In 1991, a US military helicopter piloted by Major Rhonda Cornum crashed in Iraq. She and the surviving members of the (male) crew were being held as prisoners of war. We were discussing this event in my High School Social Studies class when my teacher said “She [Maj. Cornum] probably won’t be worth much when they get her back.”
He said this as if a woman’s “worth” could be erased or diminished by by having been sexually assaulted. As if a man would be brave and stoic upon return from captivity and torture, but a woman would be somehow ruined, worthless.