Military Ordered to House Sexes Separately

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, moving to fight sexual harassment in the armed forces, on Monday directed the military to begin housing male and female recruits in separate areas but to continue integrating them in basic training.

Acting on the recommendations of an advisory commission that searched for the causes of sexual harassment in the military and inequality of opportunities for women, Cohen also said the services need more female recruiters and female trainers, and should improve screening procedures for all trainers.

Those steps stem directly from sexual-misconduct cases at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, a Maryland facility where male drill instructors preyed on female subordinates.

Cohen’s directive addressed a number of the advisory commission’s concerns but stopped short of adopting one major recommendation: that male and female troops train separately in the Army, Navy and Air Force, as they now do in the Marines. He said Pentagon officials believe recruits in those branches must go through basic training together if they are to fight together.

Cohen’s directives are the latest steps in what has proved to be a difficult struggle to integrate women into the male-dominated military world.

As the jobs women are eligible to perform have expanded, the Pentagon has labored to create an environment free of sexual harassment and sexism, and one that provides women with equal opportunity without building resentment among men who believe women are given special treatment.

Some of the new steps, such as hiring more female recruiters and improving screening procedures for trainers, are intended to improve attitudes in the military command structure. Others are attempts to defuse resentment among the troops.

Among changes in the latter category was a decision to order more rigorous basic training for all inductees. In its review, the commission found that training regimens had become too soft--often watered down out of concern that female recruits could not meet tougher physical demands. The lighter regimen, however, bred ill will among men who saw it as evidence that the military was coddling women.

“We need to provide realistic and challenging field exercises that are instructive, and push individuals to achieve their maximum potential,” Cohen said at a briefing.

As to separate housing, Cohen said he is ordering “the services to ensure that male and female basic trainees live in separate areas if not in separate buildings.”

“The facilities must be well supervised at all times by training professionals and foster an environment that is free from distractions. . . . Our goal is a basic-training system which provides greater privacy and dignity and safe, secure living conditions.”

At present, military trainees of both sexes often share the same barracks, with women housed on separate floors.

Cohen said he wanted to “maintain the [housing] separation during those first weeks of basic training to make sure their focus is on the military aspects and not the social.”

Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Ida.), who has investigated the gender issue as chairman of a Senate Armed Services subcommittee, withheld immediate comment on Cohen’s specific plans, as did Rep. Floyd Spence (R-S.C.), chairman of the House National Security Committee.

Separate housing for male and female recruits was a leading suggestion of the outside advisory panel chaired by former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum-Baker (R-Kan.), who called it a “common-sense recommendation.”

The panel also suggested segregating the sexes for a portion of basic training.

The 11-member Kassebaum-Baker committee, which included five retired military leaders, was appointed by Cohen last June amid controversy over the military’s training system--a furor spotlighted by the sexual misconduct of Aberdeen drill sergeants.