Whitespirit,
The reoccurring theme in your argument is that he "disrespected her privacy and that he disrespected her"! Well, duh! Disrespecting the trainees is part of the whole package! And they disrespect the guys too! You think being called "worm sperm is respectful. You think beating them down physically and emotionally is respectful? You want respect, join the Air Force, not the SEALS! When they are in the desert on some mission do you think that they are going to be hauling along a port-a-pottie so that she can have her "privacy" when she has to tinkle!
The whole point of the training is to mentally and physically break them so they can weed out the pansies from the from the people who might possibly make it home from dangerous missions and possible injury, capture, rape and torture. They want the fighters! Not someone who keeps pissing and moaning about their privacy being violated!
Really! How far do you think some woman who kept screaming "sexual harrassment" from such a thing would get during such training. Teamwork is key to how they need to operate in training, as well as missions. She would have never gotten thru the training if she didn't get at least a few of the guys to respect her by handling herself as she did. She wouldnt made it thru the training either if she didnt get the master chief to respect her also. Like one of the trainees said, if they want you out, youre out, so if you want to be the lone female in such a group youd better prove you can hang with the boys! All of them!
As someone previously said, you keep trying to apply conventional rules of behavior here when they very obviously dont apply!

Me, too.
"Friends help you move, real friends help you move
bodies."

I know she hadn't completed her training; my point was that I doubted he'd continue treating her that way once she HAD (and if he did, he'd be dead wrong). Was this movie based around a time when women being in the military was unusual and/or new? (If it was, I forgot.)Plus, it seemed like people were saying different things about the scene here; some said he was trying to train her in intimidation (which I don't like, but I do understand the motive behind) while others said he was doing that simply because he was trying to treat her like she was a man (which I think is ridiculous). One idea contradicts the other; if he did that because she was still in training and he was trying to test her and toughen her, then that would mean she passed the test by not showing that it bothered her and he wouldn't do it again, whereas if he was doing that simply to treat her like a guy, then that would indicate that he'd continue that sort of treatment even after she completed training. I'm going with the first idea.

They were SEALS, a big difference, "The most intense military training know to man." The candidates have to succeed at meeting very high standards of performance, in leadership ability, at functioning at high levels of exhaustion, absorbing very technical training, and keeping their composure under very high levels of stress.
You insist on comparing 18 week SEAL candidate training with regular military boot camp and 2nd eight weeks, then assignment to some job in a military office. There is a difference.
As for the Chief continuing her "intimidation" after she
completed her training,
she had not completed training. She had only gotten through Hell Week, and she and the other candidates had an additional 17 weeks of training to complete.
After they graduated and got their BUD/S badges, then the training, intimidation, and testing stopped and they were trained SEALS.
Of course there would be some harassment after they joined their teams. They would be "meats," and would be going through OJT until they made PO. Then they'd be the experts, and the new "meats" would be the team rookies.
Being a operational SEAL really is more difficult than candidate training.
"Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?" Will Rogers

I'm aware that he was trying to train her; I just don't agree that it was a necessary way of showing her that she was an "equal" AND, if he was trying to train her, it does not mean that, having completed her training, he would have continued to do that. Intimidation training? Whatever. Just don't try to get me to believe that IN GENERAL female soldiers have thier chiefs walking in on them because they have to be treated the same as males or that a chief, no matter how professional, would see a naked woman the same as a man; that ain't normal procedure.

Whitespirit, I'm with Ultimate on this.
It was me who earlier said that O'Neil would have pretended to not mind his presence BECAUSE she was a trainee and was under the Chief's authority.
In order to be accepted as a SEAL candidate, she could not request special treatment or consideration because of her sex. In order to survive and complete the course of training, she had to have the support of the other candidates and she wouldn't get it by being given special favors. Hence the head shaving and moving into the male barracks.
Her appearance or attractiveness had nothing to do with it. The Chief had an order (change in her status re: her training) to deliver, and as a continuing test of intimidation, walked in on her in the shower. He would not have waited for a male candidate to finish his shower and discretely wrap a towel around before delivering his message, so he didn't wait for her, either.
He even went to the point of looking her up and down to further intimidate her.
She gritted her teeth and acted like it didn't bother her. Why, because she wanted to be taken seriously as a candidate.
You should try to move beyond the regular teen-man and teen-woman sexual frames of mind and see the positions the two of them were in, Instructor and a candidate who is constantly being tested.
"Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?" Will Rogers

Separate locker rooms or not, there were separate shower TIMES. Someone here has said that they were in the navy, there was one huge shower room, and the men and women showered at separate times. As to whether she minded his presence, that's a matter of opinion; some on this board say that she did and that she pretended not to because she was trying to prove she wouldn't succumb to intimidation. Whatever her feelings, the bottom line for me is that it didn't really matter because he went in not caring how she would have felt; he never cared one way or another.

