2016 Update: According to Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), “Currently, medical prosthetics for female amputees are provided as one-size-fits-all and are based on male anatomy. This means female veterans often receive prosthetics that are burdensome, uncomfortable and may not be fully functional.”  An appropriations bill currently making its way through Congress would fund research and acquisition of prosthetic devices that fit women’s bodies. The bill also would allow the VA to cover the costs of reproductive services for veterans who suffered service-related injuries that prevent them from starting families. According to NPR Veterans Correspondent Quil Lawrence, “A law passed in 1992 made it illegal for the VA to pay for IVF, which some people oppose because embryos are often destroyed in the process.”

 

I understand that if women are to have the privileges of citizenship then we should have the responsibilities as well. However, given the needlessness and horror of nearly all wars, I am not at all sure that it is a good thing to expand the number of people who can be called upon to fight.

I understand that if women are excluded from military service then the power of the military  remains in the hands of men. But in light of the near absence of women in the high ranks of the armed services – the ranks where the important decisions are made – I’m not convinced that military service for women achieves a more gender equitable sharing of power.

I understand that for many women the military is a pathway to education and a career. However, – and this is what I’d like to write about this Memorial Day – military service has turned into a path of misery, ill health and homelessness for large numbers of women.

In the second decade of the new millennium, American women have come to make up approximately 15 percent of the U.S. armed forces. While women are not technically in combat roles, in their duties and service environments women face the same dangers and fears as men: exploding ordnance, bullets, vehicular accidents. According to studies the military poses additional threats for women: about one in three women in the armed forces has been sexually assaulted, twice the civilian rate.

Women who have been sexually assaulted are more likely than other women to suffer from chronic pelvic pain, fertility problems, high rates of pregnancy complications and perinatal death, gastrointestinal disorders, arthritis, invasive cervical cancer, hypertension, urinary tract infections, anxiety and sexually transmitted infections. A history of having been abused is correlated with a lifetime of earning less money, missing more days of work and a greater likelihood of becoming homeless.

Servicewomen suffer from higher rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than do their male counterparts. According to the National Center for PTSD, women in the military run double the risk of developing PTSD of male service members. The Veterans Administration (VA) has found that women are four times more likely than men to experience long-lasting PTSD. This is not surprising: While male veterans who return home no longer face the active dangers of war, women veterans who return home continue to face the active dangers of sexual violence in a society in which one nearly 1 in 5 women has been raped at some time in her life; 1 in 4 women has been a victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in her lifetime; 1 in 6 women has experienced stalking victimization during her lifetime. One cannot “get over” trauma if one continues to live with trauma-inducing conditions on a daily basis.

Erectile dysfunction is tadalafil buy online an inability to retain a customer. Psychological or order cheap levitra emotional problems should be treated within the partners themselves. cute-n-tiny.com on line viagra You might also want to try homeopathy to help treat your irritable bowel syndrome. Sometimes, erectile dysfunction can also cute-n-tiny.com generic cialis be a side-effect of prescriptions and dysfunctions related to diminished androgens or substantial estrogens levels. Marriages of female troops fail at almost three times the rate of marriages of male service members. And while veterans have long been more likely than non-veterans to become homeless, women veterans seem up to four times more likely than non-veteran women to be homeless. The number of women veterans who have been in touch with the VA or Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for assistance with housing more than doubled between 2006 and 2010. Two-thirds of these women were between 40 and 59 years old, one-third have disabilities, and many have minor children.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a quarter of the VA’s homeless support programs do not meet the needs of women. For example, the VA does not have the statutory authority to reimburse grant and per-diem housing providers for costs of housing veterans’ children. Thus, mothers must face the dismal choice of going to the streets with their children or of handing their children off to relatives or social service agencies. The GAO also found that women reported experiencing sexual harassment and assault both on the part of male residents and on the part of staff members in the temporary housing paid for by the VA.

Women who have been drawn into the United States correctional system describe similar cycles of poor health, homelessness and ongoing exposure to gender violence (both in and out of prison). In research that I conducted together with a colleague in Boston from 2008-2013, only 15% of women who had served sentences in the state prison became steadily employed during the five years following their release. Only 35% became securely housed. Seven-seven percent were hospitalized overnight at least once. Eighty-five percent continued to receive prescriptions for psychiatric medication.

For most of these women the cycle of illness, poverty and abuse seems unlikely to be broken anytime soon. But I believe that there are steps that can be taken now to reduce the chances that women veterans will join the ranks of women who circulate among homeless shelters, battered women’s shelters, jails, prisons, rehab programs, and the streets.

Here are two concrete ways in which we can and should remember the ladies this Memorial Day:

1. Put into place clear and effective programs to reduce sexual abuse and harassment of women in the military. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s bill requiring the armed forces to remove handling of sexual assault cases from male commanding officer should be brought up again in the House and Senate, and it should be passed and enforced.
2. Provide adequate funding for the VA so that all veterans — men and women — can receive proper health care and secure housing immediately upon finishing service.

Maybe, hopefully someday soon we will declare a national ‘Peace Day’ in which we remember and honor all of those who dedicated their lives to ending violent conflict. But for now, let’s at least make sure that women who serve in the armed forces do not face as much danger from their comrades-in-arms as they face from shrapnel and bullets.