Women make up exactly 14% of the armed forces active duty. This is a great achievement from what it used to be. Even though we have created equal opportunity rules for women in the military, does not mean that they are being followed and enforced. Since most of the military members are males, women have struggled to be treated as equals. Women in the military are not treated as equals to their male counterparts due to our physical strength standards being different, sexual harassment allegations and the lack of male paternity leave.
Some men in the military hold resentment towards their female counterparts because their physical fitness tests are not the same. They believe that females are given an easier time passing the fitness tests and therefore have a better chance of getting promoted. Men are, in general, more muscular than women. Women are just over half as strong as men in their upper bodies, and about two-thirds as strong in their lower bodies. (Wolchover 1) In the military men and women have physical fitness tests that they take twice a year. They are scored based on different categories. The standards for both men and women are different which makes a lot of the males resentful towards the females. A lot of males think that they should have the same standard and they ignore the fact that men and women are physically different. For example, the males in the Marine Corps must get 20 pull-ups to get a 100 for that category and females only must get 8.
This causes a lot of problems for the females in the military because there is a constant resentment held towards them. What you score on your fitness test affects how you will get promoted in the military. When most women get promoted it’s almost always viewed in a negative way because the men will believe that they were given an unfair advantage. Both the men and women are given a fair physical evaluation. The standards may be different, but they are equally hard for each gender. Holding resentment and even hazing females for having physical differences is unfair. Many of the males will not respect the females that have picked up rank before them. They will say derogatory statements to them and constantly bash them for scoring well or being promoted. This has become a major problem that has led to many harassment cases.
When women in the military experience a sexual assault or harassment they tend to not report it. They know that by reporting someone they will face criticism from their peers. All too often are females sexually harassed by someone higher ranking than them and this gives them a fear to report it. This only contributes to the problem because no one is being held accountable. Sexual assault in the American military surged in the last two years, driven almost entirely by a 50 percent increase in assaults on women in uniform, according to a survey released on Thursday by the Defense Department. The department’s annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military estimated that there were 20,500 instances of “unwanted sexual contact” in the 2018 fiscal year, based on a survey of men and women across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. That was an increase of 38 percent from the previous survey in 2016. (Phillips 2019) This has become a major problem for women in the military. This is one of the main reasons why females are looked at negatively. It is believed that females make up all of these sexual assaults. Most of the women are assaulted by someone higher in rank than themselves. They become afraid of repercussions if they report it. Another problem is that most of the time they must report the assault to another male that is usually friends of the abuser. The military has made reporting such abuses a little easier by creating positions that strictly deal with these situations. They have created two forms of reporting, restricted and unrestricted. With restricted reporting you do not have to file a criminal report and no one in the command knows who was involved. All the command knows is that a report was made. Many chose the restricted way because they won’t get any negative backlash from reporting, but they will still receive medical and psychological help if needed. The other form of reporting is unrestricted. This form is not taken for fear of repercussions. Going this route will notify your command of who was involved in the assault, as well as filing a criminal report. This will result in the abuser being made to switch offices and move barracks as well as criminal charges if proved. This makes their peers hold resentment towards them to the point of refusing to talk to them. They believe that they made this up and in doing so their friend was reprimanded.
Women in the military that become pregnant receive certain benefits for it. Their male counterparts resent the females for the special treatment they get while pregnant. “The first thing someone talked about when a woman got pregnant was that she was trying to get out of a deployment, whereas if men announce that they’re going to have a baby, there’s a lot of backslapping and congratulations.” (Russell-Kraft 2016) After 28 weeks, pregnant women are no longer allowed to do all the physical training that they were before. They are exempt from the physical fitness tests until 6 months after they are cleared for full duty. While being pregnant they usually receive backlash from their chain of command and their peers. They believe that they are trying to get out of everything. Even though being pregnant does not prevent you from doing your job, you may not be able to complete every task that you were able to previously. Even though it might only be a few things that you could not do before, you will still be ridiculed for it. Another reason for the resentment men hold is towards the maternity leave. Women in the military are granted three months maternity leave and the men are allowed 14 days paternity leave. This creates a lot of tension because the males want the same amount of leave. Some men even believe that women do not need that much time at home with their new baby.
However, females in the military have faked injuries or became pregnant in the past, just to get out of deployment or physical training. Just because a few bad seeds exist does not mean that every female is going to be this way. It is hard when there are so few females in the military. There are a lot of units that have only had one or two females. This becomes a problem because for these units if the one female there is constantly malingering, she is creating the bad reputation and they have no other female to compare her too.
In conclusion women in the military are being discriminated against because of the actions of a few bad seeds and the misunderstanding of certain differences between the genders. This creates friction in the units. To achieve unit cohesiveness, we must first solve the problem of gender discrimination in the military. It is a hard task to change the view of an organization. It will not happen overnight, but it can be accomplished. The first step is to realize the flaws in the system and to create more awareness to the problems. Thus, finding better ways to address and ultimately fix these issues.
Worked cited:
Studio, P. (n.d.). Women in combat pros and cons. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://sistersinarms.ca/history/women-in-combat-pros-and-cons/
Kuadli, J. (2021, February 26). 32 disheartening sexual assault statistics for 2021. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://legaljobs.io/blog/sexual-assault-statistics/
Y;, E. (2015, November 29). Physiological and medical aspects that put women soldiers at increased risk for overuse injuries. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26506172/
Ables, M. (2020, November 17). Women aren’t the problem. standards are. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://mwi.usma.edu/women-arent-problem-standards/
Anita, P. (2020, July 01). Unique challenges faced by the powerful women who serve in the United States military. Retrieved March 01, 2021, from https://militaryfamilieslearningnetwork.org/2020/03/14/women-in-the-military/