Sexual Assault & Sexual Misconduct in the CF

[Eye In The Sky]

Or...some of you are taking a harmless joke and turning it into a lynching party.  Christ almighty.

IF there is a sexual harassment problem in the Canadian Armed Forces, it is because there is one in Canadian society, where we recruit from. 

 

[MARS]

Or...some of you are taking a harmless joke and turning it into a lynching party.  Christ almighty.

IF there is a sexual harassment problem in the Canadian Armed Forces, it is because there is one in Canadian society, where we recruit from.

Exactly. And those recruits move up the ranks, continuing to be completely fucking TONE DEAF to the current situation.  Christ Almighty is right.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Then I suggest it is a handful of UNIT problems, vice the entire CAF.  Why?

I've been in 27 years this month.  I've worked in Army, Navy and now Air Force units.  Field units, HQs and TEs including recruit schools.

In the last 10 years for sure, without question, I've never witnessed, or heard of this 'rampant sexual harassment' like the report suggested.  I don't know anyone who has witnessed it;  such things tend to be known about, right?  I've been at approx. 10? units over the past 10 years; some army, navy and AF.  Yet no 'rampant sexual harassment issues'. 

Hold the offending members to account, and the unit leadership that failed to prevent them (if that's the case) but I won't be party of this wide brush BS that some of you are buying into.

I was involved in a rather serious harassment case once, where the SIU was involved.  I escorted the victim, a male, to the SIU myself for his initial interview.  There's 2 sides to every coin and I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon, based on my fairly broad experiences in the CAF.

The point about Canadian society;  if we have a problem in the CAF, it reflects on CANADA not just the CANADIAN ARMED FORCES.  Maybe we are failing these kids with out PC way of raising youth these days where everyone is a special snowflake and there is not consequences for actions.

The entire CAF is not 'ripe with sexual harassment and assault'.  :  Punish those who need it, support the victims.  Investigate units with problems and hold that unit leadership to account.

 

[FJAG]

Or...some of you are taking a harmless joke and turning it into a lynching party.  Christ almighty.

IF there is a sexual harassment problem in the Canadian Armed Forces, it is because there is one in Canadian society, where we recruit from.

That's pure rationalization. We do not control attitudes in the civilian society but we can in the military. The real reason we have a sexual harassment problem in the CF is because we continue to tolerate it in subtle and not so subtle ways including giving milpoints to something that shouldn't get them.

The joke is neither funny nor harmless. It shows that at least some people are still not getting the point that real members of the CF are being harmed by this attitude and acts of sexual harassment. We should all work together to get rid of the problem instead of undermining real efforts with infantile humour.

:cheers:

 

[Eye In The Sky]

That's pure rationalization. We do not control attitudes in the civilian society but we can in the military. The real reason we have a sexual harassment problem in the CF is because we continue to tolerate it in subtle and not so subtle ways including giving milpoints to something that shouldn't get them.

The joke is neither funny nor harmless. It shows that at least some people are still not getting the point that real members of the CF are being harmed by this attitude and acts of sexual harassment. We should all work together to get rid of the problem instead of undermining real efforts with infantile humour.

:cheers:

Yes, that's me.  I support harassment and encourage it  .  Let's not make assumptions about people we've never met before and attribute real problems to insignificant things like MilPoints...

 

[Scott]

Or...some of you are taking a harmless joke and turning it into a lynching party.  Christ almighty.

No.

"Harmless" to you. That sort of joke doesn't belong here. Full stop. I obviously missed this one beforehand. No lynching, just a suggestion that you know your audience before flipping one like that out there - and it's nearly impossible to know the audience here. You don't have to jump any bandwagon, and I appreciate your experiences as well as TI - but that has fuck all to do with a joke made in poor taste in a public forum.

Now, if you want to get back to discussing the matter at hand.

Scott
Staff

 

[Jarnhamar]

The West Coast’s top-ranking naval officer says there’s no room for sexual misconduct on board his ships , and he’s on a mission to offer support and comfort to victims of abuse.

Sorry  but this sounds like a canned  political statement.  How many serial offenders has he signed off on getting the boot from the CAF?

Offering support and comfort is great but if there's no room on the ships for it,  for example,  what's being done with them?
 
I'd like to see old cases reopened or at the very least looked at.  Including cases of false accusations whom the offenders should be equally punted.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Now, if you want to get back to discussing the matter at hand.

Scott
Staff

That's always the plan.  :nod:

As I said in an earlier post;  punish the offenders, investigate the circumstances and hold the CofC to account if they are not doing business as directed and support the victims. 

