Tiffany Sanford Jenson

Soldier Rape: Sexual Assaults of Active Duty Women in the Us Military: the Effects of Deployment, Sex Ratios, and Military Branch Tiffany Sanford Jenson

Since 1988, the Department of Defense (DoD) has conducted wide-scale surveys about the sexual assault experiences of active-duty military members. Despite the growing body of research on this topic and widespread gender integration efforts for female soldiers, scholars still lack an understanding of rape occurring in the military, especially how conditions of deployment, military branch, and sex ratios relate to this issue. For example, in the recent military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, what effect does deployment have upon the likelihood of becoming a sexual assault victim for women? This study uses the 2006 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members to examine the relationship between sexual assault, deployment, sex ratios, and military. The most consistent factors for predicting victimization for female service members is membership in the Army and being currently deployed. This may be evidence of differing opportunity structures for victimization inherent in the Army as compared to the other military branches.