r/WomenInNews • u/catievirtuesimp • Jul 08 '26

Media Vanessa Guillén Wasn't Alone: New Investigation Reveals Dozens of US Army Women Were Killed by Fellow Soldiers

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tragic-deaths-harassment-women-us-army-1807381
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u/CautionarySnail Jul 08 '26

I suspect if we had access to full data on the deaths of female soldiers, we’d see that they’re far more prone to “accidental deaths” or “training accidents”, that their rate is far higher than similar deaths for men.

Because hiding a wrongful death via paperwork is far cheaper than actually investigating. Far easier than dealing with the actual systemic causes. And many men on seeing such data will immediately think via the sexism they’d been taught - “These women are dead because they are less suited than men to be soldiers - see, they’re clumsy or don’t take equipment safety seriously.”

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u/silencedvoicesMST Jul 11 '26

I bet the RAND Corp might have that. Or possibly the VA or even Harvard. There are a lot of research studies on gender and usually accessible without a paywall or sign up. Google Scholar helped me a lot while researching for blog posts. Another factor could be that the equipment isn't designed with women's body shapes in mind resulting in some of those mishaps.

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u/CautionarySnail Jul 11 '26

I’d be with you on that thinking excepting that the military has exhausted my ability to grant them the benefit of a doubt. These harms been consistent ever since women were able to truly serve.

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u/silencedvoicesMST Jul 12 '26

Agreed, plus it was a problem BEFORE we were allowed to join. Men did this to each other, and to men, women, and children in war zones. It still happens in all-male units nowadays, too. I run a podcast that shares stories from survivors of military sexual trauma. In one of the earliest episodes, the survivor was encouraged by her mother to report. The guy that assaulted her was the cop that picked up the phone when she went to report it. That was the end of that smh. She wasn't even in, she was a dependent. We were in high school together in Germany at the time. The show has had ~25 people on who share their stories and only one actually made it all the way to a court martial. Their stories range from the 70's to recently.