military is a reflection of the world at large. But the majority of people do not engage in that behavior, and the military takes it on better than most universities, corporations and small companies. Just wanted to clarify that.
As a female military person, I’m somewhat sympathetic to Mickiela Montoya’s pithy summary of options, but acknowledge that it’s completely illogical & unfair to 1) assume that guys who seem to act like jerks only annoy women & 2) extrapolate from personal anecdotal experience to stereotype & prejudge all men. Ironically, it seemed that PC sexual harrassment laws would undermine unit cohesion. Guys could hang out, interact & network with each other, but would make a point of being formal & stand-offish as soon as a female entered the area. Admittedly, if I was a guy, I might act the same way to completely avoid any appearance of impropriety, but on the receiving end, I rather felt like an Amish girl being ostracized…..eh, but what are you going to do…
So basically this conference was the Army’s rolling out the carpet for the Diversity Panel to restructure the command billets based on political loyalty and plumbing, as opposed to the outdated ideas of egalitarianism and merit. They did that in 1991, and the courts ruled it unconstitutional.
Adagio, men do have to put on airs as soon as a woman enters the area. One false step, one misunderstood word, and the woman may then destroy the career of one or all of the men present.
Gender justice is a farce because there is no seeking after justice – the leaders are using the law and the military’s culture of conformity to transfer power unjustly from the capable to the execrable.
“Adagio, men do have to put on airs as soon as a woman enters the area.”
Yeah, I appreciate that, but it certainly makes one feel like a leper when you can hear people chatting & laughing together, then, as soon as you enter the room, you can hear crickets chirping.
It always seemed like a Catch-22 situation….if I went out to lunch with a guy, people in the office would spread rumors that we were fornicating. If I went out to lunch with women, they’d spread rumors that we were all lesbians. If I just had lunch by myself, they’d complain that I’m an anti-social recluse. I suppose the algebraic ideal to avoid trash talking would have been to always take meals with a perfectly mixed gender group….but again, some people have real problems, so I shouldn’t really complain.
“Gender justice is a farce because there is no seeking after justice – the leaders are using the law and the military’s culture of conformity to transfer power unjustly from the capable to the execrable”
Uhm….Are you saying that all women are execrable, or just the ones that stereotype all men as rapists?
Adagio,
Dave fails to see that ignoring women in light of sexual harassment regs is a way of punshing women for daring to be treated with respect. As Jonn pointed out, he was able to treat women with respect. It seems some men can converse with women in a way that does not put their career in jeopardy. If more men like Dave acted like Jonn there might not be a need for gendered analysis. It seems like dave thinks a career that is ruined happens because of a woman complaining about nothing rather than actual harassment.
#5 Adagio,
Having seen what happens to men who’ve failed to put away the saltier language, and ensure the presence of witnesses to any conversation, the camaraderie is the victim of political correctness, that earlier form of “Gender Justice.”
Women have a tough walk in the business. I empathise with your experience. Likewise, if a married man shares a meal with a female, he faces an adultery charge. If a single man eats alone, he’s either gay or otherwise socially challenged. If a man, either married or not, eats with other men – nothing.
The solution is as Jonn wrote about: be strictly professional in all your dealings, and ensure someone has your back at all times. Predators of all types and motivations exist.
That was my experience. Even though I’m an artillerist, I’ve served around women for my entire career. I’ve seen men lose their careers on rumours; and women get away scot free because they were a protected class of soldier. That isn’t justice.
By execrable, I mean those women who use ‘gender’ anything to build their own power for the sake of having and exercising more power. The betterment of our great Nation is not why they do what they do. “Gender Justice” is not about justice. We have the UCMJ and Federal/State/Local criminal and civil law to deal with it. We have programs on preventing sexual harassment, and regardless, no action taken by military leadership can prevent so-called gendered analysis.
Adagio, men-haters are everywhere, it’s the destroyers who rate ‘execrable.’ You know them by their actions.
Now, I’ve presented two lines of argument, for a second time. J may need assistance with the English language, so I’ll break it down for J:
1. There is no justice because justice is not the desired outcome of gendered analysis.
2. Adagio identified several issues that frankly do not rise to the level of requiring a panel. Basic manners, and having someone’s back are discipline issues that are best settled, permanently, at the Platoon Sergeant level.
You all miss the point here. It’s about equality. Whole I am surprised to find that 1 in 3 women in the armed forsces has been sexually assaulted by a man, I think it is ridiculously unfair that in almost twenty years, I have never been sexually assaulted by a woman. Why am I being treated unfairly? Why am I not included?
Sexual assault is wrong, plain and simple. it doesn’t matter if it’s 1 in 3, or 1 in 1,000,000. It’s wrong. The military is taking vast strides to ensure that victims are cared for, their privacy is ensured, and that every unit has multiple personnel trained to handle assaults. There are victim advocates, counsellors, social workers, response coordinators, and every incident and report is tracked at the MACOM/COCOM level, as well as at subordinate command levels.
And slut sleeps with everyone. A Bitch sleeps with everyone but *you.*
Adagio,you said,”1) assume that guys who seem to act like jerks only annoy women”. Nah, they annoy everyone. They work at it, it’s a secondary MOS.
Next, “Guys could hang out, interact & network with each other, but would make a point of being formal & stand-offish as soon as a female entered the area.” Well, that’s the world that’s been created by the PC crowd. After all, if the guys laugh and whisper, regardless of content, when a female enters the area, obviously, they have to be talking about the female.
I bring an old timers view to it. When I enlisted the WAC’s were still a corps. When the Army integrated the women had a tough time of it. Many of the men let them know they were not equal and weren’t wanted in their units. I was only a SP4 then, but I decided right then and there based on the rough, rude and often cruel treatment they received that if I ever became a first line leader I would accord them the same respect I accorded any soldier under my leadership. Not all of the newly integrated female soldiers behaved in a professional manner, but I resisted painting them all with the same brush.
As I rose in the ranks I discovered for the most part that my female soldiers would perform just like the males. When properly motivated they were no better or worse. In my eyes, and in my Squad, Platoon, section and finally company they were just like any other soldier.
I was told that I should never counsel or do EER’S, and later NCOER’s alone with a female soldier. I ignored that advice and treated them with the same privacy and respect accorded to all my soldiers, I never regretted it. I knew some NCO’s that would never do that, so fearful of being falsely accused of something. My integrity was my protection.