Rating: ****
The women featured in The Invisible War
are everything one would expect from modern U.S.
military officers: they’re driven, ambitious, skilled, accomplished, and
selfless. True leaders in every sense of the word; women dedicated to serving
their country and answering the call to be a part of something bigger than
themselves. For all these reasons, it’s all the more unfortunate, one way or
the other, that they were forced to give up their commissions after being
sexually assaulted by their fellow soldiers or superiors.
The Invisible War explored by Kirby Dick (This Film is Not Yet Rated) in this
film is the struggle of literally thousands of women who have served in
uniform, were sexually assaulted and forced to cope in a system hopelessly
stacked in favour of their attackers, a small fraction of whom ever see a court
room, and an even small fraction of those receive severe consequences. Dick and
his crew chronicle the daily struggles of the brave women who came forward for
the film, while at the same time trying to get to the bottom of why, despite
the government’s own statistics and the accusations of its female officers, the
military is left to police its own in the case of rape on armed forces
personnel.
The statistics are staggering, as is the
seeming indifference of military leadership and representatives in the U.S.
Department of Defense. Even women in the system, who you would think would be
more sympathetic, show tremendous callousness and ignorance for the issue. Dr. Kaye
Whitley, the former head of the military’s program to combat rape in the ranks,
SAPRO (Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office), advocates for female
service members to use the “buddy system” as an acceptable strategy to combat
rape. In another segment, a former officer in the Army’s Criminal Investigation
Division (CID) explains that cases of rape reported are always given to male
agents, since the perception is that female agents are “too sympathetic” and
can’t be “impartial.”
Meanwhile, former Coast Guard Seaman Kori Cioca tells a waitress she meets to reconsider a career in
the navy because chances are she’ll one day be raped and her superiors will do
nothing. And while politicians in Washington agree there’s a problem, with
nothing ever seeming to be done about it, female veterans suffering from PTSD
(post-traumatic stress disorder) are more likely to be suffering not because of
combat trauma, but because they were raped.
It’s a startling tale, but it does not
enshrine victimhood. There’s tremendous sympathy for these women, but there’s
also anger for what’s been done to them, and for what’s not being done for
them. Hearing Dr. Whitley hem and haw through her interview with Dick would be
funny if it weren’t so shocking, but it’s part of an astonishing system of
ostriches all sticking their heads in the sand together. A glass-shattering
story, and a wake-up call to anyone that still wants to believe that you – male
or female – can be all you can be in the U.S.
armed forces.