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Yes, it was a public shower. However, military protocol has women and men showering separately; a man's presence during a woman's showering time, even in the military, would be uncalled for and unusual. So, while you're correct that men would see each other in the shower in the military, it would not be usual for men and WOMEN to see each other in the shower since separate shower times are mandatory. The fact that it was a public shower doesn't mean both sexes would be there together; there are public showers in girls' and boys' locker rooms too, but that doesn't mean both sexes shower together because locker rooms are meant for one sex each. In regards to her looking like a man, sure she would with her army clothes on; in the shower, though, with everything revealed, it's painfully obvious she's a woman and, whether he finds her attractive or not, he couldn't see her with the same indifference as he'd see a guy. However, when I said that Viggo was "peeking", I was not intending to say that he was a pervert or was even looking at her because she was attractive. My point was, his presence was inappropriate and disrespecful whether she cared or not, and I found the excuses some have made on this board for him, such as the "well, it didn't compare to rape" thing, rather silly. I don't compare it to rape; I just don't like it, and no one can honestly tell me he did that to prove she was an "equal." Women don't have to become men to be regarded as equal to them, which means that separate bathrooms and showers are essential.

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Doesn't matter if her head didn't look attractive; her body was still the same. Maybe it's not quite the same as a strip club, but he still wasn't giving her any respect. In fact, I would have respected him more if he HAD gone to a strip club because those women expect to be looked at and allow men to look at them in public; it's not the same as invading someone's privacy in the shower. Just because rape would be a lot worse doesn't mean what he did was okay; if a guy I knew had to tell me something and I was in the shower, he'd wait outside, not barge in one me, and he would do this because he respected my privacy, not because he didn't think of me as an equal. If a guy did intrude on me the way Viggo did in this scene, the line "well, it's not like I'm raping you" wouldn't get him anywhere with me. I'm not saying what Viggo did in ANY way compares to rape, but that doesn't excuse it; to me, that's like a person who's arrested for assault and battery saying, "well, what's the big deal? I punched him out, it's not like I killed him". Would the court let him go because his crime didn't compare to something a lot worse? Nope.

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what makes you think I'd stick around? I'd knee him and run! He wouldn't have time to punch me back. Furthermore, I think you can agree that women and men are equals in GENERAL without thinking that they're equal in strength. In church, for example, we think women can have the same opportunities and positions as men, but would a guy walk into the girl's bathroom? No. Equal does NOT mean the sexes are the same and anyone who tried to use the equality thing as justification for Viggo's behavior in this scene would be pathetic; PLEASE! A guy peeping at a girl in the shower and then saying, "What? I'm treating you like an equal!" Uh, bull! By watching her in the shower, he was doing just the opposite, treating her like someone inferior whose position didn't even matter. And vice versa: women shouldn't be allowed to walk into a men's shower either, in the military or otherwise; hey, I believe in equal respect and if a football player gave a female reporter a broken nose because she strolled right on into the locker room, I'd applaud him! Respect works both ways. A woman in the military expecting men to give her privacy in the shower is NOT the same as expecting them to hold the door open for her. That's the material point: treating women as equals doesn't mean treating them like "one of the guys". Even if I wasn't modest myself, I STILL wouldn't let a guy watch me naked because let's face it, there's no way he could look at me the same way he'd look at a man.

