This is an issue that's become increasingly dear to my heart, as I've gotten to know a couple of amazing women veterans and read more about their experiences. There is no question that women vets have special needs at this time, especially as the epidemic of sexual assault and the psychological trauma that follows, is being acknowledged publicly for the first time. A few stats in case you haven't been following the issue:
- The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are employing the greatest number of American servicewomen in US military history.
- Women are rapidly adding to the already existing population of 1.8 million women veterans, most of whom have yet to be adequately recognized for their sacrifices.
- The sexual assault rates among female veterans are astronomically high -- at least 30, and as high as 70 percent.
The Service Women's Action Network, an organization co-founded by a group of women veterans (mostly women of color) in 2006, is poised to step into the gap of services and advocacy and the rest of us need to support them to do this. Here's an excerpt from a recent email I received from co-founder and Army National Guard veteran Jennifer Hogg:
The issues faced by military women today present the public with specific challenges that have largely been rejected as a national priority by veterans organizations, the government and the media. Most major organizations that serve veterans pay mere lip service to the issues of women veterans. They fail to hire women veterans as staff members, and often retraumatize women veterans by minimizing, trivializing, or ignoring the experiences of women in uniform. As we all know, women's issues rarely get the attention they deserve when women are not empowered with the agency and authority to represent their own needs.Therefore, SWAN focuses on the leadership development of women veterans. Given that few military organizations acknowledge the rampant sexism, racism, and homophobia in both the military and veterans organizations, SWAN ensures that women of color veterans and LGBT women veterans make up at least half of our staff, and that the experiences of women from these populations is featured prominently by the organization on both the website and in media appearances.
SWAN's staff and steering committee consist exclusively of women veterans whose collective experiences in the military encompass a broad spectrum of challenges faced by returning women veterans. These issues include the trauma of combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, the horrors of Military Sexual Trauma, the trials of VA health coverage and the VA benefits system for women, and discharges under the Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy.
If you can give money, do it:
Your donations are tax deductible. Checks can be made out to our fiscal sponsor, The Women of Color Resource Center. Please write "SWAN" in the memo line, and mail your check to:
The Women of Color Resource Center
1611 Telegraph Ave #303
Oakland, CA 94612
Or online.
If you can give some other kind of resources or support, do it:
Email Jen Hogg with grant leads, fundraising ideas, or other in kind donations or support at jen@claimingjustice.org.
Let's let the brave women of SWAN, and all the female veterans they are poised to help, know that we support their basic human rights to bodily integrity, health services, legal support, and healing community.
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Helen Benedict has a great new book about women in the military. It's called "The Lonely Soldier."
She spoke at my college a couple of weeks ago and she is a really inspirational author, very conscious of the way she portrays her characters.
BUY IT. ovbi don't buy it from amazon!!
Being a woman has prevented me from doing one of the only things that I've really every wanted to do in the life- infantry.
I wonder if we'll ever get gender equality in the military.