(45) Shattering the Silence of Military Sexual Assault in High-Income Countries

     Military sexual assault is a pervasive problem in military services throughout the world, despite numerous initiatives to end it. It is unclear as to why there has been a lack of progress in addressing sexual assaults... [ view full abstract ]

     Military sexual assault is a pervasive problem in military services throughout the world, despite numerous initiatives to end it. It is unclear as to why there has been a lack of progress in addressing sexual assaults in militaries but in part, it stems from the complexity of the issue of sexual assault. This paper examines variation in 1) the levels of sexual assault within the militaries of the following high-income countries: Australia, Israel, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom; 2) reporting sexual assault and 3) the adjudication process including reporting, investigation and prosecution, and conviction. This research draws from institutional theory on the importance of descriptive representation to gendered power relations in institutional contexts, and hegemonic masculinity and its relationship to power dynamics and especially sexual assault in social contexts. These theories suggest that the following independent variables are important in analyzing hypotheses related to dependent variables such as actual number of assaults, levels of reporting of assaults, and ratio of reporting of assaults to conviction rate: gender climate in the military, the process of adjudication, and levels of women’s social, economic and political power societal wide (measured by variables such as percentage of women in national legislatures and in cabinet positions).