"Gender Watch" the United States Navy circulated hundreds of women's gowns topless, good husband into the camp into an animal?

Hundreds of angry female Marines and Marines have recently launched a "Marines must end up with women" action, forming a new organization: "actionable change".

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The move comes as a result of a stunning U.S. Navy scandal in March this year: in "marines united", the US Navy's private Facebook group, which has more than 30,000 people, hundreds or even thousands of nude pictures and videos of American women soldiers without their consent, These photos and videos are widely spread and replicated on corporate pages, and are even directed to external hard drives such as Google Drive or Dropbox, and to the community and the threat of rape.

A retired former Navy member, John Albert, was invited into the club this year, Albert was surprised and furious to see the contents of the community, and he had wanted to ask the men who had been naked in the PO to talk, but later he didn't, "after all, I love them, and we went to war together." In the end, he reported to the unrelated agency, face book, that "the community has indecent nudity" that violates the Community rules. After the report, the "marines united" Society disappeared from the face book within a week.

However, Albert's efforts were totally useless.

In the Face book Community "marines united" was closed, the new "marines united" from the face book community long out, community members quickly came to 30,000 people, and the original community difference is not big.

Until another Navy member, Thomas Brennan, also a journalist, reported on March 4 this year that the Pentagon was conducting an internal investigation into "who uses social media to solicit or share nude photos of hundreds (and even thousands) of American female soldiers" in the hundreds of navies.

Right: One of the female soldiers who had not consented to be shared topless (Newsweek)

The appearance of American female soldiers: anger but also fear

Women in the United States, as a result of this incident, quickly banded together to form the "actionable change" group, which formed a community on Facebook and now has more than 400 members, a Navy reserve named Ann Bernard.

Subsequently, "actionable change" sent a letter to the army saying they had to "end the dislike of women" and pointed out that the US military had condoned and even fostered a culture of "demeaning women and xiaomin women in the military".

According to the Washington Post, the letter has received more than 100 signatories to date, including even the colonel's affiliates.

"In a culture that rewards masculinity, it is easy to mistake barbarism for power, cruelty as power, and cruelty as an expression of courage," the letter said, "but we must disagree with these concepts." The victory of this country does not mean that it must maintain such a culture of military institutions, especially when the institution allows, and even expects, the male soldiers to behave like beasts. (Extended reading: Why does the country want us to be soldiers? "Women in Service" key issues in the discussion )

"actionable Change" 's goal is to increase the percentage of women in the Marines from the current 7% to 20%, improving the gender mix in the army, as well as raising the current military gender issue from the first-hand story of female soldiers.

Among the hundreds of signatories, however, many feared that signing the letter would hurt their military career.

"We loved the Marines so much that we did it to make the Marines better," "bernard to the worried signatories," We've been working on this for a long time, but this incident has made us realize that we are far from our goal, We cannot allow the next generation of Marines to continue to maintain the same (dislike) mentality. "(same field Gayon: Gender observation: 6,000 people seconded, why women do not use the army?" )

In addition to "actionable change", many groups with the same mission have launched initiatives and initiatives in recent weeks, including "not in my Marine corps", "the Female Marines United campaign"and so on, the U.S. military has also launched a" deep understanding of the Army's dislike of women, "the plan, but it is difficult to the military internal investigation too much expectations.

United States Navy Commander in Chief of public hearings (Newsweek)

Admiral Clark Carpenter, a Navy spokesman who is rushing to put out the fire, said the U.S. military and "actionable change" are concerned about the same value and will continue to stand side with the female navy, saying, "The army must not care about the gender of (being blind to gender), Sexual orientation, religion or race to ensure the future success of the U.S. military in the territory and on the battlefield. 」

There is a serious contradiction in the statement of the Navy's spokesman: After all, how can we Be "sex blind" to stand with female Marines? It also exposes the military's high level of knowledge about gender issues in the army, and after all, if "not sex" (being blind to gender), it is impossible to explain why the army is prone to a culture of dislike of women.

Are 30,000 members all beasts, without good husbands and good fathers?

In the 30,000 members of the private face book Community "marines united", there are many secular determination of good husbands, families have a daughter's loving father. We have to face the fact that there are many who are not the "most heinous" sexual perverts, or the so-called beasts, who acquiesce in nude pictures and even share them.

So the question is, why are these loving husbands and fathers so quiet as to sit idly by and watch over such a blatant dislike of women?

As they assume, these angry men are likely to be worried about one thing: once they show their identity, they will be considered "you are too weak" and "You are not a man".

In her book, the sociologist, Qian Hok, repeats a rather crucial point: the unity of men is often maintained by excluding "men" from others. Through the spread and circulation of nude photographs of women's robes, to push a woman into the "object of sex" position (in the sex of the "being" into, without the right to decide the "subject"), so that men can confirm that they are still "the subject of sex", that is, in the sexual grasp of the right to determine the "attack."

In the army, the desire to confirm oneself as a sex subject is more intense. Because the military training is difficult to make people feel that they still have the right to decide the "subject."

The army as a strict class of authoritarian field, the emphasis is absolute obedience, individual difficult to act according to their own will, said one, the following few say two space, the military often must be subordinate to the superior, passively receive orders "object." The longer the army stays, the more likely it is that the "subjectivity" of the disappearance of the anxiety.

As a result, the desire to be recognized by other male servicemen as a "sex subject" is stronger than other fields. At the same time, the recognition of each other's "sexual subject" status is also a key link to maintain male friendship.

Why are male soldiers afraid to express dissent in the community?

By constructing the male bond of "sex subject", we hide a unspoken rule: if you are the subject of sex, you naturally do not need to object to the sharing of nude or verbal indecency of women's robes. Therefore, once the objection is expressed, it is easy to be relegated to the "object of sex" and into a second-class situation where the same robe is "not a man".

It is not hard to imagine why the "marines united" community, even if men are uncomfortable with the spread of topless situations, is still difficult to stand up for.

In personal characteristics, he must have a strong psychological quality and self-confidence, to be able to speak for the female not present. In a group position, he must be in a position where his peers are not to be belittled as "not men." For example, having an extremely high and unshakable position of power in the military (such as the President), or being a member of the army, no longer needs to be determined by the means of the female body. In this case, Albert, who reports to the Facebook society, belongs to the latter.

However, not only male soldiers use "topless" to create "sexual objects". In the last 10 years, we have seen how the female soldiers of the United States have been involved in the brutal sexual abuse of prisoners of war, and are interested in "taking pictures" and circulating them in groups. This behavior is the same as the logic of the event that is disclosed today: to avoid falling into the inferior "sex object" position, you have to let others become your "sexual objects" to ensure that you have the "sex subject" position.

Therefore, it is only to find out "who spreads, sharing topless" as a scapegoat, it may be possible for such societies to disappear for a while, but this effect is like Albert's face book prosecutor, as well as the investigation and prosecution of the American army on sexual abuse of prisoners of war ten years ago, and it is not hard to imagine In the future, the military will only be more anonymous to belittle the female body, or sexually abused, to continue to complete the "sex subject" recognition and association.

The radical way is not only to make the army a friendly environment for women, but to let the military respect the subject of "people" as much as possible. If soldiers can feel their subjectivity more easily, they can greatly reduce the army's sexual aggression or dislike of women's culture. This may be extremely difficult, but we can still start with the first step: to break the Army's blind worship of masculinity. This requires military agencies to act in addition to chanting slogans: not only to investigate error correction, but to demonstrate and praise the value of negative temperament in the army through educational training and systems.

Image source: Getty Images