Relentless, Aggressive, and Pervasive: Exploring Gender Minimization and Sexual Abuse Experienced by Women Ex-Military Veterans

Objective: Contextually embedded and sanctioned gender minimization and sexual abuse toward female personnel within the military appears widespread. Left unabated, mental health complications of female personnel will challenge care responsibilities for military organizations. Method: Interview data from six ex-military women that sought positive and negative interpretations of gender minimization and sexual abuse while in the military was analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: Analysis revealed two superordinate themes: (a) Immature Culture, and (b) Ejection and Growth. These overarched four subordinate themes that explored fostered patriarchy and male privilege in the military. Participants expressed experiencing relentless belittling that eroded early adolescent goals of success and aborted their ability to thrive psychologically. By association, interpersonal violence compounded by organizational complicity triggered internalized shame and narcissistic defenses. Discharging from the military is remembered as a painful, isolated struggle for these participants as they sought to make sense of their fragmented identities as women. With time, all participants acknowledged pride in skills achieved during military life, and the strength to speak out against embedded organizational abuse. A persistent ruminative struggle to make sense of complex systemic biases against women that allowed organizational abuse to flourish facilitated posttraumatic growth. Conclusions: For these participants, personal experiences of gender minimization and sexual abuse in the military incubated a betrayal of hope and moral safety. As women, they felt violated at an organizational level seemingly orchestrated by male privilege and patriarchy. Clinical priorities include reparative validation and holistic trauma support underpinned by trauma and posttraumatic growth frameworks. Clinical Impact Statement For women military personnel and veterans, psychological care should be cognizant that trauma exposure is potentially multifaceted inclusive of combat and interpersonal abuse. Those who experience gender minimization and sexual abuse while serving in the military would benefit from: 1) An organizational reparative validative therapeutic approach inclusive of betrayal trauma; 2) Clinical awareness of potential experiences of shame and fractured self-identity associated with collegial and/or organizational sexual abuse; 3) Strengths-based approaches that redefine skills and build on trauma recovery and acknowledge the cognitive struggle necessary for posttraumatic growth.