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kinda wanna talk about the sexual harassment and misogyny in the military today..
the military is notorious for covering up and excusing sexual harassment,under the guise of 'saving face' and 'maintaining a positive image'. They'll do so while slandering the image of the victim or pretending it never happened at all. see: Vanessa Guillen and LaVena Johnson
the attitude surrounding sexual harassment education (no matter how often it's taught) is perceived as an annoyance and inconvenience. "Here we go again talking about this ..." Leaders don't do a well enough job educating in a way that isn't performative and perfunctory.
i once told my three male coworkers to stop degrading and sexualizing every single woman to walk through our office doors, and one of them literally told me to kill myself if it bothered me so much lmao
not to mention,a lot of the times Victim Advocates are our own peers, some of which hold the position as a collateral duty and resume bullet point rather than an important responsibility.too many times have I seen a VA harass a woman or turn a blind eye when its happening
there have only been a few times in my life i've been afraid a man might take advantage of me. all of the times happened while i was in the military.
a guy i was previously talking to followed me in my office once and locked the door behind him, blocking my exit. he kept asking why i didnt want to hang with him anymore, suggesting we should because we had 'so much in common'. thankfully, someone knocked on the door...
i had to do a supply run with another man in my office, about ten years older than me. the whole time i was driving he kept touching my shoulder and asking me what he had to do to get me to sleep with him. this happened a couple of times with him.
recently, a man outranking me came up behind me and touched my face, whispering in my ear and "flirting" with me. this happened in a room full of other men who laughed bc they thought i was 'pulling a chief' when really i was visibly shaken and uncomfortable. a VA was in the room
all of these situations have been flipped on me. if i didn't engage with these people I was being 'disrespectful' for not respecting RANK, but not once were they questioned as to WHY i didnt want to engage.
it's so hard for women in particular to trust reporting and talking about sexual assault and harassment in the military because honestly, they're not here for us.I've seen so many girls report just to be dragged through the mud while the man in question is PRAISED beyond belief.
didnt mean to go off, just really thinking about how toxic this environment is on so many damn levels.