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Ok, it wasn't perverted, but it was disrespectful and unnecessary, just like those reporter sharks you mentioned. No, he would not have waited for a male trainee, but she's not a male! Treating her like an equal doesn't mean forgetting that she's a woman and you can't honestly tell me that he looked at her body the way he would at a male's. He WAS treating her worse than a male trainee because a male trainee wouldn't have cared if another man saw him in the shower, so that reason totally falls flat. Also, I don't know why you said "he's a handsome, healthy guy looking at an attractive female." Um, what do their looks have to do with it? You think the fact that they were both attractive made it okay? If you meant that he was looking at her because she was attractive, that proves my point that he was not acting professionally. His own handsomeness has absolutely nothing to do with anything, so I don't know why you pointed it out; it's not as though his looks made his actions okay. I don't think most professional Seal instructors would have pulled that; male and female soldiers are generally separated from the opposite sex in personal places like sleep quarters and bathrooms for obvious reasons. Even in boot camp, kids do have people watching them in the showers, but those people are always the same sex as they are. Maybe it wasn't perverted, but don't try to tell me that that's normal procedure. By the way, I'm not whining and I am not weak; I just don't believe in disrespecting other people or "ignoring" disrespect and letting others get away with it. If any guy did that to me, he'd be nursing his goods for the rest of the week. If any woman tried to impose on my husband or son's privacy, she'd be majorly sorry for it too; heck, some reporter sharks need to be wiped off the face of the earth as it is.

You mean like female reporters do when they walk into a professional football team's locker room like they can these days? Do you remember in "On Any Given Sunday" when Cameron Diaz came striding into the Miami Sharks dressing room when it was full of nude football players??
You ignore it, that's all. Only the weak and insecure whine about "what a pervert" he is. But the Chief was a healthy handsome guy looking at an attractive female under his command who was nude and who stood facing him. So Whitespirit, where's the perversion in that? It may have been unprofessional, or discourteous, but perverted?
I repeat, he was treating her as he would a male trainee. Do you think that a Master Chief would politely wait outside the shower worried that a male trainee would feel his privacy has been violated? Wait until the trainee finally came out with a towel discretely wrapped around before delivering his news/command about the trainee's new responsibilities??
Don't get your own modesty mixed up in your judgment about how Seal instructors treat candidates under instruction.
"Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?" Will Rogers

I wonder if men would mind if a women walked in the shower with them and started staring and saying do you need some tweezers for that?
Ashley~
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Yes, Viggo's talented; I just didn't like his character's actions or motives. They were definetly sexist; I highly doubt that the army had the male soldiers treated in the same way.

although it was humiliating, it wouldn't compare to what the Iraqis would do to her. There really IS no way to prepare someone for rape or torture, so mistreating someone in a humiliating way and calling it training is ridiculous.
You can't actually rape and torture trainees, so all you can do is give them little tests to at least weed out a bunch of the weaker recruits. If they didn't have this scene in the movie, I would have felt something missing from her training, which was meant to be a little different from the other guys'. Did you not feel more confident about O'Neil's toughness after seeing that she didn't react like a "dainty" girly?
I think the fact that audience members felt uncomfortable with this scene is more a testament to Viggo Mortensen's fine acting than objection to such intimidation methods. Viggo was awesome as a character you love to hate but ultimately is seen as one of the "good guys."

I don't think he did it to toughen her; for one thing, although it was humiliating, it wouldn't compare to what the Iraqis would do to her. There really IS no way to prepare someone for rape or torture, so mistreating someone in a humiliating way and calling it training is ridiculous. If anyone walked in on a woman or girl in the shower and afterward said, "Okay, now I know you could handle rape or torture in the future!", his excuse would be very flimsy. If the guy in this movie had groped Demi Moore and said he was preparing her for the possibility of rape, no one would buy that either. It would be seen as what it was: sexual harassment, NOT a necessary training method.

Yes, intimidation WAS the point of him invading her privacy, which in normal society would be "awkward," or more precisely, socially improper. If she couldn't handle this, she wouldn't be able to handle the even worse things that would happen if she were captured during war.
For anyone who doesn't understand, if she were captured, she would be subject to brutal dehumanization, torture, rape, starvation, and as we saw in the Iraqi War, made to stand in the nude while being tormented by her captors. Does anyone not understand this?
The shower scene is a small test, one of many, to see how mentally tough she is. She passed the test.

I wouldn't count peeping at her in the shower as a "socially awkward" thing as it was obviously something they could have avoided; he was just being an intimidating jerk. Male coaches of female basketball teams don't visit the girls' lockerroom because that sort of thing isn't necessary and neither was what he did. It was hardly a mandatory thing she would have had to get used to.

I guess they both understood the importance of this sort of situation during her training. The Master Chief was quite a pr*ck to the trainees, but I believe he had their best interests in mind.
Imagine if a female SEAL were captured during wartime. I think being leered at while showering would be the least of her worries, as things could get rather brutal, don't you think? So the Master Chief is testing O'Neil, and she knows it, so they both go through with the socially awkward situation without blinking.

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