Much Too Macho

The captain of a Navy salvage vessel in the Pacific is overheard offering to "sell" women crew members to Koreans.At the huge U.S. naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines, local go-go girls strip in the sailors' clubs while prostitutes circulate among the tables, much to the dismay of U.S. servicewomen seeking relaxed meals outside the mess halls. In the adjacent bar-studded town of Olongapo, women on liberty from the Navy and Marines are "grabbed on the streets by the military men, treating them as though they were free game."

Those allegations are part of a disturbing report submitted to the Pentagon by a special committee studying the treatment of women serving in the Navy and Marines in the Pacific. After a two-week tour of naval bases in Hawaii, the Philippines and Japan, the investigators concluded that in both services "the encouragement of a macho-male image contributes to behavior that is at best inappropriate and at worst morally repugnant." Both men and women in the Navy and Marines sometimes demand sexual favors from lower-ranking servicewomen, the investigators found.

The nine-page study noted that "abusive behavior toward all women is not only passively accepted and condoned but encouraged." In the predominantly male environment, the committee reported, the servicewomen have few recreational facilities where they can avoid "being humiliated and feeling denigrated as human beings."

Stung by the charges of sexism, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger last week announced the formation of a high-level Task Force on Women in the Military, headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense David Armor. "This kind of sexual harassment will not be allowed," Armor declared at a press conference. He said the Defense Department does not question what the investigators found, conceding that the policy against sexual harassment had "broken down in some instances." The task force has been ordered to recommend ways to prevent any more such incidents.

Overall, women constitute roughly 10% of the 2.1 million active-duty members of the armed forces. Women serve on about 50 Navy ships and at most U.S. bases abroad. The captain accused in the report of offering to sell women crew members commanded the noncombat vessel Safeguard, which had 18 women among its six officers and 84 enlisted men. A Navy spokesman claimed that the captain's "distasteful" offer was meant as a joke, but his superiors did not consider it funny. They relieved him of his command and filed other sexual- harassment charges against him.