Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained

Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained

Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained

Fight Like a Girl: The Truth Behind How Female Marines Are Trained

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Overview

One woman's professional battle against systemic gender bias in the Marines and the lessons it holds for all of us. The Marine Corps continues to be the only service where men and women train separately in boot camp or basic training. This segregation negatively affects interaction with male marines later on, and, lower expectations of female recruits are actively maintained and encouraged. But Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano arrived at the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion at Parris Island—which exclusively trains female recruits—convinced that if she expected more of the women just coming into Corps, she could raise historically low standards for female performance and make women better Marines. And, after one year, shooting qualifications of the women under her command equaled those of men, injuries had decreased, and unit morale had noticeably improved. Then the Marines fired her. This is the story of Germano's struggle to achieve equality of performance and opportunity for female Marines against an entrenched male-dominated status quo. It is also a universal tale of the effects of systemic gender bias. Germano charges that the men above her in the chain of command were too invested in perpetuating the subordinate role of women in the Corps to allow her to prove that the female Marine can be equal to her male counterpart. She notes that the Marine Corps' $35-million gender-integration study, which shows that all-male squads perform at a higher level than mixed male-female squads, flies in the face of the results she demonstrated with the all-female Fourth Battalion and raises questions about the Marine Corps' willingness to let women succeed. At a time when women are fighting sexism and systemic bias in many sectors of society, Germano's experience has wide-ranging implications and lessons—not just for the military but also for corporate America, the labor force, education, and government.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781633884137
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Publication date: 04/03/2018
Pages: 304
Sales rank: 513,458
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Kate Germano was an officer in the United States Marine Corps for twenty years, retiring in July 2016. After being relieved from command of the only all female unit in the entire Department of Defense, she gained notoriety for taking a stand against the Marine Corps for gender bias and lowered standards and expectations for female recruits and Marines. Her writing has been published in national media outlets including the New York Times, Time magazine, U.S. News and World Report, and the Washington Post. She has also been featured on NPR, Vice News Tonight, CSPAN, and the PBS NewsHour.

Kelly Kennedy is the author of They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq. An army veteran with combat experience, she formerly worked for the Army Times and USA Today covering veterans' issues and health policy.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter 1 - Tears and Cupcakes
(Continues…)



Excerpted from "Fight Like a Girl"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Kate Germano.
Excerpted by permission of Prometheus Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 7

Chapter 1 Tears and Cupcakes 9

Chapter 2 The Firing Squad 25

Chapter 3 Not Smart Enough to Be a Sailor 29

Chapter 4 Data Geek 47

Chapter 5 The Rest of the Story 57

Chapter 6 Esprit de Cult 67

Chapter 7 Fourth Dimension 71

Chapter 8 Iron Ladies 79

Chapter 9 Great Expectations 89

Chapter 10 Separate but not Equal 105

Chapter 11 Corsets Kill Careers 111

Chapter 12 Moving Targets 119

Chapter 13 Pizza Boxes 125

Chapter 14 Preaching Integration 129

Chapter 15 Shoot Like a Girl 135

Chapter 16 Train Like a Girl 145

Chapter 17 Mean Girls and Mobbing 149

Chapter 18 When There's No One Left to Blame 155

Chapter 19 Fisticuffs 163

Chapter 20 While the Cat Is Away 171

Chapter 21 Thumpin' Third 175

Chapter 22 Good News Travels Fast 185

Chapter 23 Like a (Bad) Boss 189

Chapter 24 Climate Change 195

Chapter 25 The Rapist Is Always Wrong 207

Chapter 26 Worst of the Worst 211

Chapter 27 General Relativity Joe Plenzler 219

Chapter 28 Kill the Messenger 237

Chapter 29 Leaked Like a Sieve Joe Plenzler 245

Chapter 30 Command Performance 261

Chapter 31 Equal Opportunist 271

Chapter 32 Fifth Dimension: A Lifetime of Devotion 279

Marine-Speak 101: Glossary and Rank Structure 291

Notes 297

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