Dads Against the Divorce IndustryDA*DI is devoted to reinstating the societal valuation of Marriage and the traditional, nuclear American Family, with particular emphasis on the essential role of FATHERS. DA*DI offers contemporary reports and commentary on culture; its aberrations and its heroes. |
Our story began last month when Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., triggered an altogether appropriate investigation of the Air Force Academy's mishandling of alleged rapes of women cadets.
Dozens of current and former cadets came forth to report sexual assaults and a pattern of failure by the military academy to investigate the incidents or even to acknowledge that a crime might have been committed.
Many of the victims said they were criticized or forced out of the academy, while the rapists were never disciplined.
It revealed the academy as a brutish institution that condoned sexual violence and denied the women's civil rights through an entrenched system of intimidation, secrecy and control.
Allard was forthright in his criticism, and for a while it looked like the fortress culture might finally be abandoned and the institution dragged into the new millennium at last.
Then the dark knights arrived.
Once Reps. Joel Hefley, R-Colorado Springs, and Tom Tancredo, R-Littleton, got involved, things started getting medieval in a hurry.
Instead of demanding that the male cadets and officers be required to demonstrate the most basic level of respect for their female colleagues, Hefley went after the women, saying he didn't like having them "pad down the hallways in their bathrobes in front of men."
Tancredo agreed.
The problem, they said, is all these blasted women around. No wonder they get raped.
Tancredo suggested that segregating the women, presumably so the men could be left undisturbed in their animal-house environment, would be "an encouraging" step.
Toward what? Eliminating the women altogether?
What about the predatory tendencies of the male cadets and the shockingly poor judgment of their superior officers?
Hefley and Tancredo seem to think that little can be done to tame the savage men. That's just the way they are.
Hide the women.
But the dismissive attitude about the women's complaints betrays a serious problem at the academy.
Rape is not just a momentary lapse of judgment or a youthful indiscretion. In the context of a hierarchical, secretive military culture, it's a perverse control mechanism. It's a calculated means of subjugating those who dare to challenge an organization determined to resist change.
To borrow a phrase from the commander in chief, the problem is they hate our freedom.
And it goes way beyond life in the military.
While the dark knights in the U.S. House were devising ways to keep the women in their place at the academy, the Senate was busy voting down a measure to make emergency contraception available to civilian rape victims in hospital emergency rooms across America.
The senators also rejected a proposal to require health insurance plans to cover contraceptives.
Congress, like the officers at the academy, wants us to believe that a woman may be qualified to pilot an F-14, lead troops into battle or risk her life for her country, but she can't be trusted to control her own body.
That is a matter for the federal government to decide.
Diane Carman's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
E-mail: dcarman@denverpost.com
.
Back
to DA*DI's Home
Dads Against the Divorce Industry