Sexual Violence and the US Military: Feminism, US Empire, and the Failure of Liberal Equality

Abstract

This article considers the ways in which military women’s rights campaigns have linked the “epidemic” of sexual violence to the struggle for military women’s equality. I analyze the approaches of the National Organization of Women (NOW) and Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) in order to trace a partial history of military women’s rights organizations built on liberal feminist ideals. I argue that understanding military sexual violence as a result of women’s inequality does nothing to explain sexual violence against men, as well as occludes global victims of US sexual and imperial violence. Ultimately, I argue that organizations such as SWAN are emblematic of a neoliberal feminist approach that problematically prioritizes women’s equal access to the military over a critique of US militarism.