Abuse raises gender issues

WASHINGTON -- The portrait of a kinder, gentler female soldier takes a "Mean Girls" beating in the photos of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The images of female soldiers gleeful over the physical torture and leering at the nude bodies and genitals of male Iraqi prisoners have shocked and revulsed many Americans. And the photo of the petite, pixie-haired R. Lynndie England pulling a naked prisoner like a dog on a leash is the awful evidence that abusive group behavior is not confined to men.

"The abuse of power is a human thing, not just a male thing," said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who studies gender issues in the military at the Women's Research and Education Institute, a nonprofit group. "Like immature men, immature women -- and those at Abu Ghraib were very junior and had no training, no qualifications, and rotten oversight -- are very likely to abuse unlimited power when it is handed to them."

Three of the seven reservists from the 372d Military Police Company who face criminal charges in alleged assaults, indecent acts, cruelty, and conspiracy are women: Specialist Sabrina D. Harman, 26, of Lorton, Va; Specialist Megan Ambuhl, 29, of Centreville, Va.; and England, 21, of Fort Ashby, W.Va.

Brigadier General Janis L. Karpinski, the Army reserve officer put in charge of military prisons in Iraq last June, was removed from command in January and singled out by Army investigators for failing to stop the rampant abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Retired Army general Evelyn "Pat" Foote, who devoted part of her 30-year military career to mentoring young woman soldiers, said she is more than sickened and horrified that three females face courts-martial following their roles at Abu Ghraib. She is disappointed that they did not heed her advice, that to be successful in the military, a woman should act more like a woman than a man.

"I tell them: 'Bring your competence and humanity, and don't be one of the boys. Don't romp, stomp, spit, cuss, or swear,' " said Foote, who commanded the 42d Military Police Group in Germany from 1983 to 1985. "But that's hard advice when you're in a unit that is 90 percent male, you want to be accepted by the men, and you are young and inexperienced."

Military sociologists say that the behavior of the reservists at Abu Ghraib was aberrant and that gender played no special role. But advocates for expanding opportunities for women soldiers fear a backlash to the crisis could slow or even stop the steady advancement of women into combat support roles and leadership positions since the 1991 Gulf War. Women now make up about 15 percent of the active-duty military, 24 percent of the reserve force, one in seven soldiers in Iraq, and serve on combat ships and aircraft.

"I'm very concerned that some people will try to blame women in the military and use it against them -- that they can't hack it or that they shouldn't have the same opportunities and training as men because they might do terrible things," said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, an advocacy organization concerned with sexual harassment and discrimination. "If this shows us there are problems with having women soldiers, there are also clearly problems with having men soldiers."

Conservative critics believe that Abu Ghraib is the most stunning and disturbing symptom of a breakdown in discipline because of the rapid integration of the sexes and policies that put women soldiers on the front lines.

Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a think tank that opposes affirmative action, said that coed training and units are creating debilitating "sexual tension" in the military and that in the case of Abu Ghraib the presence of women in the military police unit may have even encouraged the obscene misbehavior that the photos reveal, she said.

"And even if you could deal with the breakdown in discipline, is it good for civilization and society to try to turn women into men and put them in the traditional role of the male warrior?" Chavez asked. "You have to train people to kill. I think we have to have the debate about whether this is a desirable thing for women."

In 1997, a Pentagon commission on gender integration reported that coed housing and training contributed to high rates of misconduct in the military, and it recommended that other services copy the Marines and separate basic training for men and women. The report died under a firestorm of criticism from women in Congress and the military, who said the recommendations were sexist and could discourage women from joining the armed forces.

Elaine Donnelly, a conservative activist, said the abuses at Abu Ghraib are the direct consequence of the Pentagon's "social engineering" and Congress's failure to heed the warning signs that allowing women into combat situations and extending a "don't ask, don't tell" policy to gay soldiers would lead to "a cultural deterioration" in the military.

"The movie 'Mean Girls' celebrates cruelty among girls and women. That is where we are going in the civilian world, and now we see it carrying over into the military, too," said Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness, a nonprofit that aims to reverse the Pentagon's personnel policies on gays and women.

Current studies on domestic violence defy conventional wisdom, demonstrating that women are frequently abusive and aggressive. That is particularly the case when they are in their early 20s and operating in a safe or known arena, like a home or perhaps even a prison, said Deborah Capaldi, a psychologist who studies domestic violence at the Oregon Social Learning Center, a private research institution in Eugene.

Martha Burk, a feminist activist and chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, does not know if women "at the core" have the potential to be as cruel and violent as men. But she said that she is certain that they can be trained to be abusive and that she believes that the women soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison were deliberately encouraged by their superiors to taunt and humiliate Iraqi prisoners.

In his report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Major General Antonio M. Taguba blamed a small group of out-of-control soldiers under inept leadership, and he laid much of the blame on Karpinski for failing to supervise the military police under her command. Karpinski has said she had no knowledge of the abuses before they were investigated and is the scapegoat for decisions made by men who outranked her.

Foote, who once commanded Karpinski, said she was distressed by the finger-pointing and worried that women who serve honorably and frequently are kinder and gentler officers in the military, would be tarred by the scandal, but she offered no excuses for the abuses.

Mary Leonard can be reached at mleonard@globe.com.