Why Soldiers Rape: Culture of Misogyny, Illegal Occupation Fuel Sexual Violence in Military

Published on October 25, 2008

Robert Jay Lifton, a professor of psychiatry who studies war crimes, theorizes that soldiers are particularly prone to commit atrocities in a war of brutal occupation, where the enemy is civilian resistance, the command sanctions torture, and the war is justified by distorted reasoning and obvious lies.

Thus, many American troops in Iraq have deliberately shot children, raped civilian women and teenagers, tortured prisoners of war, and abused their own comrades because they see no moral justification for the war, and are reduced to nothing but self-loathing, anger, fear and hatred.

Although these explanations for why soldiers rape are dispiriting, they do at least suggest that the military could institute the following reforms:

* Promote and honor more women soldiers. The more respect women are shown by the command, the less abuse they will get from their comrades.

* Teach officers and enlistees that rape is torture and a war crime.

* Expel men from the military who attack their female comrades.

* Ban the consumption of pornography.

* Prohibit the use of sexist language by drill instructors.

* Educate officers to insist that women be treated with respect.

* Train military counselors to help male and female soldiers not only with war trauma, but also with childhood abuse and sexual assault.

* Cease admitting soldiers with backgrounds of domestic or sexual violence.

And last – but far from least – end the war in Iraq.

[Editor's note: This article is adapted from The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, to be published by Beacon Press in April 2009.]

Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is author of several books concerning social justice and women. Her writings on women soldiers won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism in 2008.

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