appearing as a blog post by a serving Army Engineer who blogs as Angry Staff Officer.
The post is titled I Didn't Know.
Here is the beginning of the post:
She had a senior non-commissioned officer buy her lingerie, passing it off as a joke.
I didn’t know.
She was mentally broken down and denigrated, day after day, by a male officer who was her command and who felt threatened by her presence.
I didn’t know.
He lists four more incidents, some far more horrific, before writing this:
I didn’t know.
But I should have.
These incidents are but a handful that women who I’m lucky enough to serve alongside have shared with me.
But I should have.
That is key, and he acknowledges it.
Let me add one more selection:
First one woman, an NCO, told me her story. Then two fellow officers. Then a warrant officer. Then more officers. Until I’d literally gone through practically almost every woman I knew who was serving or had served. And that’s when I realized I should’ve known.
See, we all know, don’t we? We all know that there’s at least one person, if not more, in our organizations that is “that guy.” The one who is referred to as a “walking SHARP and equal opportunity complaint.” And everyone knows who that individual is; it’s not like it’s a secret. But because of either rank, position, or even unit climate, no one says anything. No one does anything. And so that individual goes on talking – or worse: starts acting.
There is more, much more in this post.
The recent events have forced me to reflect back over the 7 decades of my life. My brief military experience was unlike his: there were no women in the band at Quantico, and the only female in our data processing unit in which I also served was a Captain who was the executive officer (one of only two officers, the other of which was an outstanding major who was very supportive of her).
But I have been in heavily male cultures in data processing where the joking was inappropriate, and when a junior member of those departments I unfortunately held my tongue. That was not the case once I had seniority or became a supervisor or manager, when I would be quite forceful. But just reflecting back on my own difference in action/inaction, I can understand how in male dominated situations some women — perhaps most women — might be reluctant to speak up.
There are those in Congress who are trying to address the culture of the military that still seems to allow/tolerate and even sometimes encourage sexual abuse by men — think back to Tail Hook, for example — and unfortunately there are those whose attitude is to exclude women blaming them for tempting/distracting men, an attitude which is far from seeing females as equals.
Returning to the blog post, it is powerful. It reminds one of the the values that should be part of ANY organization that values all of its members, that has a shared mission, and which given the nature of its mission should be essential in the military.
Which leads to the final words in the blog post:
I didn’t know, but I should have. And I won’t forget.
We ALL need to examine our own situations. There are too many cases where people are shocked when they are finally learning about long established patterns of sexual predation by fellow workers, about which they say they didn’t know.
They should have.
And NONE of us should forget that.