WAFFU0076
Written evidence submitted anonymously.
1. Introduction.
I am a female who served in the Army as a Junior Officer, through to the rank of [redacted]. I recently decided to leave military service.
In the following sections, I firstly highlight relevant aspects of my time in the Army as a woman, and secondly I make some related observations regarding the terms of reference.
2. Relevant aspects of my personal experience.
a. Cultural observations from RMAS. I began my career at RMAS. This period felt like a case study in the various ways women move through the military, experiencing different forms of patriarchy as they go. Some women weren’t liked or weren’t sexually attractive to a majority of the straight male population, and were to varying degrees ostracised for that reason. Others were viewed as sexually attractive, and so were objectified on those grounds; inevitably, this type of behaviour took a somewhat different tone. Some women had a complicated, perhaps destructive relationship with their sexuality – as is only human – and the highly oppressive, sexualised environment of RMAS was not kind to those individuals. In short, it seemed like we experienced a highly intensified version of the patriarchal structures that exist across society as a whole.
Personally, I was lucky to be generally well-liked and respected by my peers. The sexualised dynamic that I experienced was one of having to constantly pacify the undercurrent of subliminal, possessive behaviour that my male peers often demonstrated. Consistently I was sexually objectified, or viewed as something to compete over, or relied on to do emotional work - often in turn by the same people, depending on the moment. For example, I would be nicknamed after (sexual) parts of my anatomy, or male peers, completely inventing the idea that I had a sexual ranking system, were insistent on understanding whether I was in their ‘top five’; it was these same peers who wanted comforting about their home life, or advice about their girlfriend, or someone to speak to about their emotions when the alpha male culture became too much. It was a line of banter to be given a stupid nickname, it was a form of inclusion and affection to be fought over in a joking manner – but it also carried emotional weight and a strong sense that I needed to tread carefully, and not upset any egos.
The way these dynamics play out is not simple – despite the accumulation of these behaviours being utterly exhausting, I also liked and cared deeply for the majority of my peers, the way you do given the camaraderie of going through basic training together. What’s more, they liked, cared for, and in large part respected me – it simply came with a constant undercurrent of possessive behaviour. It is not that I felt bullied; I simply felt I was doing a huge amount of work, constantly reacting to their demands of me - how was I going to joke my way out of answering their question about the top five? How was I going to draw a boundary, and make it clear I did not want to be nicknamed sexually? And why was I carrying their emotional load, when the accumulation of these behaviours and constant managing of their egos meant I had more than enough to carry myself?
Despite my best efforts that year to consistently pacify situations I found myself in and prevent them boiling over, my fellow female Officer Cadets and I did face constant instances of harassment and the ever-present threat of sexual assault during our time in training.
b. Sexual assault. As a [redacted] at [redacted], I was sexually assaulted by penetration after a social function. This was perpetrated by one of the [redacted] at my unit, in the presence of his friend, another [redacted] at my unit.
I did not report this event. The consequences of acknowledging what had happened, of marching into the CO’s office or the Welfare department and actually putting that into words, seemed unfathomably huge. It felt like the Regiment would have come crashing down around me. Instead, I quietly dissociated from my body, tried to normalise the situation by ignoring it, and put my energy into pretending everything was ok. I knew how visceral the rumour mill could be; only the year before, there had been horrific commentary on military WhatsApp groups regarding a female Junior Officer, rumoured to be involved with a [redacted]. I just wanted to get on with my career and my life without risking it all blowing up. What if it turned into he said / she said? Surely he would be backed up by his friend, two against one?
c. Personal example of underreporting in survey data. Consequently the 2021 Sexual Harassment Survey was conducted and I was invited to participate. I wanted to do my bit and answer it. I got halfway through, but when asked about particularly upsetting events, it was the first time I thought about vocalising in words what had happened. I panicked and closed the survey, as it was overwhelming. I want to raise this as an instance of under-reporting and under-representation in surveys on this issue. I know the 2021 Sexual Harassment Survey informed the 2021 Defence Committee Inquiry, and yet my experience (and potentially the experience of others) was not represented that time around because it was difficult acknowledging what had happened.
d. Experiencing the problem from all sides: Top down and bottom up. Later in my career, I was serving in a training establishment as a [redacted]. My [redacted] unfortunately displayed many sexist behaviours; ironically he was also the Unit Lead sitting on the Regimental D&I forum. To give some examples, ranging from trivial to highly problematic:
i. When chatting with my colleagues about putting my car in for an MOT, he walked in on the conversation, and queried why I, a woman, was talking about cars. When I mentioned the MOT he commented that ‘at least I wasn’t talking about engine size’.
ii. He stated he refused to use the word ‘Ma’am’ to address female senior officers, because he doesn’t like it, and would instead call them by their rank.
iii. There was an instance whereby rumours were circulating about who I was sexually involved with, which were completely untrue and professionally damaging. When I raised this to him as a matter of concern, he told me that as a woman, I would simply have to get used to rumours about who I was sexually involved with being spread about me, and advised me to change my behaviour – not to hang around with males unless in a group. This was obviously untenable given the vast majority of my colleagues were men and therefore I would have been completely isolated if I’d acted on his advice – he showed a complete lack of regard for my experience, shifting the burden of change onto me.
iv. On a Friday walk around, he came into my office and completely unsolicited, started explaining how in the past he had shared misogynistic memes online, but he had now consciously decided not to delete them because that would be a “step too far”. This was around the time of all the publicity of the report of the Defence Committee Inquiry into Women in the Armed Forces and I understood to be a direct reaction on his part to that.
