Female Veterans Victims of Sexual Assault in the Military

Abstract

Since 1988, the Department of Defense (DoD) has conducted wide-scale surveys about the sexual assault experiences of active-duty military members. Despite the growing body of research on this topic and widespread gender integration efforts for female soldiers, scholars still lack an understanding of rape occurring in the military, especially how conditions of deployment, military branch, and sex ratios relate to this issue. For example, in the recent military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, what effect does deployment have upon the likelihood of becoming a sexual assault victim for women? Do deployment conditions affect the likelihood of rape or does it have more to do with the organization of men and women within the work unit or the culture of the military branch? “Cultures of rape” or behaviors that allow for sexual assault to occur and/or go unresolved are prevalent within heavily male institutions such as the military. This study uses the 2006 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members to examine the relationship between sexual assault, deployment, sex ratios, and military.

Female Veterans Victims of Sexual Assault in the Military

Introduction

Sexual violence has always been present within different social classes in society, including the military and governmental departments. The literature documented from several research reviews is different, and each individual review has their comments and focuses their research on a different topics. Some of the statements that are clarified in these articles have pertinent similarities. Offenders in the military that commit rape and experience rape have one or more problems. It may be related to deployments, stress, and lack of sleep, long working hours and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Military sexual trauma includes sexual assault and sexual harassment. In military settings most sexual assaults are committed by intimate partners and active duty personnel (Valente and Wight, 2007). During the 80s and 90s there were fewer incidents reported related to sexual assault in the military (Firestone and Harris, 2003). A number of interesting findings within the different research articles indicate that males and females reported similar problems; the argument here is that in fact the percentage of violent sexual assaults against males has increased. It is evident that the government and the military have expressed their concerning relation to this matter. The different data collected by researchers indicates that there have been a number of prevention programs instituted to decrease sexual assaults, among members of the military, including reservist and National Guard. In addition, the research done by several entities will provide a better understanding of how military personal exposed to sexual assault, have more psychological problems than the civilian individual.

Literature review

1Society is composed of many different social aspects, economics, social class and race. Studies indicate that the outcome of a particular crime can have a totally different outcome when the crime of sexual assault is done within the military or at military installation sexual. As stated earlier the outcome is different also for the civilian ...