Browsing the internet I happened upon a site entitled 'We The Women'. I'm not going to link to it but the web address is 'wethewomen.org'.

There was a lot I could address on the site but I found the following article particularly ridiculous and offensive. I'll post it paragraph by paragraph with my comments added in between.

Women and War: Gendered Politics

In the so called developed world, the position of women in public sphere remains static and insipid with any issue relating to them considered innocuous. Time and again women are looked upon as mandated individuals ordained only with duties pertaining to the defined territories of their houses and are predominantly seen as stupefied objects of pleasure, use and abuse.

Unbelievable. The position of women in the public sphere is static? Perhaps the author is unaware that women are quickly replacing men in our universities, in our hospitals and in our offices. Of course, static would be an improvement over the situaiton of men, vast numbers of which are simply disappearing from the public sphere, disappearing from our schools and institutions....static would be preferrable indeed.

The next part is even worse....issues relating to women are considered innocuous? You just have to wonder where the people who write these things live (a world that only exists within their own minds, if you ask me). To suggest that issues affecting women are of little import or concern is ludicrous. The only issues that seem to be of any concern are those that affect women. The guaranteed way to get funding or awareness for an issue is to let it be known that it's adversely affecting women.

Of course the assertion that modern women are being chained to the kitchen and bedroom is as big of a fallacy as I've ever heard. Women have as much and more work opportunities as men and if they're staying at home instead of joining the work force, it's a near guarantee that they do so because they've chosen to, not as a result of subjugation or oppression by the hands of men.

Sexual violence, vulnerability, fear and parochial outlook is what women all over the world are experiencing, whether in their households or at workplace.

Now, keep in mind that the author is referring to the 'developed world'. How many of us living in the 'developed world' see women experiencing 'sexual violence', 'vulnerability' and 'fear' in the home and the workplace? Women aren't likely to be met with a good natured pat on the back in the workplace for fear of a sexual harassment suit. While we all know that domestic violence exists (on both sides of the gender divide) the notion that vast numbers of women are in their homes, subjugated and trembling in fear is ridiculous.

The situation worsens when a woman leaves her nationality for serving in an insurgency and war afflicted area like Iraq. This situation seems reminiscent of the US women who serve in the Iraq war either as contractors or soldiers in the army. Abuses relating to women are either shoved away, negated and are usually jettisoned. And women raising voice especially against sexual abuse find themselves helpless in face of the obdurate administration of men of the higher authorities.

Such cases are frequent in Iraq war where US women are frequently becoming victims of war, facing explicit sexual exploitation and abuse. KBR Company, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown and Root, which provided logistical support to the US armed forces, has turned a deaf ear to these cases and the women employees are increasingly facing violence such as rapes and assaults. But the firm does not intend to formulate any laws and preventive actions against these crimes which have become a regular feature. Raising these issues entail a threat to the employment and bearing them becomes a crisis in turn for these women.

The main criticism signals to the Bush administrative policies in these areas which have amounted to a serious neglect of issues concerning safety and protection for women employed in Iraq. What seemed to be progressive developed nation has failed to protect its women from the clutches of exploitation and violence, and where testifying for the crimes inflicted has also become a sheer impossibility.

I just lumped the last couple of paragraphs together because they are all telling us basically the same thing. What? I'll let the sole commentator to this post sum it up for you,

Natasa Feb 20 2008
Women are the worst victims of war followed by children. This is a fact. I know.

That's right folks. Women are the worst victims of war. Apparently dying, which is what the men do in wars, is neither here nor there compared to what women experience. Oh and the children, you know, the innocent victims who are unable to fend for themselves...well, they also come in second...because the greatest suffering only happens when it happens to women.

Granted, this isn't new...it isn't ground breaking. All around the world travesties are only brought to light when they begin to affect women. It seems like we only start to hear about horrific atrocities when the women start to suffer...never mind the corpses of thousands and thousands of men may lie decaying in unmarked mass graves.


What always comes to my mind when I read these pieces of mythology is why they continue to write them...why, in the western world, where women are the opposite of oppressed, do they strive so hard to continue furthering the fallacy. My best answer.....I suppose it's nicer to believe oneself a victim and a martyr then selfish, spoiled and unappreciative.


More...

The private war of women soldiers

Many female soldiers say they are sexually assaulted by their male comrades and can't trust the military to protect them. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," says one woman. "It was for the guys on my own side."
Editor's note: This story has been corrected since it was originally published.

