Sexual harassment in the military

Undirected behaviours are those not personally targeted but which affect the working environment, such as sexist and sexual jokes and the prominent display of pornographic material.

A woman in the British army told researchers in 2006:A friend was out on an exercise when a group of men ducked her head in a bucket of water and each time she came up for breath she had to repeat "I am useless and I am a female".

[12]The Deschamps Review of 2015 found pervasive demeaning attitudes to women in the Canadian armed forces:Interviewees reported regularly being told of orders to "stop being pussies" and to "leave your purses at home" [...] The use of the word "cunt", for example, is commonplace, and rape jokes are tolerated.

For example: When a woman in the US army attended a sexual harassment awareness training, the senior officer teaching the class asked participants whether they would hit on "a naked, drunk girl on the bench outside your barracks", adding, "you're not supposed to but I probably would".

The US Navy Tailhook Association scandal exposed multiple acts of sexual violence during the organisation's annual convention of aviators in Las Vegas.

Lieutenant Paula Puopolo (then Coughlin) blew the whistle on a run-the-gauntlet ritual, in which male officers lined the third-floor corridor of the convention hotel to harass and assault women passing through.

[11][12][4][13][14][15] For example, girls aged under 18 in the British armed forces were ten times as likely as adult female personnel to be the victim of a sexual offence in 2021.

In the US armed forces, estimates of the sexual abuse of military partners indicate a similarly high rate of annual incidence, ranging from 12% to 40%.

During the Iraq War, for example, personnel of the U.S. Army and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) committed multiple human rights violations against detainees in Abu Ghraib prison,[42] including rape, sodomy, and other forms of sexual abuse.

[43][44][45] Similarly, two Iraqi men detained on a Coalition warship at the start of the war were made to strip naked and were sexually humiliated.

A Canadian study has found that key risk factors associated with military settings are the typically young age of personnel, the isolated locations of bases, the minority status of women, and the disproportionate number of men in senior positions.

[10] An emphasis in military organisations on conformity, obedience, and hierarchical power relations, combine to increase the risk, particularly to personnel of low rank, who are less able than others to resist inappropriate expectations made of them.

[53][16][54][4][17] In the UK, the 2019 Wigston Review into inappropriate sexual behaviours in the armed forces reported that several military factors contributed to risk: "tight-knit units that perceive themselves as 'elite'; masculine cultures with low gender diversity; rank gradients; age gradients; weak or absent controls, especially after extensive operational periods; and alcohol.

[55] Research in the US has found that personnel affected by sexual harassment are somewhat less likely to develop depression or PTSD if a formal report leads to effective action to address the issue.

For example: Since the number of official complaints represents only a fraction of sexual harassment incidence, armed forces committed to reducing prevalence produce periodic estimates of its true extent by means of anonymised surveys.

[4] It found that sexual harassment was commonplace and embedded in military culture, and that pervasive degrading attitudes to women and LGBTQ+ personnel were jeopardising their safety.

The Review stated that senior NCOs are frequently seen as tolerating sexual harassment and discouraging the individuals affected from making a complaint.

[19] A notable case of a perpetrator is that of Russell Williams, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, who was charged with the sexual assault of two women in connection with two home invasions near Tweed, Ontario in September 2009.

Williams was also charged in the death of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, a 37-year-old military traffic technician, who had been found dead at home in late November 2009.

[12] Among the comments made to researchers by male personnel about their female counterparts were: "Ok there are a few exceptions but on the whole they [women] shouldn't be here"; "They're all lesbians or sluts"; and "They are emotionally unstable.

"[12] The report found that 15% of women had had a 'particularly upsetting' experience of sexual harassment in the previous 12 months; the proportion rose to 20% in the youngest age group.

[50] In the same years, 5–6% of servicewomen said they had been sexually assaulted in the previous 12 months; rates at initial training centres were found to be substantially higher.