and ain't i a woman?: Military misogyny

November 21, 2001
Issue 

The rape and sexual assault of women is often used as a weapon of war. There is a connection between military bases and increased sexual assaults on women.

Since 1972, there have been hundreds of reported attacks on women, in some cases on women as young as 12, associated with the US military bases on Okinawa island in Japan. Many of these attacks have ended in deaths. The people of Okinawa have organised mass protests to have the military bases removed.

In Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Korea, women have also been forced into sex work around US military bases.

Wherever there are military bases, women endure increased violence. This violence victimises not only the women who live and work on the bases but also women in the surrounding towns.

In Rockhampton, we are forced to endure military exercises on a regular basis. During these exercises, the incidence of violent sexual assault on women increases. Many of the attacks are gang rapes on women as young as 16, as was the case in February this year when two violent attacks by US marines were reported.

The well-oiled, military propaganda machine counteracted this with a very professional public relations exercise in the local media. There were also visits by US marines to local schools to speak on "leadership", as well as tree plantings and donations to the local helicopter rescue service. The sexual assaults were dismissed and lost in continual reporting of the economic benefits to the town.

Training in the armed forces fosters a deeply embedded ethos of misogyny as the military hierarchy attempts to drive out all human solidarity from its soldiers so that they are indifferent to death and destruction. Sexual violence and harassment are part of the culture of sexism which is exaggerated in a military environment.

Rape as a weapon of war, as in times of peace, is not about gratifying the aggressor's sexual needs or desires. It is a tool of power used against women, whose status in society is still below that of men.

The rape of women in a war situation is often intended to act against the male enemy as well as the women. Because women have lower status and are widely viewed as the "property" of men, rape is used to humiliate men in a similar way to burning houses or other possessions.

Government priorities reflect a general lack of seriousness about the needs of women. ALP Senator Rosemary Crowley, who visited Rockhampton during the military exercise in February, told a public gathering that women's health needed "data, data, data" to justify continued funding of services. Her implication was government needs more than just the violence and harassment women experience in the region to convince it that women's needs and demands are legitimate.

Did the military have to provide the same "data, data, data" to justify the $75 million spent on the war games in Rockhampton? There have been constant cut-backs by successive governments to women's health services, shelters and domestic violence education programs, while military funding increases.

PM John Howard announced in the weeks before the November 10 election that there was no way defence expenditure would be reduced in his next term of government. Yet, essential services are routinely sacrificed to the military budget.

At anti-war stalls at polling booths in Rockhampton and Gladstone, women were the most responsive to the "no to war" demand. Some said that "women and children cop the worst of it in war time" and "we should not be having this war".

Women must be involved in the anti-war movement, to organise and campaign for a world free from the constant attacks on them, wherever and whenever there is war or a military presence. It is a further reason that opposition to the US-led "war on terrorism" needs to be a central part of feminist protests such as Reclaim the Night and International Women's Day. Similarly, the anti-war movement is an important opportunity for demanding an end to violence against women.

BY ERIN CAMERON

[The author is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party in Rockhampton.]

From Green Left Weekly, November 21, 2001.
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