By Helen Benedict
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Read more: Politics, News, Iraq


March 7, 2007 | As thousands of burned-out soldiers prepare to return to Iraq to fill President Bush's unwelcome call for at least 20,000 more troops, I can't help wondering what the women among those troops will have to face. And I don't mean only the hardships of war, the killing of civilians, the bombs and mortars, the heat and sleeplessness and fear.
I mean from their own comrades -- the men.
I have talked to more than 20 female veterans of the Iraq war in the past few months, interviewing them for up to 10 hours each for a book I am writing on the topic, and every one of them said the danger of rape by other soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or showers without another woman for protection.
The female soldiers who were at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, for example, where U.S. troops go to demobilize, told me they were warned not to go out at night alone.
"They call Camp Arifjan 'generator city' because it's so loud with generators that even if a woman screams she can't be heard," said Abbie Pickett, 24, a specialist with the 229th Combat Support Engineering Company who spent 15 months in Iraq from 2004-05. Yet, she points out, this is a base, where soldiers are supposed to be safe.


Spc. Mickiela Montoya, 21, who was in Iraq with the National Guard in 2005, took to carrying a knife with her at all times. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," she told me. "It was for the guys on my own side."
Comprehensive statistics on the sexual assault of female soldiers in Iraq have not been collected, but early numbers revealed a problem so bad that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered a task force in 2004 to investigate. As a result, the Defense Department put up a Web site in 2005 designed to clarify that sexual assault is illegal and to help women report it. It also initiated required classes on sexual assault and harassment. The military's definition of sexual assault includes "rape; nonconsensual sodomy; unwanted inappropriate sexual contact or fondling; or attempts to commit these acts."
Unfortunately, with a greater number of women serving in Iraq than ever before, these measures are not keeping women safe. When you add in the high numbers of war-wrecked soldiers being redeployed, and the fact that the military is waiving criminal and violent records for more than one in 10 new Army recruits, the picture for women looks bleak indeed.
Last year, Col. Janis Karpinski caused a stir by publicly reporting that in 2003, three female soldiers had died of dehydration in Iraq, which can get up to 126 degrees in the summer, because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being raped by male soldiers if they walked to the latrines after dark. The Army has called her charges unsubstantiated, but Karpinski told me she sticks by them. (Karpinski has been a figure of controversy in the military ever since she was demoted from brigadier general for her role as commander of Abu Ghraib. As the highest-ranking official to lose her job over the torture scandal, she claims she was scapegoated, and has become an outspoken critic of the military's treatment of women. In turn, the Army has accused her of sour grapes.)
"I sat right there when the doctor briefing that information said these women had died in their cots," Karpinski told me. "I also heard the deputy commander tell him not to say anything about it because that would bring attention to the problem." The latrines were far away and unlit, she explained, and male soldiers were jumping women who went to them at night, dragging them into the Port-a-Johns, and raping or abusing them. "In that heat, if you don't hydrate for as many hours as you've been out on duty, day after day, you can die." She said the deaths were reported as non-hostile fatalities, with no further explanation.
Not everyone realizes how different the Iraq war is for women than any other American war in history. More than 160,500 American female soldiers have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East since the war began in 2003, which means one in seven soldiers is a woman. Women now make up 15 percent of active duty forces, four times more than in the 1991 Gulf War. At least 450 women have been wounded in Iraq, and 71 have died -- more female casualties and deaths than in the Korean, Vietnam and first Gulf Wars combined. And women are fighting in combat.



Officially, the Pentagon prohibits women from serving in ground combat units such as the infantry, citing their lack of upper-body strength and a reluctance to put girls and mothers in harm's way. But mention this ban to any female soldier in Iraq and she will scoff.
"Of course we were in combat!" said Laura Naylor, 25, who served with the Army Combat Military Police in Baghdad from 2003-04. "We were interchangeable with the infantry. They came to our police stations and helped pull security, and we helped them search houses and search people. That's how it is in Iraq."
Women are fighting in ground combat because there is no choice. This is a war with no front lines or safe zones, no hiding from in-flying mortars, car and roadside bombs, and not enough soldiers. As a result, women are coming home with missing limbs, mutilating wounds and severe trauma, just like the men.
All the women I interviewed held dangerous jobs in Iraq. They drove trucks along bomb-ridden roads, acted as gunners atop tanks and unarmored vehicles, raided houses, guarded prisoners, rescued the wounded in the midst of battle, and searched Iraqis at checkpoints. Some watched their best friends die, some were wounded, all saw the death and mutilation of Iraqi children and citizens.
Yet, despite the equal risks women are taking, they are still being treated as inferior soldiers and sex toys by many of their male colleagues. As Pickett told me, "It's like sending three women to live in a frat house."

