While those who commit such crimes must be prosecuted, it's time we laid the blame where it squarely belongs: on our civilian leadership.
There's a heated argument in the comments section of this article about whether there is a "culture of rape" within the military. As with most arguments, the answer is both yes and no, and both sides are right and wrong.…
Article comments
126 - Doug Hunter
If there was a culture of rape in the military I wasn't let in on it. I never raped anyone, neither did anyone I know. I do remember a comrade touching the leg of one of my wife's friends unannounced when everyone was pretty hammered, he got a mouthful and I doubt the girl suffered PTSD, but who knows as those pessimists say she was probably just putting on the tough face, maybe she crys herself to sleep each night to this day! Put in a harsh light that could be sexual assault (the article specifically says a culture of rape though, entirely different than laying your hand on a girls leg...)
Anyway, no one ever indicated it was acceptable, I received no telegraphing that it would have been swept under the rug, nothing that I could detect anyway. In fact quite the opposite, we were warned repeatedly about thing that could be seen as harassment and reminded of the penalties and trouble that could arise.
My experience tells me there's not an active 'culture of rape' in the military although in light of statistical evidence I think the pertinent question becomes: Does the military do enough to prevent rape? Sounds like no to me.
127 - Dr Dreadful
Okay, then do so. It shouldn't take you long. But as you do so (probably with the Iroquois or Hopi tribes)
I was going to go with the !Kung, but the other two will do just as well.
such misogyny in physically demanding/dangerous male-dominated professions as we have been discussing in this thread has always been present
Cindy was trying to demonstrate that it is precisely the culture to which the American military belongs that causes its misogyny, not the environmental conditions under which it operates. She then suggested a way out, arguing that misogyny is not a natural state for males and offering you evidence of other cultures - control groups, if you will - where this is so. You can't then refute her by insisting that she concede your original point. That's a circular argument.
Back we go, then, to the !Kung, who are traditionally a hunter-gatherer people. Hunting, particularly in the arid savannah where they live, is a stressful and often dangerous occupation. Although !Kung men are responsible for most of the hunting, and join into hunting bands (that have nicknames much in the same way that Americans nickname their sports teams), I haven't read or watched anything that suggests they spend their time on the range kvetching to one another about what bitches their womenfolk are.
128 - Glenn Contrarian
Doc -
Okay, finally someone has provided a cogent argument. Concerning the !Kung, I found an interesting quote concerning their transition to modern life:
The changing gender roles, growing inequality between the sexes, and transformation from a wandering hunter-gatherer lifestyle to life in a village has contributed to more domestic violence, as women are more dependent on men and are more restricted from outside intervention (they now have closed doors).[citation needed] Less open houses and wealth collection also challenges traditional sharing ideology.
The above may or may not be true, but it is somewhat backed up by this reference:
The government resumed its policy[11] of forcing all Bushmen [which includes the !Kung] off their lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, using armed police and threats of violence or death. In the reservations, Bushmen can no longer hunt or heal in traditional ways, and alcohol abuse and domestic violence have become common. Many of the involuntarily displaced Bushmen have been forced to live in squalid resettlement camps and have resorted to prostitution.
Okay, you've provided an example - you shoot, you score. But I can then make the argument that it appears that any civilization that has passed beyond the hunter/gatherer stage has become more misogynistic than before...and in any case the example of the increase in domestic abuse among the !Kung had absolutely nothing to do with the military, did it?
Best of all - from my standpoint - is the fact that in hunter/gatherer societies, men hunt and they kill. They are concerned with threats that are comprised more of animals than of their fellow human beings. Once they have moved beyond the hunter/gatherer stage, how does the impulse, the instinct to hunt and kill manifest itself? One must answer this question, for such instincts don't just go away.
Your turn!
129 - Glenn Contrarian
And Doc -
I haven't read or watched anything that suggests they spend their time on the range kvetching to one another about what bitches their womenfolk are.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I should think you'd be better served to find reliable studies that show that such conduct and language is not present, then to assume absence because you haven't read anything saying it's there...
...especially given the fact that it's certainly present just about everywhere else where there's humans who haven't become natives of Pandora....
