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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 28, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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The Army's anti-woman culture: rape, don't tell

By Sue Davis

A scandal involving dozens-perhaps hundreds or thousands--of rapes and widespread sexual harassment of female trainees by drill instructors at U.S. Army training centers exploded Nov 5. Not since the Navy's notorious 1991 Tailhook debacle have stories of violence against women in the military been so systematic and pervasive.

The Army, along with other branches of the military, instituted a "zero tolerance" code forbidding all forms of sexual harassment in the early 1990s after Tailhook. The code explicitly forbids drill sergeants, who traditionally hold absolute power over recruits during basic training, from having intimate relationships with their charges.

Of course, rape is not about intimacy. It is violence against women at its most raw.

A captain and two drill instructors at the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School in Aberdeen, Md., have been charg ed with raping more than two dozen female trainees fresh out of boot camp.

One officer threatened to kill his victims if they dared to report his crime.

Two other officers face administrative charges. Fifteen instructors have been transferred to desk jobs.

On Nov. 12, Staff Sgt. Loren B. Taylor at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri pleaded guilty to disobeying Army regulations forbidding sexual relations between commanders and subordinates. Two other sergeants at Fort Leonard Wood face charges of indecent assault and improper touching. Seven drill sergeants have been suspended pending investigation.

Not surprisingly, all the young female recruits who came forward said they feared for their careers and their safety if they rejected their instructors' unwelcome advances.

A special hot line for calls reporting sexual harassment had received almost 4,500 calls as of Nov. 18.

Earlier this year a Pentagon survey, not released until now, exposed an extensive pattern of sexual harassment by officers. In fact, a quarter of the 47,000 women who responded-or about 12,000 women-said officers had sexually harassed them in the last year. That includes everything from offensive remarks to rape.

Another 12,000 reported abuse by soldiers of the same rank as them.

Sixty percent of the victims did not make a formal complaint because they feared retaliation. Reporting the incident, they believed, would only make matters worse for them.

So much for the Army's policy of "zero tolerance." Great on paper, but no substance. The reality is more like "rape, but don't tell."

Inherently anti-woman

As recently as 10 years ago, Marine Corps drill instructors routinely used such chants as: "One, two, three, four. Every night we pray for war. Five, six, seven, eight. Rape. Kill. Mutilate."

Before 1973 men and women were separated in the military. It was widely recognized that the male chain of command held such absolute power that recruits, most often poor and working-class youths, were systematically oppressed by ruling-class officers.

Add male domination and violence against women to that equation, and it's clear how the heavy hand of sexist pressure imposed silence on the young women. In addition, since a high proportion of women in the military are lesbians, the rapes undoubtedly have a strong anti-lesbian component as well.

The military is notoriously misogynous. Its woman-hating warrior mentality is based on an entrenched sexist culture that has devalued and degraded women ever since class society and patriarchy developed thousands of years ago.

The U.S. military's role is to defend and extend the rule of the oppressor capitalist class. Rape and other forms of sexist violence are integral components of this system.

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