Maybe this problem isn't bottom up, but top down, that is the leadership doesn't enforce rules and actually promotes this kind of very outdated masculine expression. I spent my entire adolescence in a military school and this is something that is very prevalent in the military corporation.
There is a lot of victim blaming for something that is clearly systemic -- where these incidents are dismissed because "boys be boys..." -- and could be worked around by making those responsible accountable, but that will step on some very shiny and important toes, which is why you don't see a push for the correct kind of change in the military that this needs.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. That part is continuing the thought process I started in the first paragraph, not responding directly to OP. Let me rephrase that, thanks!
In a profession that by nature is meant to be aggressive to the point of killing, how is any form of masculine expression outdated. Worse comes to worse these people may be required to kill other people with their bare hands. It's trained into them, it's meant to be systemic. Unfortunately a side effect is this sort of behaviour.
Separating men and women in such an environment is sensible. Recognizing that isn't victim blaming.
If a man is so uncontrolled he cannot help but rape his co-workers I do not want him with any weaponry or representing my country. The whole point of a well-trained militia is to drill into soldiers the capacity to commit violence only when needed and to have the discipline to individually perform their tasks to win a battle. We expect better behavior from attack dogs!
Soldiers are people trained to go to war. They do not "represent" a
country; they go, kill other people or die. It's not olympics. They go
to an environment without rules. It's not a boxing match with a referee.
Apologies I didn't reply to you comment, I didn't notice it, happens when you're voicing unpopular opinions and lots of people want to tell you you're an idiot.
I can tell from your comments you've never been in a firefight and your political leanings.
War has rules of engagement, yes. But both sides have to agree to abide by them. But I can guarantee that in the heat of battle any rules go out the window and survival is all you care about. An emotion afterwards is all there is, especially when you are young and undereducated. You ideals don't mean much.
People seem to think in this thread I'm trying to make excuses for this behaviour. I'm not. I'm providing reasons.
KittenInABox wrote:
> This is completely wrong. War has fairly strict rules, actually, more strict
> than policemen in the US.
Eh... no. Watch a few clips from Ukraine-Russia war, what those soldiers
are doing. The movies are on Reddit. This has nothing to do with any
rules, Geneva Conventions or whatever. War rules are only there in order
to make people like you happier, but if war happens, they're out of the
window.
No, but you were implicitly assuming undisciplined aggression, when what the military actually needs and tries to train for is disciplined aggression--aggression against only the right targets at the right time and place. Undisciplined aggression is an obvious violation of military discipline and should be treated as such by the leadership.
I'm not assuming anything, explicitly or implicitly. People like to pretend you can turn agression on and off and only turn it towards the "right" direction. Those people are either in denial or have no experience of what this training does to you.
Disclosure: 12 years in military multiple tours of various warzones.
> 12 years in military multiple tours of various warzones.
How recently? I'm guessing, recently enough that the military you served in is the dysfunctional military described in the article, which suffers from a severe lack of leadership. People whose service was further in the past can tell you a very different story.
I'm not recent no, been out over nearly 2 decades. I also don't look back with rose tinted glasses.
I can agree with basically everything you've said, bar the assumption that the military is only recently dysfunctional. A brief look at any period of history will mostly show you a severe lack of proper leadership with very few exceptions.
I'm aware my experience isn't everyone's.
Unpopular as the reality might be, when you train people to be killers, in the lowest ranks many of whom are there instead of in gangs or jail, because there's no other options for them, don't be shocked that within that subset of the population you finding high rates of various crimes, especially violent ones.
Does that mean you're not expected to turn aggression off towards commanding officers? If you can't direct it or turn it off, are generals constantly getting yelled at and punched by enlisted soldiers?
Or does the inability of soldiers to control themselves mysteriously only apply to subordinates, women, and civilians?
There is a lot of victim blaming for something that is clearly systemic -- where these incidents are dismissed because "boys be boys..." -- and could be worked around by making those responsible accountable, but that will step on some very shiny and important toes, which is why you don't see a push for the correct kind of change in the military that this needs.