PTSD and women in the military

One of my favorite parts of the Oregon Extension Women's Studies May Term is students' individual projects. At the end of our brief semester, each student presents to the group her culminating research around a particular subject. I learn so much from these projects!

One eye-opening presentation this year from one of our students involved female soldiers and PTSD. Two years ago, The New York Times published an alarming article regarding what journalist Sara Corbett referred to as the "double whammy" for women soldiers -- the risk of encountering both sexual trauma and the trauma of war all at once.

Some passages to consider:

No matter how you look at it, Iraq is a chaotic war in which an unprecedented number of women have been exposed to high levels of stress. So far, more than 160,000 female soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, as compared with the 7,500 who served in Vietnam and the 41,000 who were dispatched to the gulf war in the early '90s. Today one of every 10 U.S. soldiers in Iraq is female.

(For an amazing glimpse into the lives of women in the military today, I highly recommend the documentary film Lioness. I included the movie preview at the bottom of this post. Basically, the filmmakers explore the phenomenon of women being placed into combat situations without being properly trained to do so...but it's so much more than that...so just watch the film!)

The data reflect a larger finding, supported by other research, that women are more likely to be given diagnoses of PTSD, in some cases at twice the rate of men.

Much of what we know about trauma comes primarily from research on two distinct populations - civilian women who have been raped and male combat veterans. But taking into account the large number of women serving in dangerous conditions in Iraq and reports suggesting that women in the military bear a higher risk than civilian women of having been sexually assaulted either before or during their service, it's conceivable that this war may well generate an unfortunate new group to study - women who have experienced sexual assault and combat, many of them before they turn 25.

A 2003 report financed by the Department of Defense revealed that nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking health care through the V.A. said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Of that group, 37 percent said they were raped multiple times, and 14 percent reported they were gang-raped.

It becomes very clear in this article (and pretty much everywhere in feminist thought) that rape is about power and control.

I think it's important for me to clarify that I am thankful for our military men and women who serve our country. I admire their service and their sacrifice more than I can say, but I am wary of a military system that is built on hierarchy, obedience, and often unquestioning power. While the majority of individuals who serve in the military are altruistic and honorable, the system itself is set up for corruption (as are all systems that are based on maintaining power over other individuals by taking power away from them). Feminists propose another perspective -- one of empowerment. They hope for a world in which "being in power" means a sharing or balance of power, not a power that takes away from the subservient and gives to the strong.

To put it simply, women should be allowed to serve their country without fear of sexual coercion and sexual violence. Their should be changes to the structure of our military that ensures a climate of support. Our women and men are going into some of the most violent situations imaginable. They should be able to find empowerment among their peers.

(Photo credit: New York Times Magazine)

Today's story in Women's Enews that every woman in this economy needs to read

Obama's stimulus plan, while leaving out some key advances in women's health coverage, provides important employment benefits for women. Here are three of the key initiatives, as explained in today's Women's Enews:

---Benefits will now be provided to workers who must leave their jobs for compelling family reasons, such as caring for ill or disabled family members, relocating with a spouse whose job has moved to another area, or escaping domestic violence in which the abuser follows the woman to her workplace;

---The earning test now looks at the worker's most recent employment, instead of excluding the last three to six months, making it much easier for low-wage workers and new entrants to the work force (read: large numbers of women) to qualify for benefits.

---Benefits are now available to workers seeking part-time work which also includes many women.The author of the article, Mimi Abramovitz, gives an astute account of previous governmental practices that have led to the gender wage gap and how these initiatives by Obama's administration will help to correct some of them.

Here's just one way that Abramovitz explains the gender gap:
Women lost out because these rules reflected and supported male work patterns that by definition penalized women. The hidden assumption--that low earnings and fewer hours of work reflected a weak commitment to work--disadvantaged women who receive less pay and work fewer hours because they still bear the brunt of family responsibilities.

i.e. if you were a woman who worked part-time so you could care for your children, the workforce labeled you as "lazy." In addition, Abramovitz points out that if a woman quit her job to move with her family to a new location (for her spouse's job), or if she moved to escape domestic violence, she was considered to have "voluntarily" quit. Now, the current administration is asking how "voluntary" such a move really is.

