The Invisible War goes beyond simply looking at the atrocities and repercussions of rape in the military. This is discussed thoroughly, making the movie both infuriatingly difficult to watch and extremely important, but the onus of the film is on the hypocrisies employed in the United States military. Beginning with a 1950’s television commercial encouraging enlistment, lauding the military’s duty to “defend you, the American public, against aggression,” establishes a contradiction.
Very few of the rape victims interviewed for this film – there are about a dozen out of the 20% of females that have claimed to be accosted while in the service – were defended. Very few times were the rapes acknowledged. And, none of their assailants were punished. Rather, the closing of the film notes their whereabouts (the names remain anonymous) and their current ranks – many of them have been promoted despite accusations.
Meanwhile, the woman injured during the rape are placed in a no-win situation. If they report the rape, they are accused of stirring up trouble. The subsequent retaliation often prevents women from reporting the incidents. One might wonder as how a rape can go disbelieved when some women are “not just raped, but severely injured during rape.” Take for example the case of Kori Cioca, a former member of the Coast Guard whose supervisor accost her, dislocates her jaw, and shatters the discs in her face. Despite the physical evidence of rape, her VA claims become perpetually pending. Despite the fact that they have “gathered all information,” nothing is processed for over sixteen months. What’s more, for her depressions, PTSD, migraines, insomnia, and overall pain, she is prescribed a “lethal combination of drugs” by VA doctors. Perhaps it’s too much to take this as an attempted assassination of a rape victim. The film dances around this accusation, but it’s tricky to levy this condemnation without strong proof.
At the same time, it might not be out of the realm of possibility since other victims are told that nurses “lost [the] rape kit,” until it is miraculously found six-or-so months later — when cases cannot be reopened.
It seems that the primary issue here is the indifference expressed by the U.S. military – despite their repeated use of the phrase “zero tolerance” when it comes to sexual harassment and rape. This stance was first publicly taken after the Tailhook scandal in 1991, resurfaced in 1996, and a number of times over the subsequent years, particularly when accusations began hovering around the “mandatory happy hours” at Marine
Barracks in Washington, D.C., where, according to a senior official responding to a rape charge, “boys, girls, and alcohol don’t mix.”
The laissez faire attitude surrounding rape contradicts the decree of zero tolerance, but also disenfranchises female officers. They become minimalized in the grand scheme of things. In one sense, the weaker sex here becomes an artery of power for the man. As if out of prison mentality, rape becomes a tool of authority. The women raped are subjected to the majority and discouraged from pursuing anything behind admission into the service. The same goes for men raped by other men. This is something else that Invisible War explores. The male victims are seen as effeminate, quiet, and, most notably, ethnic. Here, the predators not only become sexist, but ethnocentric as well.
In another sense, this reflects a superior officer’s fear that rape signifies “a failure to command.” Here, rape becomes less a crime and more a sign of incompetence. The burden here falls on the man in charge as opposed to the woman victim. Therefore, the elision of rape becomes an additional source of power. The commanders have the choice to investigate a rape claim; they also have the ability to rewrite history, distort it and twist the events into nothingness.
Exacerbating this are the contemporary numbers that proclaim more women hold higher degrees, more professional positions, and are earning more money than they have in the past. As Marshall Poe notes in “The Other Gender Gap, “Today women make up approximately 56 percent of all undergraduates, outnumbering men by about 1.7 million. In addition, about 300,000 more women than men enter graduate school each year” [Atlantic]. This was something highlighted by the recent recession, in which “82 percent of the job losses [befell] men, who [were] heavily represented in distressed industries like manufacturing and construction,” jobs that don’t necessarily require professional degrees, and, in consequence, lack steadiness and security during economic tumult [NY Times].
Hanna Rosin explores this even deeper in her article, “The End of Men” when she looks at the success and influence of women on the geopolitical level, asserting “With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success” [Atlantic]. The ramifications here on the male psyche are apparent if downplayed. This is no way allows for violent transgressions and the indifference shown toward them, but The Invisible War and the recurrent, consistent crimes illustrated therein bespeak the resonant fear of precarious patriarchy and the need for change.
My viewing of this film came, coincidentally, one day before an “abortion for military rape victims amendment” passed the Senate. And while this provides some sort of solace that rape is being acknowledged, there is still a catch. If rapes go uninvestigated, if their reports are dismissed as “stirring up trouble,” and if the victim is still seen as the assailant – creating a situation wherein the rape will be elided from the record – then how many of these abortions will be performed? More importantly, how many will be covered by the military if they dismiss relegate the act that caused them as a poor mixture of “boys, girls, and alcohol”?
Zero tolerance here has become more akin to zero responsibility.