130 - Dr Dreadful
But I can then make the argument that it appears that any civilization that has passed beyond the hunter/gatherer stage has become more misogynistic than before.
Not on the strength of the !Kung, you can't. Based on that standard of evidence, you might as well argue that missionaries' accounts of cannibalism among the Fijians proves that all Melanesian societies were cannibalistic.
Best of all - from my standpoint - is the fact that in hunter/gatherer societies, men hunt and they kill. They are concerned with threats that are comprised more of animals than of their fellow human beings. Once they have moved beyond the hunter/gatherer stage, how does the impulse, the instinct to hunt and kill manifest itself?
Societies don't stop hunting just because they are no longer hunter/gatherers.
Besides which, that's not the point, as Cindy has been arguing and as I stated in my last comment. In fact, while there's quite a lot of her hypothesis I don't buy into, you are strengthening it quite a bit with every comment you make!
especially given the fact that it's certainly present just about everywhere else where there's humans who haven't become natives of Pandora
Again, stating that some misogyny is present in all human societies is hardly an earth-shattering revelation, any more than it would be if I were to say that all human societies contain people who gossip. A few misogynists does not a misogynistic culture make.
131 - Cindy
Glenn,
(Pardon me if I write like you you are apparently missing my points or glossing over them. SO I WILL CAPITALIZE THE IMPORTANT BITS!)
First, your arguments seem very confused, like you are just making things up or grasping at half-baked ideas you don't really understand. You don't apparently know what behavioral psychology is (pretty much the opposite of what you think it is) or that it is more defunct than even Freud. Good thing for you, that it is, since it doesn't support your biology argument.
But we do not need culture to determine that it is NOT biology. WHY??? If it were, as I pointed out before it would be in ALL MEN!!!!!! EVER HEARD OF DNA???????? We are mere potentials.
It is NO SURPRISE that cultures of domination (patriarchal cultures) have dominated the globe; since they have the means (bombs, tanks, guns, diseases, alcohol, etc) to wipe out matriarchal cultures that would not feature domination and colonialism as a main event.
Take 1000 Bruce Willis', Chuck Norris', and Clint Eastwoods--give them guns, swords, and smallpox and tell them to get everything of value from a tribe of Australian aborigines and guess who will end up surviving and spreading their culture? Guess how good ol' Clint and Bruce and Chuck and their wives will raise their boys?*
Still, there is ample evidence within known egalitarian-leaning cultures and from examining different practices in child-rearing, gender studies, the variety of masculinities, and the ability to change. Since you don't know of any cultures, never even heard of any that are not essentially patriarchal (even though I already directly gave you a link to one in Roger's thread (YOU, who condemns everyone for not looking at proferred EVIDENCE, could not have failed to notice that! COULD YOU? ) , and also, since you seen to be a bit light in your knowledge of (like, never heard of) the entire field of GENDER STUDIES, I can assume that YOU HAVEN'T ACTUALLY EXAMINED THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE.**
Here are some MEN who discuss gender who would disagree with you, based on, what appears to be, a tad more serious thought than you seem to have given it. I list them as I recommend reading/viewing their work:
Michael Kimmel
Robert Jensen
And Jackson Katz, the fellow resposnsible for the Tough Guise video and other info.
*That is the second time I will post the video that details the theory of culturally indoctrinated aggression in males.
**Otherwise known as talking through your hat or out your posterior.
132 - Cindy
OH AND ONE MORE THING GLENN!!!!
YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY QUESTIONS AGAIN!!!! DID YOU???? DID I MISS IT???
WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THE PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATED EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE NOT IN COMBAT????? DID THEY HAVE THE COMBAT VIRUS?????
133 - Cindy
Did his genetic make-up force the doctor to turn against the male rape victim when the call came down from the chain of command?
134 - Cindy
BTW Glenn, the link I gave you in Roger's thread was the !Kung.
135 - Cindy
That should have been in your analysis this whole time.
136 - Cindy
But I can then make the argument that it appears that any civilization that has passed beyond the hunter/gatherer stage has become more misogynistic than before.
DOESN'T THAT GO AGAINST YOUR ASSERTION THAT ONLY CIVILIZATION CAN ERADICATE GENETIC MISOGYNY IN MEN?
