One woman, a nurse who had been deployed several times to Afghanistan & Iraq, replied by saying: “Ma’am, I am more afraid of my own soldiers than I am of the enemy.” She told me about a knife she carried tucked inside her waistband as protection against would-be assailants.
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She had never been assaulted but lived with the persistent feeling of threat from her fellow servicemembers.
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I spent the next 11 years digging into this issue & working to prevent the alarming prevalence of discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and professional retaliation in the U.S. military.
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The
#MeToo
& #WhyIDidntReport stories that so many courageous women have shared over the past year, & in particular over the past week, are strikingly similar to the stories shared with me by the victims of military sexual trauma.Show this thread -
And the persistent feeling of threat that the military nurse originally shared with me is being exposed by generations of women who are bravely sharing stories that they’ve held within themselves for decades.
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Our criminal justice system, like the Uniform Code of Military Justice, is not set up to ensure survivors get justice & there is a pervasive bias against survivors throughout society.
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We must be tenacious & persistent in order to change a culture formed over centuries. We must bring women’s voices to all we value as a country.
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I believe the women coming forward today as strongly as I believe the countless servicewomen & men who have shared their heart-breaking & life-changing stories with me.
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I firmly believe that a vote to confirm Judge
#Kavanaugh to#SCOTUS is a vote to deny women equal protection under the law.Show this thread
End of conversation
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