Emily
Mike
According to Dept of Defense data, women are dismissed more often than men under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Although women make up only 14% of the military, they account for 36% of those dismissed under the policy. The branch with the greatest discrepancy is the Air Force. Although women make up approximately 20% of the Air Force, they are 61% of those let go for being gay.
These issues occur at the intersection of homophobia and sexism in the US Military. According to Nathaniel Frank, a researcher on this issue, there are a few possibilities for these statistics. One is that gay women enter the military at higher rates than gay men. But a more substantiated explanation Frank offered was that women who break with traditional “femininity” or who have rejected sexual advances from a male officer, were more likely to be persecuted.
This claim is backed by a former Marine who now runs a non-profit, Service Women’s Action Network. She says:
Often times the lesbians under my command were under scrutiny by the same men who were also sexually harassing straight women, so it was this kind of sexist undercurrent of ‘You don’t belong here.’
These numbers came a few days prior to Obama’s speaking engagement at the Human Right’s Campaign’s national dinner. There, he highlighted his commitment to overturning the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. I was a little surprised to hear him as the HRC’s guest speaker, as Obama’s popularity has been steadily declining within much of the gay community. Although he ran on a platform of commitment to LGBTQ rights, and announced he would overturn Don’t Ask Don’t Tell early on, he has been relatively silent on LGBTQ issues since he took office, and has done nothing so far to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
Perhaps Obama’s decision to face his critics head-on at the HRC shows he will start taking his commitment to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell more seriously. As reported by CNN, he said on Saturday:
I’m working with the Pentagon, its leadership and the members of the House and Senate on ending this policy, legislation that has been introduced in the House to make this happen, I will end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ That’s my commitment to you.
Do you believe him?
Filed under: GLBT, Harassment, Politics, Workplace Tagged: | don't ask don't tell, LGBTQ, military, obama, sexism