That, in essence, in what should happen.  If a complaint is pushed up the CofC that is sat on and further incidents happen, IMO those in the CofC who 'sat on it' are now in the 'offenders' category. 

I've got serious problems with the wording of the report that paints all male CAF members are 'sexual deviants' etc, because that goes pretty much completely my time lacing up the boots.  I've also read accounts from some of the females who were interviewed that suggested the questions were leading in nature, etc.

Is there a problem in the CAF?  I'd say yes, and not expect there wouldn't be.  We recruit from Canadian society and there is a problem there.  But, back in my day if someone pulled some crap on your girlfriend or sister, etc it was okay to knock some regret down the f88ktards face.  Nowadays, there would be a meeting and a tree planting or something.  No consequences for actions = no changing of behaviour.

The report and bandwagon jumpers point the finger at the CAF and do 'tsk tsk!!' when what we are really doing is cleaning up a mess someone else let happen or didn't stop years before.  Let's fix whatever problem there is, but don't point the finger at the CAF like this stuff is something we teach and encourage. 

 

[PuckChaser]

Let's just see what the survey data says. Considering the first stats from the phone line they set up showed that 50% of callers were male....

 

[Altair]

Concur, I got to two girls in, between them, they account for 1 attempt of a superior trying trade job and course flavors for sex (abuse of authority), 1 attempt of minor sexual assault (touching), 2 founded HA complaints, 1 urination on their kit, 1 urination on barrack room door.

If fellow troop urinating on the barracks floor constitutes harassment of some sort I need to make a lot of calls.

 

[McG]

The problem that Op Honour seeks to address includes a lot of things that fall short-of or outside the definition of harassment.  If you dismiss things as not a/the problem because they are not harassment, then you are missing the problem.

 

[Lightguns]

If fellow troop urinating on the barracks floor constitutes harassment of some sort I need to make a lot of calls.

You see what you did there?  You took what I wrote, stripped the context and added irreverent context to trivialize it.  That is part of what Op Honour and the previous SHARP program before tried to address in our system.  As the gentlemen above noted, he was a "good troop" with just one little defect.  That defect made him useless in working with 30% of the rest of the CF.  In the actual incident, the soldier was found to have a very long history of disrespect to peer and superiors who happen to be female.  The Comdt was basically tired of his crap and he was released.

We been through this twice now, each time is an internally lead correction.  Given the current level of progressive politics and mouthing of feminist slogans by cabinet, the next time is liable to be an externally lead purge of anti feminist elements.   

 

[PuckChaser]

We should be purging those elements who haven't adapted to the times. I don't care what you look like, who you are sexually attracted to, or whether you identify your gender as a potato. If you can do your job, and do it well, you're in my good books. If you're a crappy soldier and try to hide behind race/gender/sexual orientation to justify it, that's where I have the problem.

We've done it to ourselves though. Instead of purging any mention of gender/race at merit boards, we have targeted recruiting to make people feel like special flowers. Best person for the job, period.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

There is still a big problem in the CAF.  The problem with Sexual Harassment/Sexual Assault with the former being a contributor to the latter, is that it's not talked about and it's existence is confined to a seedy subculture of the CAF, much like illicit drug use.

There are tonnes of drug users in the CAF, what has the institution done about that?  My concern is that we are more concerned with damage control than actually solving the problem. 

We need people at the MCpl/Sgt and Lt/Capt to start grabbing the bull by the horns and tackling these issues head on.  It's the only way you'll see the culture change. 

 

[Teager]

If only we could all be treated the same no matter what gender/race/religion ect.

 

[Gunner98]

I joined in 1983 and retired in 2013, during that span I saw back and forth trends in the culture concerning women in uniform.  The examples that follow are about equality which is the first step in establishing appropriate behavior.

In 1993, I witnessed young leaders (Sgt/ MCpl) who kicked their wives and kids out of PMQs and moved in recent graduates from their courses and the chain of command refused to acknowledge the situation.  In 1998,  I coached a ladies league softball team on Base, mostly wives and young soldiers.  The soldiers were not given the same leniency in attending games as their male counterparts did in the men's leagues.  There were not mixed teams for them to participate with their co-workers. By 2007, the intramural sports (including ice and floor hockey teams) were mixed teams.

Throughout my years at various training institutions there were more inappropriate relationship between instructors and their students than between course mates.

