Many of the photos were accompanied by derogatory and harassing comments
Remember Tailhook? This may be even worse.
The Marine Corps is looking into allegations that an unknown number of potential Marines, as well as current and former service members, shared naked and compromising photos of their colleagues on social media, Marine officials said Sunday.
The allegations were first reported by the War Horse and published Saturday through the website Reveal. The author, a Marine veteran and Purple Heart recipient, as well as members of his family, have received numerous death threats since the article was first published. It is unclear how many people are involved in the scandal and how many photos were posted online.
I read the War Horse/Reveal account yesterday last thing, when I didn’t have the energy to share it here. It’s hair-raising.
The War Horse’s report focuses on one Facebook group with more than 30,000 members called Marines United. In January, a link to a shared hard drive containing photos of numerous female Marines in various states of undress was posted to the group, according to the War Horse’s report. The hard drive contained images, as well as the names and units of the women pictured. Many of the photos were accompanied by derogatory and harassing comments.
That’s the part that really makes me sick. It would be bad enough if it were just “dayum I want to fuck her” but when that leads directly to the hostile violent fantasies…I just want to live on some other planet.
Photos of Marine Lance Cpl. Marisa Woytek were taken from her Instagram account and posted to Marines United multiple times in the past six months without her consent.
“Even if I could, I’m never reenlisting,” Woytek said. “Being sexually harassed online ruined the Marine Corps for me, and the experience.”
Woytek said she was alerted to the hijacked photos by others on social media and were shown the comments that accompanied them. She said that many of the comments included allusions to sexual assault and rape.
Imagine how that makes women in the military feel.
Many of her female colleagues have experienced similar incidents, she said, and added that they have been reluctant to speak out for fear of retaliation from the group’s thousands of members. With the War Horse’s report Saturday, Woytek said that she and others “have a voice now.”
But they also have thousands of colleagues who share that kind of contempt and hatred for women.
Cue the people saying that if she didn’t want these photos seen, she shouldn’t have posted them on her own account…countdown…ten, nine, eight, seven….
It is abundantly clear that many men hate women, and no amount of “oh, if they want to do sexual things to them, how can they hate them?” bullshit will erase that fact. This is about power, pure and simple. Power to destroy other people who you consider beneath you.
iknklast: Oh, they’re already out there. I saw a thread this morning that included one of the members trying to explain that it’s being “blown way out of proportion.”
But there were photos of women who were stalked and photographed with neither their knowledge nor consent.
And, consent or no, the commentary was above and beyond egregious. My initial reaction, as a veteran, was that it was a betrayal of everything the Marine Corps claims it stands for. Ophelia’s right: it’s as bad, if not worse, than Tailhook.
“(D)ayum I want to fuck her”
Sadly, this could be very well be a quote from the current Commander in Chief. There will be little leadership by example from that direction. Not anything helpful, anyhow.
The military is probably the biggest boys club of all.