It's good progress, and while many women will still face incredibly difficult choices in this economy, I'm thankful that our goverment seems to be wearing a clear set of gender lenses.

New study says a nation's stability is based on how it treats its women

I started this blog because I felt that I was continuously receiving the question, "Why does gender matter?" Now, a new study seems to be answering that question by suggesting that gender matters because peace matters.

Researchers at BYU (fascinating in itself) published a study in the Harvard journal, International Security, on the correlation between a country's overall stability and its treatment of women.

The writers conclude that the best predictor of societies' peacefulness is how well they safeguard the interests of women. To determine that, researchers looked at data on such factors as women's voice in government, access to victim services, crime statistics, maternal health, and laws and social mores regarding women's rights.

According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune that reports on the study, From the overall data, it's clear that where there is devaluation of females in the society, there is a greater tendency for conflict, both inter- and intrastate conflict," says Ballif-Spanvill, a psychology professor who directs BYU's Women's Research Institute. "We want people to study these issues through the lens of gender.

The other incredible result of this study is the creation of a comprehensive database of qualitative statistics about women thoughout the world. Instead of relying on statistics about domestic violence and abuse, these researchers interviewed women about the nuances of their conditions.

It seems that gender not only matters to this individual blogger, but to the stability of nations themselves. Who knew?

Poverty has a woman's face

(Photo Courtesy: Reuters)

As the holiday season approaches, so does our awareness of the current economic crisis in our nation. As I mentioned before, the sting of poverty disproportionately affects women. Women are frequently the caregivers of the household, the lower wage-earners, and the most vulnerable to domestic violence brought about by the desperation of financial distress.We are starting to see the concrete effects of this economic instability in the lives of women. The Global Fund for Women states that the poor economy makes women and girls "particularly vulnerable to trafficking."

In this week's Philadelphia Inquirer, Alfred Lubrano reports on the increasing gender gap, particularly among minority women. He writes:

"There's always been a gender gap and wage gap," said Carey Morgan, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. "Women must pull double duty as economic providers and child-care providers."

The extra responsibility of child care has traditionally compelled many women - especially poor women - to work part-time in jobs that offer little money or security, Morgan said.

But perhaps the most disturbing news this week regarding gender inequality in this failing economy came from NPR's Talk of the Nation. Here's what I heard the other day while driving home from work. It was so disturbing that I almost pulled over.

In Los Angeles, a massive backlog of DNA evidence kits has been discovered. A scathing audit by the city controller in October showed that the L.A. Police Department had nearly 7,000 unopened and untested rape kits. Soon after, the L.A. County Sheriff's Office disclosed it was storing another 5,000.

What this means, essentially, is that women who have been violated in the act of rape are violated again as the concrete evidence of the crime against them is effectively ignored by law enforcement.

Now, to be fair, this is not due to ignorance on the side of the police, but, according to the article, due to a lack of funding and lack of resources necessary to process this important evidence.

You just have to read the article to feel this story in your gut, particularly when it comes to the case of Jeri Elster, who was raped by a stranger who had broken into her home. After her DNA evidence sat in a vault for seven years, she asked a detective to test her rape kit. The evidence matched an accused rapist in another case, but in 1992, the statute of limitations for prosecuting rapists was six years.

The good news is that the statute of limitations has since been lengthened to 10 years. The bad news is that this means countless rapists are getting off scott-free as their victims' DNA evidence sits untouched.

The story ends with this startling statistic:
According to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, as many as 400,000 rape kits sit unopened in crime labs and storage facilities.

I don't write this post to dampen our holiday spirits but simply to keep us conscious of the very real ways that our economy disproportionately disenfranchises and victimizes women. In this season commemorating the birth of Jesus, may we remember "the least of these," those most affected by economic forces.