There are many examples of rape in the army committed against women and men. It is a topic that needs no introduction and certainly one that is very difficult and painful to talk about. I would not dream trying to discuss it in one post. However, I do think discussing what meanings it has will help us as people, women and men, to understand how we can try and fight it.
Meaning is Personal: Many fems take about standpoint theory and the knowledge of one’s own experience in theory. In the case of large western countries like the US and UK who have been accused of their armies raping civilians in Afghanistan and Kenya, I believe that the men who rape the civilians in those countries are not only attempting to further their own visions of masculinity, but are carrying out a political agenda of basic imperialism, ie, my country is better than yours because i can demean you. It sounds very primary school but how different is that to how wars are started ? By raping a civilian woman, the army soldier highlights his distaste for what she is as a woman. He is destroying her image of what she was as a woman and replacing it with a distorted view that a woman “deserves” to be raped and hurt. I do not want to get sociobiological about rape. I do not think all men are rapists. But I do think men in the Army should be held to account more when they are abroad because of the simple fact that they “claim” that they are fighting for their respective countries, when some of them are committing violent crimes against humanity. By encoding rape with being a soldier, these men are not only creating PR disasters for the Ministry of Defence* but they are creating a vacuum in which women will never be able to come out of: that where women are forever detached from men.
Detaching Unity: If the army worldwide is supposed to be a cohesive unit, rape within the ranks is surely the dagger that cuts the rope. This has been reported many times of women in the US and UK being raped and gang-raped. By gang-raping a woman, I argue that it is a mechanism to further drill into a woman of her supposed subordination and her supposed weakness. What would possess a man to gang-rape a woman ? Sure, people have given psychological reasons of the “team” mentality of men feeling pressured. I think the men who rape basically distinguish in their hearts, sub-types of women. So by gang-raping a woman who is of no relation to X Man, X man is therefore highlighting that he sees her as a sub-type of a woman who he would never hurt: his mother. By making her a sub-type, he is ripping the tendons of her rights as a citizen and reiterating that he can cause her detachment by inflicting physical pain.
Finishing the Job: Inclusion will never fully guarantee acceptance. I think rape within the army proves that. Everything is about perception and by raping a woman or a man, the rapist is showing them that they will never be part of said person’s club. The question is, we as women cannot fall into the trap or belief that just because people are fighting that they are honourable. Fighting is as far from honour as possible. Jingoism for the army has clouded the rape debate. We cannot let it go unnoticed.
* = the Ministry of Defence’s press office must be fucking crazy with the amount of allegations about rape. why are these people not doing anything about it ?
I agree. That’s all I had to say.