Liz Trotta: Thanks for the Laughs, Now a Few Facts

[maddezmom]

By Wendy Murphy

When Fox News' Liz Trotta tried to comment on the rise of rape in the military she turned herself into a laughing stock. Wendy Murphy would like to follow up with some serious ideas about who does and doesn't belong on the front lines.


(WOMENSENEWS)--Fox News Channel's Liz Trotta has by now taken plenty of heat and ridicule for expressing the idea that rape, for military women, is inevitable.

Comedy Central's Jon Stewart has skewered her on the Daily Show, online activists are circulating a petition to stop blaming military rape survivors, and plenty of other columnists have added their own angles of derision.

But before the dust settles on this particular media faux pas, I'd like to add a few deadly serious facts to the discussion of who rapes and suffers rape in the military and who does and doesn't belong in the military.

Trotta made her incendiary comments in response to a Pentagon report showing a 64 percent increase in violent sexual assaults in the military since 2006. Trotta said the uptick was to be "expected" and that rape occurs because "there is a difference between men and women."

more: http://www.womensenews.org/story/military/120223/liz-trotta-thanks-the-laughs-now-few-facts

[saras]

1. There is a difference between men and women that was implemented in 2006. What was it?

It certainly wasn't biological. We didn't modify either all women or all men in 2006.

They're all IN the military, so it's not a matter of different environments.

That would leave the culture of the military making gender distinctions.