Females in the military feel ignored and underappreciated, according to the first annual Service Women’s Action Network survey of active-duty women and veterans.
SWAN, an organization intended to speak for female servicemembers, released a survey Monday morning showing that women in the service are upset about alleged gender bias and lack of attention.
A total of 78 percent believe the entertainment industry fails to include enough female servicemembers in film scenes of war or scenes portraying life as a veteran.
Another 68 percent criticize the media for failing to talk more about women when reporting on war or veterans affairs.
And generally, these women are tired of being undervalued and ignored, as 74 percent said they felt unrecognized by the public and nearly half — 47 percent — want the public to know about all the challenges they’re facing.
The greatest challenge, according to women in the military participating in the survey, is gender bias, with 48 percent say it’s an issue confronting the entire community of female servicemembers.
In terms of personal challenges, 36 percent of servicewomen say they’ve faced gender bias on an individual level.
Women in the military want the public to know about their leadership and contributions.
“This was our first survey that attempted on a national scale to identify the challenges facing service women and women veterans, and explore their preferred solutions,” SWAN CEO Judy Patterson said in a statement. “This data is hugely helpful to SWAN as we set our programmatic and policy agendas in 2017, but it also has significant value to the broader community, as we lack nuanced insights into rapidly growing community of military women.”
“SWAN will be sharing the full data from this survey with a number of other veterans groups, and will be tailoring our efforts moving forward to ensure that the voices of all of these women are heard and heeded,” Patterson added.
The survey relied on a sample of 1,200 women, almost 1,000 of whom were female servicemembers and veterans.
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