Wouldn't that be now saying the EXACT OPPOSITE?
137 - Cindy
WTF??? I have seen radioisotopes with more stability than your theoretical positions, Glenn.
138 - Glenn Contrarian
Doc -
Again, stating that some misogyny is present in all human societies is hardly an earth-shattering revelation, any more than it would be if I were to say that all human societies contain people who gossip. A few misogynists does not a misogynistic culture make.
And that's precisely my point! A relatively higher number of rapes within a military does not a culture of rape make within that military, especially given that there is a documented time of several years when there was lower rate than in the civilian community!
Do you not see, Doc, that when there is a civilian community that has a sexual abuse rate that was for several years higher than that of the military, one cannot logically claim that the military has a "culture of rape" exclusive of the civilian community. Remember, no one is born and raised in the military. Indeed, with one (rarely used) exception, everyone who joins the military is an adult, presumably mature enough to know right from wrong, legal and illegal.
Yet I'm supposed to buy the argument that when someone joins the military, they (gasp) all of a sudden turn into either sexual predators or sexual victims of those predators?
No.
Now, are you going to claim that there is no direct connection between combat and the prevalence of PTSD? Of course you wouldn't. Are you going to claim that there isn't an increased level of crime - including sexual abuse and rape - among those with PTSD as compared to those without PTSD? Of course you wouldn't. Nor would I claim that PTSD is solely to blame...but in the big picture, I think you'd agree that it doesn't take that much of an increase to make a significant statistical difference.
Connect the dots, Doc, and identify the trigger, the catalyst. There's more than one, of course, but for the purposes of this discussion, I say that the most important trigger is combat.
139 - Dr Dreadful
You're preaching to the choir, Glenn. If you'll refer back to one of my previous comments (which I'm too lazy to find for myself right now), you'll recall my opinion that allowing for the gender imbalance within the military, the sex crime rates are probably close to the greater social norm.
I think Doug (who doesn't post here nearly often enough IMO) nailed it pretty squarely in #126.
But my original observation, which stands, is that you've made a lousy job of making your case and your attempts to refute Cindy's have only strengthened hers.
140 - Tom Forehand, Jr.
Above is presented the "Testimony of Wesley Norris (1866").
It is one thing to make an allegation about being whipped. Where is the proof that this part of the story actually happened?
It can be documented that Norris (and two others) escaped, were capture, were returned to Virginia where Lee sent them South to work. However, the only indication of a "whipping" seems to come anonymous sources and Mr. Norris's interview after the war.
I would suggest that those who repeat this allegation offer proof that Lee had anyone whipped. Simply repeated this story by Norris does not make it true.
Also, has anyone stop to ask the question as to whether or not Norris and other might have held a grudge against Lee -- a grudge which might have caused Norris to exaggerate part of his story?
Thanks,
Tom Forehand, Jr.
141 - Glenn Contrarian
Cindy -
Civilization is a Pandora's Box. Once she's outta there, she ain't getting back in. Short of worldwide catastrophe, we are never going back to a hunter/gatherer society, so the only possible way to control misogyny is through higher civilization.
So NO, I did not contradict myself.
And I never said anything would 'eradicate' misogyny - that's flatly impossible. IIRC, I said "control" or "minimize".
142 - Cindy
Glenn,
AND because this misogyny is present in all cultures past and present, primitive and advanced, Cindy, it is therefore NOT a matter of "cultural indoctrination", but of biology, of how our behavior is influenced and sometimes governed by our hormonal makeups.
The Piaroa is considered by some anthropologists to be a true anarchist culture. They have moved into modernity and can no longer be considered simply 'hunter-gatherer'. They defy your beliefs that all cultures are misogynistic. As do many of the other cultures at that link, which describes peaceful societies--many egalitarian or with that tendency.
Also read Leacock on gender relations, she basically states it as a problem of creating a hierarchical society. One of her books demonstrates how their are cultures whose gender relations you only think you know about, such as many North American Indians (as described in the history of white men--females are often misunderstood in terms of the white man's culture. They therefore tried to stuff the native women into roles they understood based on those of white women within the patriarchy. Women and Power in Native North America.
