National Review: Victims Of Violent Military Rapes Struggle In Life Because Of ‘Their Own Bad Decisi

[DonViejo]

National Review: Victims Of Violent Military Rapes Struggle In Life Because Of ‘Their Own Bad Decision-Making’

By Adam Peck on Feb 28, 2013 at 6:15 pm

In Thursday’s paper, the New York Times ran the harrowing story of Tiffany Jackson, a female veteran grappling with the effects of military sexual trauma. Jackson had been violently raped while deployed overseas at the Suwon Air Base in South Korea, and upon her return to the states had difficulty finding and keeping a job, struggled with drugs and alcohol and fought uphill battles to keep her anger at bay. All of which, according to a growing consensus of researchers and psychologists, are common manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder brought about by M.S.T.

But expert opinion is not enough to convince the scribes at National Review Online, which issued its own rebuttal to the Times piece and proclaimed — without a shred of evidence — that the hardships befallen upon Jackson and as many as 1 in 5 of all female servicemembers are attributable to their upbringing in underprivileged communities and not to their sexual assaults. And they engage in an especially pernicious form of victim-blaming in the process:

Now here is a tentative alternative hypothesis: Some of these women come from environments that made their descent into street life overdetermined, whether or not they experienced alleged sexual assault in the military. To blame alleged sexual assault for their fate rather than their own bad decision-making is ideologically satisfying, but mystifying. Having children out of wedlock, as a huge proportion of them do, also does not help in avoiding poverty and homelessness…

But let’s say that for these homeless female vets, it really was their sexual experiences in the military that caused their downward spiral into, as the Times puts it, “alcohol and substance abuse, depression and domestic violence.” Why then have those same feminists who are now lamenting the life-destroying effects of “MST” insisted on putting women into combat units?

more
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/28/1654631/national-review-victims-of-violent-military-rapes-struggle-in-life-because-of-their-own-bad-decision-making/

[upaloopa]

1. There is a good documentary "Carrier" that is about life

on the USS Nimitz on a deployment to the Gulf. So many of the women say that they joined the Navy after seeing their siblings ruin their lives on drugs and crime. They wanted a better life for them selves and saw the Navy as a way to do that.
Contrary to what that scum rag says. These woman are trying to avoid the "street".
One of the women in the documentary is put on restriction for having sex with a guy sailor who was to protect others from sexual assault. She was drunk and couldn't remember if the sex was consensual or not and did not want to get the guy into trouble so she said the guy did not rape her.
I can't even imagine what it is like to be a poor woman who joins the service as a way to a better life and is raped just as her military career is beginning. And to get no support from anywhere would drive anyone to PTSD.

[frylock]

2. it's their own fault for electing to have a vagina

[LiberalLoner]

4. That's really what it's all about

[riderinthestorm]

3. Conveniently ignoring the fact that women are already in combat

AND that it doesn't take being in a combat unit to be raped.

As recent history has amply demonstrated.



K&R though for the exposure.

[GeorgeGist]

5. Believe it or not ...

there was a day when even Republicans would be appalled by such drivel.