John Kelly said women were sacred. That attitude perpetuates the military's culture of misogyny.

I do not EVER forget that this asshole is a misogynistic POS)

John Kelly said ‘women were sacred.’ That attitude perpetuates the military's culture of misogyny.



Last week, retired Marine general and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly conducted a news conference to provide his personal view of what had taken place during a condolence phone call between President Trump and the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed Oct. 4 in Niger along with three other U.S. soldiers. Kelly spoke about the gut-wrenching military casualty notification process, using the example of the death of his son, a Marine officer killed in Afghanistan, as a teachable moment for the American public. It was a good lesson for the many Americans who have no personal connection with the military due to the increasingly small percentage of young people who join the service. But then things got weird.

Kelly proceeded to state that, when he was growing up, “women were sacred.” He alluded to current events, seeming to point to the ongoing scandal in Hollywood in which more than 40 women have come forward to say they were sexually harassed and assaulted by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Kelly appeared to imply that, in his day, these problems didn’t exist because men protected women from harm. The significance of the Weinstein scandal pales in comparison to the state of affairs for women in the military, where one in three are estimated to have been sexually assaulted while on active duty. The problem in the U.S. military is so significant that the United Nations Human Rights Council identified sexual assault and harassment as a human rights violation in 2015.

When Kelly was on active duty as one of the most senior officers in the Marine Corps, the service experienced the highest rates of sexual harassment and assault of any military branch despite being the smallest and having the fewest women.

. . . .

Many Americans believe Kelly has elected to work in the troubled Trump administration because of some higher sense of purpose, as if somehow Kelly could serve as a moral compass for the president. But rather than illustrating impeccable morals, Kelly’s decision to align his professional reputation with that of a commander in chief who publicly bragged about grabbing women by the genitals represents a troubling character flaw. Clearly, John Kelly doesn’t value women enough to make it a matter of principle not to work with Trump.
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For far too long, members of Congress, the public, and the media have placed male military general officers on a pedestal while overlooking their role in shaping the negative aspects of military culture. Generations of general officers like Kelly cultivated the exclusively male warrior Marine ideal at the exclusion of women. It is no surprise that his best friend, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., former commandant of the Marine Corps and current Joint Chiefs chairman, was the only service chief to request a waiver to deny qualified women the opportunity to serve in ground combat jobs and units. He and his peer group have refused to integrate Marine Corps boot camp despite growing evidence that segregation fosters negative stereotypes and low expectations for Marine women.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/10/24/john-kelly-said-women-were-sacred-that-attitude-perpetuates-the-militarys-culture-of-misogyny/?utm_term=.7b8018068168