I don't think it is a matter of the MCpl/Sgt and Lt/Capt who need to grab the horns, it is the senior leadership needs to watch and listen to their subordinates, treat the situations seriously and openly set the example that this is not acceptable.  There is no requirement to adapt to the times - it was always inappropriate - it is not more so today than it was then in the 1980s or 1990s.  Like the famous line in A Few Good Men - we can't handle the truth.  If you set out to purge every element that could not adapt it would require the cutting off the head(s) of the beast at the highest levels.  The young soldiers and officers learn what is acceptable and tolerated as norms at training institutions and in the early days at their first units.  If these norms are appropriate and enforced then bad things do not happen. 

The situation is unlike the drugs one - we have instituted random, safety specific, drug testing and in doing so acknowledge how serious the problem is, as well, we release, discipline and rehabilitate those found in violation of the norm.  As for sexual misconduct and harassment the CAF struggled for decades until Op Honour and a few BOIs forced the Senior Leadership to openly acknowledge that the problem existed and required action.

   

 

[Altair]

I joined in 1983 and retired in 2013, during that span I saw back and forth trends in the culture concerning women in uniform.  The examples that follow are about equality which is the first step in establishing appropriate behavior.

In 1993, I witnessed young leaders (Sgt/ MCpl) who kicked their wives and kids out of PMQs and moved in recent graduates from their courses and the chain of command refused to acknowledge the situation.  In 1998,  I coached a ladies league softball team on Base, mostly wives and young soldiers.  The soldiers were not given the same leniency in attending games as their male counterparts did in the men's leagues.  There were not mixed teams for them to participate with their co-workers. By 2007, the intramural sports (including ice and floor hockey teams) were mixed teams.

Throughout my years at various training institutions there were more inappropriate relationship between instructors and their students than between course mates.

I don't think it is a matter of the MCpl/Sgt and Lt/Capt who need to grab the horns, it is the senior leadership needs to watch and listen to their subordinates, treat the situations seriously and openly set the example that this is not acceptable.  There is no requirement to adapt to the times - it was always inappropriate - it is not more so today than it was then in the 1980s or 1990s.  Like the famous line in A Few Good Men - we can't handle the truth.  If you set out to purge every element that could not adapt it would require the cutting off the head(s) of the beast at the highest levels.  The young soldiers and officers learn what is acceptable and tolerated as norms at training institutions and in the early days at their first units.  If these norms are appropriate and enforced then bad things do not happen. 

 

St Jean was bad for this when i was there. Ever sit close enough to the leadership table to overhear what was being talked about, and you realize that the inappropriate relationships between course mates was nothing compared to the inappropriate relationship between staff and course members.

 

[PuckChaser]

St Jean was bad for this when i was there. Ever sit close enough to the leadership table to overhear what was being talked about, and you realize that the inappropriate relationships between course mates was nothing compared to the inappropriate relationship between staff and course members.

Unacceptable in any school environment, let alone recruits. Those knowing and not doing anything about it are just as guilty those doing it. All of those instructors should be on C&P and sorted out. Another example of poor leadership.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

No.

"Harmless" to you. That sort of joke doesn't belong here. Full stop. I obviously missed this one beforehand. No lynching, just a suggestion that you know your audience before flipping one like that out there - and it's nearly impossible to know the audience here. You don't have to jump any bandwagon, and I appreciate your experiences as well as TI - but that has fuck all to do with a joke made in poor taste in a public forum.
Scott
Staff

I had some time to re-think about this.  I'll take the second to say "you guys were right";  those types of jokes directed at females, harassment, assault, etc are not okay and 'those days' have to go.

What I found funny was the quick quip to what is a poorly worded PC statement from Navy, not the idea of the bigger ships part.  I still feel there was a bandwagon, some people jumped on it after this 'report' was released.  My experience is as I stated it, so I take some exception to the broad brush strokes that 'the military is full of male deviants' and things like that.

I'll always get my back up to a report labelling all CAF members are "XYZ" and be one of the people to point out we are only as good as the Canadian citizens we are growing these days, where we recruit from.  The problem exists in the CAF because we let it exist in our country.  I'd prefer to see it stamped out earlier in life than when people can already vote for their PM.

However, you, FJAG, etc were correct and good on you for calling me out and making me (and maybe others) re-think some;  what is harmless to me might not be harmless to others, and as leaders at whatever level we live and breath in the CAF of today, we have to think about these things.  I come from a different time than the average Cpl/Pte of today does, and it never hurts to be reminded, called out and made to re-think if the lessons and attitudes of "have a thick skin" fit into situations today like they did XX years ago.

 

[Jarnhamar]

[quote author=Altair]
St Jean was bad for this when i was there. Ever sit close enough to the leadership table to overhear what was being talked about, and you realize that the inappropriate relationships between course mates was nothing compared to the inappropriate relationship between staff and course members.
[/quote]
I think you're bang on with this. [To include inappropriate comments as well]