Helen Benedict! I couldn't believe it when I read that name - see, when I was a kid I found a book of hers when I was clearing out a cupboard. It was called 'safe, strong and streetwise' (published 1987) and it's a book for children about sexual assault and rape. I read it and it helped me NO END as a kid. It tells you how to recognise when people have bad intentions and then how to defend yourself and escape if you're attacked, or if you can't escape how to cope whilst it's happening. It also mentions the role the media plays in encouraging sexual assault by objectifying women. It covers male victims as well, which is unusual.

I'm off to read that article now...

Um, that is, if it's the same person. Perhaps it isn't, but it'd surprise me if there were two Helen Benedicts both writing books about sexual assault. I'll go check.

Yup, I've checked and it's the same person who wrote this...

I loved this article. It's so good to see someone talking sense and not blaming the victims for once. I agree with pretty much everything she says. DEFINITELY agree that rape is an epidemic at the moment.

Of course, changing these attitudes - and this is true for everything else you can think of - requires changing the whole of society, so that sexism is unacceptable across the board. The misogynistic nature of the military is just an extreme concentration of attitudes which permeate our entire society. The fact that they're allowed to call people dykes, bitches and girls as insults just proves what I already suspected - that few people have really grasped what it's all about when you or I object to such language. They just haven't quite forged the connection in their own minds. There is really no excuse for this, either. There was a time when I would just say, it's not his fault he's sexist, he doesn't realise what he's doing. Nowadays, I think there's no excuse for not exploring why it is you say certain things and hold certain attitudes which are intentionally destructive, oppressive and insulting to half the population. My thoughts are that it begins when we're in the crib. We encourage misogyny from the earliest age, and that needs to change if we're to eradicate rape.

Great article!

The attitude of misogyny in the military is one of the big things that kept me out. It's very disappointing. The military is in need of good, smart people, and they continue to foster an attitude that alienates half of the population--and the half that is, reportedly, faster learning and better at following directions. Rather than trying to entice women in, they do things like let in men convicted of domestic and sexual assault.

Very good article. I don't understand why the "building up" process needs to include an ingrain hatred of women. This is so dangerous and sick and needs to change. Didn't they just have a hearing a few weeks ago about letting gays in the military too? I don't know why people feel that gays and women are going to destroy peoples ability to fight. There have been women warriors all through out history and as for gays, the Spartans practiced homosexuality and it tightened the bonds between them. I'm sick of this puritan thumb America lives under. Meh!