New Study Indicates Wide Sex Harassment in Navy : Military: Report on women officers shows crude remarks and behavior by male officers and enlisted men.

The Navy pilot explained to a disciplinary board that he was only trying to bring some humor into the situation when he pulled his stunt with a subordinate female officer.

“I tried to lighten things up,” the lieutenant commander said. “I pulled my fly down and got up and pulled out my penis, turned around and said (to the woman): ‘So, what do you think of that?’ ”

When a startled look crossed the woman’s face, “I then put my penis back in my pants, sensing that my attempts at a joke to lighten the situation had failed,” the pilot told the Navy board.

In another incident, a woman commander was confronted in her personal quarters by four male officers, including her commanding officer. The four men had been drinking and were loud and profane, the woman told a disciplinary board. One officer told her to “loosen up,” while the others put their hands up her sweater, pulled her down on the bed and photographed her, she said. Her commanding officer, a captain, “asked me if I had ever had an orgasm on a bidet.”

Before leaving her quarters, the captain and one of the other officers exposed themselves.

These incident were among several described in a newly published study of sexual harassment of women Navy officers. Conducted by retired Navy Cmdr. Kay Krohne, it is the first in-depth study of the problem in the Navy.

Krohne, who based her findings on research she conducted between 1988 and 1990, said sexual harassment in the Navy and other branches of the armed forces stunts the “contributions of women to the military mission,” lowering their productivity by forcing them to devote time and energy to fending off unwanted advances.

The above incidents were examples of the most severe forms of harassment, Krohne said. Most harassment she found involved off-color jokes, sexual remarks and unsolicited physical contact.

Krohne, who retired in 1989 after a 21-year Navy career, interviewed 61 women officers, of whom 40--or 65.5%--said they had been sexually harassed.

Her findings parallel a 1990 Defense Department report that found 64% of women in the U.S. military had been sexually harassed. Defense Department officials said sexual harassment is a vexing problem that can tear apart some military units if not quashed quickly.

Navy officials said they had not seen Krohne’s report but were not surprised by its findings.

“One of our recent (Navy) surveys showed that 75% of the women and 50% of the men said sexual harassment was a problem,” said Capt. Martha Whitehead, special assistant for women’s policy to the chief of naval personnel in Washington. “So we know it’s out there. It is a very high-level concern in the Navy.”

Whitehead said sexual harassment is a bigger problem in the enlisted ranks than among officers. However, the Navy does not keep statistics on the subject and has no figures on how many incidents are reported each year, Whitehead said. In 1990, the Navy had 8,000 women officers, about 11% of its officer corps.

“We’ve heard a lot about her (Krohne’s) report, and many of us are anxious to get our hands on it,” Whitehead added.

Krohne selected eight cases for additional study from among the 61 women she interviewed. The eight cases had resulted in formal complaints, hearings and punishment.

She filed freedom of information requests with the Navy to find out what the men said during their hearings and what kind of punishment they received.

“The harassment suffered by the eight women studied in this report is the tip of a very large iceberg posing a dangerous threat to the U.S. armed forces,” Krohne said.

The eight victims were 21 to 38 when they were harassed. Two are Latina; the others are white. Two were married. The incidents occurred at Navy bases in San Diego, Virginia, Hawaii and elsewhere.

Drawing from Navy records and interviews with the victims, Krohne assembled a disturbing picture that shows crude remarks and behavior flowing without hesitation from male officers and enlisted men.

She quoted a woman sailor’s account of the “compliments” given to women by a senior enlisted man who supervised her work unit.

“Whenever a woman would come to work looking good, he would say: ‘You look like you just got f------.’ That was his way of saying: ‘Gee, you look nice today,’ ” the woman sailor said.

In an interview, Krohne described this attitude toward women as commonplace and said the Navy is “a predominantly male environment where women are often viewed more as sex objects than as professional military members.”

Furthermore, “male naval officers do not view sexual harassment and discrimination as seriously as they do racism,” she added. Krohne argued that the impetus for sexual harassment in the Navy stems in large part from a “majority of male officers (who) do not see a compelling need for women in the Navy.”

Ironically, the denial among Navy officers and enlisted men that harassment is a serious problem is illustrated right in Krohne’s home. She said neither her husband, who flew fighter planes for the Navy for more than 20 years, nor her father, a career naval officer, believe that sexual harassment is widespread in the Navy.

Despite an official Navy policy of “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment, military traditions and mind-sets often discourage women from reporting incidents of sexual harassment, Krohne and Navy officials said.

More than half the women who told Krohne they had been harassed--56%--said they stopped short of reporting the incidents for various reasons, including fear of reprisal and lack of confidence in the system.

“Power is seen as one of the primary causes of sexual harassment,” said Krohne. “In a military environment you don’t have to exert very much power for people to feel they have to obey you. You wear your rank on your sleeve. You’re expected to follow the rules and never, ever say anything or do anything against your superiors.

“Reporting a superior for this type of behavior makes it tough on a woman,” she added, “particularly if that superior is well-liked by people in his unit.”

The majority of women profiled in Krohne’s study were junior officers, ranking from ensign to lieutenant. The one exception was the commander who was fondled by the four drunk officers.

All the men accused of harassment in the eight cases were married, Krohne found. Two were court-martialed and forced to resign. The seven others received administrative discipline, although the details were not made available to Krohne.

Reprisals of one kind or another are common against women who report sexual harassment, Krohne said.

In one case, a lieutenant junior grade was attacked in a darkened office by her executive officer, a lieutenant commander. The man attempted to unbutton her blouse but stopped when she objected.

According to Krohne, the woman reported the incident to the commanding officer, who failed to take action. Months later, when the accused harasser was in line to take command of a unit that included a large number of enlisted women, the woman officer went outside the chain of command to report him. Her complaint led to an administrative hearing held by an admiral. The offending officer was not promoted and lost his command.

Although her career was not harmed by the incident, the woman officer, who was married to another naval officer, believes her husband was not as fortunate. Although he received promotions, he was never considered for a command.

“She feels her husband’s career was ruined,” Krohne said. “She surmises that his career was going great, but here was his wife, making trouble in this tight community of naval officers.”

Some victims went to extraordinary lengths to stop or discourage the harassment.

Krohne quoted one woman who decided to gain weight to look less attractive. Another victim said she stopped wearing makeup and began wearing uniforms that were two sizes too big to discourage the officer who was pressuring her for sex.

Krohne and Whitehead agreed that finding a solution to the problem of sexual harassment is a difficult, if not impossible, endeavor.

“Zero tolerance is great, but it doesn’t mean anything if the unit’s leader doesn’t enforce it,” said Krohne. “The leadership is so important in making changes. If the leader is sincere in both word and deed . . . his or her subordinates are going to follow the commanding officer’s behavior. . . . If the commanding officer sets a bad example, the subordinates are going to respond accordingly.”

Bad examples were easy for Krohne to find. In one case that resulted in discipline, a woman officer recalled being summoned by her commanding officer, who asked: “What did you think of my (penis) hanging out of my shorts yesterday?” When she did not respond, the officer said: “OK, well let me show you again.”