Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

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WRAN, 2025

Oil on Canvas

 

The acronym once used to identify enlisted women has long been co-opted for the routine degradation of Women serving in the Royal Australian Navy today. Character and competence are irrelevant, we are ubiquitously called “Whores of the Royal Australian Navy” as punishment for having the audacity to occupy beds and billets. We are subjected to sexism and misogyny, then terrorised into silence through routine sexual harassment, assault and rape by the same Officers and Sailors we are expected to rely on in a fire, flood or toxic hazard; to teach us our duties; and, write our performance appraisals. We are taught to share a hotel room and have our drinks watched by the same people who will take advantage of our proximity and vulnerability. Then we are victim-blamed and coached to avoid any intoxication and our own crew. I will never forget how my face burned with humiliation during the all-female-hands meeting in the Junior’s Cafe where I learned my Command Team and Ship’s Company knew I had been raped and that I was expected to navigate that alone for the remainder of my career. My Defence Ombudsman Reparations Scheme payment covered the paints, brushes and canvas used for this piece.