Factors associated with women's risk of rape in the military environment

Abstract

Violence towards military women has identifiable risk factors. Work and living environments where unwanted sexual behaviors occurred were associated with increased odds of rape. Officer leadership played an important role in the military environment and safety of women. Assailant alcohol and/or drug abuse at time of rape was notable. Interventions and policies based on modifiable environmental risk factors are needed to increase protection for women in the workplace.

Reengineering Gender Relations in Modern Militaries: An Evolutionary Perspective

“…The identification of sexualized workplaces as a risk factor for MSA highlights the generalized impact of a salient normative view of women as a sexual resource (Sadler et al, 2003). Complete abstinence from heterosexual activity is probably the strongest signal that a woman does not want to be viewed by men as a potential sexual partner.…”

“…Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 12:305-323, 2011 313 (Sadler et al, 2003), many women reported choosing the sexual strategy of pairing to lessen their risk of MSA. For this article, we have drawn on the naturalistic data of narratives to develop a preliminary typology of military women's experiences that fleshes out our framework.…”

“…J. Hannagan and H. Arrow KEYWORDS evolutionary theory, gender dynamics, military sexual trauma, rape, sexual assault, sexual coercion, warfare Recent studies suggest that a substantial proportion of military women (and a smaller proportion of military men) experience sexual harassment, coercion, and assault during their service (Friedman, 2006;Sadler, Booth, Cook, & Doebbeling, 2003;Yaeger, Himmelfarb, Cammack, & Mintz, 2006). Military sexual assault (MSA) contributes to the incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans.…”

“…Of the 2 million Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, 11% (more than 220,000) have been women (Alvarez, 2009). If estimated prevalence rates for female veterans from the Vietnam and post-Vietnam eras (Sadler et al, 2003) are comparable for this population, between a quarter and a third of these women have experienced one or more completed or attempted rapes.…”

“…The variance in reported prevalence rates of MSA among women, from less than 5% to more than 70% (for a review of the studies, see Suris & Lind, 2008), suggests that all estimates should be treated with caution. Data on the men (studies typically find that close to 100% of perpetrators are male) who are assaulting military women (and, less commonly, other men) are even sparser, and studies (e.g., Sadler et al, 2003) that collect data on characteristics of both victims and their assailants are exceedingly rare.…”