Vivian Gussin Paley, in You Can't Say, You Can't Play has demonstrated that children in kindergarten have fully incorporated this culture's hierarchical social order into their social world view and therefore their belief system about reality and how the world does and should work.*
Lastly, I would say that it is only in advanced cultures (not necessarily "technologically advanced" or even modern, but advanced cultures past or present) that human civilization has tried to overcome this biologically-mandated misogyny by force of law, and that such efforts have been met with varying (but always limited) success.
'Force of law'? Look again at the peaceful societies.
* I suggest that when we get some adults who learn to question the beliefs they started with in kindergarten instead of reinforcing them, we may have some hope of becoming an advanced society. I won't hold my breath.
143 - Cindy
It appears among these two Amazonian cultures, that social structure and childhood indoctrination, rather than biology, appear to be the salient variables in male domination. A further link to the full 21 page article is here (scroll down to below the introduction).
Overing, Joanna. 1989. “Styles of Manhood: An Amazonian Contrast in Tranquility and Violence.” In Societies at Peace: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Signe Howell and Roy Willis, p.79-99. London: Routledge
Piaroa territory is almost completely free of expressions of anger, physical violence, and displays of violent excess. The good life, for them, consists of tranquility and harmony. In their egalitarian society, men and women are equally autonomous. No one supervises the labor of others, there is no concept of a collective will, and there is no ownership of land. The Piaroa highly value social skills and the ability to live together in a community which functions, as an institution, to help prevent relationships of domination from developing. Their shamans teach children lessons in social morality, such as the harm caused by vanity, jealousy, arrogance, dishonesty, cruelty, malice and ferocity; they also teach the importance of mastering the emotions. Piaroa values contrast with those of the Shavante, an American Indian society of Central Brazil, where males dominate females, children are socialized to react violently to situations, and ceremonies celebrate male ferocity, sexuality, and violent ritual dominance of women.
144 - Cindy
140 - Tom Forehand, Jr. presents a clearer example than I could imagine of precisely how the dominating culture (and its proponents, such that he is) control which history gets legitimated and which gets repressed.
145 - Glenn Contrarian
Cindy -
That's beautiful, and no, I'm not being sarcastic. This is the second time you've proven me wrong about a preconceived notion of mine, both times because you patiently stuck to your position and provided examples thereof...and I am sincerely grateful. This time concerned whether functional societies can exist without overt misogyny.
Note the word 'overt' - even the people who serve as your example obviously agree that they feel such emotions, but they found different ways to control those emotions. If they gave themselves over to their emotions - as we in our 'modern' society do all too often, they might well be just like us.
But here's the sadness: apparently none of the peaceful societies listed on the page you referenced are technologically advanced, and anyone with a passing knowledge of history knows the role that war and the arms race has played in technological development, probably the best examples being rockets, computers, and nuclear power. Even modern medicine owes a significant amount of its progress to our efforts during war.
So one must wonder if it is indeed possible for a society to become technologically advanced without misogyny and the host of ills and tragedy that comes with it. I don't know...particularly since our world as it currently is, the technologically-advanced nations consume our world's resources at such a pace that only a minority of nations can hope to be "first-world nations".
Going back to the subject of the thread, I still maintain that in the modern world, the problems in a military are more indicative about the problems in the civilian population than about the military itself - and that includes rates of sexual assault.
Again, Cindy, thank you.
146 - Igor
@128-Glenn: whoa! I think you're skipping over a lot in order to jump to conclusions. You say:
...is the fact that in hunter/gatherer societies, men hunt and they kill. They are concerned with threats that are comprised more of animals than of their fellow human beings. Once they have moved beyond the hunter/gatherer stage, how does the impulse, the instinct to hunt and kill manifest itself? One must answer this question, for such instincts don't just go away.
Your premise about "hunter/gatherer" is seriously flawed. You seem to imply that there is something about "hunter/gatherer" that is intrinsic to humans. Thus, your contention that the "hunter/gatherer" instinct must out, and find some expression.
But none of that is proven. It isn't even a decent model.
