Thread by @daniellamyoung

Some people who #ReadTheReport are asking "what exactly is rape-culture?"
I'm just one woman, & would say I had a 'great career' & 'enjoyed my time in the Army' & this was a mere 3 hours of thinking of examples. I'd planned to go all day, but it was too exhausting. (A Thread)

Someone conveniently slid into my DMs to mansplain how exhausting my individual SA/SH tweets were becoming, so I have helpfully combined them all here for your perusal.

That one time I called out a senior warrant officer for making jokes about clowns raping children, in the TOC, no less, and everyone in the room looked at me like I was the one being inappropriate for calling him out.

That one time I stepped out in full-battle rattle and a peer referred to me as “Combat Barbie”. Yes, I owned it, yes it’s a chapter title in my book, yes it was an inappropriate and sexually harassing thing for him to do. No matter what you think, it happens in your units.

Those times when my drill sergeant, still the largest man I’ve ever met in real life, used to scream “rape” every time a female soldier approached him unaccompanied during training.

That time my boss (the BN S3) got mad at me for not “locking my Facebook down before deployment” because 2 battalions were passing around photos of me in civvies. He had the good grace to agree when I pointed out that he was chastising the person being sexually harassed.

That time when, as a young LT, I told 2 Captains that I felt safer on a bike in Kandahar bc by the time men realized I was a female I’d be long gone, & 1 looked me in the eyes & replied “you know, we know your route home & could just strong fishing line across your path”.

That time I was told to stop crying over 10 DEAD SERVICEMEMBERS, many from my patrol team, because someone might think I’d had an inappropriate relationship with one of them.

That time a full-bird Colonel had the nerve to look me in the eye and tell me I had no idea what young soldiers complaining of sexual harassment were going through.

That time a full-bird Colonel had the nerve to look me in the eye and tell me I had no idea what young soldiers complaining of sexual harassment were going through.

That time I was medevac’d with symptoms of a brain tumor but the unit rumor that circulated was that I (the battalion S2 with a pretty stellar rep) had gotten pregnant down range.

That time I was told by an IT guy that women could never be in the infantry because *periods*, after getting back from a combat patrol while, gasp, on my period.

That time when my Equal Opportunity class at
@FortCampbell
was told “Yes, forcing soldiers to bow their heads for a prayer & sound off with a resounding Amen in order to graduate AASLT is a clear violation of the Army’s EO policy, but since nobody’s filed a complaint yet...

All those times I made a 300+ on the male APFT and was congratulated by many and told to stop making the men look bad by many others.

That time the SGM had to ask me and the female doc to brief all the never-deployed female soldiers so they’d be prepared for what to expect culture-wise during deployment—because he didn’t know what else to do.

That time a Major told me that we shouldn’t be concerned with giving female soldiers rides to their barracks rooms at night in Bagram airfield because “they each have a gun”.

That time I was told to be prepared for a career bereft of mentors since no field grade officer would be comfortable alone with me because of the potential for rumors.

That time I volunteered for one of the first Female Engagement Teams and was told by THREE DIFFERENT CAPTAINS to watch my back out on patrols *alone* with 25 men.

That time I made a calendar to track who I ate lunch with everyday so that I wouldn’t inadvertently feed the rumor-mill by...eating...with the same peers...at the DFAC too often.

That time when the 20+ infantry guys hitting the DFAC with six female FET soldiers were sweating bullets by the time they sat down and talking about being “eye-raped” standing next to us, while for us females it was just Tuesday in Kandahar.

That time I got raped on deployment and didn’t even cry one tear, just stared at my boots across the room, knowing I could never report it because I’d chosen to break rules, be alone with him, & taken my own boots off.

That time, years after my career ended, when MY FRIENDS from the Army told me it was at least partially my fault for getting raped, since I’d been breaking deployment rules & been alone with a male friend.

That time I was asked why someone who’d escaped a childhood in a religious sex cult would ever think they could be a leader in the Army without being retraumatized?

If you've hung in this long, thank you. It's exhausting, I know. In @Harvard grad school I learned that when women get so exhausted from deep-acting that they leave the field altogether it's called the 'glass-cliff'. It's a significant reason women are 'a minority' in professions

Those of you asking what can be done, ask your women what their truly experiencing and listen. Call out this behavior when you see it, we often don't have the gravitas to do it and we're spending all our energy in survival & 'proving ourselves'.

I was an officer at battalion and brigade level, so just ask yourself, how much worse was it for others who didn't have my rank and respect?