A paid adviser to Army Secretary Togo West on sexual harassment recommends that the military eliminate its "masculinist" tendencies and adopt an "ungendered vision" in which units look to Alcoholics Anonymous, religious orders and other groups as models.
The Army, she says, must combine its "aggressivity" with compassion and cultivate idealism and moral conviction instead of manly "posturing."
Madeline Morris, a Duke University law professor, offers these recommendations in a lengthy Duke Law Journal article on how to reduce rape and sexual assault in the armed forces.
"There is much to be gained and little to be lost by changing this aspect of military culture from a masculinist vision of unalloyed aggressivity to an ungendered vision combining aggressivity with compassion.
"Surely, if armed force is ever to be deployed, then idealism and moral conviction are preferable motives to macho posturing," she writes.
An Army official at the Pentagon identified Miss Morris as one of several consultants for the senior review panel appointed by Mr. West to recommend ways to counter sexual harassment.
"I don't know how much she has provided so far," the official said. "Her job is to respond to specific requests from the Army, to perform research and provide comments."
But Miss Morris, in a brief telephone interview yesterday, said she is a consultant to Mr. West and has spoken to him before and after her hiring on Feb. 18. She declined to answer questions about the article or discuss her advice to the Army secretary.
"I'm constrained because of my work for the secretary," she said.
The Army official, who asked not to be named, said she had no knowledge of whether Mr. West has sought specific advice from Miss Morris.
Mr. West gave the seven-member panel wide latitude to recommend changes in how the Army enforces policies to eliminate sexual misconduct. Some conservative critics are concerned that the group will propose removing the ban on women in land combat as a way to reduce sexual harassment. The panel's report is due in June.
Mr. West created the panel after allegations at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland that drill sergeants had sexually harassed and, in some cases, raped female trainees. To date, 11 drill sergeant-instructors at Aberdeen have been charged with criminal offenses.
In the law review article, Miss Morris presents what critics call the feminist vision of the American armed forces, as more women take on nontraditional roles such as flying jet fighters and bombers and operating combat ships.
"People who don't like soldiers shouldn't be asked to make rules for soldiers," Charles Moskos, a leading military sociologist, said in assessing the article.
"These are pseudo-feminists who don't really articulate the real concerns and capabilities of enlisted women," said the Northwestern University professor. "Most enlisted women, 90 percent, do not want to go into combat arms."
Women make up about 13 percent of the current 1.4 million active-duty force.
Miss Morris proposes a radical departure from the military's male-dominated culture, which she blames for contributing to an atmosphere that encourages sexual misconduct.
"There is substantial evidence ... of themes of hypermasculinity, adversarial sexual beliefs, promiscuity, hostility toward women and possibly acceptance of violence against women within current military cutlure," she writes.
"The attitudes toward sexuality embodied in military culture also largely partake of those found to be conducive to rape, including both adversarial sexual beliefs and high valuation of promiscuity."
Retired Army Col. Dick Black, who saw combat in Vietnam before becoming a military lawyer, labeled such an assessment "nonsense."
"There is absolutely no acceptance of violence against women in the American military culture," Col. Black said. "If anything, really, the attitude is one of chivalry and respect for women."
Miss Morris argues that to change the culture is to switch from a reliance on masculinity to the use of idealism:
"Examples of cohesive groups centered on ideological rather than gendered bases for bonding include some religious orders, Communist Party cells, the French resistance underground and even Alcoholics Anonymous.
"Masculinist military identity, then, is not inevitable or indispensable to military effectiveness but, rather, is a matter of choice."
"Masculinist military identity, then, is not inevitable or indispensable to military effectiveness but, rather, is a matter of choice."
The premise of Miss Morris' article, "By Force of Arms: Rape, War and Military Culture," is that the military rape rate should be lower than it is currently, based on a comparison with civilian crime statistics.
Army men, for example, have a 50 percent lower rape rate than their civilian counterparts. But the Army rate for murder and aggravated assault is even lower -- about one-fifth the civilian rate.
Miss Morris calls this difference the "rape differential" and argues a change in the "masculinist" culture would help bring incidents of rape to the same level as other violent crimes.
However, Mr. Moskos said researchers should praise the current military culture for producing lower crime rates.
"Maybe there is something in the military ethic that civilian society should emulate," Mr. Moskos said. "It's an upside-down argument. When you find something good in military behavior, then you say you should change the military culture, when the point is the military culture is the answer, not the problem."
Miss Morris makes a case for ending the land-combat exclusion. She says it "may tend, in both concrete and symbolic ways, to reinforce the traditional military gender and sexual norms that may be contributing to the military rape differential."
Copyright © 1997 News World Communications, Inc.
Yeah, that's what we need. More "Compassion" for the Al Quaida among our soldiers. That'll solve all our problems.
Another f****** braindead feminist...