Relentless, aggressive, and pervasive: Exploring gender minimization and sexual abuse experienced by women ex-military veterans.

Abstract

Objective: Contextually embedded and sanctioned gender minimization and sexual abuse toward female personnel within the military appears widespread. Left unabated, mental health complications of female personnel will challenge care responsibilities for military organizations. Method: Interview data from six exmilitary women that sought positive and negative interpretations of gender minimization and sexual abuse while in the military was analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: Analysis revealed two superordinate themes: (a) Immature Culture, and (b) Ejection and Growth. These overarched four subordinate themes that explored fostered patriarchy and male privilege in the military. Participants expressed experiencing relentless belittling that eroded early adolescent goals of success and aborted their ability to thrive psychologically. By association, interpersonal violence compounded by organizational complicity triggered internalized shame and narcissistic defenses. Discharging from the military is remembered as a painful, isolated struggle for these participants as they sought to make sense of their fragmented identities as women. With time, all participants acknowledged pride in skills achieved during military life, and the strength to speak out against embedded organizational abuse. A persistent ruminative struggle to make sense of complex systemic biases against women that allowed organizational abuse to flourish facilitated posttraumatic growth. Conclusions: For these participants, personal experiences of gender minimization and sexual abuse in the military incubated a betrayal of hope and moral safety. As women, they felt violated at an organizational level seemingly orchestrated by male privilege and patriarchy. Clinical priorities include reparative validation and holistic trauma support underpinned by trauma and posttraumatic growth frameworks. Clinical Impact StatementFor women military personnel and veterans, psychological care should be cognizant that trauma exposure is potentially multifaceted inclusive of combat and interpersonal abuse. Those who experience gender minimization and sexual abuse while serving in the military would benefit from: 1) An organizational reparative validative therapeutic approach inclusive of betrayal trauma; 2) Clinical awareness of potential experiences of shame and fractured self-identity associated with collegial and/or organizational sexual abuse; 3) Strengths-based approaches that redefine skills and build on trauma recovery and acknowledge the cognitive struggle necessary for posttraumatic growth.

From the brink of survival to “become the person that they want to become”: Gender minimization, refugee trauma, and growth in women from Afghanistan.

“…The social context, even postsettlement, potentially constrained participants’ psychosocial development by reinforcing gender minimization; for example, detrimental stigma-rooted gender minimization within male-dominant workplaces and society. Stigma-rooted gender minimization (McCormack & Bennett, 2023), a suggestive factor in hindering integration and adaption of resettled women from refugee backgrounds, was a new finding that is relevant to women from misogynist and patriarchal cultures.…”

“…Gender often plays a part in the type of traumatic threat an individual may experience (Olff, 2017; Taheri et al, 2023) with the diversity of traumas specific to women producing gender-specific responses (Bowers, 2009). Gender-specific traumatic events negatively impacting women include intimate partner violence (Wachter et al, 2018), rape (Hynes et al, 2004), ethnic cleansing (Field et al, 2023), and gender minimization (McCormack & Bennett, 2023). Cumulative on the refugee journey, many of these are likely to be experienced by women throughout pre-, during, and postmigration.…”

“…The American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2022) defines trauma as actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. However, though several studies distinguish between single-incidence trauma, cumulative noninterpersonal traumas, cumulative interpersonal traumas, or complex traumas (Kira, 2001; McCormack et al, 2022), the severity, duration, proximity and expected responses from exposure to potentially traumatic events, predisposed by culture and gender, is poorly explored or articulated (Dohrenwend et al, 1980; Kroll, 2000; McCormack & Bennett, 2023).…”

“…Gender minimization, defined as “negative gender bias that maintains intergroup dehumanizing behaviors towards a minority group” (McCormack & Bennett, 2023, p. 237), lends some weight to our understanding of the burden experienced by women from some refugee populations. Cultural/ethnic/religious bias in misogynistic societies is endemic for women from refugee backgrounds where “hierarchical support for the traditional superordinate group relies on cultural assumptions that devalue the subordinate group” (McCormack & Bennett, 2023, p. 237).…”

Assessing moral injury and its clinical associations in a U.K. secure care population.

“…The relationship between personal moral frameworks and offending behavior is complex. Moral disengagement and offense justification, minimization, and condoning among offenders may make MI less likely (Alleyne & Wood, 2010; Clarke, 2017; Kerig et al, 2016; Maddocks, 2021; McCormack & Bennett, 2021; Ye et al, 2021). Criminal gangs and radicalizing groups can promote and normalize violent behaviors, reducing the impact of transgressions on personal moral codes (Alleyne & Wood, 2010; Kerig et al, 2016; Williamson et al, 2021).…”