Women have been fighting for equal rights for many years. Throughout those years, they were able to accomplish things like equal pay, their freedom to vote, and even their right to join the armed forces. Every year more women are enlisting in the military for a chance to serve their country and prove they’re just as tough as men. What they didn’t know when they signed that contract is that in a male dominating career field, 80% of them would encounter sexual harassment throughout their careers.
Out of that 80%, only 32% of women will report their incident. Most women will not report it out of fear. They fear that if they were to report it to a person of authority, they would not be seen as a victim, but as an instigator.
In the military, it is hard for women to move up in ranks. One factor that determines if a soldier is promotable is whether they have been deployed. Since there is a small number of women in the military in general, most of them cannot get deployed because they need a certain number of females to deploy together. In general, the military makes it hard for women to move up because it gives them more power in a career field that for hundreds of years, has only allowed males. If women don’t get promoted, then they lack the power to help their fellow female soldiers who are being sexually harassed by male superiors.
Look at it this way, the military knows they have a sexual harassment problem, since it has been widely reported for years, the thing is they don’t want it exposed. If they were to punish men for sexually harassing a woman who they feel should not be in the military in the first place, then more women would want to report their past incidents. The more incidents that are reported, the more male soldiers would get punished, which would end up hurting their numbers. As horrible as it may seem, some men in the military feel that it is in their benefit to let sexual harassment complaints go undetected.
The military is all about their strength in numbers. I happen to agree with them, therefore, the only way a female soldier is going to have justice is if more women join and do everything they can to get promoted. In the past, women have stuck together to accomplish certain goals in general, such as the right to vote, and the right to equal pay. If more women stick up for each other and help one another, we can make it so that no female soldier would have to worry about sexual harassment in the military again.