I tried to imagine what mindset you are in to go to your female subordinate and say that, completely unprompted. I tried to imagine an equivalent situation – perhaps me going to speak to one of my [redacted], who was from an ethnic minority background, and bragging about sharing racist memes and not deleting them. I just couldn’t fathom it. I also thought it telling that, despite all the public statements from the Army about all the things they were going to do to address the findings of the report, this was the personal reaction of someone in a relatively senior position. I am sure if he said those things to me, he must have said them to others and I doubt his view was an isolated one.
During my tenure at the training establishment, I was made aware by one of my female soldiers that she had faced an instance of sexual harassment. Upon further investigation, it was apparent sexual harassment towards females was a problem more generally in the Troop. In addition, some of the females suggested that it was not confined to the Troop, and there was reason to believe similar patterns of behaviour existed across the Squadron and all trainees in the unit.
I felt in a difficult position. I had knowledge of a live issue in the Troop, which required immediate attention, plus the implications across the wider Squadron/Regiment. But the most obvious course of action, to highlight to my Squadron Commander and Regimental D&I Unit Lead that we had a problem, did not feel available to me. His prior insensitivities led me to worry about how he would interact with my female soldiers. I knew all too well the immense trust they had put in me in explaining their experiences, and did not trust him with their vulnerability. In short, I viewed him as a perpetrator of the problem – not the avenue to a solution, as unfortunately his position in our military system had designated him to be.
In the end, I found workaround solutions, engaging other parties in the unit to ensure the issue was raised and dealt with across the Training Establishment. It was difficult to manage this in light of the position of the Squadron Commander and ensure my Troops did not have to interact with him directly around this issue. As far as I am aware, none of the affected junior soldiers raised formal complaints about the sexual harassment they had disclosed to me.
I viewed it as a duty of my rank to protect those under my command from a member of the Regimental hierarchy, perpetuating the same problematic behaviours they were experiencing and coming to me to remedy, but it took an emotional toll on me. Whilst I understand that rank comes the responsibility to do the moral hard work, this was nonetheless hard. Throughout this year, I was also starting to acknowledge the assault I had experienced, which made dealing with these issues particularly heavy.
e. Reflection. The perpetrator of the assault I experienced went on to work in a training establishment, and became very senior in the chain of command of many vulnerable young people including young women.
I have no evidence of any further perpetration from that individual. But, when overlaid with other events, such as the consideration that soldiers like Gunner Beck would have been in those training establishments around this time, I cannot help but view the problematic issues faced by women in the Armed Forces as deeply systemic.
That said, when reading the Inquiry, I was struck by what wasn’t in the media headlines; perhaps what was too nuanced or military-specific to make for generalised reading. Whilst I don’t want to speculate on her experience, I can only imagine how overwhelming the events and implicit power dynamics outlined in the Inquiry must have felt, as a teenager at the bottom of the power structures of our organisation.
This made me reflect on the complexities of my experience, and of my female friends who still serve. I cannot help but feel that we inevitably focus on the straw-that-breaks-the-camel’s-back event, and not the steady accumulation of smaller events that form the bulk of the problem, thus making those impactful events ultimately so catastrophic. Even in this submission, I am mostly focussing on concrete events of sexual assault or harassment. But in focussing only on the most concrete, obviously problematic behaviours, we miss the subtleties of the power dynamics and social pressures that are so significant, and form so much of the experience.
In turn, I think that this has compelling consequences for this Inquiry and its recommendations. The policy changes suggested in the 2021 Inquiry I believe are significant steps in the right direction. But they do not go far enough to highlight the cultural changes that will be required to remove so many of the microaggressions and experiences of gendered behaviour that cause so of what is damaging about the daily experience of women in the Armed Forces.
I find it uncomfortable acknowledging to myself that my decision to leave was in part due to a feeling of exhaustion and an inability to continue operating in this environment, simply because I am a woman.
3. In relation to the Inquiry Terms of Reference.
How much change has there been in past two years, when it comes to improving the experiences of female Service personnel and/or female veterans?
What specific changes are you aware of against the Committee’s initial recommendations?
Are there areas where you hope to see more change?
For example, it is not just the act of the assault that I struggle with – it is the fact it took place within a rank structure, was perpetuated and observed by those who should have had a duty of care towards me, took place at a function where I had spent hours being hypervigilant to avoid any trouble and finally thought I was with people that were safe, the way the Regimental structure meant the social group I would have upended by reporting it included my boss and my friends, and I lived with them, and I worked with them.
And, it is the fact this event took place after years of emotional work to function in this environment – emotional work that my male peers were not doing.
However, I have observed in the past that when you have a policy of punishing these relationships, an unfortunate, unintended consequence is that you oppress the more vulnerable party. For example, there might be a case of a junior soldier sleeping with a more senior soldier, which might be punishable for whatever circumstantial reason. If any assault or problematic behaviour was perpetrated by the senior towards the junior, the junior soldier would be afraid to report this for fear of their career. I have seen cases like this play out amongst my peers. It is almost always the young woman who is affected negatively.
I think it is important to consider this and open a nuanced discussion about how we might support victims in these cases.
Do you see ‘easy wins’ for the Services/MOD?
What has helped or hindered change?
Remedying cases of rape/assault/harassment at the ‘pointy end’ are pressingly urgent, but to really create systemic change, we need to widen the conversation to include these broader aspects.
Thank you for taking the time to read my submission.
25th October 2023