Divide To Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the Military
Abby Hiser spent eight years in the Wisconsin National Guard and was honorably discharged as a sergeant in 2007. She describes a string of her own experiences that show woman in the military still face prejudice and obstacles to advancement. These incidents include groping by a male soldier during a training exercise and barriers put in the way of her promotion. When she finally overcame those barriers, her authority as an officer was challenged.
Joe Wheeler landed in Kuwait at the beginning of the war when the Iraqis were firing Scud missiles. The American soldiers thought the missiles might contain poison gas, so they were terrified every time air raid sirens went off. Once, a female soldier who was taking a shower when the sirens sounded was raped by a male soldier. Wheeler says the fear of chemicals brought out the worst in people. He also relates two incidents later in the war when he was in convoys and decided not to shoot because he couldn’t tell whether his target was hostile or innocent. In one case, he ignored an order to fire on a vehicle that was tailgating. Wheeler says he took a risk by not firing, but “coming home from Iraq, I was able to look back and know that I hadn’t pulled the trigger. I never had to wonder… whether or not I had killed anybody.”
Margaret Stevens was a medic in the New Jersey National Guard on 9/11, and knew she was likely to be deployed to a war or occupation. She says women who are raped in the military are pressured not to try to document the crime. Is bad treatment of women inevitable as long as women serve in the military? “I don’t think so,” she says. “I think it’s only in the context of these genocidal wars… where already the reason you’re fighting is not a good reason.”
Jeff Key was a reservist who did not plan to tell anyone he was gay, but “once you’re in a fighting hole with someone who’s sharing the deep contents of their soul and willing to take a bullet for you and you for them, to manufacture some bogus life is ridiculous and I would not spit in their face by doing so.” He adds, “All my buddies were straight. They stood by me in war, they knew who I was, … they stood by me in my wedding, and they… put themselves at risk to speak out for queer serving.” When he came back, he says, “I knew I could not be a party to this occupation... so I went on CNN and came out of the closet… and made them throw me out.” He believes the war machine is sustained by homophobia and the belief that real men have no feelings of compassion while women are emotional and weak. “Good men will… do horrible things to prove that they are not gay,” he says.
Patty McCann served in Iraq with the Illinois National Guard. In her unit, she says, rank was used to coerce women into sexual relationships. She relates two instances of harassment and says women are urged not to report such incidents because reporting them would do great harm to the perpetrator.
Rafay Siddiqui, a Marine veteran of Iraq, says that in the military, “you’re not a man until you’ve taken advantage of a woman.” Impressionable 18 and 19-year-old young men come into the service, see “everyone doing it, so they themselves have to do it too because they want to fit in.” He testifies about his experiences not in Iraq but in Djibouti, Africa on an earlier deployment. Young girls, trying to escape poverty, came to Djibouti and ended up working as prostitutes for Marines and for French legionnaires who were also stationed there.
Wendy Barranco trained as a combat medic. At her request, a surgeon let her work in the operating room, but then he wanted sexual favors in return. She explains why she never reported him: he was an important person, so “all I kept thinking was, ‘If I speak out, it’s going to be my word against him, and I’m just an E4, … so who are they going to believe? Are they going to get rid of the guy that’s making all the decisions and saving lives, or me?” She says many women soldiers don’t report abuse because of similar power relationships and because “you’re looked at as a snitch.” She says the military’s harassment training is useless because it ignores these daily realities.
Nathan Peld served in the Navy as a nuclear electronics technician. He tells the story of a young woman whose direct superior exposed himself to her. She filed a complaint, but when it reached the senior enlisted commander in Peld’s department, he tried to talk her out of pursuing it, saying the offender hadn’t actually hurt her, and he was just two years from retirement. She persisted, and her superior was eventually discharged dishonorably for his action, but the officer who tried to cover it up was only given a reprimand.
Tanya Austin speaks about the case of a Coast Guard woman who was raped by a shipmate. She filed a complaint, providing a confession letter written by the rapist. But the Coast Guard told her she would be discharged because surviving rape made her ineligible for worldwide deployment. She launched a nine-month battle to keep her job and change the policy. She tells her story at stopmilitaryrape.org, where there is also more information about rape and abuse in the military.
Moderator Jennifer Hogg and several panel members add closing comments. Panelist Jeff Key had said earlier that the deeply-rooted association of men with strength and women with weakness is at the core of the war machine. He notes that one of the women panelists cried as she spoke and said, “I hate to be the girl on this panel!” Key says that demonstrates once again the power of the stereotype that “to shed a tear makes you a girl and that’s somehow essentially weak.” Wendy Barranco, the testifier he was referring to, says she did not want to fit the image that many people have of the abused victim: “They look at us and they’re like, ‘Oh, so you’re the broken one, huh?’”
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