Todays rant is the gossip that is going on in the military, especially down range. This environment seems to foster a gossip mentality. Especially if that gossip is about women. How can the army say it is all about equal opportunity when a man and a woman can’t even be friends, without facing an investigation and harassment about where they are all the time. The deployed military environment invites people to gossip and we are rewarding those who gossip and start rumors rather than discouraging the gossip. The gossip and rumors and talking behind backs is what is causing the prejudice to good order and discipline not the friendship between the male and female.
Sadly commander foster this mentality by joining in rather than stopping it. The command climate is set up to foster the rumors, to have a good joke at someone else’s expense. Since when is going to meal and the gym with someone inappropriate yet that is exactly what has become inappropriate for males and females to do. Because if they are seen together more then a couple times then they must be doing more then just eating together and hanging out. It is hard for women to have friends and not be the subject of at least some gossip and speculation let there aren't many of us, so who are we suppose to hang out with.
We are conducting the don’t ask don’t tell training currently with eyes of resending that law this coming October, and yet the army isn’t even ok with a male and a female being a battle buddy, how will they ever be ok with homosexuals in the military. Deployments are hard times and friendships are hard things to make and they are encouraged by commands, so long as command approves of who you are friends with and how much time you spend with them. I understand the need for certain rules don't get me wrong, i have been in many debate over that, but there is an extreme. Most commands require lower enlisted to always have a battle buddy for safety, unfortunately sexual assault is a very real thing, and for women that risk is great. Yet we say to often that two people are spend too much time together, so in an environment were it is already hard to make friends you have to make confidants with several people so you don't get gossiped about. Shouldn’t someone feeling safe, obviously within guidelines, be more important then worrying about gossip.
It is almost the middle school/high school atmosphere of drama and rumor starting, and commands are doing nothing about it. In fact they are punishing the ones who are trying to stop the rumors and gossip, when they themselves should be the ones stopping it. If a soldier confronts another soldier about a rumor the confronter is getting reprimanded for being mean or moved for causing problems. But, what about the one who is spreading gossip and making up the rumor because they want to be cool or because they have nothing better to do. Therejust almost never evidence of an inappropriate relationship just, simply a male and female spend too much time together and therefore one could assume that it must be inappropriate.
Finally, we receive constant training about suicide rates increasing and how feelings of depression and loneliness are ramped in deployed and post deployment soldiers yet now we are telling female soldiers they cannot spend too much time with a man even in a completely plutonic friendship and always in public because others might gossip about it.
This mentality fosters the old boys club and the continual degrading of women which is occurring daily over here. No one complains when two men are hanging out all the time they dine together, and go to the gym, even go to the showers at the same time, yet they are not receiving letters of reprimand, because no one has decided to gossip about them. No one has decided that they want to spy or ease drop on their conversations and make completely innocent situations dirty and despicable. We are not concerned that the two men are standing just a little too close together, because that is not as fun to make into something wrong and gossip worthy. This letter establishes that allowing gossip to continue is more important and favorable to the command then ensuring that Soldier have a support system in the deployed environment when the threat of sexual assault is very real, and suicide is on the rise. Instead of shutting down the gossipers we have decided that it is better to risk a soldier not having anyone to talk to, allow a female soldier to get harassed and degrading looks, and to risk being by themselves at the wrong time, because the army is instigating segregation between genders. This allows the gossip to continue and the rumors to dictate command action.
*****NOTE******
This is not about me, or something has happened to me, this is just my observations based on the work that I do and the things I have had to work on while here.