Rapists in the ranks



[COLOR=#333333 ! important]Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services.[/color]
[COLOR=#999999 ! important]By Jane Harman
March 31, 2008 [/color]
The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.

These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.

Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported -- 73% more than in 2004. The DOD's newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.

The Defense Department has made some efforts to manage this epidemic -- most notably in 2005, after the media received anonymous e-mail messages about sexual assaults at the Air Force Academy. The media scrutiny and congressional attention that followed led the DOD to create the Sexual Assault and Response Office. Since its inception, the office has initiated education and training programs, which have improved the reporting of cases of rapes and other sexual assaults. But more must be done to prevent attacks and to increase accountability.

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated, the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was because of "insufficient evidence."

This is in stark contrast to the civilian trend of prosecuting sexual assault. In California, for example, 44% of reported rapes result in arrests, and 64% of those who are arrested are prosecuted, according to the California Department of Justice.

The DOD must close this gap and remove the obstacles to effective investigation and prosecution. Failure to do so produces two harmful consequences: It deters victims from reporting, and it fails to deter offenders. The absence of rigorous prosecution perpetuates a culture tolerant of sexual assault -- an attitude that says "boys will be boys."

I have raised the issue with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Although I believe that he is concerned, thus far, the military's response has been underwhelming -- and the apparent lack of urgency is inexcusable.

Congress is not doing much better. Although these sexual assault statistics are readily available, our oversight has failed to come to grips with the magnitude of the crisis. The abhorrent and graphic nature of the reports may make people uncomfortable, but that is no excuse for inaction. Congressional hearings are urgently needed to highlight the failure of existing policies. Most of our servicewomen and men are patriotic, courageous and hardworking people who embody the best of what it means to be an American. The failure to address military sexual assault runs counter to those ideals and shames us all.

Women are not the worst victims of war...there are more men fighting, and more men in dangerous areas of combat, more men injured, and more men dead by far than women...by far. The author of the article you posted, Kim, is very deluded if she thinks women are the worst victims.

But at the same time, it is proper to acknowledge that women and children are victims of war, as well. Their numbers may be much smaller, but their lives no less significant.

I

Yep that's proof that women have it so much worse than anyone else. NOT!

I've watched many videos of street fighting and insurgent elimination and they all have one thing in common. All men. Not one video has shown a women in action. Yes the women have it rough.

.

Don't join the army. Don't get your legs blown off for a society that spits on your gender.

I didn't read all the information given.

But I wonder what number of women we are talking about. 1 woman doesn't mean all women yet women will use this because they can.

That wasn't the point. War is hell.
Hillary said it before and women just repeat each other without any thinking, "Women and children are the real victims of war." Women first always over children even. Just the fears girls talk about your fears.

Professor Marsha Hewitt said "Women are among the most vulnerable victims in war, along with their children and the elderly. When this ugly war in Bosnia is over, women will continue to suffer as a direct result of it; (not anyone else but women?) not only will they suffer from having to cope with the long-term effects of rape and the general brutality they have witnessed, they will continue to be trapped in some of the newly-spawned sex industries that have spread throughout the region, offering many women the only possible economic means of support in a country ravaged by war."

Women, women, women, "women will continue to suffer as a direct result of it." Poor pitiful women. And all the men must love war and suffer not.


"Reports were in agreement that sometimes 20,000, sometimes 50,000, even 100,000 mainly Muslim women were being raped by Bosnian Serbs, and that these rapes were a deliberate strategy of war to subdue the enemy on every possible level."
Jeez Louis who had time to fight with all the raping going on? Sure enemies often attack women in order to demoralize their foe. But it's not just women suffering.

Are the women in this country worth fighting for? There maybe that rare one you know, but the Commies can have the majority of them for all I care. Backstabbing, selfcentered, lying, home wrecking shenanigans ..
No real loss.


.

Damn, forgot for a minute what I wanted to do.

Hi Kim, hope all is well with your family.

I wondered if some sites I have found recently might interest you.

http://www.redstockings.org/

http://www.cwluherstory.org/

This is my favourite at the moment.
http://www.permanentrevolution.net

But redstocking is pretty important.