Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Helen Benedict. Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism



AMY GOODMAN: Professor Helen Benedict, you have some remarkable statistics in the article you did for salon.com, “The Private War of Women Soldiers.” Can you talk about the statistics from Vietnam to now of sexual assault?

HELEN BENEDICT: Yes, most of the statistics have been gathered through studies with veterans, who feel freer to talk than when they’re still in the military. And a lot of the studies gathered women who have come to the VA for help for various things, who are veterans of the Vietnam War and all the wars up through now. And that’s where I found the 30% said they were raped. I found a 71% --

AMY GOODMAN: From Vietnam through the first Gulf War, 30% said they had been raped in the military?

HELEN BENEDICT: Yes, so that includes Bosnia and the other places.

AMY GOODMAN: 2004 study of veterans from Vietnam and all the wars since, who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder, found 71%?

HELEN BENEDICT: Said they were sexually assaulted, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Sexually assaulted or raped while in the military. And a third study conducted ’92, ’93, with female veterans of the Gulf War and earlier wars, 90% said they had been sexually harassed?

HELEN BENEDICT: Harassed, yes. There are no statistics on Iraq alone at the moment. Those are still being studied, but that’s from previous wars and combinations of wars.

AMY GOODMAN: What protection does the military provide?

HELEN BENEDICT: There is no protection. I can’t think of a single thing that I would call protection, realistically.

When my sister was in Afghanistan, she was on the pill the entire time just for that. She was told to watch out for attacks by her fellow soldiers as well as insurgents/terrorists/whatever, and if anything happened, to just shoot them.

Be All You Can Be.

in the armee

oh my gawd.

what the hell could they possibly have been thinking?

What was who thinking?
The women who enlisted or the men who raped them?

Not a rhetorical question, I don't who you mean.

The whole thing....

"30 percent said they were raped"...

"... and if anything happened, to just shoot them".

I had no idea it was like that... truly horrific.

As if it were the status quo too.
Like, allowing a president to be a criminal is a status quo.
That's the whole "oh my Gawd" of it.
The big safe sounding words, the terrible , crucifing reality.
Private rapees, TEN sion, quietly go to therapy with ptsd.
Might as well wear a berka.


H