Harassment and Abuse of Women in the Military

Women all around the world who are in the military are constantly getting harassed and raped by the soldiers and there is nothing that anybody is doing about it. There are many solutions that have been tried to prevent women abuse in the military, but many of them have failed. For example, the government, a few years ago made it clear that they were not going to tolerate any harassments from anybody, yet they did not keep their word. A few years ago, the government tried to prevent women from getting abused, by just warning the men to not to do it again.

Apparently, that solution did not work out very well. Up until now there are women that are still getting harassed and raped, yet the only thing that is being done, is that fact that the men are the one’s that are being told, “Don’t Do It Again! ” This is all that they do. Only a simple warning, no punishment. Before World War I, women assisted the military during wartime mainly as nurses and helpers. Some women, however, did become involved in battles. Molly Pitcher, a Revolutionary War water carrier, singlehandedly kept a cannon in action after a artillery crew had been disabled.

During the Revolutionary and the Civil War, a few women disguised themselves as men and took part in hand-to-hand combat. The first enlisted women served in World War I as telephone and radio operators, translators, and clerks. But it was not until World War II that women became part of the regular military. Each service had its own women’s corps commanded by female officers. The first of these units, the Women’s Army Corps (WACs), enlisted 400,000 women during the war to work in jobs that freed men to fight.

Following the war, the Women’s Services Integration Act of 1948 established a permanent place for women in all branches of the military. But promotions for female officers were limited, and women were banned from ground combat jobs as well as from most Navy ships and Air Force aircraft. By the mid-1960s, about 70 percent of enlisted women worked in clerical and other office jobs. The Army and the other services at first resisted sending women to Vietnam fearing that they would notbe able to handle the stress of being in a war zone. But 7,500 military women, mainly nurses, eventually served in Vietnam. Several died in hostile action.