Women in Congress Confront the Military on Sexual Assault WASHINGTON - Shocking the gridlocked Congress into action, a half dozen or so bipartisan female senators are escalating their war on sexual crimes in the military and deploying their outrage, clout and legions of supporters against a rigid military structure and its male-dominated ranks. Sexual crimes in the military is this season's hot issue in the United States, and it has brought together Democratic and Republican women in Congress, a daunting unified front line of female power the likes of which is rarely seen on Capitol Hill. Igniting the controversy was a Pentagon report that an estimated 26,000 assaults took place in the armed services in 2012, most of them on women. Yet only a fraction of those attacks were reported and only 10 percent of went to trial. As if to underscore the macho culture in the uniformed services - at a time when women will be allowed into the masculine domain of combat - an Air Force officer and an Army sergeant supervising sexual assault prevention programs were themselves accused of sexual attacks shortly after the Pentagon report was released on May 7. And an Army sergeant was charged with secretly photographing and videotaping at least a dozen women at the United States Military Academy at West Point. President Obama, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, some military leaders and the news media have issued cries of outrage. Several legislative measures intended to change the military prosecutorial structure, which currently includes the standard chain of command - not much help if your commander is also your assaulter - are fluttering about Capitol Hill. It's generally agreed that a proposal put forth by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York seems the most promising. Her bill would give military prosecutors - not commanders - the power to decide which cases to try. The senator has said that taking that power from commanders might encourage men and women in the services to report sexual crimes without fear of retaliation. The senator, who won her re-election in a landslide in November, sits near the top, behind Hillary Rodham Clinton, of nearly everyone's list of prospective female presidential candidates, as I write in my latest Female Factor column. In the past few years she has been busily making a national name for herself with her high-visibility work on big issues like gay marriage, the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," and her Off the Sidelines campaign to get more women into politics. Now it's military sexual abuse. As chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, she summoned victims and military officials to testify earlier this month in what turned out to be a packed, dramatic hearing. Nearly shouting at one point, she told the secretary of the Air Force, Michael B. Donley, that the pattern of sexual assault was "undermining the credibility of the greatest military force in the world." When Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the chief of staff of the Air Force, said that the problem was difficult to solve because young women in the military had been raised in a society with a "hook-up mentality,"" Ms. Gillibrand lashed back, saying, "To dismiss violent rapes as part of the hook-up culture shows a complete lack of understanding. We're not talking about a date gone badly. We're talking about criminal behavior by predators who often stalk their victims in advance. Her outrage is fully shared by many other female lawmakers. "This is an issue many of us have dealt with for years, and we find it unbelievably alarming that it is happening at the level it is in the military," said Senator Kay Hagan, Democrat of North Carolina, one of the seven women in the Armed Services Committee, in a fund-raising message from Emily's List. Ms. Hagan and Senators Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington State, Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, and Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, have all taken a stand. On the House side, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who is the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, has thrown her support for legislation like that offered by Ms. Gillibrand; and Congresswomen Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, both combat veterans, have criticized the military's handling of sexual assault cases. Though many are speaking out, it is Senator Gillibrand who seems to be having a command performance. For a day or two after her hearings, she made the rounds of the political and public affairs talk shows, looking a bit drained, with her hair pulled back, but she was on center stage, on point.