Sexual assault, sexual harassment and domestic abuse are pervasive problems in the U.S. military. Commendably, the Pentagon is taking action by requesting policy recommendations from Wellesley College’s Centers for Women.
The Pentagon awarded the grant earlier this year to come up with ways to implement a central Office of the Victim’s Advocate. It would augment similar programs in the different service branches to assist women who face the type of abuse that took place at the Air Force Academy last year, and has been alleged in other branches through the years.
Seems reasonable enough to me, especially considering that 28 percent of female veterans reported sexual assault during their military careers. But the usual suspects are all up in arms:
‘Implementation of a self- interested Wellesley proposal could create a new job market for women’s studies graduates schooled in man-hating ideology,” says Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, which has opposed gays in the military and women serving in combat roles.
”Sexual assault is always wrong and should be punished promptly at the local level,” Donnelly said. However, a victim’s advocate ”would operate as an office of male bashing that would nuclearize the war between the sexes.”
Yes, I fondly remember my Gender Studies 101 Class: Experiments in Man-Hating. The final exam involved clipping the balls off of male paper dolls.
I’m also not sure how a victim’s advocate — which advocates for male and female victims — would be “an office of male-bashing.” Going after rapists — even if most rapists are men — isn’t male-bashing; it’s rapist-bashing.
Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly has also attacked the plan in interviews and on her website.
”Wellesley is doubly bad because it is completely feminist,” Schlafly said in an interview. ”The whole thing is a taxpayer-funded operation to establish the notion that men are natural batterers and women are victims and women are always right and men are always wrong.”
Ah. So what is this big man-hating project really about?
The $50,000 Pentagon grant asked the Wellesley Centers for Women, a combination of two of the college’s study arms, to ”provide background analysis on the current state of victim advocacy services in both the military and civilian sectors of the Department of Defense,” according to a description on the centers’ website. The analysis, it said, was to include an ”assessment of the options” for establishing the victim’s advocate office.
Well I for one am outraged. Outraged.
But my favorite part is this:
Schlafly said the victim’s advocate proposal ”would provide money to give additional one- sided help to the women to structure her complaints and have free legal advice,” she said.
”The poor guy has to go down the road and find some lawyer who is brave enough to defend him and pay for it.”
It’s always “the poor guy,” right? So what of the fact that sexual assault in the military, just like in the civilian population, actually happens? That the assumption that every rape survivor is lying about her assault is far more blind to reality — and far less likely to even be right — than the assumption that every man accused of rape is guilty (obviously, both assumptions are pretty stupid). And then there’s the fact that men can bring complaints, too. And that men are raped, too, even if it’s less common than women being raped.
Of course, the picture she paints of a poor guy having to go get a two-bit lawyer to represent him is just ridiculous. The military takes pretty good care of its own, and they like to keep their dirty laundry out of sight; after an allegation of sexual assault, a soldier will not simply be tossed out on the street and left to fend for himself. And, sorry, but there aren’t exactly a shortage of lawyers willing to defend accused rapists.
Bottom line: It’s ridiculous to get bent out of shape because women’s rights advocates — the very people who established the first rape crisis centers, who study sexual assault for a career, and who brought the issue of sexual assault to the forefront — are asked for their opinion on how the Pentagon deals with sexual assault. Ask the people who know. It’s common sense.