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women history and literature culture and society politics military human rights history Civil War

President Lincoln’s General Orders No. 100, also known as the Lieber Code of 1863, set clear rules for engaging with enemy combatants. But the code also clarified how Union soldiers should treat civilians, and in particular women. Largely forgotten today, the Lieber Code established strict laws regarding an issue that was everywhere and nowhere in the consciousness of the Civil War: wartime rape.

Three articles under Section II declared that soldiers would “acknowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them, religion and morality; strictly private property; the persons of the inhabitants, especially those of women” (Article 37); that “all robbery, all pillage or sacking, even after taking a place by main force, all rape, wounding, maiming, or killing of such inhabitants, are prohibited under the penalty of death” (Article 44); and that “crimes punishable by all penal codes, such as … rape, if committed by an American soldier in a hostile country against its inhabitants, are not only punishable as at home, but in all cases in which death is not inflicted the severer punishment shall be preferred” (Article 47).

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Southern women’s wartime diaries, court marshal records, wartime general orders, military reports and letters written by women, soldiers, doctors, nurses and military chaplains leave little doubt that, as in most wars, rape and the threat of sexual violence figured large in the military campaigns that swept across the Southern landscape. Nonetheless, the Lieber Code made it possible for women to seek justice in military courts and eventually established the modern understanding of rape as a war crime.

Rape and justice in the Civil War (in which a number of women fought as men). Meanwhile, a century and a half later, look how tragically we’ve devolved.

culture and society women politics military human rights Kirsten Gillibrand New York

In which a brilliant feminist Senator – New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand – stands up against rape and schools a U. S. General on how to do his job.

As we know, thousands of rapes are reported in the military each year, manifold more go unreported, and a female soldier in a combat zone is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.

women politics culture and society military film human rights

A female soldier in a combat zone is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. By official estimates from The Department of Defense, 19,000 violent sexual crimes occurred in the military in 2011 alone. Sexual assault is grossly under-reported in the military. In 2011, 3,191 assaults were reported when its likely that somewhere between 19,000 and 22,000 assaults occurred.

Silent No More – women in the military speak out against rape in a groundbreaking investigative documentary, all the more stirring and important as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Feminine Mystique.