Modern anthropology of Bay Area Indians ("Indian" being the designation their modern descendants prefer, not 'native Americans') often incorrectly refered to as "Ohlone", but more properly and definitively "Tuitun", describes them as 'opportunistic' rather than 'hunter/gatherer'. That's because they mostly eat what easily comes to hand, such as clams and acorns, especially acorns, which made up most of their diet. That diet, incidentally, was pretty good, giving them a longevity about 10 years better than 'civilized' crop growing humans in the Fertile Triangle.
The Tuitun hunted very little, mostly for rabbits and such, employing the very small weak bow such as Ishi demonstrated in the dioramas devised by Dr. Kroeber in SF and Berkeley (and if you haven't read "Ishi" now's a good time to correct that oversight).
The Tuitun bow was small and weak so it wouldn't foul while creeping through dense underbrush in search of rabbits. Useless against the local apex predator, grizzly bear, which was fond of snacking on local humans, who were defenseless, individually, against grizzlies (thankfully, the last one was killed about 100 years ago or my walks in the local mountains would be considerably less enjoyable).
Anyway, those humans were 'opportunistic' eaters, quite satisfied with a modest diet of acorns, not really hunters at all, who lived here at least 4000 years, left no evidence either in artifacts or verbal legend of war, and were quite pacific, overall.
I take it that the description of early humans as "hunter/gatherers" is wrong. Some people may have acted that way, but there is nothing intrinsic in human nature that would dictate or pre-dispose that way. But I suspect a lot of people eagerly embrace such descriptions out of personal bias.
Therefore, IMO the conclusions you draw are bogus. You know, that stuff about violence having to find an 'out'.
147 - Igor
@130-Dr.D : IMO you, like Glenn, have too much presumption riding on your characterization of humans as "hunter/gatherers", which I believe is an antiquated term.
My conclusion is that a people whose 'opportunistic' lifestyle provides enough casual food need never become hunters of animals.
148 - Igor
@140-Tom: are you a birther?
149 - troll
Clav(os) -
Having spent 20 (or more) years in the Navy, Glenn is likely the most knowledgeable overall about military matters who is currently a regular on BC.
I suspect (and know of one confirming example personally) that not all long serving Catholic priests were aware of the depth of the rape culture in that institution before the recent publicity
150 - Cindy
Note the word 'overt' - even the people who serve as your example obviously agree that they feel such emotions, but they found different ways to control those emotions.
Glenn, are you now suggesting that emotions like anger or hostility are 'non-overt' misogyny? Infants (girl infants) get angry--are they small latent misogynists? Really? Just the emotions themselves?
If they gave themselves over to their emotions - as we in our 'modern' society do all too often, they might well be just like us.
Thank you. That is my point. They do something else. It is their culture that is different, not their biology.
But here's the sadness: apparently none of the peaceful societies listed on the page you referenced are technologically advanced...
Here's what I find to be the sadness. People in the technologically "advanced" societies are pathological. They apparently will continue to justify teaching their children the ways that create war and misogyny. Some of them even claim to be Christian. We all know Jesus would be defending technology and the military over peace, right?
Medicine and rockets are all swell. But I wonder how much sense medicine makes to the people you murder, torture, imprison, rape, and step on so that you can develop technology to save some other people. WTF???? (Dick Cheney has an LVAD heart pump.)
Never-the-less, peace and lack of misogyny does not require us to undo our technological advances. It just requires us to teach our children something different.
If we are smart enough to develop 'advancements' you think we'd become 'advanced' enough to recognize that. Unfortunately, most people are not capable of much new thinking or questioning their indoctrination after kindergarten age.
151 - Clav
Unfortunately, most people are not capable of much new thinking or questioning their indoctrination after kindergarten age.
Is the problem that they're "not capable," or is it that we are all born into this particular type of society, which has been in existence for millenia, and is so all-pervasive that, as we become aware of its shortcomings, we simply opt to take the easier path of adapting ourselves as individuals to "get by" under the status quo rather than take the much more onerous, difficult and even dangerous path of resistance, for what, on the individual's level, and in his/her lifetime, is not only not likely to be at all rewarding, it is likely to result in their lives becoming a living hell as all those indoctrinated people become aware of what they are doing, and inevitably conclude they are threatened.
