When I was a junior lance corporal, my sergeant explained to me that these photos would end up on the hard drives when servicewomen would email them from communal computers to boyfriends and husbands back home, and then not fully delete them. Enterprising Marines would check the computers for these photos and add them to the universe of circulating hard drives, without the knowledge of the women.

This is the environment that encourages things like the Marines United Facebook group, which had nearly 30,000 members before it was disbanded. I don’t believe that this behavior is simply the inevitable consequence of having an organization with large numbers of young men. Rather, it is the result of tolerating a culture where female Marines are treated with contempt, defined solely as sexual objects unworthy of the job and as distractions to the men.

Full gender integration in the Marine Corps would help. Of all the service branches, the Marines have by far the smallest proportion of women in their ranks. Until combat roles were integrated recently, the most prestigious jobs with the corps explicitly excluded women.

But history shows that when women were first allowed to fly jets or serve on submarines in the other branches, they thrived; their value is now undisputed. When the Army, Navy and Air Force place men and women alongside one another right from basic training, women exist as individuals and colleagues, not as an abstract, setting the tone for how men view female colleagues for the rest of their careers. To be sure, sexism — not to mention, sexual assault — happens in the other branches, but it is revealing that scandals like these Facebook groups continue to emerge from the Marines, the service that lags the most in gender integration and struggles with the highest rate of sexual assault of all branches.

If our leaders are serious about making the Marine Corps the best it can be, and if they want to avoid repeated scandals, they must change the culture. They should start by fully integrating recruit training, instituting gender-neutral standards and making clear up and down the chain of command that this kind of behavior isn’t a joke or a normal part of building cohesion but a weakness — and a betrayal of our core values of honor, courage and commitment.