(American Culture and Its Reflection)
Reported rapes of women in the military are on the increase despite all efforts to curb them. Why? Here are four integrated surface reasons. One: It remains a male culture that propagates concepts of virile Top Dog masculinity. As such it is provocative of one-up relationships. Two: It is a culture grounded in the notion of RHIP – Rank Has Its Privilege. As such ethics and morals tend to become secondary considerations. Three: Its primal motivation is that winning is everything and losing is a disgrace. As such, value is attributed to those who win. Four: The military is a deliberate despotic structure for the sake of its purpose. As such it is grounded in the dictates of rank superiority with severe penalties for lack of compliance.
These combined reasons mean that, given the traditional male view of the social role of women, their presence in the military is an affront to its culture. It is a culture deliberately designed to promote the singular goal of winning in battle. And women can only be equal to men if they fit this model. To do so they must defy traditional views about the social role of women. This means they can work extra hard and fit the model in terms of training and execution but not in terms of their sexuality. In this respect they remain viewed as male prey in the manner of western history. If they expect to succeed and advance, they must ignore being violated both relationally and physically. And this underscores the below the surface reason for high rates of rape and social violation.
As prey women become subject to Top Dog masculinity, RHIP, and winning – all perspectives processed by despotic attitudes. With the opportunity of hiddenness, this invites rape for the undemocratic male. Rape states that women should be subservient to men as they are in traditional America. It implies they should leave the military service and re-assume their legitimate social support roles as child-raisers, male play-mates and economic servants and leave fighting to men. Rape is a message that males are still the top dogs and women will always be the under-dogs even though they wear the top dog’s uniform.
The solution lies on two fronts. A military culture change must empower women to fit those parts of the model that promote mission fulfillment while disempowering men of those parts that promote sexual preying. But this will remain extremely difficult as long as the culture of America continues to promote the typical female and male models of western civilization.
If we wish a change in the violation of women in the military it must be modeled by the American culture that legitimizes the male and female role models. It must be modeled in our society in politics, economics, and relationships, including the family, with a focus on equality and democratic commitment. And in the military it must be modeled by command leadership with determined authority. All proven violators must be immediately relieved of duty and subjected to the military discipline of non-toleration, irrespective of record or rank. And these two models must be holistically encompassing and not just symbolically applied to low rank violators. The smaller culture of the military will inevitably reflect the larger culture of its origin.
Without both of these modelings nothing will change and women will continue to be viewed as prey by male traditionalists whatever the cultural context.
Robert T. Latham
Army Chaplain, 1960s, Vietnam War
Sad, angry, overwhelmed are just a few of the feelings that hit me upon reading this article. Of course, on a cultural level or military level, misogyny is a systemic issue, and, as such, the abuse or excuse of authority must be criminalized and its perpetrators punished. The enactment of disciplinary measures must be enforced by law. It remains to be seen whether or not this country wants to do that.