It's not a good thing, but I think most humans, male or female, make that kind of a decision, at least on a sub-conscious level, fairly early in life.
I've never been a parent, but had I been, I definitely would have thought twice about teaching my children to go so much against the societal norms as to make them outcasts and dangerous in the eyes of others.
The result, of course, is plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
152 - Dr Dreadful
Igor @ #147: I never made any presumption that the hunter/gatherer lifestyle is an automatic part of human progression; that would have been Glenn, who speaks in #128 of such a "stage". I merely observed that the !Kung have such a culture.
Paleontological evidence shows quite clearly, I think, that humans were gatherers long before any of them took up hunting. And in any case, it's rarely an even division. Some groups, like the Lakota and the other Plains horse cultures of the 16th-19th centuries, relied on hunting a lot more than gathering, whereas with your local Tuitun people it seems to have been the other way around. With people who live near water it's also arguable whether fishing is a form of hunting or gathering, since there's very little tracking involved and it's mostly a case of dangling your net or line into the water and waiting (although there are other, more proactive methods).
So yes, I agree that human cultures don't necessarily coalesce into the nice neat categories of the anthropologists.
153 - Cindy
Clav,
Perhaps, but, would the world be much of a place for any of them without the resistance of their predecessors?
Also, consider that resistance is not the only path of expressing one's divergence with the cultural norms. What we say, what we believe, what we support are all ways of changing the world. There are many people engaged in positive works, associations, activities.
I, myself, hope that I will work directly with the elderly--person to person--some time when I am free to do that. That will have to be enough for me. Like the starfish story. I have found it too constantly upsetting for me to buck the tide. That doesn't mean I can't do something effective and positive and to also have some personal peace.
154 - troll
...for those interested in petitioning the US government concerning this military culture of rape there is this
155 - Cannonshop
#24 But, Doc, in your Chief of Police example you ignore the fact that in MOST jurisdictions, the Chief of Police is considered to be accountable for the actions of his subordinates, and is responsible in the enforcement of, and establishment of, policies of conduct applying TO the cops under his command by way of what we call a 'Chain of Command' (much like in military circles-an officer is responsible for, and accountable for, the conduct of his soldiers, his commander is in turn responsible for and accountable for HIS conduct and the conduct of his peers and so on...)
The Commander-in-Chief is responsible for the conduct of the soldiers-albeit he has several layers between himself and Joe Snuffy Private, but he is the Commander. What his soldiers do reflects on him, as does what he does in response to what they do or have done.
Now, neither the Chief of Police in your example, or the Commander in Chief (or any given line officer below him) are really accountable for the actions of their respective opponents (i.e. the Chief has no control over the actions of Criminals, Officers no control over the actions of enemy combatants...) But both are damsight responsible for what their subordinates do, on, or off duty, when it comes to matters defined by their respective authority as 'criminal'.
156 - Igor
Now we have a new sex scandal becoming public at our military flying schools. IIRC, about a dozen women have filed charges of molestation. And it's been 20 years or so since the "Tailskid" scandal broached. Thus, I conclude that the military has no interest in solving these problems.
They could solve this problem if they wanted to.
157 - Tom Forehand, Jr.
Rad G.
It was noted: "She shows he did pay six times the normal bounty to capture one young girl, who he then had tortured."
By "tortured," I assume you are referring to the claim that Lee had a woman whipped.
Just because Norris accused Lee of whipping Norris and two others, this does not mean that Lee had anyone whipped. Please supply substantial proof, besides Mr. Norris's testimony, that Lee ever had anyone whipped.
If you refer to a book as proving this, please give the page number and explain how that book proves Lee whipped someone.
Because Lee paid more for the return of Norris and two others does not prove he had anyone whipped.
It should be remembered that Norris, himself, claimed that he was aggravated at Lee because Lee did not free Norris soon enough after Norris's owner died. So, it is not unexpected that Norris had a reason to exaggerate some of the details of the story you are referring to.
Thanks,
Tom Forehand, Jr.
P.S. It is easy to make an accusation (true or false) but it is something else to prove it. So please do so....